South Africa: Minister Mchunu to inspect Welbedacht pipeline site This story has been published on: 2023-01-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Higher Education and Training Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has warned prospective students, who want to register at institutions of higher learning, not to fall for bogus colleges. These institutions, also known as fly by night colleges, are not registered with the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), the Department of H... See more 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 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) A federal judge on Monday set a trial date of April 1, 2024, for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and a longtime confidant on racketeering charges alleging they conspired to leverage Madigans elected office and political power for personal gain. The date for the six- to seven-week trial was set during a 10-minute telephone status hearing between U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey and attorneys in the case. Neither Madigan nor his co-defendant, Michael McClain, was required to be on the call. Advertisement Madigan, 80, and McClain, 75, were originally charged last March in a 22-count indictment alleging they conspired to participate in an array of bribery and extortion schemes from 2011 to 2019, including an effort by utility giant Commonwealth Edison to pay off Madigan associates and win his support for legislation in Springfield. A superseding indictment announced Oct. 14 accused Madigan and McClain in a similar scheme to conspire with executives and lobbyists at AT&T Illinois to funnel payments to a Madigan associate in exchange for the speakers help passing a controversial bill to end landline service. Advertisement 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. 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. Afternoon Briefing Daily Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy > If the April Fools Day trial date holds, Madigan would turn 82 during the proceedings. [ Michael Madigan, ComEd and corruption: Timeline of how the investigation unfolded ] Also Monday, the judge gave lawyers for both Madigan and McClain until the end of next month to file initial pretrial motions, the first of whats expected to be a series of lengthy legal briefs arguing the merits of the charges. McClain, meanwhile, is scheduled to go on trial on March 6 with three others charged in the ComEd scheme, including ex-ComEd CEO Ann Pramaggiorre, lobbyist John Hooker, and former consultant and City Club of Chicago President Jay Doherty. Another defendant, former ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez, has pleaded guilty and is expected to testify for the prosecution. Madigans former chief of staff, Timothy Mapes, meanwhile, is charged with lying to a federal grand jury about the case. Both AT&T and ComEd have admitted illegal conduct and agreed to pay multimillion-dollar fines as part of deferred prosecution deals with prosecutors that would see the charges against the companies dropped in exchange for their cooperation. Also charged as part of the investigation was Paul La Schiazza, former president of AT&T Illinois, who was accused of orchestrating and approving the payments. He pleaded not guilty. Advertisement jmeisner@chicagotribune.com A measles outbreak among dozens of unvaccinated children in Ohio has local health officials concerned about a deepening distrust of vaccines among some parents. With vaccination rates slipping around the country, more Americans are beginning to question the value of vaccine requirements for kids putting at risk a growing group of young children with no immunity to the virus. Decades-old wariness of the measles vaccine based on well-funded false claims about a nonexistent link to autism has combined with the backlash against COVID vaccination rules and other pandemic-related hurdles to result in a slowdown in childhood vaccination rates. Taken together, these factors increase the risk of outbreaks like the one in Ohio. There have been 82 diagnosed measles cases in the state, almost all in the Columbus area, and the vast majority in patients 5 years old or younger. Most of the cases have occurred in the past two months, leading to the hospitalization of 33 children, primarily for dehydration, diarrhea and pneumonia. Seventy-five of the 82 kids were completely unvaccinated and four were partially vaccinated, having received one of two measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, shots. Measles is remarkably contagious, infecting up to 90% of unimmunized people who come close to an infected person. Nearly two dozen of the Ohio patients were too young to be protected. According to state data, there have been 23 measles cases among children younger than 1 year. Children typically receive their first measles shot when theyre between 12 and 16 months old. When measles came to town, those infants and other children too immunocompromised to handle certain vaccines had to rely on protection from their neighbors and classmates. When a parent makes a decision not to have their child vaccinated, theyre not realizing the implications of that decision. If their child can get that infection, it doesnt just have an impact on their child or their household, but it can impact their school, it can impact their community, Mysheika Roberts, who leads Columbuss public health department, told HuffPost. Story continues The Ohio outbreak is a case in point: Between June and October, the first four measles cases since 2019 emerged in the state, all of them among unvaccinated, unrelated people whod traveled to a measles-endemic country and returned to the U.S. By early November, four cases in children with no travel history were linked to a local day care. By the end of that month, there were 46 confirmed cases, and the exposure sites had multiplied, too, including a mall, a church and a supermarket. At this point, the total number of cases has stayed the same for several days. But holiday travel and measles long incubation period up to 21 days means the virus may well still be spreading undetected. Weve got a ways to go, Roberts said. Anything could happen. The COVID Vaccine Dip Measles was technically declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. But outbreaks have popped up over the last two decades. The worst one hit hundreds of people in New York and New Jersey in 2019, just a few months before COVID-19 spread through the area. The measles outbreak occurred largely among the Orthodox Jewish community; other outbreaks have similarly occurred within close-knit communities, such as the Amish. And nationwide, vaccine trends have taken a troubling turn since the COVID-19 pandemic began. During the 2020-21 school year, the estimated rate of kindergarteners who met state-level vaccine requirements MMR, chicken pox and DTaP, the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough fell by roughly a percentage point across the board, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of kindergartners with two doses of the measles vaccine fell from 95.2% the year before to 93.9%. But the top-line numbers belie the pockets of low coverage across the country. On top of the 2.2% of kindergartners nationwide who had at least one vaccination exemption 86% of which were classified as non-medical an additional 3.9% without an exemption werent up to date on their measles shots, according to the CDC data. This means there are 35,000 more children in the United States during this time period without documentation of complete vaccination against common diseases, Georgina Peacock, the immunization services director at the CDC, said at a news briefing in April. And thats not counting an approximately 10% drop in kindergarten enrollment that year representing roughly 400,000 kids, including an unknown number who were behind on their vaccines. Several things could factor into the nationwide dip in MMR vaccination rates. But it appears the backlash to COVID-19 public health measures particularly vaccine mandates played a significant role. As COVID vaccines arrived on the scene, so did fear-mongering: Social media and online forums were full of erroneous claims about the vaccines not being properly vetted and containing microchips that could track individuals. One Ohio doctor is currently under investigation by the states medical board after speculating that the vaccine had magnetized its recipients. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland-based osteopathic doctor, is now under state medical board investigation after making false claims about COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland-based osteopathic doctor, is now under state medical board investigation after making false claims about COVID-19 vaccines. Polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation last month found that 26% of adults who have not gotten vaccinated against COVID-19 think the risks of the MMR vaccine outweigh the benefits. And while adults overall still overwhelmingly think the MMR vaccines benefits outweigh its risks (85% to 12%), a striking number have changed their minds about vaccine requirements in the past three years. Twenty-eight percent of adults agree with the sentiment Parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their children, even if that may create health risks for other children and adults, up 12% from the findings of a 2019 Pew Research Center poll, Kaiser Family Foundation noted. Stephanie Stock, president of the anti-vaccine-mandate group Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, told HuffPost in an email that various COVID-related claims by health authorities, such as changing guidance on masks, certainly led people to question the level of trust to place in them. Many Ohioans came to OAMF during the pandemic to find out what medical choice rights they have and how to become politically involved in fighting to protect those rights, Stock said. Asked whether the anti-vaccine movement is responsible for an increased risk to kids who cant get vaccinated because they are too young or immunocompromised, Stock wrote that her group believes parents, not communities, are responsible for a childs health, and that those parents are best suited to make the health decisions they feel are in the best interest of that child. Its too early to say how much of an overlap there is between Americans who have hesitated to get vaccinated for COVID and those who have delayed or skipped their kids MMR shots. But according to Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, there is this sense right now that much of the negative energy that has grown up around COVID vaccines is now spilling over substantially to childhood immunizations. Were seeing in more and more counties around the country lower levels of immunization for routine childhood vaccines that really parallels the same lack of support for COVID vaccines, Osterholm told HuffPost. There is this sense right now that much of the negative energy that has grown up around COVID vaccines is now spilling over substantially to childhood immunizations.Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Ohio doesnt require vaccination reporting statewide, so its difficult to know the states actual vaccination rates for measles or other viruses. But Ohio schools do keep data on students required vaccinations. Data provided to HuffPost by the Ohio Department of Health show a noticeable drop in vaccination among kindergartners since the COVID pandemic began. From the 2019-2020 school year to the 2021-22 school year, the rate of kindergarten students up to date on their MMR, polio and DTaP vaccines fell from over 92% to under 89% for all three vaccines. Kindergarteners with up-to-date chickenpox vaccines fell from 91.9% to 87.8%. And hepatitis B vaccination rates fell from 94.9% to 92.7% over the same period. This [outbreak] is something thats a direct consequence of being behind in vaccinations, said Alexandria Jones, assistant health commissioner and director of prevention & wellness at Franklin County Public Health. Much of measles vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. comes down to a single word: autism. There is no evidence none of a link between the measles vaccine and autism spectrum disorder. But the myth has been around since Andrew Wakefield, a since-discredited British physician, claimed in a 1998 study that such a connection existed. That study was later retracted by The Lancet and the editor called statements in the paper utterly false. Several large studies around the world have refuted Wakefields claimed findings, and Wakefield was ultimately struck from the British medical register. Nonetheless, concerns about vaccine-induced autism have persisted for decades, churning on social media and by word of mouth, and accelerated in the COVID era by the backlash against coronavirus vaccine mandates. Scott Jensen, the recently unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, headlined an anti-vaccine-mandate rally in that states capitol building despite his state seeing a troubling 22 reported measles cases between June and November last year. When I was a child measles was a [rite] of passage, or childhood illness, as was chicken pox, Scott Shoemaker, president of the anti-vaccine-mandate group Health Freedom Ohio, told HuffPost in an email, adding: When the vaccine was released, it became a deadly disease. Thats false: Thousands of Civil War soldiers perished of measles, and in the first decade of nationwide tracking, in the early 20th century, there were 6,000 measles-related deaths per year on average, according to a CDC history. According to the same history, in the decade before the vaccine was introduced, an estimated 400 to 500 people died annually of the virus, on top of 1,000 estimated encephalitis cases and 48,000 hospitalizations. Measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates have fallen across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. Measles, mumps and rubella vaccination rates have fallen across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. He Just Made Up A Story In Minnesota, anti-vaccine groups, skeptics and others opposed to vaccine mandates for school children including Wakefield have made their presence known at community events for years. They played in particular to anxieties in the Somali community about autism. One University of Minnesota study found that 1 in 32 Somali children in Minneapolis had autism spectrum disorder comparable to the rate among white children, for whom the prevalence was 1 in 36, but more than Black and Hispanic children. (The study was small and had major limitations, its lead researcher said.) They are everywhere. Like, every event, every forum, Fatuma Ishtar, a community outreach worker, told Stat News of anti-vaccine activists in 2017, as a measles outbreak swept through the community. They continue to push the community. I feel offended by this group. That same year, as the outbreak was ongoing in Minnesota, Columbus public health officials held forums to answer questions about vaccines from Somali Ohioans. They discussed the University of Minnesota study and emphasized the lack of any evidence of a link between autism and vaccination. Attendees concerns nonetheless echoed those of millions of Americans worried about their kids development: A lot of people believe the vaccination the MMR is causing autism, because when we were back home, we never had autism. So why do we have now more than zero back home? one man asked at a forum. At another event, an attendee noted that he was concerned for his young children: Autism is a lifetime disease. The health officials were clear about the existing uncertainty surrounding autism spectrum disorder. But they also stressed the lack of any evidence tying it to vaccines. Let me clarify about the British doctor who started it all: He lied. He just made up a story, and so we cannot trust whatever he said, because it was proven, he lied, Tatyana Karakay, a pediatrician at Nationwide Childrens Hospital, told community members at one forum. Studies of thousands of children, she said, had failed to find a connection between the vaccine and autism. We dont know what causes it, and it makes all of us worried, but we know what does not. When autism was first discovered, the first theory was it was bad mothers who caused it, Karakay added. Im sure all of you will agree thats not true. So we know a lot of things that dont cause it. MMR is one of them. The current Ohio outbreak is not contained to one particular community, both Jones and Roberts told HuffPost its a diverse group of patients united, primarily, by being unvaccinated. And on that front, theres some good news: Vaccination sites run by both the city of Columbus and Franklin County saw noticeable increases in MMR vaccination visits last year. But the troubling trends in the state and nationwide have health officials worried that parents are delaying vaccines. Given that signs of autism spectrum disorder may begin to appear in early childhood, some parents wait to have their kids take the MMR shots. Rather than following the advised schedule one shot each at 12-15 months and 4-6 years some parents wait for their kids first shot until its required for school. That leaves infants and immunocompromised children vulnerable. And even if most kids can survive a case of measles with moderate symptoms, theres no way to know who could have more severe consequences, including encephalitis or other severe effects. We dont know who is going to get really, really sick, Jones said. I dont want any parent to take that chance. Related... OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) A death row inmate in Oklahoma who is scheduled to be executed on Thursday cannot have his spiritual advisor with him inside the execution chamber because of the minister's history of anti-death penalty activism, including an arrest, the Department of Corrections said Monday. Scott Eizember, 61, had requested that his spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeff Hood of Arkansas, be allowed inside the execution chamber on Thursday during his lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. But DOC officials expressed concerns that Hood would not ensure the dignity of the process. Out of respect for the families of victims, ODOC will not allow the outbursts of activists to interfere, regardless of that activists declared role in this process, DOC spokesman Josh Ward said in a statement. The spiritual advisor in this case has been arrested multiple times for such outbursts in other states, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the experiences of victims families and the solemnity of the process. Ward said Hood would still be allowed to meet with Eizember in the time leading up to his execution and that Hood would be able to witness the execution from another part of the facility via a closed-circuit feed. Hood and Eizember filed a lawsuit in federal district court on Monday seeking to stop Eizember's execution until Hood is allowed inside the chamber. Basically this is a woke preacher versus the Department of Corrections, Hood said. We really think this is certainly not just a violation of religious liberty, but also a violation of other First Amendment protections. Hood acknowledged his arrest during a peaceful anti-death penalty protest outside a Texas prison in 2016. He said he received a deferred sentence and the case was ultimately expunged from his record. Hood and Eizember filed a lawsuit in federal district court on Monday seeking to stop Eizembers execution until Hood is allowed inside the execution chamber. Texas and other states, including Oklahoma, have begun allowing clergy inside the death chamber during executions following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2021 brought by a death row inmate in Alabama. Story continues Eizember was convicted in the shotgun slayings of an elderly couple in eastern Oklahoma in 2003 and sentenced to death. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to reject recommending he be granted clemency. The first Oklahoma inmate to have his spiritual advisor inside the death chamber was Bigler Stouffer in December 2021. Since then, several inmates have opted to have a minister inside the chamber with them. ___ Follow Sean Murphy at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy Health Minister Ong Ye Kung (right) said Singapore's current COVID-19 measures are appropriate to prevent a surge of infections even as China opens up its borders. (PHOTOS: Getty Images/MCI) SINGAPORE Singapore's current COVID-19 measures are appropriate to prevent a surge of infections in the city-state, even as China is reopening its borders for travel amid a high number of cases in the country. Health Minister Ong Ye Kung cited two key reasons how Singapore's current measures work in keeping COVID infections low, during his ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday (9 January). First is the low number of flights currently between Singapore and China. There are only 38 weekly flights from China to Singapore, compared to around 400 weekly flights before the COVID pandemic. This brings in about 700 to 1,000 travellers a day, which is less than 10 per cent of the pre-COVID numbers. Mr Ong added that any subsequent increase in flights will be carefully calibrated. "In the four weeks running up to 1 January, 200 travellers from China were detected to have COVID, so they accounted for less than 5 per cent of our total infections," he said during Parliament. "Of the incoming travellers during this period, seven developed severe illnesses and had to be hospitalised. One of them was from China. "These are not large numbers, so the impact on our healthcare system was very small." No new variants amid China's infection wave Secondly, with no new COVID variants have emerged so far amid the current infection wave in China, Singapore's strong vaccination rate has kept its residents from contracting the coronavirus, or falling severely ill. The population has also developed strong hybrid immunity as many have recovered from mild infections. This has prevented medical facilities in Singapore from coming under pressure from a surge in infection cases, even though risks and uncertainties remain as new variants can emerge from anywhere in the world. Mr Ong said that Singapore has also kept a few border control measures, even as most of its COVID restrictions have been eased or lifted in the past year. Story continues For example, incoming travellers need to either be fully vaccinated based on World Health Organisation standards, or produce a negative pre-departure test. This is neither the tightest nor the most liberal of border measures among countries, but somewhere in between, said Mr Ong. "Our current measures of controlling the number of infected travellers have led to low imported infections, and even fewer severe cases from China at a time when the virus is spreading widely in the country," he said. China had lifted all border controls and pandemic curbs on Sunday, ending three years of a strict zero-COVID policy. This included scrapping quarantine requirements for international arrivals, and reopening sea and land crossings with Hong Kong. Ready to adjust policies wherever necessary Mr Ong said in Parliament that the number of COVID patients in intensive care units was in the single digit over the past 30 days, although there were a few deaths. Based on this severity rate, the number of annual deaths caused by COVID infections is is similar to that caused by influenza infections. Hence, COVID can be treated as an endemic disease with Singapore's extensive vaccination coverage. Nonetheless, Mr Ong said the global pandemic is not over, and the current worry is the emergence of a new, unknown and more dangerous variant of concern that could escape vaccine protection, be more infectious and lead to more severe cases. "As we move into this new norm, we will never be complacent. Our responses need to be based on science evidence and data, and we are ready to adjust policies wherever necessary," he said. "We will always do our best to maintain our way of life and not go back to the days of lockdowns, unless absolutely necessary. "As the prime minister said in his New Year's Day message, if the situation continues to be stable after the year-end travel season and the infection wave in China, we can look forward to making final adjustments to our prevailing social restrictions, and establish our post-pandemic lives." 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. Did you, like me, take time over the break to play with one of the new artificial intelligence bots? I asked ChatGPT to write a blog in the style of Robin Lake on the topic of helping students recover from the impacts of COVID-19 and related school closures. Heres what it offered: As the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, Ive been closely following the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our education system. One of the most significant impacts has been the widespread school closures, which have disrupted the education of millions of students around the world. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter As we start to emerge from the pandemic and schools begin to reopen, its important that we focus on helping students recover from the impacts of these closures. Here are a few key ways that we can do that: 1. Prioritize mental health: The pandemic has been a stressful and unsettling time for everyone, and students are no exception. Its important that we prioritize their mental health and well-being as they return to school. This could include providing additional support for students who are struggling, as well as incorporating mindfulness and stress-reduction techniques into the curriculum. 2. Address learning loss: Many students have experienced learning loss as a result of the pandemic, with disadvantaged students disproportionately affected. Its important that we provide additional support to help these students catch up, whether through summer programs, tutoring or other interventions. 3. Rebuild relationships: The pandemic has disrupted the social and emotional bonds that are so important for students learning and development. As schools reopen, it will be important to focus on rebuilding these relationships and creating a sense of community within the classroom. 4. Flexibility: Finally, its important to be flexible and responsive to the needs of students as they return to school. This may mean providing additional support for those who are struggling, or offering alternative learning options for students who may not be ready to return to in-person learning. Story continues Not bad, right? ChatGPT ended that essay with a typical high school writing crutch: In conclusion and then a repeat of the same points. Youll also notice the AI didnt recognize that schools are, in fact, open again. I also asked ChatGPT to write me an op-ed for The 74 on the topic of extraterrestrial education. The essay was coherent and relevant, citing the need for students to develop strong foundations in the science of supporting human life on other planets, environmental sustainability, and intercultural communication and diplomacy. Its fun to play with these bots, which can write sophisticated comparative essays and even draft legislation. My communications manager quipped when she saw these essays that she is already out of a job. My colleagues at Arizona State University are wondering how they will assess student essays for plagiarism, even next term. Related: The Future of the High School Essay: We Talk to 4 Teachers, 2 Experts and 1 AI Chatbot If these bots, which are in their earliest and most crude state, can spit out writing like this already, what will they do in two years? How many jobs will disappear in that period alone or shift to require radically different skill sets, higher-order thinking and the ability to collaborate with humans and robots? This is a sobering reminder that the future we wrote about five years ago for CRPEs 25th anniversary is already here. We said the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies, combined with the realities of climate change and geopolitical dynamics, could lead to rising inequality, civic unrest and other chaos. On the other hand, we argued, the future is still largely within our control. If we embrace change and innovation, we can prepare the next generations of thinkers, problem solvers and leaders to not only confront the complex realities ahead, but to also discover new ways to thrive. We could try to prevent bot-written essays by confining students to pen and paper in a room with no technology. But what if, instead, we asked them to analyze the AI essays to understand why its important to break the rules in writing to communicate more sophisticated thoughts and ideas? Related: Schools Must Embrace the Looming Disruption of ChatGPT As we kick off 2023, we face the urgency of addressing the pandemics immediate impacts, such as learning loss. But the bot serves as a potent reminder that we will have failed this generation if we do not also use this moment to shift public education toward the future. Heres what the bot had to say on that: The future of work is rapidly changing, and its important that our education system keeps up. The jobs of tomorrow will require a combination of technical skills, critical thinking and collaboration, and our education system must adapt to meet these evolving needs. This is a daunting challenge, but we and others have been writing and thinking about this for several years. In my 2019 New Years message, a year before we at CRPE became consumed with pandemic response, I wrote that we needed to more aggressively design schools for kids who are complex learners; radically reshape the high school experience; shift more student supports to out-of-school time and community organizations; make public funds more flexible and longer-term to allow for lifetime education and career retooling; and shift oversight and accountability toward learning pathways and trained customized opportunities, such as tutoring and career training. Today, these recommendations seem even more relevant than ever. A version of this essay originally appeared on the CRPE blog. A recent report from School Board Partners found that just 38% of surveyed elected board members said that they intended to run for reelection. In recent years, some 70% of incumbent board members ran again, making such a decline something more than noteworthy. School boards hold tremendous power in public education. Responsible for setting the lions share of policy, practice and budgets in public schools, board members are often volunteers or earn just a negligible stipend. One consequence is those who serve tend to be wealthier and whiter than the student bodies over which they hold authority. As educators and advocates have worked to make progress on addressing educational inequity, opportunity gaps and outright systemic racism, school board representation is a too often overlooked lever of power and driver of change. But if something even approaching an attrition rate of 6 in 10 board members comes to pass, there will be profound opportunities to reshape these key institutions and make them more representative of their student populations. Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Reflecting on my own experience, I think about what could be for Black, brown and low-income students if they had greater representation on their districts school boards. Growing up in New Orleans, my mother and father went to extraordinary lengths for a chance at a better education for their first-born child. Related: To Stop the Rise in School Segregation, Empower Leaders of Color In 1992, my parents camped outside Lake Forest Montessori School, along with other families of color, hoping for a shot at a limited number of high-quality seats at what was, at the time, one of the few high-performing schools in Orleans Parish. I remember the local newspaper, the Times Picayune, printing a picture of my mom on the front page, along with her story: a young, aspiring middle-class mother and father who had to balance a work day while maintaining their spot in line. They waited for hours and hours. In the end, they did not get a seat in the highly desired Montessori school. Story continues Still, I was lucky enough to have parents who, despite that initial setback, continued to advocate on my behalf so I could attend a good school and pursue my career aspirations. Many children do not have that good fortune. Still others have parents doing their utmost for their benefit, but a system that is built on inequity stands in their way like an immovable object. As the new report observes, school boards have played a critical role in creating these structural inequalities. Just as they were key to building up this injustice, they may well be the key to dismantling it. The authors of the report find that Black and brown school board members are more likely than white board members to view systematic racism as an ongoing problem the board must address and are more likely to prioritize policies focused on equity, raising student outcomes and closing achievement gaps. Unfortunately, too often, qualified Black and brown community leaders enter the political arena ill equipped to run a competitive or viable campaign. During my time managing campaigns of grassroots advocates who decide to run for office, I have seen this resource gap play out firsthand. Strong candidates simply cannot compete with better resourced opponents who are often whiter and wealthier. This is why organizations like Leaders of Color, where I serve as program manager, are essential. Leaders of Color recruits, trains and supports aspiring leaders, just the kind of Black and brown community members who could run for school board seats, and win, if given the support they need. We create an ecosystem of support that sustains these aspiring leaders and puts them in the best position to succeed. Of the nearly 200 fellows Leaders of Color has supported, 75% are now in community leadership positions. But this is just the start. Like-minded organizations and communities must work together to unlock the tremendous potential that Black and brown leaders can bring in this moment. As the School Board Partners report makes clear, we advocates and educators who are committed to equity are on the cusp of an unparalleled opportunity to remake local elected school boards and, in doing so, reorient the governance of local school districts toward greater equity and real educational justice. But just as great is the need to bring new resources and support to the Black and brown leaders who can make all that happen. Lisa Chapman and her family was on holiday vacation when they learned their Southwest Airlines flights were canceled. Courtesy of Lisa Chapman An Oregon family was forced to take a cross-country road trip from Florida to Oregon. Lisa Chapman and her family learned about the Southwest cancellations while on a 10-day cruise. Chapman told Insider that the last-minute experience was expensive, costing thousands. An Oregon family was forced to spend thousands to take an arduous, multi-day road trip home from Florida after Southwest Airlines canceled their flight during the holidays. Lisa Chapman took a 10-day cruise with her husband, Craig, and her son, Hunter, for a highly anticipated winter vacation. But their getaway was disrupted when the airline informed them that their flights departing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were canceled. The family's original plan was to stay in the city overnight and catch their plane the next morning. "We've never done a trip at Christmas time, and this was the first kind of thing, and it was huge for us," Chapman told Insider. At first, Chapman and her husband loyal Southwest Airlines customers did not believe their flights were axed until they learned that other passengers on the cruise ship had received the same notice. "The line was just horrendous because they were trying to rebook on the ship, but we didn't book our flight through the cruise line," she said. "We booked it ourselves, and so they couldn't help us." Due to a lack of connection and Internet service, the family decided to wait until they got to the port to call the airline. When they docked in Florida on December 28th, Chapman said they were on hold for an hour before they were connected to an agent. The representative initially offered the family a flight days later, on January 4th. However, Lisa works at a school in Oregon and could not take extra time off. "[The agent] said she had a seat open on the first and then two seats on the second. And my husband's like, "Well, let's just book these." And I was like, "Okay, let's do that," said Chapman."Because of my anxiety, we originally booked them, and then I started to have an attack." Story continues Southwest Airlines cancellations resulted in travel pandemonium across the country Lisa Chapman, her husband Craig and her son embarked on a road trip from Florida to Oregon Courtesy of Lisa Chapman December's large-scale cancellations by Southwest Airlines resulted in a domino effect of chaos at airports nationwide. Travelers were left stranded at airports and waited online for hours to rebook their flights. Others opted to rent a car resulting in shortages leading some people to decide to ride with strangers in order to get to their destinations. Southwest expects to take a roughly $825 million hit in lost revenue, passenger reimbursements, and other costs from the chaos. When Chapman arrived at her hotel, she saw the chaos unfolding on local news, including the bulk of unclaimed luggage that piled up at different airports. Due to her concern that the flights were going to get canceled anyway, the family decided to hit the road. "I just started to have a panic attack, and we were sitting there in a rental car...and my husband's like, 'You know what? Let's just cancel these, and we'll just drive," Chapman explained, adding that the family departed from Florida on December 29th in their rented Hyundai Sante Fe. "Each day, as we moved along through different states, we looked for hotels along the way and just booked those hotels along the way," Chapman said. "I just finished a spreadsheet with all of our expenses, and I was astounded at how much it cost." Gas was about $600 for their whole trip, Lisa Chapman told Insider. Courtesy of Lisa Chapman Other expenses included high gas prices, food, and the proper clothes for the weather because the family only packed shorts and flip-flops for the Caribbean. They had to purchase jackets, long pants, and sweatshirts to stay warm. Chapman said that in total they spent more than $4,000 on their road trip. A spokesperson for Southwest previously told Insider that customers whose flights were canceled " are eligible for a refund and are encouraged to submit requests for reasonable reimbursements for incidental expenses." During their travels, Chapman said road closures in Wyoming added an additional two days to their journey. However, they made it back to Carlton, Oregon safely on January 4th. Their experience sparked the inspiration for another trip under different circumstances. "Eventually, we want to take our very own cross-country trip. But it's going to be planned. It's going to be different," she said. "We'll take our time, and we'll do things that we want to do." Read the original article on Insider SALEM, Ore. (AP) Oregon's newly sworn-in Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek said Monday at her inauguration that her first order of business will be tackling homelessness, as she unveiled several measures intended to address one of the state's most pressing issues. In her inaugural address at the state Capitol in Salem, Kotek said she will declare a homeless state of emergency and sign an executive order to increase housing construction on her first full day in office. She also proposed a $130 million emergency investment to help unsheltered people move off the streets. Imagine an Oregon where no one has to live in a tent on the sidewalk, Kotek said. That's an Oregon worth fighting for, and today is a new beginning." "Our state's response must meet the urgency of the humanitarian crisis we are facing," she added. Oregon has struggled for years to address a housing shortage and interwoven homelessness, addiction and mental health crises. Its homeless population has increased by more than 22% since 2020, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It also has the highest drug addiction rate of any state and ranks last in access to mental health treatment, according to federal data from the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Kotek also pledged to unite Oregonians after a bitterly fought gubernatorial race the tightest in a decade in which Republicans sought to break the Democrats' dominance of the state. She said she plans to visit every county in Oregon during her first year in office. Governing is about serving Oregonians all Oregonians," she said, adding that her personal promise will be to strengthen connections across the state. In a letter to Kotek, Oregon's House Republican caucus congratulated her and said it hoped the governor's office and the Legislature can co-exist for the benefit of all Oregonians. "As exemplified by a trying campaign for both the Executive and Legislative branches, it is clear that the partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans provides no benefit to the constituents that elected us," the letter said. Story continues Kotek said her first executive order will set a housing construction target of 36,000 new homes per year, describing the figure as an 80% increase over recent construction trends. Her proposed $130 million emergency investment will aim to help unsheltered people move off the streets within a year. Kotek asked lawmakers to act with urgency and said she hopes to build on the investment with a larger, more comprehensive housing and homelessness package during the legislative session. The measures come on the heels of a significant spending package passed by Oregon lawmakers last year that included $400 million to address homelessness and housing. Kotek is replacing term-limited Democrat Kate Brown, whose strict coronavirus pandemic measures made her a polarizing figure. The two worked together for years as respective speaker and governor, and they have similar profiles as progressives and open members of the LGBTQ community. But Kotek sought to distance herself from Brown and her low approval ratings toward the end of the gubernatorial campaign, casting her predecessor as ineffective on homelessness. Kotek won Oregon's three-way race for governor in November after fending off a stiff challenge from a fellow former state representative, Republican Christine Drazan, defeating her by less than four percentage points. Kotek was a state representative from 2006 until 2022, when she resigned to run for governor. During her time in the Legislature, she became the longest-serving speaker in Oregon history after nine years in the role and cemented her status as a key player in state politics, earning a reputation for cutting deals and muscling bills through the state House. As speaker, Kotek spearheaded and passed liberal agendas made possible by Democratic supermajorities, including the nations first statewide rent control law. She also helped push through gun storage laws, criminal justice reform and paid family leave, among other measures. Lawmakers also were sworn in on Monday. Democrats still control both chambers of the Legislature, but they lost their three-fifths supermajority in November's election. Kotek joins Maura Healey of Massachusetts as the first openly lesbian elected governors in the U.S. ___ Claire Rush 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 Claire on Twitter. The Daily Beast University of WashingtonThe Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) is a massive fault line stretching from Vancouver Island to Northern Californiaand its the source of the vast majority of earthquakes and tsunamis in the region. In fact, scientists believe that the fault line will likely be the source of the next Big One, an anticipated megathrust earthquake so powerful itll wreak death and destruction the likes of which weve never seen before from a geological event.So, it goes without saying that Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and city commissioners will proclaim this week as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Week. It comes before the actual holiday honoring Dr. Kings legacy next Monday. Photos: Orlando leaders honor legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with holiday week proclamation The city kicked off a week of events Sunday night with a candlelight vigil and march at Orlando City Hall. Read: Orange County to open disaster assistance site at Camping World Stadium Orlando will host its 38th annual MLK Parade in downtown Orlando at 10 a.m. Saturday. Read: SpaceX pushes OneWeb Launch 16 mission to Monday More information about MLK events this week can be found here. Read: Deputies: 4 suspects in clown masks arrested after robbing Orange County woman 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. Othal Wallace sits with his attorneys Monday, Oct. 17, 2022, for a case-management hearing before Judge Raul Zambrano at the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach. The murder trial for Othal Wallace, the man accused of killing Daytona Beach Police Officer Jason Raynor, has been pushed back to July 31. The trial was originally scheduled to start April 3 with jury selection. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Wallace, who was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer in Raynor's death in 2021. During a hearing on Dec. 28, Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano reset the trial for July 31 when attorneys will begin to pick a jury. Othal Wallace defense:Othal Wallace defense: Black men 'brainwashed' into believing police will shoot them 'Caught up in a situation':Man accused of shooting Daytona officer tells visitor he got caught up in a situation Car to museum:Slain Daytona Beach Officer Jason Raynor's patrol car goes to Titusville museum Wallace's attorneys also have withdrawn their request for records seeking the addresses or locations of everyone who donated to a GoFundMe fundraiser for Raynor. Defense attorney Terry Shoemaker had filed a notice on Dec. 12 that he would subpoena records from Cogency Global Inc./GoFundMe in Sacramento, California. The subpoena would seek Any and all information which would demonstrate the address, location or other geographical information related to the donors to the 'Daytona Beach Officer Jason Raynor Recovery Fund,' according to the notice. Shoemaker wrote in a previous email to The News-Journal that the information had to do with a possible change of venue. The fund raised $388,915 from more than 5,000 donations, according to its GoFundMe page. On Dec. 19, Assistant State Attorney Andrew Urbanak filed a motion objecting to Shoemakers notice and requested a hearing on the matter. Urbanaks motion did not give a reason for the objection. Shoemaker withdrew his request for the GoFundMe records Jan. 3. Shoemaker wrote in an email on Monday that the defense withdrew the request because "we were able to find out what we needed without doing (a) third-party subpoena. " Story continues Asked whether that meant the defense would obtain the addresses and locations another way, Shoemaker wrote: "We have everything we need in order to move forward." Shoemaker wrote that the trial date had been moved due to a number of factors, the biggest being that defense attorney Garry Wood was not available until then. The State Attorney's Office declined to comment when asked by The News-Journal about the change in trial date or the GoFundMe development. Zambrano also ruled on some motions during the December hearing. Zambrano held in abeyance until necessary a decision at jury selection on whether he would grant additional peremptory challenges. A peremptory challenge allows an attorney to dismiss a potential juror without giving a reason. Zambrano also denied defense arguments to declare unconstitutional three aggravators: cold, calculated and premeditated; heinous, atrocious and cruel; and hindering the lawful exercise of government function or enforcement of laws. The aggravators were among those listed by prosecutors in their notice of intent to seek the death penalty. Jurors must find that prosecutors have proven at least one aggravator before they can consider whether to recommend that Wallace be sentenced to death. Among other actions, Zambrano also granted a motion to require the state to first provide victim impact statements outside the presence of the jury. Officer Jason Raynor's shooting Raynor was patrolling in an area of Daytona Beach on June 23, 2021, because residents had complained about criminal activity. Wallace was sitting in a car outside of an apartment building at 133 Kingston Ave., where he was living with his girlfriend and their children, according to reports. Raynor walked up to Wallace and asked him if he lived there, body camera video showed. Wallace stood up out of the car and Raynor told him to sit back down, the video showed. After Raynor told Wallace to sit down, the video became shaky and then ended. Police said Wallace shot Raynor in the head. Raynors gun was found still in its holster. Wallace was arrested on June 26, 2021, when a task force found him hiding in a treehouse in DeKalb County, Georgia, near Atlanta. Raynor died 55 days later on Aug. 17, 2021. This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Othal Wallace trial in Daytona Beach officer's killing reset for July In this Jan. 8, 2017, file photo, Harvey Weinstein arrives at The Weinstein Company and Netflix Golden Globes afterparty in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP) Harvey Weinsteins sentencing for rape and sexual assault convictions was delayed Monday so that his attorneys can file a motion for a new trial. The 70-year-old former movie magnate could get up to 18 years in prison at the sentencing that is now scheduled for Feb. 23. He is already serving a 23-year sentence for a similar conviction in New York, which is under appeal. Advertisement Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench said at a brief hearing that she expects Weinstein will be sentenced Feb. 23 should the motion be denied. On Dec. 19, a jury convicted Weinstein of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against an Italian model and actor who testified that he appeared uninvited at her hotel room door during a Los Angeles film festival in 2013. Advertisement Jurors acquitted Weinstein of one count of sexual battery. They failed to reach verdicts after nine days of deliberations on three other sexual assault counts. Lench declared a mistrial on those counts. Prosecutors said they have not yet decided whether to retry them. Weinstein pleaded not guilty to all of the charges and had denied ever engaging in non-consensual sex. Farrell must face a disciplinary panel after being cited for a dangerous tackle in Saracens victory over Gloucester (PA Wire) Owen Farrell is in danger of missing the start of Englands Six Nations campaign after being cited for a dangerous tackle in Saracens victory over Gloucester on Friday. Farrell must face a disciplinary panel on Tuesday after his shoulder made contact with the head of replacement Jack Clement in the 75th minute of the Gallagher Premiership clash at Kingsholm. England open their Six Nations against Scotland on February 4 and a ban could see the 31-year-old playmaker ruled out of Steve Borthwicks first match in charge. A communication mix-up between referee Karl Dickson and TMO Claire Hodnett meant the challenge was not reviewed on the field, but citing commissioner James Hall has deemed it to be worthy of a red card, thereby triggering disciplinary proceedings. The sanction for a mid-range offence is a six-week ban but if it is deemed to be at the higher end of severity, a player can be suspended for 10 weeks. Farrells tackle technique has been a frequent achilles heel and should the citing be upheld, it will be the third time Farrell has been punished for the same offence. The three-time Lions tourist was banned for five weeks for a high tackle on Wasps player Charlie Atkinson in 2020, but the sanction was reduced from 10 weeks on account of off-field mitigating factors. In 2016 he was suspended for two weeks for an illegal challenge on Wasps Dan Robson during a Champions Cup semi-final. Given his track record for dangerous tackles, on this occasional he would be unlikely to receive any mitigation that might reduce the length of any ban. Ozone hole in antarctic 1992 Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images A United Nations report has shown that the hole in the ozone layer is on track to fully heal by 2066, reports The Associated Press. An assessment of the layer has been performed every four years since the world's nations agreed to stop using ozone-destroying chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The new report says that while progress is slow, the ozone is getting better and is expected to fully heal aside from the poles by 2040. The arctic will likely heal by 2045 and Antarctica, which has the most severe damage, by 2066, reports The Guardian. The ozone layer shields the planet from harmful radiation and ultraviolet rays. Though signs of ozone healing were also present in the report from four years ago, this latest assessment provides more conclusive evidence on the matter. "In the upper stratosphere and in the ozone hole, we see things getting better," said Paul Newman, co-chairman of the scientific assessment. "Those numbers of recovery have solidified a lot." Concern about the ozone harkens back to the 1980s. In 1987, nations signed the international Montreal Protocol, which eliminated 99 percent of ozone-depleting chemicals, many of which were used as refrigerants. David Fahey, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a lead author of the new assessment, described the protocol as "the most successful environmental treaty in history." However, progress has not always been easy. In 2018, a small uptick in CFC use was traced to China, which then remedied the problem. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) also rose in popularity at one point. Though they do not destroy the ozone, HFCs are still strong greenhouse gases and many countries are working to phase them out, per The Guardian. "Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action," said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization. "Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done." Story continues You may also like Why car sales are falling in the U.S. 7 scathingly funny cartoons about George Santos' lies What's in Prince Harry's new book, Spare? Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. So we wouldn't blame long term Genting Malaysia Berhad (KLSE:GENM) shareholders for doubting their decision to hold, with the stock down 49% over a half decade. With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies. Check out our latest analysis for Genting Malaysia Berhad To quote Buffett, 'Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace...' One flawed but reasonable way to assess how sentiment around a company has changed is to compare the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price. During five years of share price growth, Genting Malaysia Berhad moved from a loss to profitability. Most would consider that to be a good thing, so it's counter-intuitive to see the share price declining. Other metrics might give us a better handle on how its value is changing over time. We note that the dividend has fallen in the last five years, so that may have contributed to the share price decline. The revenue decline of about 16% per year might also encourage sellers. The graphic below depicts how earnings and revenue have changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image). Genting Malaysia Berhad is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. If you are thinking of buying or selling Genting Malaysia Berhad stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst consensus estimates for future profits. What About Dividends? It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Genting Malaysia Berhad the TSR over the last 5 years was -35%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. And there's no prize for guessing that the dividend payments largely explain the divergence! Story continues A Different Perspective It's nice to see that Genting Malaysia Berhad shareholders have received a total shareholder return of 0.5% over the last year. And that does include the dividend. That certainly beats the loss of about 6% per year over the last half decade. We generally put more weight on the long term performance over the short term, but the recent improvement could hint at a (positive) inflection point within the business. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Genting Malaysia Berhad better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Genting Malaysia Berhad has 3 warning signs (and 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) we think you should know about. But note: Genting Malaysia Berhad may not be the best stock to buy. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies with past earnings growth (and further growth forecast). Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on MY 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 Long term investing works well, but it doesn't always work for each individual stock. We don't wish catastrophic capital loss on anyone. Imagine if you held S P Setia Berhad (KLSE:SPSETIA) for half a decade as the share price tanked 82%. And we doubt long term believers are the only worried holders, since the stock price has declined 53% over the last twelve months. Unfortunately the share price momentum is still quite negative, with prices down 12% in thirty days. While a drop like that is definitely a body blow, money isn't as important as health and happiness. With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies. See our latest analysis for S P Setia Berhad While the efficient markets hypothesis continues to be taught by some, it has been proven that markets are over-reactive dynamic systems, and investors are not always rational. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement. During the five years over which the share price declined, S P Setia Berhad's earnings per share (EPS) dropped by 31% each year. This change in EPS is reasonably close to the 29% average annual decrease in the share price. This implies that the market has had a fairly steady view of the stock. So it's fair to say the share price has been responding to changes in EPS. The graphic below depicts how EPS has changed over time (unveil the exact values by clicking on the image). We know that S P Setia Berhad has improved its bottom line lately, but is it going to grow revenue? If you're interested, you could check this free report showing consensus revenue forecasts. A Different Perspective While the broader market lost about 1.7% in the twelve months, S P Setia Berhad shareholders did even worse, losing 52% (even including dividends). Having said that, it's inevitable that some stocks will be oversold in a falling market. The key is to keep your eyes on the fundamental developments. Regrettably, last year's performance caps off a bad run, with the shareholders facing a total loss of 12% per year over five years. We realise that Baron Rothschild has said investors should "buy when there is blood on the streets", but we caution that investors should first be sure they are buying a high quality business. I find it very interesting to look at share price over the long term as a proxy for business performance. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. Like risks, for instance. Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for S P Setia Berhad (of which 1 is significant!) you should know about. Story continues For those who like to find winning investments this free list of growing companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket. Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on MY 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 FREEHOLD - A Middlesex County man has been arrested and charged in connection with a Middletown bank robbery that took place in December, Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago announced Monday. Miguel A. Angeles, 42, of Perth Amboy is charged with first-degree armed robbery, the announcement said. At 10:43 a.m. on Dec. 28, Middletown Township Police were sent to the Valley Bank on Route 35 South between Twin Brooks Avenue and Woodland Drive after an alarm was activated, Santiago said. When they arrived, police learned a masked man had entered the bank and stolen about $8,000 before fleeing the scene. Further investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutors Office, the Middletown Township Police Department and the FBI led to the identification and arrest of Angeles, said Santiago. The suspect in the Dec. 28, 2022 robbery of Valley National Bank in Middletown. Another bank robbery arrest:Bayville man who police allege robbed TD Bank in Jackson captured shortly after heist Angeles remains in custody pending a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday in Monmouth County Superior Court in Freehold, according to the announcement. If found guilty, Angeles could face a term of 10 to 20 years in state prison, Santiago said, subject to New Jerseys No Early Release Act (NERA), mandating that 85 percent of the term be served prior to the possibility of parole. Santiago urged anyone with information to contact MCPO Detective Nicolas Logothetis at 800-533-7443 or Middletown Township Police Department Detective Keith Hirschbein at 732-615-2100. Local crime:Suspect fell through ceiling, left cash behind in $700K West Long Branch heist, prosecutor says Jenna Calderon covers breaking news and cold cases in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Before coming to the Press, she covered The Queen City for Cincinnati Magazine in Ohio. Contact her at 330-590-3903; jcalderon@gannettnj.com This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Perth Amboy man accused of robbing $8,000 from Middletown bank By Marco Aquino LIMA (Reuters) -Peru barred Bolivia's socialist former president, Evo Morales, from entering its territory on Monday, Peru's government announced in a statement, a decision Morales later derided as an attack meant to distract from rights violations. The move to ban Morales, along with eight other unidentified Bolivians, follows weeks of deadly protests in Peru targeting President Dina Boluarte following last month's swift removal of former President Pedro Castillo, with some demonstrations held near the border with Bolivia. Castillo's attempt to unlawfully dissolve Congress ahead of a looming impeachment vote unleashed a fresh political crisis in the South American nation, one of the world's top copper producers. He had been in office for less than two tumultuous years. The statement from Peru's interior ministry said Bolivian citizens have entered the country in recent months to carry out political activities, violating immigration laws while undermining national security. Morales, one of Latin America's most prominent leftists, has publicly backed Castillo, criticizing his ouster and subsequent arrest as illegal. The indigenous Bolivian leader served as president for some 14 years through 2019 until he resigned under intense pressure following a disputed election and mass protests. Morales took to Twitter on Monday to respond to the decision to deny him entry to Peru. "Now they attack us to distract and dodge responsibility for grave violations of the human rights of our Peruvian brothers," he wrote, adding that political conflicts cannot be resolved with "expulsions, prohibitions or repression." Shortly after the ban was announced, Peru Prime Minister Alberto Otarola blamed Morales for stoking unrest. "We are closely watching not only the attitude of Mr. Morales, but also of those who work with him in southern Peru," he told reporters. "They have been very active in promoting a situation of crisis." Story continues Last week, Peru's defense minister also accused foreigners of stirring up divisive protests. After Castillo was removed from office and detained on charges of fomenting rebellion, thousands of protesters took to the streets demanding Boluarte's resignation, the release of Castillo, the closure of Congress, and a new constitution. While Castillo remains jailed in pretrial detention, more than 20 people have been killed in the protests, which resumed last week after a pause for the holidays. (Reporting by Marco Aquino in LimaWriting by Valentine HilaireEditing by Isabel Woodford, Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis) Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Pharming Group N.V. (AMS:PHARM) as an investment opportunity by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex. Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you. Check out our latest analysis for Pharming Group The Method We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years. Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate: 10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 Levered FCF ($, Millions) US$31.3m US$40.4m US$46.9m US$52.3m US$56.6m US$59.8m US$62.2m US$64.1m US$65.4m US$66.4m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 16.34% Est @ 11.49% Est @ 8.10% Est @ 5.72% Est @ 4.06% Est @ 2.90% Est @ 2.08% Est @ 1.51% Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 5.3% US$29.7 US$36.4 US$40.2 US$42.5 US$43.6 US$43.8 US$43.3 US$42.3 US$41.0 US$39.5 ("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$402m Story continues We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 0.2%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 5.3%. Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2032 (1 + g) (r g) = US$66m (1 + 0.2%) (5.3% 0.2%) = US$1.3b Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= US$1.3b ( 1 + 5.3%)10= US$768m The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is US$1.2b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of 1.1, the company appears quite undervalued at a 33% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent. dcf The Assumptions Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Pharming Group as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 5.3%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.857. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business. SWOT Analysis for Pharming Group Strength Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry. Debt is not viewed as a risk. Weakness Earnings growth over the past year is below its 5-year average. Opportunity Annual revenue is forecast to grow faster than the Dutch market. Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%. Significant insider buying over the past 3 months. Threat Annual earnings are forecast to grow slower than the Dutch market. Looking Ahead: Although the valuation of a company is important, it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. For instance, if the terminal value growth rate is adjusted slightly, it can dramatically alter the overall result. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Pharming Group, we've compiled three further elements you should look at: Risks: For instance, we've identified 1 warning sign for Pharming Group that you should be aware of. Future Earnings: How does PHARM's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered! PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Dutch stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Join A Paid User Research Session Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently called the challenge the city is facing in serving an influx of migrants a crisis created by the Republican governor of Texas. As an academic who studies and teaches refugee policy, I agree the crisis is manufactured, but its roots are much deeper and effects far-reaching. Before any knee-jerk reactions, we must understand why some people are invested in it as a crisis instead of a problem that can be solved. Chicago has an outsize interest in a solution because we are the biggest destination city for asylum-seekers and migrants in the Midwest. Since last August, more than 3,800 migrants have been bused here from Texas. As a sanctuary city, it is in our interest to get the facts straight. Advertisement Notably, the U.S. government has dramatically narrowed access for people to ask for asylum legally and have their cases heard. People fleeing their countries are risking their lives to ask for asylum. Donald Trump, when he was president, systematically dismantled and starved the immigration infrastructure through his policies resulting in the furloughing of thousands of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees, the imprisonment of children and the illegal detention of migrants. Because of such policies, asylum-seekers endanger their lives by crossing the Darien Gap only to face long lines and a wall. The U.S. could alleviate this issue by offering people alternative ways to request asylum. Title 42, which the U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed to stay in place, is an example of how the Trump administration chose to artificially, and temporarily, drive down asylum applications, only for the number of applicants to shoot up now. Turning away migrants suffering persecution is a violation of our international treaty obligations and our humanitarian foreign policy and is harmful to our economy. If Title 42 is revoked, there will be a temporary increase in people accessing asylum and being processed at the border, but there is no reason to think that this will be a long-term issue. Advertisement People who can prove they have a credible fear of persecution will be allowed to stay in the country, and those who dont qualify can be deported. President Joe Biden just declared an overhaul of this bottleneck created at the border, and we should applaud that effort. It is also important to remember that, geographically, our southern border is the only place where people can access asylum, a universal human right. The United States shares borders with only two countries, Mexico and Canada. Almost everyone asking for asylum accesses it at our southern border because to our north is Canada, a safe country. At one time, people could fly to one of our airports or access our territory on boats, but we have closed off those options. Airlines have been turned into de facto immigration agents because they are made to pay huge fines if they carry people to an airport where those passengers ask for asylum. The same is true for boats or ships. Any person fleeing rape, violence, persecution, gangs or terror must find a way to make it to our southern border. There is no other way. Instead of seeing this situation as a human rights nightmare, which it is, Americans are concentrating on reading it as a quasi-assault on our sovereignty. When the mayor of El Paso, Texas, Oscar Leeser, asked for additional resources, he was instead attacked for not declaring an emergency. Yes, asylum-seekers are at our border. We have the resources for processing their applications. Why arent we using them? We need to ramp up the hiring of Department of Homeland Security staff. We need to create a system where all states step up to host asylum-seekers. We need to stop creating artificial bottlenecks in the system. And Chicago should continue using money that the federal government gives us to help settle people who are being treated as pawns in a political game. There is a crisis at the border. But its most harmful for people risking their lives to access safety, not for us sitting and watching the news on television. Shailja Sharma is a professor of international studies at DePaul University and co-founder of the DePaul Migration Collaborative. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. (Reuters) - Police in Armenia on Sunday detained 65 protesters near a Russian military base demanding Moscow intervene to dismantle what they say is a crippling blockade by Azerbaijan of an ethnic Armenian enclave, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. It said around 200 protesters, gathered outside the base in the northern town of Gyumri, were demanding that Russian peacekeepers unblock the sole road - the Lachin Corridor - which links Armenia and the predominantly ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Since Dec. 12, people identifying themselves as environmental activists from Azerbaijan have partially blocked the road, letting only limited traffic through. Azerbaijan says their action does not amount to a full blockade, but ethnic Armenian officials in Nagorno-Karabakh officials say food, medicine and fuel are running desperately short as a result. The corridor, which allows supplies from Armenia to reach the 120,000 ethnic Armenians who control the mountainous region, has been policed by Russian peacekeepers since 2020. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but its inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenian and it broke away from Baku's control in a war in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating. In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire, and peacekeepers deployed along the Lachin corridor, which became the only route into and out of Nagorno-Karabakh. (Reporting by Marina Bobrova; Editing by Andrew Osborn) A Silver Alert has been canceled for Mary Jane Madigan who was last seen at her home at Horse Haven Lane in Shelby, which is off Highway 180, according to authorities. ALSO READ: Man found safe after going missing in Lancaster, police say Madigan was said to be suffering from dementia or Alzheimers, according to authorities. (WATCH BELOW: CATS drivers vote to strike after no deal reached) STORY: Lula, who announced a federal security intervention in Brasilia lasting until Jan. 31 after capital security forces were initially overwhelmed by the invaders, blamed Bolsonaro for inflaming his supporters after a campaign of baseless allegations about potential election fraud. The president's allies also raised questions about how public security forces in the capital Brasilia were so unprepared and easily overwhelmed by rioters who had been planning on social media for days to gather for weekend demonstrations. By 6:30 p.m. local time (2130 GMT) security forces had managed to retake the capital's most iconic three buildings. Police in Pennsylvania are asking for the community's help as their search for a missing woman enters its second week. Jennifer Brown, 43, was last seen six days ago and concerns grew when she failed to pick up her young son from his bus stop the following afternoon, according to local authorities. A "friend and business associate" of Brown was the last person to see her on Jan. 3, the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office said in a news release shared to Facebook on Friday. When Brown failed to retrieve her son, Noah, from the bus the next afternoon, investigators say Brown's car was found parked outside of her home in Limerick Township with her car keys, wallet, purse and work cellphone left inside. Brown's personal cellphone has not yet been located by police, according to the district attorney's office, which noted that she has not used the device to communicate since the morning of Jan. 4. "Law enforcement is very concerned about the welfare of this mother, Jennifer Brown," said Kevin Steele, the district attorney, in a statement included with the office's news release. Brown's family, friends and neighbors held a candlelight vigil outside of her home over the weekend, CBS Philadelphia reported. Tiffany Barron, identified as Brown's best friend, told the station that she does not believe her disappearance happened voluntarily. "She would never ever not be there for Noah," said Barron, according to the station. "She would not leave Noah with anyone." Diane Brehm, Brown's aunt, pleaded with the public to share any relevant information about her niece. "Someone knows where my niece is, and please, please somebody speak up," she told CBS Philadelphia. "We're begging for her, for her family, for her sons." Brehm also emphasized that "she wouldn't just disappear." "Everybody that knows Jennifer knows this is not what she would do," she told the station. Story continues Investigators describe Brown as a White woman with brown hair and green eyes, who stands at 5 feet 1 inches tall. Her family is offering a $10,000 reward for any tips that assist law enforcement as they work to find her. Anyone with information about her whereabouts has been asked to report what they know to either Limerick Township Police or Montgomery County Detectives by calling 610-495-7909 or 610-226-5553. Prince Harry opens up about royal family rift in "60 Minutes" interview Bolsonaro supporters storm government buildings in Brazil China opens borders amid surge in COVID cases A New Hampshire woman is facing multiple charges after allegedly stealing a car from a convenience store Friday night and crashing it into a utility pole. Mary Fairfield, 30, of Amherst, New Hampshire, was charged with theft by unauthorized taking, two counts of disobeying an officer, conduct after an accident, resisting arrest, driving after suspension from DUI, false report to law enforcement, and breach of bail. Salem Police say they responded to a convenience store on North Broadway just after 7:00 p.m. for a report of a stolen 2020 Jeep Gladiator. Arriving officers discovered the vehicle had been left running at the time of the theft. A short time later, Sgt. Nicholas Turner saw Fairfield driving the Jeep southbound on North Policy Street at a high rate of speed, according to authorities. In an attempt to evade police, officials say Fairfield sped onto Northeastern Boulevard where she crashed the jeep into a utility pole. The car sustained heavy front end damage and the pole was snapped in half. Fairfield then fled from the jeep on foot where Sgt. Turner was able to chase her down and take her into custody. She was held without bail and will be arraigned in Rockingham District Court on Monday. Police are reminding the public not to leave their cars running with keys in the ignition. 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 An Amazon worker is suspected of fatally shooting a pregnant woman outside the companys warehouse in Lakeville on Sunday night, police said. The 31-year-old woman was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where she died Sunday night. Staff were able to deliver the baby, whose condition is not known, Lakeville police Cmdr. Bill Gerl said Monday. The shooting happened at the Amazon Fullfillment Center at 9800 217th St. W. Officers were called to the scene just before 7 p.m. on a report of a woman with a gunshot wound in a vehicle parked at the warehouse. Donte Rapheal McCray, who police say is an acquaintance of the woman and works at the warehouse, was taken into custody at the scene and early Monday booked into the Dakota County jail on suspicion of second-degree manslaughter. McCray, 32, of Minneapolis, has not been formally charged. He is scheduled to appear before a judge at noon Tuesday. Gerl said he could not release additional details Monday regarding the shooting and investigation, which he described as being very active. The womans identity and the cause and manner of her death have yet to be released by the Hennepin County medical examiners office. Related Articles Pexels The global decline of bees and other pollinators is stunting yields of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. Scientists estimate that the loss of these nutritious foods is leading to 427,000 early deaths a year. This study shows that doing too little to help pollinators does not just harm nature, but human health as well, Matthew Smith, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and lead author of the study, said in a statement. Rising temperatures, widespread use of pesticides, and habitat loss are fueling a downturn in the population of insects, with has dropped by nearly half in some parts of the world. Insects pollinate around three-fourths of crops, scientists said, and their decline has hurt the growth of key foods. For the study, researchers gathered data from hundreds of experimental farms in Asia, Africa, Europe, and South America, finding that in 2020, growers produced 3 to 5 percent less fruits, vegetables, and nuts than they would have in a world with thriving insect populations. In lower-income countries, the impact was severe, with the loss of pollinators stunting agricultural incomes by an estimated 10 to 30 percent. Researchers also modeled how the drop production is impacting public health, finding that declining consumption of fruits and vegetables is limiting the intake of needed nutrients and giving rise to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers. Globally, the loss of pollinators is leading to an additional 427,000 deaths yearly. The effect is most pronounced in middle-income countries, such as China and Russia. The findings were published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Globally, we consume too much of the wind-pollinated crops wheat, rice, corn, barley which are rich in carbs but relatively low in nutrients, leading to an epidemic of obesity and diabetes around the world, University of Sussex researcher David Goulson, who was not affiliated with the study, told The Guardian. We do not eat enough fruit and veg, most of which requires insects for pollination. Story continues Goulson added, The most concerning aspect of this study is that, since insect populations are continuing to decline, this lost crop yield is going to get worse into the future, while the human population is going to continue growing to at least 10 billion. ALSO ON YALE E360 Pollen and Heat: A Looming Challenge for Global Agriculture A woman was flown to a hospital after a possible fit of road rage along a South Carolina interstate, officials said. The woman was one of four people including two children traveling in a vehicle when bullets flew inside on Sunday, Jan. 8, according to the Oconee County Sheriffs Office. Deputies believe the shots were fired from another vehicle along Interstate 85, a busy Southeastern thoroughfare. Now, officials say they are investigating reports that the case was a road-rage shooting. In response to McClatchy News request for additional information, the sheriffs office didnt share more details about what may have led to the incident. After the I-85 shooting, the injured woman was rushed to a hospital in a helicopter, officials said. The incident was reported at about 5:30 p.m. in the southbound lanes near mile markers 1 and 2. Thats between state highways 11 and 59, close to the border with Georgia. The investigation continues, and anyone with information is asked to contact Crimestoppers at oconeesccrimestoppers.com. No charges had been filed as of about 9 a.m. on Jan. 9, Jimmy Watt, a spokesperson for the sheriffs office, told McClatchy News in a phone interview. Driver blacked out from anger, slammed into car during road-rage incident, SC cops say Caretaker stabs man with Sharpie, shoves him from moving car on I-95, NC cops say SPRINGFIELD On the eve of Gov. J.B. Pritzkers second inauguration, tensions flared among Democrats over a proposal to ban high-powered firearms as the Illinois Senate introduced a measure that the governor and other supporters contend is weaker than a version the House approved last week. The dust-up pitted Pritzker and House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch of Hillside against Senate President Don Harmon, a fellow Democrat from Oak Park. A similar scenario played out in the summer of 2021 during negotiations over a massive clean energy bill before the Democrats reached a compromise. Advertisement The lack of Senate action on Sunday denied Pritzker who made securing a ban on certain semi-automatic guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines a reelection campaign pillar after the deadly mass shooting at Highland Parks Fourth of July parade a final legislative victory before hes sworn in for a new term. In a statement late Sunday as the Senate was returning from an abbreviated weekend break, Pritzker said a proposal Harmon filed earlier in the day falls short of meeting the urgency of now. Advertisement Every time a weapon of war is used to inflict the maximum amount of damage in the shortest amount of time we mourn for the lives lost and communities shattered, said Pritzker, who sat next to Welch on the House floor as the chamber approved its version early Friday. Enough is enough. The people of this state deserve a real assault weapons ban, one that has a real accounting of the weapons currently in circulation and a real chance at ceasing the flow of more weapons of war immediately. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, right, speaks as Senate President Don Harmon listens in during a press conference outside the governor's office at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield on April 7, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) Welch earlier issued a statement saying he would not accept a watered-down version of legislation that falls unacceptably short of the comprehensive solutions that the people of this state deserve. In response, Harmon spokesman John Patterson said the two chambers have shared goals on the issues of banning so-called assault weapons and expanding abortion protections, another Democratic priority in the days before a new General Assembly is sworn in Wednesday. The House passed a measure last week that would allow abortions to be performed by a wider pool of health care workers and seeks to protect patients and providers from restrictive laws in other states, among other responses to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The Senate was working on its own version, an early draft of which did not include explicit protections for patients receiving and providers offering gender-affirming care. Supporters said the Senate measure was crafted more broadly to protect a wide array of health care services without getting into a cat-and-mouse game with other states over specific procedures or types of care. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Sunday weighed in on the matter, urging the Senate in a Twitter post to pass the House proposal so that everyone in the great state of Illinois is protected from the transphobic attacks of other more restrictive states. We simply cannot leave out our most vulnerable populations, Lightfoot wrote. Advertisement On guns, one major difference between the House and Senate proposals centers around the requirement for owners to register guns that would be designated as assault weapons with law enforcement within about a year of the measure taking effect. In the Senate version, owners of those guns would not be required to report the serial numbers of the weapons to Illinois State Police, unlike in the House version. Serial numbers help law enforcement track firearms used in crimes. Ashbey Beasley, who was at the Highland Park parade but was not hurt, raised concerns about the absence of the serial number requirement in the Senate bill. Survivors, gun violence victims deserve a bill with teeth and that means we deserve a ban that we can enforce, she said. So it is imperative that the part of the bill, the serialization, that that stays intact because we need to be able to track these guns, we need to know whos allowed to own them and that will protect legal owners, and we need to know who shouldnt have them. And that is where well be able to enforce the ban and save lives. The Senate version also grandfathers in large-capacity ammunition magazines, which the measure defines as exceeding 10-rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns. The House version would limit magazines to 12 rounds. Gun rights proponents criticized the 12-bullet limit noting that magazines in many semi-automatic handguns commonly hold as many as 15 rounds. If the Senates measure were to go into effect, anyone who already owned high-capacity magazines could only possess them on their property, on someone elses private property with permission, at licensed gun shops or at gunsmiths, at a firing range or shooting competition, or in transit to these locations. Advertisement In the House version, owners of high-capacity magazines would have 90 days to modify the devices to hold 12 rounds or less, surrender them to law enforcement, or sell them to a federally licensed gun dealer or someone outside Illinois who is allowed to own them. The House and Senate proposals to ban guns designated as assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would not apply to law enforcement performing their duties. Josh Witkowski, who represents the Illinois Federation for Outdoor Resources, said the latest proposal coming from the Senate has some of the same issues for his group as the House proposal and could ban common shotguns used for hunting and trap shooting. It is an issue for the tradition of hunting within the state of Illinois, Witkowski said.(Thered be) no capability to be able to teach and pass on the traditions of hunting and shooting to your families, which families (in) downstate Illinois have done for (years). The Senate adjourned Sunday without taking up proposals on either guns or abortion but was scheduled to return to the Capitol on Monday amid Pritzkers inauguration festivities. Chicago Tribunes Rick Pearson contributed to this report. Advertisement dpetrella@chicagotribune.com jgorner@chicagotribune.com Many people say they've been contacted in the past year with a job offer that turned out to be a scam. Ariel Skelley/Getty Images Scammers are targeting remote job seekers and luring them into fake jobs. Insider spoke to several people who said they were nearly duped into sending away money, believing it was for at-home work equipment. The financial scam seems to be surging in popularity amid the age of tech layoffs and remote work When Roberta Barbosa got a job offer from analytics platform Craft.co in July, she was delighted. The business consultant job was high-paying and seemed like the type of role she envisioned amid her career pivot. A recruiter had approached her on the freelance platform Fiverr, which she had recently joined. Despite the fact that the company's chief technology officer switched an interview from video to a phone at the last minute, Barbosa was subsequently impressed by his technological knowledge, and she quickly accepted the role. Shortly after signing her employment contract, her positive feelings began to shift. The company's CTO informed Barbosa that she would need to front the money to buy her work-from-home computer and monitor, and asked her to send $15,000 over Zelle with promises of reimbursement. At the time, Barbosa believed she was speaking to Craft.co's actual CTO, Artem Litvinov. What she didn't know was she was falling victim to a financial scam that has seemingly surged in popularity amid the age of tech layoffs and remote work. After Barbosa pushed back on the $15,000 request, the relationship turned tense. "He was furious. All of a sudden, the tone of his voice turned crazy," Barbosa said. Barbosa pleaded with the company's CEO and CTO to let her out of her employment contract, which they had convinced her was legally binding. Eventually, she hired a lawyer who informed her that she was nearly a victim of a financial crime. "They didn't get anything from me, but it was a horrific situation," she said. In a statement to Insider, the real Craft.co's CEO, Ilya Levtov, said, "We learned about this scam a few months ago and in all cases where an applicant contacted us, we immediately made clear that the Offer did not come from us. We notified LinkedIn about the scam and added a fraud warning to our careers page. We have and will continue to urge anyone who has been offered a job by us or any company to confirm proactively they are communicating with the actual company." Story continues Insider spoke with several people who told similar stories: A recruiter approached them with the perfect remote job. After interviewing and accepting the role, they were asked to shell out their own money for equipment, such as computers and monitors, for a remote work set-up, with promises of reimbursement. Job search platform Indeed advises users to be cautious when pursuing positions that seem too good to be true and to always insist on an in-person or video interview. A recent post on LinkedIn about a user falling for a fake job offer at Coinbase spawned thousands of comments from people telling similar stories. "They prey on people who are vulnerable," said Cierra Reid, who believed she was offered a customer success role at a company called Acrolinx before realizing it was a scam. Reid said she thought the email address looked legitimate, and the job description matched one posted on the company's LinkedIn page. She agreed to an interview but began feeling uneasy when the company showed her the equipment she would have to purchase before she even scheduled the interview. Reid decided to message the hiring manager directly on LinkedIn to confirm the details of the interview. "He said 'thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, that email is from someone trying to scam people,'" she said. In a statement to Insider, the real Acrolinx said that "in light of an uptick in online recruitment scams, Acrolinx has proactively taken steps to ensure prospective employees have clear understanding of Acrolinx's recruiting practices so they know what to expect during our hiring process. We have updated our website's career page to include those practices as well as guidance on how to recognize fraud on social media. We have also shared this information on LinkedIn in an effort to prevent fraud before it happens." Simen Buber, ZipRecruiter's lead economist, advises applicants to trust their gut. "If you're getting the feeling that something just isn't right, don't be afraid to listen to your own intuition... You're not obligated to remain in a situation that makes you uncomfortable." This story has been updated to include statements from Craft.co and Acrolinx. Read the original article on Business Insider Prince Harry and former girlfriends Cressida Bonas and Chelsy Davy. (Getty Images) Prince Harry famously detailed the circumstances in which he lost his virginity to an older woman in his bombshell memoir, Spare. The Duke of Sussex claimed the "humiliating experience" happened in a field outside a "very busy pub" in the countryside when he was 17 years old. Initially there was speculation about who this mystery older woman was, but since, Sasha Walpole has come forward to claim that she is the one who was involved in the tryst. Walpole, 40, spoke to the Daily Mail and The Sun, claiming that the incident took place after they had been drinking at the Vine Tree Pub, Wiltshire, where they were celebrating her birthday. She said she decided to reveal her identity now because of how much speculation there has been about the encounter, explaining that she felt it was a matter of time before her name went public. In a new interview that aired on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the digger driver described her disbelief that Prince Harry had gone into so much detail about losing his virginity to her in his book. Harry said he lost his virginity with an older woman who treated him like a "young stallion" in his memoir: "I mounted her quickly," he wrote, "after which she spanked my ass and sent me away." Walpole didn't object to the "horsey context", she previously told the Daily Mail, but spoke about some of her regrets about the moonlight tryst in the interview with Piers Morgan, which aired on TalkTV on Thursday night. Watch: Sasha Walpole reveals how heartache and alcohol fulled her romp with Prince Harry "The thing wrong about it was we were two friends and it should never have happened," she explained. "We crossed the line, it was never intentional there was nothing before, nothing after, she continued. I mean inglorious? It's not really that glorious sleeping with someone in a field behind a pub when you are drunk. "There is nothing glorious about being drunk and then copping off with one of your mates, in a field." Walpole confessed that part of the reason she chose to come forward was that people she knew were being "questioned" about the encounter, and that she had hoped she would be able to return to "normality" after the media whirlwind. "Hopefully it's a means to an end and I can get back [home], and [go] back to normality, go back to work, drive my digger - hide back under my rock, she added." Since Spare's release, readers have been treated to never-before-seen insight into his relationship history. Here, in addition to Sasha Walpole, Yahoo UK looks back at all the people Harry has been romantically linked with over the years. Sasha Walpole Walpole has claimed to the be "older woman" who Harry lost his virginity in a field outside a pub where they had been celebrating her 19th birthday. Sasha Walpole (far left) has claimed to be the mystery older woman Harry lost his virginity with. (Getty Images) She alleged to the Daily Mail that she and Harry had been friends for a couple of years before their sexual encounter, which she called a "fiery, wham bam [experience] between two friends". "It was instant, fiery, wham bam, between two friends. It was sparky because we shouldn't have been doing it. He wasn't 'Prince Harry' to me, this was Harry, my friend, and the situation had got a little bit out of control. It felt naughty, I suppose, in the sense that it shouldn't be happening. "We didn't set out to do it it wasn't premeditated and I didn't know he was a virgin. There were no virgin vibes he seemed to know what he was doing. It was quick, wild, exciting. We were both drunk. It wouldn't have happened if we weren't." Chelsy Davy Davy was Harry's longest previous romantic relationship running on and off from 2004 until 2010. It was widely reported that the pair met in Cape Town, while Harry was on his gap year, but he revealed in Spare he had actually met her before that, and they reconnected while he was in Africa in 2004. He discussed the difference in their relationship whilst they spent time in Africa together versus in the UK, where he recommended to Davy she treat press intrusion like a "chronic illness". He explains that the pair finally broke up in 2010, and the reasons why they felt it wouldn't go the distance: a lack of privacy and believing she would have to change to fit into what life in the Royal Family entails. Chelsy Davy and Harry attending a remembrance service together in 2008. (Getty Images) "The whole world isnt made to put up with constant scrutiny, and I dont know if Chels could bear it, and I couldnt ask her to," he wrote. He also claimed that at one time the paparazzi even placed a tracking device on her car, which made her want to put "freedom first". "Chels insisted that she was not sure if she was prepared for all of that. A whole life with someone on your heels? What could I say to her? I would miss her very much, but I understood she put her freedom first. If I had the choice, Id want to live like that as well." Florence Brudenell-Bruce Florence Brudenell-Bruce at Royal Ascot in 2012. (Getty Images) Until Spare's release, the relationship between Florence Brudenell-Bruce and Prince Harry had never been officially confirmed. After what he described as an "idyllic" few weeks with the model and actress in 2011, news of their relationship found its way to the press, and "down came the curtain on our idyll." Harry also revealed that despite him trying to persuade "Flea" as she is nicknamed to "talk it over", she firmly said no and he later found out from a friend her mother had dissuaded her from continuing the relationship. "It was Fleas mother who told her to end things," he explained, "who warned her that the press would destroy her life. 'Theyll hound you to the gates of Hell', her mother said. 'Yeah', I told the friend. 'Mums do know best.'" Brudenell-Bruce married multi-millionaire Henry St. George two years later. Cressida Bonas Cressida Bonas and Prince Harry attend a charity event at Wembley Arena in 2014. (Getty Images) Harry opened up about his relationship with budding actress Cressida Bonas in Spare too. He explains that the pair were introduced by his cousin at a music festival and that despite the fact that he was "heartbroken" at the time "there were sparks." During their first date Bonas opened up to him about her life and "dreams". "She told me about her life, her family, her dreams. She wanted to be an actress. She was so soft-spoken and shy, acting was the last profession Id have imagined for her, and I said so. But she confessed that it made her feel alive. Free. She made it sound like flying." Read more: Prince Harry beardgate: Other royals who have sported facial hair Harry also divulged that because of his military career he didn't have much spare time and could only meet up with Bonas during the weekends and that after he returned from his second tour of duty, the couple had to restart from the beginning because he was so changed from the experience. "Cant have a reunion with someone you dont know," he wrote. "If we wanted to keep seeing each other and I certainly did wed have to start again." Harry also explains how news of their relationship was broken by the press after they had already dated for two years, and how Bonas was the first person he was able to cry with about his mother's death since Diana's burial, something for which he was "indebted" to her. Cressida Bonas and Harry remained friendly after their break-up, with Bonas attending his 2018 wedding to Meghan. (Getty Images) "Wiping my eyes, I thanked her," he wrote. "She was the first person to help me across that barrier, to help me unleash the tears. It was cathartic, it accelerated our bond, and added an element rare in past relationships: immense gratitude. I was indebted to Cress." Harry also wrote that when he finally ended the relationship because it wasn't "love everlasting" he thought: "She helped me cry. And now Im leaving her in tears." In 2017, Bonas opened up to BBC Radio 4 about feeling "pigeonholed" after being in such a public relationship. "Its incredibly frustrating, especially in the industry that Im in. But you know, it is the way it is," she said. Meghan Markle Harry and Meghan after their wedding ceremony in Windsor, 2018. (Getty Images) The woman who would become Harry's wife and the mother of his two children, Meghan Markle, is of course a big focus in Harry's memoir. In their recent Netflix documentary they revealed that they actually met over Instagram, before embarking on a whirlwind, long-distance romance, which Harry details in Spare. He wrote he had "never seen anyone as beautiful" as Meghan and noted once they started chatting his "thumbs were cramping" he was trying to text so quickly. Read more: Is Camilla the Queen or Queen Consort? "I couldnt type fast enough. My thumbs were cramping," he detailed, "there was so much to say, we had so much in common, though we came from such different worlds. She was American, I was British. She was well-educated, I was decidedly not. She was free as a bird, I was in a gilded cage." Their relationship went public in October 2016, and a month later Harry released an unprecedented and blistering statement about how his new partner was being treated in the press and online. "It is not right that a few months into a relationship with him that Ms. Markle should be subjected to such a storm," it said. The pair married in May 2018 and welcomed their first child, Archie the following year. As the pressure of life in the public eye became overwhelming for the couple, they stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and since living in California, have had a daughter: Lilibet, inspired by the Queen Elizabeth's childhood nickname. Caroline Flack Caroline Flack at the Glamour Women Of The Year Awards in 2016. (Getty Images) Caroline Flack is also discussed in Harry's new memoir, in which he refers to their romantic relationship as "tainted". The pair first met in 2009 when they were introduced by a mutual friend, but any sparks of romance between them were quickly extinguished by severe press intrusion that let to paparazzi camping outside her parent's home and deeming Flack, Harry's "bit of rough". "I continued to see Flack on and off," after the relationship had been made public, Harry wrote, "but we didnt feel free any more. We kept on, I think, because we genuinely enjoyed each others company, and because we didnt want to admit defeat at the hands of these arseholes. But the relationship was tainted, irredeemably, and in time we agreed that it just wasnt worth the grief and harassment." Read more: Princess Anne named hardest working royal of 2022 The Duke of Sussex also touched on how he felt when he heard the news that Flack had taken her own life, saying it was "impossible" when he had first known her to imagine this happening. "Shed been so light and funny that night we met. The definition of carefree. It wouldve been impossible then to imagine this outcome." He then made a covert reference to Meghan's own fleeting suicidal feelings. "I told myself it was an important reminder. I wasnt being over-dramatic, I wasnt warning about things that would never happen." Natalie Pinkham Although the pair never confirmed a romance, it has long been rumoured that Pinkham and Harry were once involved back in 2003, when the prince was 19 and she was 26. Natalie Pinkham and Prince Harry at the BGC Partners day in 2011, long after they were romantically linked they remained friends. (Getty Images) The pair have enjoyed a long-standing friendship, and in 2009 it was reported that after his split from a later girlfriend, he even turned to Pinkham for advice and support. Pinkham a television presenter is now married to Owain Walbyoff, Managing Director of Endemol Games, and they have two children: Wilfred and Willow. Astrid Harbord Astrid Harbord isn't just friends with Kate, but acquainted with other members of the Royal Family, like Princess Beatrice pictured here at an event in September 2022. (Getty Images) For a brief time in 2009, Harry was linked to one of Kate's friends, Astrid Harbord. While he was on the outs with Davy he was spotted hitting the town with Harbord in London and they were reported to go home to Clarence House together in the early hours of the morning. Mollie King Mollie King arrives at The BRIT Awards 2022. (Getty Images) The member of the pop band The Saturdays was romantically involved with Prince Harry briefly in 2012. King admitted the pair had dated after they met at the Asprey World Class Cup, but it was reported that this public comment didn't go well down with Harry, who ended things shortly after. Ellie Goulding Ellie Goulding backstage with Prince Harry at the 2014 Invictus Games. (Getty Images) Another romance from the rumour mill was with popstar Ellie Goulding, after they were reported to be very cosy at the Audi Polo Challenge in 2015. They were said to be seen snuggled under a blanket together and spotted kissing, however neither party ever confirmed that they were more than friends. Pre-order now: Spare by Prince Harry | 14 (Was 28) at Amazon In a new interview, Prince Harry offered a confusing perspective on one of the most explosive revelations from his and Meghan Markles sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. In the 2021 interview, Meghan said members of the royal family had concerns and conversations when she was pregnant with her son, Archie, about how dark his skin would be a claim that was widely understood and reported as an allegation of racism and prompted global uproar. In an interview that aired on UK television Sunday, Prince Harry denied that was the implication. When ITVs Tom Bradby noted that the Duke of Sussex had accused members of your family of racism in the Winfrey interview, Harry pushed back. No, I didnt. The British press said that, Harry said. Did Meghan ever mention that theyre racist? Bradby mentioned Meghans revelation that there were troubling comments about Archies skin color. There was concern about his skin color, Harry replied. Right. Wouldnt you describe that as essentially racist? Bradby followed up. I wouldnt, Harry said. Not having lived within that family. The difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different, he continued. But once its been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that in order so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Otherwise, unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism. The Sussexes have declined to name the members of the royal family involved in the conversations about Archies skin, though the couple clarified after the interview that the comments were not made by Queen Elizabeth or Prince Philip. Prince William responded to the claims by saying that the royals are very much not a racist family, while Buckingham Palace issued a statement after the interview saying that the issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning and would be addressed by the family privately. Story continues Amid ongoing backlash at the time, royal sources told media the palace was considering appointing a diversity tsar as part of an effort to modernize the monarchy. The Duke of Sussex spoke to ITV's Tom Bradby in an interview that aired two days before the official publication of his autobiography, The Duke of Sussex spoke to ITV's Tom Bradby in an interview that aired two days before the official publication of his autobiography, "Spare." While Harry defended his family in Sundays interview, he also called out the royal institution for its failure to take the opportunity for change, noting that no diversity tsar materialized. Everything they said was gonna happen hasnt happened. Ive always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it, and especially when you are the monarchy you have a responsibility and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others, he said. He pointed to a recent racist incident as a very good example of the environment within the institution. In December, a royal aide who had served for decades as the late Queen Elizabeths lady in waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, apologized and resigned after she was called out for repeatedly asking Black charity founder Ngozi Fulani where she really came from during a palace reception. Later in the interview, however, Harry defended Lady Hussey and insisted she meant no harm. All weve ever asked for in the last ... few years is some accountability [from the monarchy], he said. And Im very happy for Ngozi Fulani to be invited into the Palace to sit down with Lady Susan Hussey to reconcile because Meghan and I love Susan Hussey. She thinks shes great. And I also know that what she meant she never meant any harm at all, but the response from the British press and from people online because of the stories that they wrote was horrendous. Was absolutely horrendous the response. Harry has given a series of interviews as part of a media blitz to promote his new memoir, Spare, which accidentally went on sale in Spain several days before its official Jan. 10 publication date. More bombshells from Prince Harrys leaked memoir, Spare: The Duke of Sussex dodged questions about renouncing his royal title during his recent interview with Anderson Cooper. Ahead of the release of his forthcoming book Spare, Prince Harry sat down with journalist Anderson Cooper on Sunday (8 January) for an episode of CBS 60 Minutes. The 38-year-old royal discussed many of the shocking revelations written in his memoir, which hits shelves this Tuesday. However, Cooper shared some of the criticisms Harrys received since he and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down from their roles as senior royals in 2020. He pointed out that the Sussexes gave a bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey shortly after relocating to North America, and inked a deal with Netflix worth a reported $100m. After noting how critics say the Duke and Duchess are cashing in on their royal titles while they still can, Cooper asked Prince Harry: Why not renounce your titles as Duke and Duchess? Harry replied: And what difference would that make? One of the criticisms that youve received is that OK, fine, you want to move to California, you want to step back from the institutional role. Why be so public? Why reveal conversations youve had with your father or with your brother? You say you tried to do this privately, the 60 Minutes correspondent said. And every single time Ive tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife, Harry responded. You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But its just a motto. And it doesnt really hold. Despite stepping back from the royal family in 2020, the couple has continued to use the titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex, which they received from Queen Elizabeth II on their wedding day in 2018. Since then, theres been much public outcry for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to drop their royal titles, as well as speculation over the titles their two children Archie, three, and Lilibet, one will inherit. Story continues A recent YouGov survey, which was conducted in December 2022, found that nearly half of the British public believed Prince Harry should have his title removed following his and Meghan Markles Netflix docuseries, Harry and Meghan. Speaking to Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, Meghan revealed that their eldest son Archie did not receive a royal title when he was born in 2019. They were saying they didnt want him [Archie] to be a prince or princess, which would be different from protocol, and that he wasnt going to receive security, she explained. This went on for the last few months of our pregnancy where I was going, hold on for a second. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, Harry and Meghans two children inherited the right to be a HRH (His or Her Royal Highness), with Archie a prince and Lilibet a princess. However, Archie and Lilibets royal titles have yet to be updated on the royal familys website. The Sussexes also stopped using their HRH designations when they stepped down from royal duties. Now, its been reported that King Charles will wait for Prince Harrys memoir to be released before he decides whether the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs children will inherit titles. Prince Harry has made many claims about both his father, King Charles II, and his brother, the Prince of Wales, in his forthcoming memoir. In an excerpt of the book, which was leaked ahead of its publication date, Harry writes that King Charles asked him and William not to make my final years a misery at Prince Philips funeral in March 2021. Please boys, Harry quotes Charles as saying after the Duke of Edinburghs funeral at Windsor Castle, Dont make my final years a misery. During his ITV interview with Tom Bradby on Sunday evening, Prince Harry discussed his two main criticisms of his father surrounding intimacy and communication problems. Hed always given an air of not being quite ready for parenthood: the responsibilities, the patience, the time, Harry said. Even he, though a proud man, would have admitted as much. But single parenthood? Pa was never made for that. To be fair, he tried. Meanwhile, Prince Harry described an altercation he had with Prince William at Nottingham Cottage in 2019, in which the Prince of Wales allegedly grabbed Harry by the collar, ripped his necklace off and knocked him to the ground. Prince Harry tackled a host of accusations in his latest tell-all interviews, from claims of racism in the royal family and his feud with brother William, to Camillas marriage to King Charles. The remarks were made during sit-downs with ITVs Tom Braby and CBS Anderson Cooper ahead of the official release of the Duke of Sussexs memoir, Spare. During one exchange with Bradby, Harry denied an accusation that he and his wife accused the royal family of racism during their interview with Oprah, claiming instead the British press said that. When asked directly whether he would describe conversations that allegedly took place regarding the skin colour of his and Meghans son Archie as racist, Harry said that he wouldnt. I wouldnt, not having lived within that family, he said, adding that he would refer to the comments instead as evidence of unconscious bias. During his interview with Cooper, Harry reflected on his belief for many years that Diana had faked her death, as well a why his stepmother Camilla, Queen Consort, was seen as the villain. Key points Harry denies royal family is racist' Harry recounts horrible reaction from my family after queen died Prince Harry breaks silence on Lady Susan Hussey racism row Prince Harry claims Camilla launched campaign to marry his father Prince Harry says hes still patiently waiting for accountability from royal family Harry says members of family gone to bed with the devil to help press image Prince Harry says experimental drugs helped him clear the misery of loss after Dianas death 04:30 , Sravasti Dasgupta Prince Harry has opened up about his ongoing grief over the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and the ways he processed his emotions. He told Anderson Cooper that he turned to alcohol to cope, and later, to therapy and experimental drugs, such as psychedelics, Ayahuasca, psilocybin, mushrooms. He said: I would never recommend people to do this recreationally. But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. Story continues Chelsea Ritschel reports: Harry says experimental drugs helped him deal with Dianas death Prince Harry says he tried making himself cry by watching Princess Diana videos 04:00 , Sravasti Dasgupta Prince Harry has spoken candidly about his mothers death in his interviews with ITVs Tom Bradby and CNNs Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes. Meredith Clark has more: Prince Harry says he watched Princess Diana videos online hoping to cry 03:30 , Chelsea Ritschel Ultimately, Prince Harry believed that Camilla was the villain, the duke told Anderson Cooper. She was the villain. She was the third person in their marriage. She needed to rehabilitate her image, he said. Prince Harry describes Camilla as the villain in CBS interview 03:15 , Chelsea Ritschel Prince Harry also alleged during the interview, and in his upcoming memoir, that his stepmother started a campaign in the British press to pave the way for a marriage and that Camilla was dangerous. When asked by Cooper how Camilla was dangerous, the Duke of Sussex said: Because of the need for her to rehabilitate her image. According to Harry, who was asked by Cooper to elaborate on the claim, the need for rehibilitation in the eyes of the public and the media meant was dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. There was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that, he said. 03:05 , Chelsea Ritschel The Duke of Sussexs candid revelations also included his claim that he and his brother Prince William asked their father not to marry Camilla, Queen Consort, because they thought it would do more harm than good. We didnt think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that, surely thats enough. Why go that far when you dont necessarily need to? he said. However, according to Harry, he and his brother wanted their father to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was: Okay, he said. 02:38 , Chelsea Ritschel According to Prince Harry, for many years, he refused to believe that his mother Diana had died, with the duke telling Anderson Cooper that his brother Prince William shared similar thoughts. Rather, the duke told Cooper the brothers were convinced that the late princess had faked her death, and that she would reach out to her sons once it was so safe to do so, so that they would be able to join her. Prince Harry says he and Prince William believed Diana faked her own death 02:21 , Chelsea Ritschel During Prince Harrys interview with Anderson Cooper, he also made a number of explosive claims about his stepmother, Camilla, Queen Consort. In the 60 Minutes interview, Harry described Camilla as the villain, while noting that she had needed to rehabilitate her image after Diana famously described her as being the third person in her and Charles marriage. She was the villain. She was the third person in their marriage. She needed to rehabilitate her image, Harry said, before confirming that he and his brother Prince William begged their father not to marry Camilla. 01:57 , Chelsea Ritschel Although Prince Harry did not make it to Balmoral Castle in time to say goodbye to his grandmother, he told Anderson Cooper that he was able to spend time alone with the Queen after her death. According to Harry, he was really happy for the late monarch, because she had finished life and would now be reunited with her late husband Prince Philip. Prince Harry says he was able to spend time alone with Queen after her death 01:44 , Chelsea Ritschel During Harrys interview with Anderson Cooper, he spoke candidly about his grief over his mothers passing, as well as his inability to cry after Dianas death. According to Prince Harry, he went to great lengths to express his grief through tears, with the duke telling Cooper that he used to watch videos of his mother in the hopes that they would make him cry. Prince Harry says he watched Princess Diana videos online hoping to cry 01:34 , Chelsea Ritschel Prince Harry says he spent time with Queen Elizabeth II after her death: 01:28 , Chelsea Ritschel While reflecting on his grandmothers death in September, Prince Harry says he reached out to his brother about his plans for travelling to Balmoral. At the time, Prince Harry and Meghan were in the UK for a charity event. According to Harry, despite their being room on the plane, he was not invited to join his brother and other members of the royal family. I asked my brother, I said: What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there? And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the fam, family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats, he says. After Anderson Cooper asked Harry if he meant he wasnt invited, the duke confirmed: I was not invited. 01:23 , Chelsea Ritschel Prince Harry tells Anderson Cooper that he used to watch videos of his mother Princess Diana in an effort to make himself cry. 01:22 , Chelsea Ritschel However, according to Prince Harry, he does not currently speak with his brother or his father. The Duke of Sussex confirmed that he is not in contact with his family members while speaking to Anderson Cooper during Sunday nights interview. Do you speak to William now? Do you text? Cooper asked Harry, to which the duke replied: Currently, no. But I look forward to-- I look forward to us being able to find peace. As for how long it has been since the brothers spoke, Harry said a while. Cooper then asked whether Harry is in contact with his father, King Charles III, with the duke revealing that they also havent spoken for a while. We havent spoken for quite a while. No, not recently, he said. 01:11 , Chelsea Ritschel Despite the Duke of Sussexs criticisms of his family members, he says that all he wants is to reconcile with his family. At the heart of it, there is a family, without question. And I really look forward to having that family element back. I look forward to having a relationship with brother, I look forward to having a relationship with my father, and other members of my family, Harry says. Thats all Ive ever asked for. 01:08 , Chelsea Ritschel According to Prince Harry, after his grandmother the Queen died, he spent some time with her, alone in her bedroom at Balmoral. The duke previously revealed that he did not arrive until after Queen Elizabeths death, and that he found out she had passed away from the BBCs website. 01:06 , Chelsea Ritschel Prince Harry tells Anderson Cooper that Jeremy Clarksons comments about Meghan Markle in The Sun did not surprise him. However, he says they did shock him. 01:04 , Chelsea Ritschel The duke tells Anderson Cooper of the moment that Prince William snapped during their fight in Nottingham Cottage. According to Prince Harry, he wouldnt have told Meghan about the fight had she not seen the marks from falling. 01:02 , Chelsea Ritschel Prince Harry has also told Anderson Cooper that his wife Meghan dealt with similar treatment to Kate Middleton or Camilla at the hands of the press. However, according to Harry, the difference was the bigoted nature of the treatment of Meghan. 01:00 , Chelsea Ritschel According to Prince Harry, in addition to therapy, he also began trying experimental drugs, which he claimed have a way of working as a medicine. He says these illegal substances helped him, as they were able to clear the windscreen, the misery of loss, this idea I had in my head that I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her, when in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy. 00:58 , Chelsea Ritschel As Prince Harry reflects on the death of his mother, and the war it started in him at age 12, he tells Anderson Cooper that he was only able to cry once, when Diana was buried. According to the Duke of Sussex, his inability to cry haunted him, as he felt a weight on his chest and was constantly trying to find a way to cry. In an effort to make himself cry, Harry tells Cooper that he watched videos of his mother, hoping to cry. 00:49 , Chelsea Ritschel In his candid 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, Prince Harry reiterates his disbelief over his mother Princess Dianas death, and his longtime belief that the late Princess of Wales was actually alive somewhere. According to Prince Harry, from looking at photos of the car crash that killed his mother, he believes the last thing Princess Diana saw were the lights of paparazzi cameras. 00:44 , Chelsea Ritschel Prince Harry tells Anderson Cooper that the issues between him and Prince William did not start with Meghan Markle. Rather, the Duke of Sussex says their feud goes back years, and that they were different growing up, with his older brother allegedly telling Harry to pretend they didnt know each other while at school. 00:41 , Chelsea Ritschel The Duke of Sussexs candid interview with Tom Bradby is just the first of many sit-down interviews Prince Harry has scheduled in the lead-up to the release of his memoir Spare on Tuesday 10 January. This is how to tune in to Prince Harrys interview with Anderson Cooper. How to watch Prince Harrys 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS 00:29 , Chelsea Ritschel During his ITV interview, Prince Harry denied Tom Bradbys claim that he or Meghan ever described the royal family as racist during their 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey. Rather, according to Harry, it was the British press [that] said that. The claim prompted Bradby to delve into the couples claims that conversations among the royal family about the colour of Archies skin took place, with Harry confirming there was concern about his skin colour. In response, Bradby asked: Right, wouldnt you describe that as essentially racist? to which Harry suggested that it was not racism, but rather unconscious bias. Read more below: Harry denies accusing royal family members of racism 00:09 , Chelsea Ritschel Over the nearly two-hour interview, Prince Harry covered a number of topics, including his feud with his brother Prince William, and the relationship between the press and members of the royal family. These were the 10 biggest talking points from Prince Harrys ITV interview with Tom Bradby, Maanya Sachdeva writes. The 10 biggest talking points from Prince Harrys ITV interview 00:04 , Chelsea Ritschel The dukes interview with Tom Bradby included a number of explosive moments, such as Harrys comments about his stepmother Camilla, the Queen Consort. According to Harry, he and his brother William begged their father not to marry Camilla. However, the duke defended the comments on the basis that none of his comments about any of his family members in his upcoming memor Spare were scathing. Theres no part of any of the things that Ive said that are scathing towards any member of my family, especially not my stepmother. Sunday 8 January 2023 23:48 , Chelsea Ritschel The Duke of Sussexs interview with ITVs Tom Bradby comes just hours before Prince Harrys interview with Anderson Cooper is set to air. The duke is expected to cover similar topics during the CBS interview, with a trailer showing Harry criticising the press over the treatment of Meghan Markle. What Meghan had to go through, in some part, was similar to what Kate and Camilla went through, Harry said in a trailer released Thursday, before noting that they were very different circumstances due to the race element. But then you add in the race element, which was what the press - the British press 0 jumped on straightaway. I went into this incredibly naive, he continues. I had no idea the British press were so bigoted. How I was probably bigoted before the relationship with Meghan. Watch: Prince Harry says Prince William aired concerns over Meghan Markle relationship Sunday 8 January 2023 23:36 , Emily Atkinson Harry: The Interview review Stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish' Sunday 8 January 2023 23:30 , Emily Atkinson If youre not already drained by the endless Windsor saga, get ready for another glimpse inside Britains iciest family. Nick Hilton shares his thoughts on ITVs Harry: The Interview: Harry: The Interview Stage-managed and unchallenging from start to finish Prince Harry breaks silence on Lady Susan Hussey racism row Sunday 8 January 2023 23:22 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has addressed the recent controversy that broke out after Lady Susan Hussey asked a Black British charity worker where she really came from. Ngozi Fulani, the founder of Sistah Space, found herself at the centre of a royal racism scandal over Lady Husseys comments, which were made during a Buckingham Palace reception in December last year. Queen Elizabeth IIs former lady-in-waiting and Prince Williams godmother apologised to Fulani over the remarks, which were widely criticised. Maanya Sachdeva reports: Prince Harry addresses Lady Susan Hussey racism row in new ITV interview Prince Harry grateful for opportunity to tell his story as he launches fresh accusations against family Sunday 8 January 2023 23:09 , Emily Atkinson The Duke of Sussex has said he wrote his tell-all book Spare because of 38 years... of spin and distortion. Prince Harrys bombshell interview aired on ITV on Sunday evening ahead of the release of his memoir Spare on Tuesday 10 January. He told broadcaster Tom Bradby on ITV he was really grateful to have the opportunity to tell his story. Asked why he had written his memoir Spare, he told Bradby: 38 years. 38 years of having my story told by so many different people with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to own my story and be able to tell it for myself. Thomas Kingsley reports: Prince Harry grateful to tell his story as he launches fresh claims against family Watch: Prince Harry addresses horrific and hurtful Jeremy Clarkson op-ed Sunday 8 January 2023 23:01 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry says hes still patiently waiting for accountability from royal family Sunday 8 January 2023 22:55 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has said hes still patiently waiting for accountability from the royal family over his allegations from the last few months. Harry made the comments during an interview with ITVs Tom Bradby on Sunday (8 January), ahead of the release of his memoir Spare, which includes several startling revelations about the Firm. These include details of an alleged physical altercation with his brother William during a row at his London home in 2019, claims his stepmother Camilla launched a campaign to marry now King Charles, and new details about the infamous Nazi costume scandal. Maanya Sachdeva has the story in full: Prince Harry says hes still patiently waiting for accountability from royal family Harry discusses accusations of racism against royal family Sunday 8 January 2023 22:47 , Emily Atkinson In an exchange with Tom Bradby on ITV, in which the presenter said in the Oprah interview you accused members of your family of racism, Harry responded by saying no I didnt, adding the British press said that. The duke continued: Did Meghan ever mention that theyre racist? After Bradby said the duchess claimed troubling comments were made about their son Archies skin colour, Harry said: There was there was concern about his skin colour. Asked if he would describe that as racist, the duke said: I wouldnt, not having lived within that family. The difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different. But once its been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that in order so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Otherwise unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism. Prince Harry responds to accusations of hypocrisy over memoir and Netflix documentary Sunday 8 January 2023 22:40 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has addressed accusations of hypocrisy around his wishes for privacy while invading the privacy of the royal family in his latest memoir and Netflix documentary. Speaking in an ITV interview ahead of the release of his memoir Spare on Tuesday 10 January, the Duke of Sussex was challenged on how hed respond to accusations that he is invading the privacy of his nearest and dearest. Thatll be the accusation from the people that dont understand, or havent or dont want to believe that my family have been briefing the press solidly for well over a decade, Prince Harry said. Thomas Kingsley reports: Prince Harry responds to accusations of hypocrisy over memoir and Netflix documentary Prince Harry wishes royal family had been there for him in second darkest moment of my life Sunday 8 January 2023 22:35 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has said he wishes the royal family had been there for him in the second darkest moment of his life. Speaking in an ITV interview ahead of the release of his memoir Spare on Tuesday 10 January, the Duke of Sussex said he still believes in the monarchy, but does not know if hell play a part in its future. I love my mother country and I love my family and I always will. I just wish, in the second-darkest moment of my life, theyd both been there for me, Harry said. Thomas Kingsley has the details: Prince Harry wishes family had been there in second darkest moment of my life Prince Harry claims Camilla launched campaign to marry his father Sunday 8 January 2023 22:31 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry claims Queen Consort Camilla launched a campaign to marry his father, now King Charles, in his new book Spare. Harry narrated an excerpt from the now-leaked memoir during the broadcast of his ITV interview with Tom Bradby on Sunday (8 January). The book is scheduled for release on Tuesday (10 January) but extracts from it were published by the UK press after it was accidentally put on sale in Spain, five days before its official launch date. Maanya Sachdeva reports: Prince Harry claims Camilla launched campaign to marry his father Some royal family members complicit in tabloid conflict, Prince Harry claims Sunday 8 January 2023 22:28 , Emily Atkinson The Duke of Sussex said certain members of his family and the people who work for them are complicit in the conflict created by the British tabloid press. Speaking to ITVs Tom Bradby, he said: I think theres probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will go, how could you ever forgive your family for what theyve done? People have already said that to me, and I said, forgiveness is 100% a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I dont recognise them, as much as they probably dont recognise me. But that is, uh, a symptom of one of the problems where were not just talking about family relationships, were talking about an antagonist, which is the British press, specifically the tabloids who want to create as much conflict as possible. The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict. So, though I would like to have reconciliation, I would like accountability, Ive managed to make peace over this time with a lot of things that have happened but that doesnt mean that Im just gonna let it go. You know, Ive made peace with it, but I still would like reconciliation. And not only would that be wonderful for us, but it would be fantastic for them as well. Harry addresses Jeremy Clarksons horrific, hurtful and cruel Meghan column Sunday 8 January 2023 22:23 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has commented on Jeremy Clarksons hurtful and cruel newspaper column about wife Meghan Markle, during his interview with ITVs Tom Bradby. Harry sat down with the British broadcaster ahead of the release of his memoir Spare, which reportedly contains several startling claims about his relationship with the royals, drug use, and military service in Afghanistan. Addressing the newspaper article, which prompted a landslide of complaints to press regulator Ipso and was eventually taken down, Harry told Bradby: What [Clarkson] said was horrific, and is hurtful and cruel towards my wife. My colleague Maanya Sachdeva has more: Harry addresses Jeremy Clarksons hurtful and cruel Meghan column David Baddiel pokes fun Prince Harrys beard disagreement with brother William Sunday 8 January 2023 22:20 , Emily Atkinson The Duke of Sussexs account of a disagreement with his brother, the Prince of Wales, over beards prompted comedian David Baddiel to question whether the topic warranted a constitutional crisis. As a man with a beard I relate to Harry not wanting to shave off his beard, Mr Baddiel tweeted. But not to the idea that having or not having a beard can become some kind of constitutional crisis. As a man with a beard I relate to Harry not wanting to shave off his beard but not to the idea that having or not having a beard can become some kind of constitutional crisis. David Baddiel (@Baddiel) January 8, 2023 Harry recounts horrible reaction from my family after queen died Sunday 8 January 2023 22:10 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has reflected on the horrible reaction he alleges he recieved from the royal family when he was reunited with them after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The Duke of Sussex made the comments during his interview with ITV host Tom Bradby on Sunday (8 January), ahead of the release of his memoir Spare. The ghostwritten book contains several startling claims, including that William physically attacked Harry during a confrontation at the latters London home in 2019. Maanya Sachdeva has the details: Harry recounts horrible reaction from my family after queen died Prince Harry accuses family of writing countless books via leaks to press Sunday 8 January 2023 22:05 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has accused members of the royal family of having written countless books constituted by the millions of words dedicated to leaking stories about him and the Duchess of Sussex to the press. Asked by interviewer Tom Bradby how he thought Prince William might react to sharing their private conversations in his new memoir Spare, Prince Harry replied: Hed probably say all sorts of different things. But you know, for the last however many years, lets just focus on the last six years, the level of planting and leaking from other members of the family means that in my mind they have written countless books, certainly millions of words have been dedicated to trying to trash my wife and myself to the point of where I had to leave my country. The distorted narrative is that we wanted to leave to go and, you know, make money. Prince William warned Harry marriage to Meghan would be really hard for him, Duke says Sunday 8 January 2023 21:55 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has spoken candidly of handling his relationship with Meghan while facing alleged resistance from his brother Prince William. Asked if the Prince of Wales had ever attempted to dissuade Harry from marrying Meghan, the Duke of Sussex told ITV: It wasnt that he no he never tried to dissuade me from marrying Meghan, but he aired some concerns very early. He said you know, This is gonna be really hard for you and I still to this day dont truly understand which part of what he was talking about. Maybe he predicted what the British presss reaction was gonna be. Prince Harry says there are 25 versions of bridesmaids story about Meghan and Kate Sunday 8 January 2023 21:50 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry says there have been 25 versions of the story where it was reported that Meghan Markle made his sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, cry. Around the time of the Sussexes wedding, a widely publicised report emerged alleging that Meghan had made Kate Middleton cry over an argument over bridesmaids dresses. Speaking in an ITV interview ahead of the release of his memoir Spare on Tuesday 10 January, the Duke of Sussex answered questions about how that story unfolded and its impact. Thomas Kingsley reports: Prince Harry says there are 25 versions of bridesmaids story Harry says being third wheel to William and Kate was fun but slightly awkward Sunday 8 January 2023 21:46 , Emily Atkinson The Duke of Sussex has spoken about feeling like a third wheel after his brother, the Prince of Wales, married Kate Middleton. In a widely publicised ITV interview with Tom Bradby, Prince Harry spoke about the rift between him and his wife, Meghan Markle, and William and the Princess of Wales. I had put a lot of hope in the idea that itd be William and Kate and me and whoever, he explained. Roisin OConnor reports: Harry says being third wheel to William and Kate was fun but awkward There needs to be some accountability: Harry explains two main criticisms of father King Charles Sunday 8 January 2023 21:42 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry discussed his difficulty communicating with his father, King Charles, during his highly anticipated ITV interview with Tom Bradby. The sit-down took place ahead of the official release of the Duke of Sussexs memoir, Spare, parts of which have leaked ahead of the publication date. In the interview, Bradby suggested that Harry has two main criticisms of his father surrounding intimacy and communication problems. Read Roisin OConnors full report here: Harry explains two main criticisms of father King Charles Harry says members of family gone to bed with the devil to help press image Sunday 8 January 2023 21:33 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has claimed members of the royal family had gone to bed with the devil to rehabilitate their image. Referring to the media as the devil in his latest interview, the Duke of Sussex touched on the veiled relationship between the royal family and the British tabloid press. Asked by ITVs Tom Brandy about the dukes love for the royal family, Harry said: I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family. I will always do. Nothing of what Ive done in this book or otherwise has ever been to any intention to harm them or hurt them. My colleague Thomas Kingsley reports: Harry says members of family have gone to bed with the devil to help press image Prince Harry jokes about virginity story with Tom Bradby in ITV interview Sunday 8 January 2023 21:28 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry poked fun at interviewer Tom Bradby after the ITV journalist attempted to bring up the story of how the royal lost his virginity. Leaked excerpts from the Duke of Sussexs forthcoming memoir Spare included an account of how he had sex for the first time with an older woman behind a pub. The book outlines how one of the royal familys bodyguards, Marko, paid him a visit when he was still a pupil at Eton College in Windsor and told the Prince he had been sent to find out the truth. Roisin OConnor reports: Prince Harry jokes about virginity story with Tom Bradby Prince Harry recalls driving through tunnel mother Diana died in Sunday 8 January 2023 21:27 , Emily Atkinson The Duke of Sussex has told of insisting in his 20s that his driver take him through the tunnel Paris that his mother died in, at the same speed. Reading an extract from his memoir Spare, he says: We came to the mouth of the tunnel. We zipped ahead, went over the lip of the tunnels entrance, the bump that supposedly sent mummys Mercedes veering off course. But the lip was nothing, we barely felt it. As the car entered the tunnel I leaned forward, watched the light change to a kind of watery orange, watched the concrete pillars flicker past. Fphfff, Fphfff Fphfff. I counted them, counted my heart-beats and in a few seconds, we emerged from the other side. I sat back. Quietly I said, Is that all of it? Its nothing, just a straight tunnel. Id always imagined the tunnel was some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous but it was just a short, simple, no frills tunnel. No reason anyone should ever die inside it. Prince Harry details images from Dianas fatal car crash Sunday 8 January 2023 21:22 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has detailed the contents of a number of images he was shown of the car crash that killed his mother in Paris in 1997. I saw the photographs of the reflection of all the paparazzi in the window at the same time, the Duke of Sussex explains. I saw the back of her blonde hair, you know, slumped on the back of the seat. He also told ITV of other photographs that would probably show my mothers face and blood. He said he assumes those images were kept from him something the Duke said he was grateful for. Prince Harry says he cried just once after mother Dianas death Sunday 8 January 2023 21:15 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harrys remarks revealed in clips previously released by ITV of Harry: The Interview have now been aired in full. It captures him saying he cried only once after the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales. He also admits to feeling some guilt when walking among the gathered crowds outside Kensington Palace, saying the only time he cried was at his mothers burial. He tells presenter Tom Bradby: Everyone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died. I cried once, at the burial, and you know I go into detail about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt that I felt, and I think William felt as well, by walking around the outside of Kensington Palace. I do not want to be a single dad: Harry explains decision to leave the UK with Meghan Sunday 8 January 2023 21:12 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has explained his and wife Meghan Markles decision to leave the UK and relocate overseas in his ITV interview with Tom Bradby. The Duke of Sussexs conversation with the British presenter was broadcast on Sunday (8 January), two days before the release of his memoir Spare. The interview began with Harry narrating an excerpt from his book, recounting the night his father Charles, then-Prince of Wales, told him his mother Diana had died. Maanya Sachdeva reports: Harry explains decision to leave the UK with Meghan in ITV interview Harry recounts fleeing to US with family fearing for our lives' Sunday 8 January 2023 21:09 , Emily Atkinson Asked how he justifies the level of disclosure in his new book Spare, Prince Harry said he had spent six years doing everything I can privately, to get through to my family. And the thing that is the saddest about this, Tom, is it never needed to be this way. It never needed to get to this point. Ive had conversations, Ive written letters, Ive written emails, and everything, he continues. Thats really hard to take. And if it had stopped, by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this wouldve turned out differently. Its hard. Interviewer says he needed a lie down after reading Spare Sunday 8 January 2023 21:06 , Emily Atkinson Harry and I have known each other for more than 20 years now, through good times - and bad, says Tom Bradby in the opening to Harry: The Interview. So, hes invited me out to California, to talk about a book that I needed a long lie down after reading. Among Harrys opening comments, he told the veteran journalist he still believed in the monarchy, though admitted he was unsure he still had a part to play in its future. Sunday 8 January 2023 20:59 , Emily Atkinson We are now just one minute away from the airing of ITVs Harry: The Interview. Follow along here for live updates as we have them. Harrys first primetime interview about controversial memoir set to air on ITV Sunday 8 January 2023 20:49 , Emily Atkinson The Duke of Sussexs first of four primetime interviews about his controversial memoir Spare is set to air ahead of the books launch. Clips previously released by ITV of Harry: The Interview, show him describing feelings of guilt and telling broadcaster Tom Bradby he had cried only once after the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales. In a previously released trailer for the interview, Harry says he is publishing his memoirs because he does not know how staying silent is ever going to make things better. Read our report in full here: Harrys first primetime interview about controversial memoir set to air on ITV Watch: Prince Harry speaks of guilt he felt for crying once after Dianas death in new trailer Sunday 8 January 2023 20:30 , Emily Atkinson With half an hour to go before Prince Harrys ITV interview, we bring you the teaser clip broadcast last night: Opinion: Warring royals should take a long walk with their father Sunday 8 January 2023 20:00 , Emily Atkinson Poor Princes William and Harry. Two brothers, once so close, now torn apart by... well, that depends on whose narrative you choose to believe, writes centrist dad Will Gore. Warring royals should take a long walk with their father Harry: The Interview - what do we know so far? Sunday 8 January 2023 19:30 , Emily Atkinson There is just over an hour to go before Prince Harrys hotly anticipated interview with ITVs Tom Bradby arrives on our screens. Last night, the broadcaster offered viewers a brief glimpse at what was to come in a short teaser clip, during which the Duke of Sussex was seen reflecting on being unable to show any emotion while greeting mourners after the death of his mother Diana. He also revealed he only cried once after the former Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in Paris, 25 years ago. Harry was was later captured refusing to commit to attending King Charless coronation if he is invited, telling Bradby: The ball is in their court. Harry: The Interview will be broadcast on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm on Sunday (8 January). Follow along here for live updates. Prince Harry memoir includes anecdotes showing tender relationship with father, report suggests Sunday 8 January 2023 19:00 , Emily Atkinson Alongside some criticisms of his father in his memoir, Prince Harry is also reported to have included numerous anecdotes about King Charles conveying his warmth. These include revelations that the monarch used to ask his son, who he called darling boy, to write rather than call him, as he loved the letters Harry sent, and would leave notes under his sons pillow, sitting on his bed until he fell asleep to ease his fear of the dark, according to the Sunday Telegraph. A bemused King also reportedly empathised with his younger son when photographs of him playing naked billiards appeared in the tabloids, and said that he had also felt exposed on many occasions, with the pair speaking all night about their unusual life, the paper reports. A royal source told the paper: It would have been odd if Harry had painted anything other than a tender portrait of his father. They were very, very close and it would be impossible to hide that reality if you wanted to write your whole history. Prince Harry fallout could mark beginning of the end of monarchy, says King Charles biographer Sunday 8 January 2023 18:30 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harrys memoir and the continuous toxicity of the royal family rupture could mark the beginning of the end of the monarchy, a biographer of King Charles has suggested. The books release is not just a celebrity knockabout story, Catherine Mayer warned, arguing that the status of a significant institution of state is ultimately at stake its peril exacerbated by the layers of secrecy and obfuscation surrounding the royals. A wave of leaked extracts of the Duke of Sussexs book Spare days ahead of its publication, fuelled by its accidental early release in Spain, crashed over Buckingham Palace this week, laying bare the scale of discontent at the heart of the royal family in often excruciating detail. Andy Gregory reports: Prince Harry fallout could mark beginning of the end of monarchy, says biographer King Charles must avoid mountain of resentment, insider suggests Sunday 8 January 2023 17:50 , Andy Gregory Those close to King Charles are claimed to believe that reconciliation is the only way to prevent open warfare for years to come. The challenge here is not to build a mountain of resentment that cannot be bypassed, one source told the Sunday Telegraph. In many ways the Royal family is no different to any other family and it will be their normality, rather than their uniqueness, which offers their greatest chance of reconciliation. Although Harry resents the role he was dealt within the institution, it is the fact that they are father and son that will bring them back together. Smiling King seen for first time since Harrys tell-all book published Sunday 8 January 2023 17:03 , Andy Gregory A smiling King Charles appeared in good spirits as he was seen for the first time since allegations from Prince Harrys memoir emerged, stopping to speak with well-wishers outside a service at Castle Rising Chuch in Norfolk this morning. Smiling King seen for first time since Harrys tell-all book published Prince Harry condemned by Caroline Flacks former agent for sharing details on tainted romance Sunday 8 January 2023 16:14 , Andy Gregory Prince Harry has been condemned by Caroline Flacks former agent for sharing details in his new memoir about his romance with the late star, which he reportedly writes was tainted by press intrusion, reports Ellie Harrison. She was described in one paper as my bit of rough, because she once worked in a factory or something, he continued. Jesus, I thought, are we really such a country of insufferable snobs? he reportedly recalls. They kept on seeing each other, Harry wrote, because we genuinely enjoyed each others company, and because we didnt want to admit defeat at the hands of these arseholes, but eventually realised it just wasnt worth the grief and harassment. Especially for her family. Flacks former agent Alex Mullen, speaking to The Mirror, branded the dukes actions as gross and accused him of using his past relationship to help sell his book, saying: Its absolutely gross for Prince Harry to reveal such private details about Caroline Flack. The way in which the press spoke about her at that time and the reason they split are both very sad and its disgusting hes brought up old long forgotten slurs she had to suffer in full view of the public around the world. Caroline Flacks former agent condemns gross Prince Harry for detailing romance The country is proud of royal family, Rishi Sunak says Sunday 8 January 2023 15:28 , Andy Gregory Rishi Sunak has defended the royal family as an institution which the country is proud of. Asked whether the public can still have faith in the institution after claims in the Duke of Sussexs forthcoming book, the prime minister told the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg: I think the public like me have enormous regard for the royal family, theyre deeply proud of them. I certainly am, its one of the things Im most proud of when I think about what it is to be British. When I get to go around the world and champion Britain as an amazing country with so many things that we can be proud of, our institutions including the royal family are one of those. Questioned on whether he felt the royals have been damaged by Harrys allegations, Mr Sunak said: In general I wouldnt get into talking about the royal family but its something that Im proud of and I think the country is proud of. We saw that last year very movingly multiple times and Im confident well see it this year with King Charless coronation, which will be another fantastic occasion for the country to come together and celebrate something thats special about Britain. King Charles insisted on never complain, never explain response, palace insider reportedly claims Sunday 8 January 2023 14:46 , Andy Gregory A palace insider claiming to have knowlege of past discussions about what Prince Harrys memoir may contain has claimed that it was King Charles who ultimately insisted on the family responding with its standard never complain, never explain strategy. The source claimed to Page Six: The King wanted to move ahead with the traditional stiff upper lip attitude and follow in the Queens famous footsteps of never complain, never explain, but the Prince of Wales argued that perhaps the family should, in fact, go on the offensive and release a statement, much in the same way he said We are very much not a racist family, but he was overruled by his father. However, an individual reported to be a close friend of Prince William told the Sunday Times that despite being a sitting duck in the face of his brothers claims about him, the heir to the throne had kept quiet for the good of his family and the country and would never retaliate. Palace advisers set up de-facto war room to plan for fallout from memoir, report claims Sunday 8 January 2023 13:59 , Andy Gregory The royal familys senior advisers set up a de-facto war room to deal with any potential fallout from Prince Harrys memoir, the US publication Page Six has claimed. Insiders reportedly claim a plan was drawn up to deal whatever revelations emerged from the forthcoming book, with senior staff even discussing the issue at Sandringham over Christmas. One highly placed palace source told the outlet: There were undoubtedly fears about what Harry was going to write, and in particular they were worried about the highly personal moments of their lives being retold. Opinion | Warring royals should take a long walk with their father Sunday 8 January 2023 13:12 , Andy Gregory In his latest Centrist Dad column, our former executive editor Will Gore suggests that there are no winners in the latest royal rumble except perhaps for arch republicans. He writes: Whether or not William grabbed Harry by the collar and pushed him into a dog bowl, as Harry alleges in his eagerly anticipated memoir, the breakdown of their relationship and the telling of it, both officially and unofficially isnt a good look for either of them. Its not quite Game of Thrones territory; more like posh EastEnders. And as it happens, the older the princes get, the more its possible to imagine them being played by Ross Kemp and Steve McFadden. ... Perhaps King Charles could try a tactic with his boys that Ive used with my kids. Take them on such a long walk together that the resentment they feel towards one another is eventually transferred to the idiot parent who forced them on the trek in the first place. Its definitely worked for me. You can read the full piece here: Warring royals should take a long walk with their father Prince Harry reveals he used laughing gas during birth of son Sunday 8 January 2023 12:39 , Andy Gregory Prince Harry has reportedly written that he used laughing gas and ate Nandos chicken to enhance my calm during the birth of his son in 2019, reports my colleague Maanya Sachdeva. In Spare, the Duke of Sussex describes the scene at Londons Portland Hospital on the day Archie was born, recalling how Meghan Markle was bouncing on a giant purple ball when she went into labour and how he placed a photograph of his late mother Princess Diana in the delivery room. According to MailOnline, Harry wrote: Meg was so calm, I was calm too. But I saw two ways of enhancing my calm. One: Nandos chicken (brought by our bodyguards). Two: A canister of laughing gas beside Megs bed. I took several slow, penetrating hits. He also reportedly revealed that, when the nurse came to give his wife laughing gas for the pain, there wasnt any left. I could see the thought slowly dawning. Gracious, the husbands had it all, he continued. Sorry, I said meekly. The duke also reportedly quipped that he didnt touch the laughing gas during the birth of his daughter Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021 because there was none. Prince Harry reveals he used laughing gas during birth of son Prince Harrys memoir could be beginning of end of monarchy, Charless biographer warns Sunday 8 January 2023 11:55 , Andy Gregory Prince Harrys memoir and its fallout could mark the beginning of the end of the monarchy, the author of a 2015 biography of King Charles has suggested. Catherine Mayer, author of The Heart of a King, also suggested that, while the layers of secrecy and obfuscation surrounding the royal family are intended as a defence, they will defeat the organisation if they concentrate on the personalities. The whole family is meant to be an idealised reflection of the British people themselves and Harrys marriage to Meghan made the job much easier, she told The Observer. The failure of that project is absolutely catastrophic for the royal family. Ms Mayer added: It is possibly something that will mark the beginning of the end of the monarchy, and that is what we should discuss. It is important, given the lack of trust in the state at the moment and an upsurge in rightwing politics. Members of the royal family have become our proxies for anger about racism, misogyny and wealth. This is, after all, an institution that stands for inequality, so there are huge things at stake. Prince Harry claims William lunged at him and used secret Diana code phrase after Oprah interview Sunday 8 January 2023 11:13 , Andy Gregory Prince Harry has reportedly claimed that his brother William lunged at him and grabbed my shirt during a confrontation over his and wife Meghan Markles Oprah Winfrey interview. During peace talks with King Charles, which allegedly occurred at Frogmore Cottage after Prince Philips funeral in April 2021, Harry writes in his memoir that he was trying to address the bullying allegations against Meghan Markle but that his brother and father werent listening, The Sun reported. William was allegedly really steaming and shouted at him: You never came to us. You never came to me, telling him to take up with Granny any grievances he had about the Megxit agreement. Harry reportedly claims William lunged and grabbed his shirt, saying Listen to me, Harold, and that he loved him and wanted him to be happy, adding: I swear, I swear on Mummys life. Harry wrote: He stopped. I stopped. Pa stopped. Hed gone there. Hed used the secret code, the universal password. Ever since we were boys those three words were to be used only in times of extreme crisis. Harry added: My voice broke as I told him softly: I really dont think you do. Harry claims William lunged at him and used secret Diana code after Oprah interview Prince William called Meghan Markle rude during reconciliation attempt over tea and biscuits Sunday 8 January 2023 10:31 , Andy Gregory Prince Harrys memoir reportedly confirms that there had been several rows with William and Kate Middleton in 2018 the year that Vanity Fair first asserted that there was tension between the siblings. A reconciliation was attempted, after the alleged row between Meghan Markle and Kate during a bridesmaid dress fitting, according to the book but this too descended into chaos. Kate and William invited Harry and Meghan over to their flat in Kensington Palace for tea and biscuits to relax the atmosphere between the couples. But the conflict escalated, culminating in William calling Meghan rude and pointing a finger at her. Meghan told William: If you dont mind, keep your finger out of my face, according to the book. Harry and Meghan moved away soon after, first to Frogmore Cottage in 2019, to Vancouver in early 2020, and then to Los Angeles in March 2020. Charles biographer perplexed by Prince Harrys decision to publish memoir Sunday 8 January 2023 09:42 , Andy Gregory Broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, who has written a biography of King Charles, reportedly his friend of 30 years, has said he was perplexed by Harrys decision to publish a book. I genuinely cant believe it is merely to make a great deal of money because of the perfectly natural urge to want to protect his family, his wife and his children in a very uncertain future, said Mr Dimbleby, who interviewed Charles in 1994 when the royal admitted having an affair. I think there is much more to that, but if he wants reconciliation, I dont understand how you do it by, as it were, metaphorically, sitting in your Apache and firing pot shots at people who are not going to fire back, as he must very well know. Does Charles have a responsibility to fix the feud between William and Harry? Sunday 8 January 2023 08:51 , Andy Gregory Many psychologists recommend the involvement of a parent in resolving a sibling rivalry, and Prince Harrys memoir reveals that a kind of detente may have already been attempted by King Charles with his plea against misery, writes Ben Bryant. But if he wishes to pursue appeasement, the King will have to make peace with his own unflattering characterisations. The problem is further complicated by the fact that William is his heir, and therefore a kind of favourite (which Prince Harry alludes to in the title of his memoir Spare). The father isnt neutral in that the father has a dog in the fight, says Kevin Burch, a confidence coach who specialises in young men. Another challenge for Charles, Burch adds, is the risk that whatever he says is going to end up in the papers. You can read more analysis here: Does King Charles have a responsibility to fix the feud between William and Harry? Timeline of the bitter feud between Princes Harry and William Sunday 8 January 2023 08:10 , Namita Singh Prince Harrys new memoir Spare has caused a sensation before it has even been published, not least over a passage describing an altercation with his brother William, illustrating just how far the pair have drifted apart in recent years. The row is said to have erupted at Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace in London in 2019, with the Duke of Sussex alleging his sibling had arrived piping hot to confront him about his marriage to the American actress Meghan Markle and their running battles with the British press. After a bitter exchange of views in which William allegedly branded Meghan difficult, rude and abrasive and Harry accused his brother of parroting the media narrative surrounding his relationship, the former allegedly attacked him, according to the younger princes account. More in this report from Joe Sommerlad: Timeline of the bitter feud between Prince Harry and William Pen Farthing evacuated from Kabul over Prince Harry confessions Sunday 8 January 2023 07:50 , Namita Singh A former marine whose charity aims to expatriate animals from Afghanistan claims he has been evacuated from Kabul amid fears Prince Harrys confession of killing 25 Taliban members could invite reprisal attacks. The Duke of Sussex said in his forthcoming memoir Spare that the killings were like chess pieces removed from the board, and that those who had died were bad people eliminated before they could kill good people. Now Pen Farthing, who has been working in the country for some 18 months to get animals from shelters out of Afghanistan, has hit out at the dukes badly advised book. Tweeting last night, Mr Farthing told his followers of the alleged evacuation from his base. My colleague Emily Atkinson reports: Pen Farthing evacuated from Kabul as Prince Harry invites reprisal attacks Harrys claims are like that of a B-list celebrity, says Charles biographer Sunday 8 January 2023 07:30 , Namita Singh Royal biographer Jonathan Dimbleby has said Prince Harrys leaked memoir contains revelations one would expect from a kind of B-list celebrity. During an appearance on BBC Radio 4s Today programme on Saturday, Dimbleby said he was perplexed and at a loss over Harrys memoir, calling the duke a very troubled man. He continued: Im concerned, incidentally, that everyone uses the word revelations. Read the details here: Harrys claims are like that of a B-list celebrity, says Charles biographer Harrys memoir slammed as tragic money-making scam Sunday 8 January 2023 07:10 , Namita Singh Colonel Tim Collins, known for a pre-battle speech he made in Iraq, was one of many the many distinguished personnel to criticise Prince Harry, accusing him of turning against the military - his other family. Earlier in the week Col Collins called the revelations in the book a tragic money-making scam. In his controversial memoir, Spare, Harry wrote that flying six missions during his second tour of duty on the front line in 2012 to 2013 resulted in the taking of human lives, of which he was neither proud nor ashamed. Prince Harry, wearing his British Army ceremonial uniform of the Blues And Royals in his role as Captain Harry Wales visits Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery, where veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried (Getty Images) The Daily Telegraph, which obtained a Spanish language copy of the memoir from a bookshop in Spain, earlier reported that Harry said he did not think of those he killed as people, but instead as chess pieces that had been taken off the board. So, my number is 25. Its not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me, he wrote. Prince Harry mocks Prince Williams thinning hair Sunday 8 January 2023 06:50 , Namita Singh Prince Harry has reportedly taken a swipe at his brothers hair loss, the latest blow from his tell-all memoir Spare. In the book, which is due to go on sale in the UK on Monday, the younger royal mentions seeing the Duke of Wales at his grandfather Prince Phillips funeral in April 2021. I looked at Willy, really looked at him, perhaps for the first time since we were little, Harry writes, bringing up his familiar scowl before describing his brothers thinning hair as alarming. He noted it was more advanced than mine despite only being two years his junior. Prince Harry allegedly mocks Prince Williams thinning hair Harry claims his role in Williams wedding was a bare-faced lie Sunday 8 January 2023 06:30 , Namita Singh The Duke of Sussex has called his role as best man at Prince Williams wedding a bare-faced lie, according to reports. Extracts from Harrys autobiography Spare were published after the book was accidentally put on sale in Spain earlier this week, five days before it was due to be released on 10 January. In one part of the book, Harry reportedly wrote that he was forced to go along with the bare-faced lie that he was Williams best man at his wedding to Kate Middleton in 2011. More in this report: Harry claims his involvement in Williams wedding was a bare-faced lie, reports say Prince Harry opens up about tainted romance with late Caroline Flack Sunday 8 January 2023 06:10 , Namita Singh Prince Harry has reportedly opened up about his tainted romance with Caroline Flack and reflected on the TV presenters death, in his leaked memoir. Sections from the book have been quoted by the UK press after the memoir was accidentally put on sale on 5 January in Spain. The book was officially supposed to be released next Tuesday (10 January). These include claims Prince William allegedly physically attacked the Duke of Sussex during a confrontation over Harrys wife Meghan Markle in 2019. My colleague Maanya Sachdeva reports: Prince Harry opens up about tainted romance with late Caroline Flack William keep quiet for good of family and country Sunday 8 January 2023 05:50 , Namita Singh Friends of the pair said that William was keeping quiet about the book for the good of his family and the country. Speaking to the Sunday Times, one friend said: William is a sitting duck because Harry knows he isnt going to retaliate. How many shots can you take at a sitting duck? Its cruel, cowardly and so sad for William to keep taking the punches. Hes keeping quiet for the good of his family and the country. Prince William, Prince of Wales attends the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene Church on 25 December 2022 in Sandringham, Norfolk (Getty Images) The same friend adds that William is burning on the inside. Another friend told the paper that William is thinking strategically, as he follows the example of his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II. We know how closely he followed his grandmothers example, and the institutional response may win the day over the personal, the friend said. But he is staunchly protective of his own family, and hes not just going to roll over. Unable to cry in public because of familys preference for not showing emotion Sunday 8 January 2023 05:30 , Namita Singh Prince Harry says in the book he thinks that he is unable to cry in public because of his familys preference for not showing emotion. According to the Daily Telegraph, Harry writes: I disliked the touch of those hands. Whats more, I disliked how they made me feel: guilty. Prince William and Prince Harry, the sons of Diana, Princess of Wales, bow their heads as their mothers coffin is taken out of Westminster Abbey following her funeral service (AFP via Getty Images) Why was there all that crying from people when I neither cried nor had cried? I wanted to cry, and I had tried, because my mothers life had been so sad... but I couldnt... not a drop. Perhaps I had learnt too well, had absorbed too thoroughly the family maxim that crying was never an option - never. Felt mourners tears on hand Sunday 8 January 2023 05:10 , Namita Singh Prince Harry describes feeling the mourners tears on his hands when he shook them, following the death of his mother, Princess Diana. There were 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we were shaking peoples hands, smiling, he says. Earl Spencer, Dianas brother, Prince Harry, her son, and Prince Charles, her former husband, join the gun carriage carrying the coffin of Princess of Wales at Marlboro Road in London during the funeral (AFP via Getty Images) Ive seen the videos, right, I looked back over it all. And the wet hands that we were shaking, we couldnt understand why their hands were wet, but it was all the tears that they were wiping away. Everyone thought and felt like they knew our mum, and the two closest people to her, the two most loved people by her, were unable to show any emotion in that moment. Harry says he cried only once after mothers death Sunday 8 January 2023 04:50 , Namita Singh The Duke of Sussex has said he only cried once after the death of his mother, and has described feelings of guilt in one of a series of interviews ahead of the publication of his memoir. In a clip from Harry: The Interview, which will air on ITV at 9pm on Sunday, Harry speaks about being unable to show any emotion when meeting mourners following the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. He also admits to feeling some guilt when walking among the gathered crowds outside Kensington Palace, saying the only time he cried was at his mothers burial. Read the report to find more about he said in the interview: Harry says he only cried once after mothers death in first interview on memoir Harry accused of making Invictus Games a terrorist target with Taliban claims Sunday 8 January 2023 04:30 , Namita Singh The Duke of Sussex has been accused of making the Invictus Games a target for extremists by revealing he killed 25 people in Afghanistan. Admiral Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, called Harry very stupid for giving details of his Taliban kills. The retired admiral told the Sunday Mirror the Invictus Games which were due to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 2023 will now have serious security issues because of their direct connection to Harry. More in this report: Harry accused of making Invictus Games a terrorist target with Taliban claims Further revelations unlikely to sway views of Britons Sunday 8 January 2023 04:10 , Namita Singh Polls suggest many Britons are becoming bored of the whole royal melodrama, and further revelations are unlikely to shake their views, whether sympathy for Harry and Meghan, or for those they criticise. However Harrys book was No 1 on Amazon UKs bestselling books list yesterday, available for pre-order ahead of its release. Royal commentator Emily Andrews said that given Britains current cost of living crisis, there could be limited support for the complaints of a privileged prince residing in a mansion in California. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, arrive at the 2022 Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award Gala at the Hilton Midtown in New York on 6 December 2022 (AFP via Getty Images) They are polarising, Harry and Megan, and I think that this new book by Harry probably wont change many peoples opinions, Ms Andrews told Reuters. I think this is overkill, it becomes saturation point and people think I dont want to hear anymore: shut up, go away. No point in staying silent Sunday 8 January 2023 03:50 , Namita Singh Prince Harrys public thoughts will keep coming, with three more TV interviews due to air. They had been timed for broadcast ahead of the official launch of Harrys book on Tuesday, and excerpts released ahead of time have shown Harry saying he wanted to give his side of the story. I dont know how staying silent is ever going to make things better, Harry says in his interview with Britains ITV, which will be the first to be shown. All this comes just four months after Queen Elizabeth died and Charles acceded to the throne. A woman poses as she watches an episode of the newly released Netflix docuseries Harry and Meghan' about Britains Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and Britains Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, in London on 8 December 2022 (AFP via Getty Images) So heres Charles trying to establish himself as the new king and now Harrys thrown this hand grenade and its all coming kind of crashing around him, royal biographer Tina Brown said. Since Harry and Meghan left royal duties and moved to California in 2020, they have railed at their treatment by the royals and the palace institution. Prince Harry set to deliver more broadsides at UK royals in TV interviews Sunday 8 January 2023 03:24 , Namita Singh Days after Prince Harrys memoir accidentally went on sale early with new allegations of discord and conflict within the British royal family, a series of TV interviews with him will start airing on Sunday with the prospect of yet more damaging attacks on the monarchy. Harrys book "Spare", which went on sale in Spain on Thursday five days before its official release, chronicles not only hugely personal details, such as how he lost his virginity and took drugs, but also discloses more intimate private instances of family disharmony. A poster advertising the launch of Prince Harrys memoir Spare' is seen in a store window on 6 January 2023 in London, England (Getty Images) His elder brother, heir to the throne Prince William, knocked him over in a brawl, and both siblings begged their father King Charles not to marry his second wife, Camilla, now the Queen Consort, the book says. Commentators say it has plunged the monarchy into its biggest crisis since the days of the royal soap opera in the 1990s around the break-up of Charles marriage to his late first wife Princess Diana, William and Harrys mother. Tom Peck: Prince Harrys real betrayal is showing the royals for who they are' Sunday 8 January 2023 03:00 , Emily Atkinson Harrys revelations show him to be exactly what they have all always been absolutely nothing special at all, and that wont do, writes Tom Peck. Prince Harrys real betrayal is showing the royals for who they are | Tom Peck All the explosive revelations and claims from Harrys leaked book Spare so far Sunday 8 January 2023 02:00 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has continued his seemingly neverending wave of allegations and revelations about the royal family in his new autobiography. Leaked before the official release, Spare covers a wide range of subjects from his fractious relationship with brother William to the struggles after his mother Dianas death in 1997. With excerpts from the Duke of Sussexs tell-all book leaked in the run-up to its publication, here are the claims and revelations so far: All the explosive revelations and claims from Harrys leaked book Spare so far Timeline of the bitter feud between Prince Harry and William Sunday 8 January 2023 01:00 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harrys new memoir Spare has caused a sensation before it has even been published, not least over a passage describing an altercation with his brother William, illustrating just how far the pair have drifted apart in recent years. The row is said to have erupted at Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace in London in 2019, with the Duke of Sussex alleging his sibling had arrived piping hot to confront him about his marriage to the American actress Meghan Markle and their running battles with the British press. After a bitter exchange of views in which William allegedly branded Ms Markle difficult, rude and abrasive and Harry accused his brother of parroting the media narrative surrounding his relationship, the former allegedly attacked him, according to the younger princes account. Here is my colleague Joe Sommerlad with a timeline of their falling out, largely as told by Harry since his break from the family, with William, the next in line to the British throne, largely preferring to remain silent. Timeline of the bitter feud between Prince Harry and William Pen Farthing evacuated from Kabul over fears Prince Harry confessions could invite reprisal attacks Sunday 8 January 2023 00:00 , Emily Atkinson A former marine whose charity aims to rescue animals from Afghanistan claims he has been evacuated from Kabul amid fears Prince Harrys confession of killing 25 Taliban members could invite reprisal attacks. Pen Farthing, who has been working in the country for some 18 months to get animals from shelters out of Afghanistan, has hit out at the dukes badly advised book. Tweeting last night, Mr Farthing told his followers of the alleged evacuation from his base. To the idiots who made dumbass comments in support of #PrinceHarry in my tweet, know I have had to evac from #Kabul tonight in case of potential reprisal attacks on ex-forces people like me in the wake of his badly judged memoir.. the animals suffer not me. You happy? he wrote. It came after Mr Farthing had earlier tweeted: Well I was a Royalist until today. Cheers #PrinceHarry You have been very badly advised I would probably say. And glad you thought through the security implications of those of us still out in #Afghanistan trying to bring about some good. #idiot #notmyprince. To the idiots who made dumbass comments in support of #PrinceHarry in my tweet below, know I have had to evac from #Kabul tonight in case of potential reprisal attacks on ex-forces people like me in the wake of his badly judged memoir.. the animals suffer not me. You happy? https://t.co/lpNjTi727p Pen Farthing (@PenFarthing) January 6, 2023 Prince William is burning with anger over Harrys claims but will never retaliate, friends claim Saturday 7 January 2023 23:30 , Emily Atkinson Prince William is burning with anger over claims made by Prince Harry in his leaked memoir, but would never retaliate, close friends to the Prince of Wales have said. Williams confidante described him as a sitting duck amid the heaping revelations made by the Duke of Sussex in his new book Spare a memoir dominated by his rivalry with his brother and the death of their mother, Princess Diana in 1997. The explosive autobiography reveals many strained facets of the princes relationship, from bereaved boys and troubled teens, to warring senior royals and eventual arch-nemeses. Read our full report here: Prince William is burning with anger over Harrys claims but will never retaliate All the times Prince Harry and Meghan Markles 2022 revelations were proved right, or wrong Saturday 7 January 2023 22:54 , Emily Atkinson Throughout the past year, the couple has made a number of shocking revelations about their time as senior members of the royal family. Many of these claims made headlines, and even caught the attention of Buckingham Palace on certain occasions forcing the Palace to issue statements regarding whether or not Harry and Meghans claims were unfounded. From baby Archies nursery fire in South Africa to Meghans first meeting with Princess Kate, Meredith Clark catalogues some of Harry and Meghans most shocking revelations of 2022: From nursery fire to meeting Kate: Harry and Meghans biggest revelations of 2022 Watch: Prince Harry speaks of guilt he felt for crying once after Dianas death in new trailer Saturday 7 January 2023 22:15 , Emily Atkinson Opinion: The royal family has a choice to make but it wont be easy Saturday 7 January 2023 21:45 , Emily Atkinson As a cathartic act of a man deeply resentful of the way he believes his family and the media have treated him and his wife, Prince Harrys memoir, Spare, has much to commend it. Read our latest editorial here: Editorial: The royal family has a choice to make but it wont be easy Prince Harry describes guilt following Dianas death in new ITV interview clip Saturday 7 January 2023 21:03 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has reflected on being unable to show any emotion while greeting mourners after the death of his mother Diana. The Duke of Sussex also revealed he only cried once after the former Princess of Wales was killed in a car crash in Paris, 25 years ago. These comments are part of a new teaser clip for Harrys forthcoming interview with ITVs Tom Bradby to promote his new memoir Spare. My colleague Maanya Sachdeva has more: Prince Harry describes guilt following Dianas death in new ITV interview clip Princess Dianas brother called idea of young William and Harry walking behind mothers coffin a barbarity' Saturday 7 January 2023 20:10 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has shared details of an alleged row over whether he and his brother Prince William should walk behind their mothers coffin at her funeral, reports say. His leaked memoir Spare recalls Princess Dianas brother Earl Spencer objecting verbally to an idea for the two young princes to flank their mothers funeral cortege, describing it as a barbarity, according to The Telegraph. But a second plan drawn up to replace the first was rejected by Prince Harry, he claims, which would have required the Prince of Wales, then aged 15, to walk alone behind the coffin. The Duke of Sussex claims he did not want his brother to undergo the ordeal by himself, the newspaper reports. Prince Harry opens up about tainted romance with late Caroline Flack Saturday 7 January 2023 19:10 , Emily Atkinson Prince Harry has reportedly opened up about his tainted romance with Caroline Flack and reflected on the TV presenters death, in his leaked memoir. Sections from the book have been quoted by the UK press after the memoir was accidentally put on sale on 5 January in Spain. The book was officially supposed to be released next Tuesday (10 January). These include claims Prince William allegedly physically attacked the Duke of Sussex during a confrontation over Harrys wife Meghan Markle in 2019. My colleague Maanya Sachdeva reports: Prince Harry opens up about tainted romance with late Caroline Flack Click here to read the full blog on The Independent's website The Duke of Sussexs memoir, Spare, has already hit the number one spot on many bestsellers lists ahead of its release date. Prince Harrys forthcoming autobiography, which officially hits shelves on Tuesday 10 January, is full of many bombshell claims about the dukes life inside palace walls and his relationship with the British royal family. Although Spare is not due for release until Tuesday, the highly-anticipated memoir made headlines earlier this week when the book had accidentally gone on sale in Spain. Many of the shocking extracts from Spare included an alleged physical fight between Prince Harry and Prince William, the moment Harry learned of Princess Dianas death, his illegal drug usage, and the last words he said to Queen Elizabeth II on her deathbed. Despite excerpts being leaked ahead of its release date, Spare has maintained interest as it already tops many bestseller charts. The book is also among the most popular pre-order titles at large retailers. One day before its release, Spare currently ranks number one on Barnes and Nobles Top 100 Book Bestsellers list. The memoir was originally listed on B&Ns website at $36.00, but has since been reduced to $25.20. Spare also holds the number one spot on both Amazon US and Amazon UKs best sellers list, where it is being sold for $22.42 and 14.00, respectively. A report from The Guardian estimates that Spare will be among the biggest pre-order titles of the last decade for a number of bookstores. John Cotterill, Waterstones non-fiction category manager, told the publication that high customer interest will be sustained on and after publication, with everything pointing to Spare being one of 2023s bestsellers. However, major UK bookshops have offered Spare at half its original 28 RRP since the book went on pre-sale. Spare will be released in 16 different languages, including an audiobook narrated by Prince Harry himself. According to Penguin Random House, Spare tells Harrys side of the story about his life within the royal family before stepping down from his role as a senior royal in 2020. Story continues With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief, the books description reads. Prince Harry shared details about the book during his two televised interviews with ITVs Tom Bradbury and 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper, which both aired on Sunday 8 January. His nearly two-hour long conversation with Bradbury included Harry narrating controversial excerpts from the book which, according to one royal biographer, could mark the beginning of the end of the monarchy. While speaking to Bradbury, Harry opened up about his decision to publish the personal and moving memoir, launched a scathing attack on the UK press, and clarified some recent headlines about Spare. Meanwhile, Harry described Camilla Parker-Bowles as the villain during his 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper, claiming she launched a campaign in the British press to rehabilitate her image after Princess Diana famously described her as being the third person in her and Charles marriage. Prince Harry has recalled the moment Meghan Markle met the royal family for the first time, in which she mistook Prince Andrew for Queen Elizabeth IIs personal assistant. In an extract from his forthcoming memoir Spare, which was obtained by the Daily Mail, the Duke of Sussex writes that his future wife was underprepared during her first meeting with his grandmother at the Royal Lodge in October 2016. After a moment, Meg asked me something about the Queens assistant. I asked who she was talking about, Harry writes in the book, which hits shelves on 10 January. That man holding the purse. That man who walked her to the door. That wasnt her assistant? Who was it? he recalled Meghan asking. Harry informed his then-girlfriend that the man holding the Queens purse was his uncle, Prince Andrew, telling Meghan: That was her second son. Andrew. He wrote: She definitely hadnt googled us. This is not the only time Prince Harry discusses his uncle, the Duke of York, in his memoir. Harry reportedly opens up about Prince Andrews sexual assault scandal, writing that he never imagined hed lose palace security after his uncle was permitted to retain it, according to US Weekly, which said it had obtained an advanced copy. When Harry and Meghan stepped down from their positions as senior members of the royal family and relocated to the United States in 2020, the couple also lost their taxpayer-funded police protection. The royal reportedly writes in his book that Meghan worried their family would be left unprotected after they moved to Montecito, California. Harry reassured her, writing: Never. Not in this climate of hate. Not after what happened to my mother [Princess Diana]. Also, not in the wake of my Uncle Andrew. He was embroiled in a shameful scandal, accused of the sexual assault of a young woman and no one had so much suggested that he lose his security. Whatever grievances people had against us, sex crimes werent on the list, the excerpt read. Story continues In January 2022, Andrew was stripped of his royal title after he was accused of sexual assault by one of Jeffrey Epsteins trafficking victims, Virginia Guiffre. He previously claimed he had no recollection of ever meeting Giuffre and denied Giuffres allegation. Meghan Markle previously described the moment she first met Queen Elizabeth during the Duke and Duchess of Sussexs Netflix docuseries, Harry and Meghan. In the second episode of the royal couples docuseries, which premiered on 8 December, Meghan recalled her first meeting with Prince Harrys grandmother shortly after they began dating in 2016. Meghan said she wasnt prepared to be introduced to the British monarch and didnt know she was going to be meeting the Queen until just moments before. She recalled Prince Harry asking her if she knew how to curtsy while they were on their way to meet the Queen. We were in the car, driving and hes like: You know how to curtsy right? and I just thought it was a joke, Meghan said in the docuseries. Prince Harry acknowledged the difficulty of explaining the royal protocol to his American girlfriend, telling the camera: How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. Thats weird. Meghan then appeared next to Harry on the interview couch and reenacted the dramatic curtsy, bowing her head and spreading her arms wide. The duchess compared the protocol to Medieval Times, Dinner and Tournament, a dinner theater featuring staged medieval-style games such as jousting. The clip received mixed reactions from viewers, who called the curtsy disrespectful and offensive to the late Queen. Prince Harry has spoken candidly about his mothers death in his interviews with ITVs Tom Bradby and CNNs Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes. On Sunday evening, the Duke of Sussex sat down with the respective journalists for two televised interviews ahead of the release of his memoir, Spare. Extracts from the forthcoming book, which hits shelves on 10 January, were leaked in Spain five days before its official publication date. Some of the major talking points in Prince Harrys autobiography have surrounded the death of his mother Diana, the late Princess of Wales. Princess Diana died on 31 August 1997 during a fatal car crash in Paris, France, when Harry was just 12 years old. While speaking to Anderson Cooper during his 60 Minutes interview on CBS, Prince Harry reiterated his disbelief over his mothers death, and explained his longtime belief that Diana was actually alive. The prince was woken up by his father, King Charles III, that morning in Balmoral Castle when he was told about his mothers death. While reflecting on the death of his mother, and the war it started in him at age 12, Harry told Cooper that he was only able to cry once, when Diana was buried. The Duke of Sussex added that his inability to cry haunted him, describing the weight on his chest he felt and constantly trying to find a way to cry. To do so, Harry revealed that he watched online videos of his mother hoping to cry. The 38-year-old royal made similar comments during his ITV interview with Bradby, which aired on Sunday (8 January) at 9pm GMT. During the interview, Harry admitted to feeling some guilt when walking among the gathered crowds outside Kensington Palace after his mothers passing. He told Bradby: Everyone knows where they were and what they were doing the night my mother died. I cried once, at the burial, and you know I go into detail about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt that I felt, and I think William felt as well, by walking around the outside of Kensington Palace. Story continues From looking at photos of the car crash that killed his mother, Prince Harry also said he believes the last thing Princess Diana saw before her death were the lights of paparazzi cameras. I saw the photographs of the reflection of all the paparazzi in the window at the same time, the Duke of Sussex told Cooper. I saw the back of her blonde hair, you know, slumped on the back of the seat. Harry also told ITV of other photographs that would probably show my mothers face and blood. He said he assumes those images were kept from him something the Duke said he was grateful for. In his memoir, Spare, Prince Harry admitted to believing his mother faked her own death to escape the press, and how he wanted the inquiry into her fatal car crash to be reopened. However, Harry writes that both he and his brother the Prince of Wales were talked out of calling for a reinvestigation of her death by the powers that be. Harry also recalled driving through the tunnel his mother died in during his 20s, when he asked a driver to replicate the fatal journey Diana took through the Pont de lAlma tunnel at the same speed. In Spare, he writes: We came to the mouth of the tunnel. We zipped ahead, went over the lip of the tunnels entrance, the bump that supposedly sent mummys Mercedes veering off course. But the lip was nothing, we barely felt it. As the car entered the tunnel I leaned forward, watched the light change to a kind of watery orange, watched the concrete pillars flicker past. Fphfff, Fphfff Fphfff. I counted them, counted my heart-beats and in a few seconds, we emerged from the other side. I sat back. Quietly I said, Is that all of it? Its nothing, just a straight tunnel. Id always imagined the tunnel was some treacherous passageway, inherently dangerous but it was just a short, simple, no frills tunnel. No reason anyone should ever die inside it. You can follow The Independents live blog for updates. A 57th-floor Gold Coast condominium that actor and Evanston native John Cusack owned from 1996 until 2006 is on the market for just under $1.1 million. Despite his Hollywood stardom, Cusack always has kept a place in Chicago. In the early 1990s, he owned a Lake Shore Drive condominium in Streeterville that later was owned by Windy City Live co-host Ryan Chiaverini. Then, in 1996, he paid $453,500 for the 57th-floor Gold Coast condominium in the Elysees Condominiums building, which he turned around and sold in 2006 for $885,000. Cusack now owns a 45th-floor condo in a Near North Side tower that he bought through a trust in 2005 for $2.87 million. Advertisement The family to whom Cusack sold his onetime 57th-floor aerie in the Elysees bought the unit next door late in 2006 for $445,000, and the two units have been combined as a package deal ever since. The current owners of the combined 57th-floor unit, which has three bedrooms and measures 2,600 square feet, paid $1.06 million for it in 2013. In recent years, the combined units current owners have rented it out. Now, they are trying to sell the unit. They first listed it in 2021 for $1.18 million before taking it off the market. They relisted it in June for $1.14 million and in October cut their asking price to $1.09 million. Advertisement The unit, which is on the top floor of the Elysees building, also is available for rent for $7,500, said listing agent Shannon Kelly of Compass, who is co-listing the condo with Melanie Giglio. Its in the buildings southeast corner, which is the most desirable corner, and it is on the top floor, Kelly told Elite Street. The views are spectacular to the north, east and south, and some to the west, too. So you can see sunsets from the bedrooms. The condo has three bathrooms, a remodeled primary bedroom suite with a sitting room and a wet bar with a beverage cooler, and a primary bathroom with an oversize shower, a double sink vanity and designer tiling. The units kitchen has stone and stainless steel countertops, an island with breakfast bar seating, a Sub-Zero refrigerator and a Bosch dishwasher. The combined unit had a $21,548 property tax bill in 2021. Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter. Join our Chicago Dream Homes Facebook group for more luxury listings and real estate news. Prince Harry has reflected on his relationship with his older brother, Prince William, and how he felt like his sibling was gone forever after he married Kate Middleton in 2011. In his memoir Spare, which is set for release on 10 January, Harry reportedly recalled how he felt on Williams wedding day. According to an excerpt of the book published by Page Six, the Duke of Sussex wrote about saying goodbye to his brother, whose childhood nickname was Willy, and reflected on some of their memories together. The brother Id escorted into Westminster Abbey that morning was gone forever. Who could deny it? he wrote. Hed never again be first a foremost Willy. Wed never again ride together across the Lesotho countryside with capes blowing behind us. Wed never again share a horsey-smelling cottage while learning to fly. Who shall separate us? Life, thats who. The Duke reportedly went on to describe the occasion as yet another farewell under this horrid roof and another sundering. He shared more details about his feelings during the end of Williams royal wedding, where he served as the grooms best man. And I recall Willy walking her back up the aisle, and as they disappeared through the door, into the carriage that would convey them to Buckingham Palace, into the eternal partnership theyd pledged, I recall thinking: Goodbye, he continued. Harry also wrote that while the wedding ceremony was mostly a blank in [his] mind, he did remember that Kate looked incredible in her gown. In addition to his thoughts about his brothers marriage, Harrys memoir also includes a number of bombshell claims about the pair, including an allegation that William physically attacked him. According to The Guardian, Harry wrote that an argument took place at Nottingham Cottage in 2019 about his marriage to Meghan Markle. [William] called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor, he wrote. Story continues The outlet claims that the alleged incident occurred after William reportedly described Meghan as difficult, rude and abrasive. Leading up to his book release, Harry has spoken often about his relationship with his older brother. During a conversation with ITVs Tom Bradby, which will air on 8 January, he said that his family have shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile with him and his wife. However, he stills wants a relationship with William and his father, King Charles III. I would like to get my father back, I would like to have my brother back, Harry also said in a teaser clip of the interview, before adding: They feel as though its better to keep us somehow as the villains. In an upcoming with Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan, Harry noted that while he calls William his beloved brother and arch nemesis in the memoir, he still wants to create peace with the royal family. Ultimately, what this all comes down to is, I dont think that we can ever have peace with my family unless the truth is out there, he said. By David Carnevali (Reuters) - Private equity firms that deemed drug development too risky for their liking in the past are increasingly investing in the sector, raising dedicated funds and coming up with deals that compensate them for the uncertainty involved. These firms are seeking to capitalize on the growing gap between the supply of capital for clinical research and the number of drugs competing for it, eight buyout executives and investors interviewed by Reuters said. Annual spending on pharmaceutical research and development globally is projected to rise to $254 billion by 2026 from around $200 billion in 2020, according to Evaluate Pharma, a research firm focused on healthcare. These deals are not structured as the leveraged buyouts that private equity firms are mostly known for. Instead, the buyout firms invest in the development of the drugs, typically when they are in so-called Phase 3 clinical trials, one step away from regulatory clearance. They negotiate with pharmaceutical companies the returns they will receive in advance. In most cases, the drug makers start paying the money back to the private equity firms when the drug is being developed, either by issuing equity, tapping cash on hand or borrowing. They also share a slice of the newly developed drug's revenue with the private equity firms once it's approved. Blackstone Inc has been leading the charge, having made ten investments out of a $4.6 billion of a dedicated life sciences fund it launched in 2020. "Over the last ten years there have been many more products that have emerged that are really important to fund but less funding available by the pharma companies," said Blackstone's global head of life sciences Nick Galakatos. Among Blackstone's deals are a 300 million euro ($320 million) commitment to the development of Sanofi SA's immunotherapy drug Sarclisa, a $150 million investment in the advancement of Autolus Therapeutics Plc's pipeline of cancer treatments, and a check of up to $1.15 billion to back Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc's drugs for diseases including for tackling cholesterol. Some of these deals came with investments in the stock of the drug developers and loans to them. Story continues As its risk appetite for drug development grows, Blackstone has also been mulling the acquisition of companies with drugs still in clinical trials, as long as these companies also have some medicines that have hit the market, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Blackstone established a major presence in the sector in 2018 after acquiring Clarus, an investment firm specializing in clinical trial deals with $2.6 billion in assets. The strategy was emulated last year by Carlyle Group Inc when it acquired Abingworth, a peer of Clarus with $2 billion in assets. Carlyle is now preparing to raise a dedicated life sciences fund, using the Abingworth team, that could amass several billions of dollars, according to people familiar with the fundraising plans. Carlyle made its first clinical-trial investment last August, committing up to $170 million to back an Opthea Ltd eye drug under development. "We are big believers in what we've called the biopharma revolution and in the explosion of discovery and science," said Carlyle's global head of halthcare Steve Wise. Blackstone has been presenting its bets as relatively safe investments. It told high net-worth investors in 2021 that the drugs in Phase 3 it invested in had an 86% approval rate. Still, Blackstone's three-year-old life sciences fund has been off to a slow start when it comes to generating returns. It reported a net internal rate of return of just 2% as of the end of September, according to Blackstone's most recent quarterly earnings. By comparison, the predecessor fund that Clarus raised in 2018, before Blackstone took over, was delivering a 15% net internal rate of return as of the end of September. Carlyle has not disclosed Abingworth's returns and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on them. Other private equity firms racing to get a piece of the action include Apollo Global Management Inc, which last year acquired a minority stake in life sciences investment firm Sofinnova Partners and committed up to 1 billion euros in its funds, and EQT AB, which acquired Life Sciences Partners (LSP), a life sciences-focused venture capital firm, in 2021. VENTURE CAPITAL-STYLE BETS To be sure, many private equity firms participate in the sector by just making venture capital-type investments in entire drug companies and allowing them to use the proceeds for their clinical trials. For example, KKR & Co Inc invested in gene-therapy company BridgeBio Pharma Inc in an early-stage funding round in 2016, funded the company through its initial public offering in 2019, and continues to be its largest shareholder. Private equity firms also provide capital to spin out drugs into new companies. Bain Capital, for example, created Cerevel Therapeutics by transferring Pfizer Inc's neurology drugs under development to a newly created company in a $350 million deal in 2018. "That is an example of taking an unloved asset out of a big company, providing funding and a big slug of capital, and creating a company that's got some diversity to it," said Tom Davidson, a partner focusing on the life sciences sector at investment bank PJT Partners Inc. (Reporting by David Carnevali in New York; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis and Diane Craft) Hundreds of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed three of the most emblematic official buildings in the country's capital over refusal to accept the results of the election. The demonstrators partook in violent protests on Sunday at the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential office, called the Planalto Palace, in Brasilia. Right-wing supporters of the former Brazilian president were asking the new president, leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to leave -- falsely claiming that he won in a "stolen election." MORE: Brazilian prosecutors seek to bring back check fraud charges against George Santos PHOTO: Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 8, 2023. (Eraldo Peres/AP) The unrest began when 100 buses full of Bolsonaro supporters arrived in the capital on Sunday for a planned protest. Despite more than 4,000 protesters taking the streets of the capital, police presence was minimal. MORE: Who is Lula? Winner of Brazil's presidential election Several hundred protestors broke police barriers and were able to enter the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate through the roof. Later, they were even able to break into the Planalto Palace. All of these buildings were empty, as Lula was in Sao Paulo, and Congress and the Supreme Court are in recess until February. PHOTO: Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the the National Congress building in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 8, 2023. (Eraldo Peres/AP) Rioters were armed with sticks and committed vandalism, including destroying pieces of art such as Chinese porcelain vases in the president's office. By 4 p.m. local time, cavalry police were sent for intervention and threw tear gas at protesters. Rubber bullets were also fired at the crowd. MORE: Brazil's elections are over but the fight is just beginning: Analysis So far, 400 people have been arrested, according to Brazilian Federal District Gov. Ibaneis Rocha. Control of the buildings has since been reestablished, according to The Associated Press. Bolsonaro, 67, is currently in Florida, where he traveled to just before Lula was sworn in as the 39th president of Brazil. Lula also served as the country's 35th president. PHOTO: Protesters, supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro, clash with police during a protest outside the Planalto Palace building in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 8, 2023. (Eraldo Peres/AP) Lula, 77, said he will travel back to Brasilia Sunday and vowed to punish all invaders, including potential military police officers. Story continues Lula also accused security forces of "incompetence, bad faith and malice, as they have been unable to stop rioters from accessing Congress." He said there is "no precedent in the history of our country" regarding Sunday's events and described the violence as "acts of vandals and fascists." The national guard is now in charge of restoring order in Brasilia. In a series of tweets, Bolsonaro condemned the "depredations and invasions of public buildings," according to a translation of his tweet. President Joe Biden condemned the violent assault on Sunday while traveling in El Paso, Texas, calling it "outrageous." National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted, "The United States condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil. President Biden is following the situation closely and our support for Brazils democratic institutions is unwavering. Brazils democracy will not be shaken by violence." Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. condemns the attacks, writing: "Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. We join @lulaoficial in urging an immediate end to these actions." ABC News' Julia Jacobo and Conor Finnegan contributed to this report. Pro-Bolsonaro protesters storm Brazilian capital over refusal to accept presidential election results originally appeared on abcnews.go.com The owners of the Saye and Sele Arms told customers they were closing the pub for January and would assess whether it was 'viable' for them to reopen in light of the cost of living crisis. (Facebook) A pub facing huge pressure from rising costs has been forced to temporarily close due to Dry January cutting customer numbers amid the ongoing cost of living crisis. The Saye and Sele Arms in Broughton, Oxfordshire, announced that it would close for the month while its owners assess the "viability" of continuing with their business. "Unfortunately, we have now closed the pub temporarily, as, due to the ever increasing energy costs, suppliers costs etc combined with the traditional downturn in business post Christmas, dry January etc it is not even viable to open the doors right now," read a post on the venue's Facebook page. "We will now re evaluate our business model and make a decision as to the viability going forward of continuing to try and make the business work." Dry January, an initiative of charity Drink Aware, encourages participants to give up alcohol for a month to improve their health, save money and raise funds for those in need of help due to alcohol abuse. The Saye and Sele Arms will close for January while owners assess its viability as a business. (Facebook) The UK's cost of living crisis has seen utility bills escalate over the past year, with food prices and other bills also rising, causing deep issues for hospitality businesses. A new scheme to support businesses with their energy bills is due to be announced later on Monday, but is expected to be significantly cut after chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned existing spending is unsustainably expensive. The less generous level than the current scheme is expected to be presented in the House of Commons on Monday. The existing scheme, which began in October, caps the unit cost of gas and electricity for all businesses until the end of March. However, the Treasury is expected to replace that scheme with an initiative that offers a discount on wholesale prices rather than a fixed price. And on Monday research by think tank Resolution Foundation found the crisis has not have yet peaked, and the average household could be a further 2,100 worse off by the end of the next financial year. Story continues After housing costs the typical income for a working age family is set to fall 3% in the year to the end of March, then by 4% over the following 12 months. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is expected to announce a new, reduced, package of support for businesses such as pubs. (Reuters) Read more: This ridiculous chart shows why top bosses have earned more than your entire salary already this year The hospitality industry has already suffered monumentally since the start of the pandemic when venues were forced to close for months at a time. A spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association told Yahoo News UK that Dry January need not mean avoiding pubs, as 85% of venues now serve alcohol-free alternatives to traditional beer. He said the BBPA is "asking people to remember how much joy spending time at the pub with those closest to us brings and to banish the January blues by supporting the struggling industry, an opportunity that has been off the cards for two years running at the start of the year". Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the BBPA said: "These are tough times for the country and people are understandably finding ways to cut back. The BBPA is encouraging people to meet in local pubs and support the struggling hospitality industry. (Getty) "But in what is usually an already gloomy time of year, were encouraging people to seek out their community hubs and come together with friends and family at their local. "Not only will you be greeted with warmth and friendly faces, but youll be supporting much-loved businesses that urgently need help to survive. Pubs are all to all and regardless of what youre ordering at the bar there is something for everyone. Our nations ingenious brewers have made great strides in developing new ranges of delicious low and no alcohol options over the past few years, so if you can please head down to your local and taste whats on offer. A warm welcome awaits you and you might even find a new favourite tipple amongst friendly faces. Alexandra Daddario in "Mayfair Witches." AMC Networks Warning: Spoilers ahead for the first episode of "Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches." AMC Networks' new supernatural drama "Mayfair Witches" explores a family of witches in New Orleans. We've created a guide to the key characters and what we know about them during the initial episodes. Rowan Fielding, the protagonist of the series, is a gifted neurosurgeon who works in San Francisco. Rowan is played by Alexandra Daddario. AMC Networks The talented doctor leads a somewhat simple life, pulling long shifts at a hospital in the city and retreating during her off-hours to bars, boys, and her boat. But when a freak medical accident occurs to her boss, Dr. Norman Keck, during a heated discussion, Rowan is left wondering whether she wields a supernatural ability capable of harming others simply with the power of thought. Dr. Norman Keck is Rowan's boss in San Francisco. Dr. Keck is played by Jim Gleason. AMC Networks Dr. Keck isn't a big fan of Rowan's, believing that the young neurosurgeon suffers from a superiority complex. When Rowan asks him to put in a good word with Daniel Lemle, one of the hospital's largest donors, to increase her chances of landing a part-time job at Lemle's company, Dr. Keck balks. He tells Rowan what he actually thinks of her and suddenly suffers an aneurysm. Ellie Fielding is Rowan's adopted mother and a Mayfair cousin, too. Ellie is portrayed by Erica Gimpel. AMC Networks Ellie has looked after Rowan almost since birth, when she and Carlotta Mayfair struck a deal. In exchange for raising Rowan, Ellie promised Carlotta to change her name, never return to New Orleans, and never let Rowan know who her real family is. But once Rowan's power starts to surface, using it unwittingly on Dr. Keck, Ellie puts in a call to a secret society called the Talamasca. Ciprien Grieve is a member of the Talamasca, tasked with looking after Rowan. Ciprien is portrayed by Tongayi Chirisa. AMC Networks Ciprien is a gifted agent of the Talamasca, a centuries-old secret society that follows paranormal activity. He can see other people's memories by touching objects. After Ellie's cancer returns, she makes Ciprien swear to look after Rowan's safety. Story continues Daniel Lemle is the CEO of a company that conducts human longevity research. Daniel is played by Tobias Jelinek. AMC Networks Daniel offers Rowan a research role at his company and even offers Rowan's ailing mother Ellie a highly-coveted spot in one of their stem cell trials. But there's a catch: Rowan has to remove another patient from the trial for her mother to take their place. When she becomes offended by Daniel's proposition, the two bicker, and Rowan loses control and accidentally unleashes her power once again. Carlotta Mayfair is Rowan's great-aunt and runs the Mayfair family's home in New Orleans. Carlotta is portrayed by Beth Grant. AMC Networks This curmudgeonly Mayfair has looked after the sprawling family home in New Orleans for decades. But Carlotta has her own agenda, which includes keeping Deirdre continually drugged an effort she believes will keep the spirit Lasher at bay. Dierdre Mayfair, Rowan's birth mother, has been living at the Mayfair home under Carlotta's care for decades. Dierdre is played by Annabeth Gish. Mayfair Witches As a teen, Dierdre became pregnant after a chance encounter with a young man named Patrick who mysteriously died the following morning. After Dierdre gives birth to Rowan, Carlotta keeps her in a drugged, catatonic state for decades. Lasher is an evil spirit that has been with the Mayfair family for generations. Lasher is played by Jack Huston. AMC Networks An evil, shape-shifting spirit that gets his power from bonding with the Mayfair family heir of every generation. But in exchange for doing his partner's bidding, the all-encompassing demon demands their love and devotion. Cortland Mayfair is Rowan's debaucherous, great-uncle. Cortland is portrayed by Harry Hamlin. AMC Networks Cortland views himself as the family patriarch, but he sometimes shelves his paternal instincts in favor of a good party, including the boozy affair years ago where Deirdre slept with Patrick. Read the original article on Insider Mark Cavendish is one of Great Britains most decorated cyclists (Steven Paston/PA). (PA Archive) A balaclava-wearing intruder held a large black knife to the throat of Olympic cyclist Mark Cavendish and threatened to stab him, the athletes wife told a robbery trial. The raiders broke into Cavendishs home as he was asleep upstairs with his wife Peta on November 27, 2021, Chelmsford Crown Court heard. Prosecutors say they stole items including two Richard Mille watches valued at 400,000 and 300,000. Romario Henry, 31, of Bell Green, Lewisham, south-east London and 28-year-old Oludewa Okorosobo, of Flaxman Road, Camberwell, south London, both deny two counts of robbery. They are accused of robbing Cavendish of a watch, phone and safe, and to robbing the athletes wife of a watch, phone and suitcase. Peta Cavendish, giving evidence in court, said she heard a noise that woke me in the night and went downstairs to investigate, adding that she was naked at the time. As I got a few steps down the stairs I could hear men speaking but it was still dark, said Mrs Cavendish, who wore a black jumper and blazer, with her dark hair in a ponytail. She said she could see mens figures in balaclavas, and they were running towards the bottom of the stairs. I know there were between three and five, I know there were more than a couple but I wouldnt have been able to say exactly how many (people there were), Mrs Cavendish said. It was just everyones worst nightmare Peta Cavendish Asked by prosecutor Edward Renvoize how she felt when she saw the men in balaclavas, she told jurors: It was just everyones worst nightmare. She said she ran up the stairs as quickly as I could and I shouted something like get back or get in to Mark. She said that one of the intruders dragged Cavendish from his feet and started punching him. One of the men then had him in a headlock, she said. One of them held a large black knife to his throat and they said wheres the watches and do you want me to stab you?. She agreed with Mr Renvoize that it appeared to be a Rambo-style knife. Story continues They were very specific about a watch, she said. I tried to explain that actually we were broken into a couple of years previously, everything has been taken. Mrs Cavendish said her husband showed the intruders where the safe was. It had a battery-operated PIN, there was nothing in it, it wasnt being used so the battery had gone dead, she said. It was becoming more frantic as they werent getting what they wanted. They kept saying there must be cash, there must be jewellery. She said that her husband had been out of hospital for four days maybe at the time following a cycling crash which left him with three broken ribs and a tear to his left lung. She said she took her phone, which had fallen from a bedside counter into an open drawer, but was spotted by one of the intruders. The man on the landing that I wasnt aware of shouted shes got her phone, shes got her phone, she said. One of the individuals said give me the phone, did you call the police. She said she threw her phone to the end of the bed. She said the intruders took a 400,000 Richard Mille watch that Mark raced in, that had a blue strap, and had been on a windowsill. At first it wasnt picked up but they did take it, she said. She said they also took her 300,000 Richard Mille watch that had been on her bedside table. She said they turned the bedroom upside down and that when they left, Cavendish pressed a panic alarm to alert a private security firm and the police. She said when she went downstairs she saw that a patio door was smashed, and that Cavendish cut his feet on the smashed glass. She said the intruders did not take her engagement ring or wedding ring or a necklace, though the intruders had said show me your wrists, as if maybe I was wearing a watch. Mrs Cavendish said the intruders wore darkish clothing, tracksuits probably and gloves. Definitely one of them that had the knife, one that took my phone was definitely black, she said. Definitely one of them was definitely white. I think the other was white. I think the person on the landing was black. She agreed with Shahid Rashid, for Okorosobo, that the situation was hectic and frantic. Ali Sesay, 28, of Holding Street, Rainham, Kent, admitted two counts of robbery at an earlier hearing, and the trial was previously told that his DNA was found on the phone of Peta Cavendish, which was taken and found outside the property. Two further men, Jo Jobson and George Goddard, have been named as suspects in the case but have not been apprehended by police. The trial continues. (Bloomberg) -- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he will applaud the person who agrees to take over as the chief executive officer of the beleaguered state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. Most Read from Bloomberg Eskoms current CEO Andre de Ruyter last month said he will step down end of March. The utility has been criticized for subjecting the nation to the worst rolling blackouts locally known as loadshedding since 2008. De Ruyter, who took over the role in early 2020, said he survived an attempt on his life in December and bemoaned the lack of government support after the energy minister said the power cuts were an attempt to overthrow the state. Its a difficult job, Ramaphosa said during a media briefing. I applaud anyone who takes that job. Africas most-industrialized nation saw 205 days of loadshedding last year, which discouraged companies from expanding and adding jobs. The companys coal-fired plants regularly breakdown and it doesnt have money to buy diesel thats needed to supplement its generation capacity. We are dealing with it as urgently as we possibly can, Ramaphosa said. We should be pleased that the grid had not collapsed, that would be the worst Armageddon. Then theres Eskoms 396.3 billion rand ($23 billion) of debt obligations. Eskoms interest bill and loan repayments will jump to 81 billion rand in the 12 months to March 31 before the government takes over part of the companys debt. Last month, Deloitte & Touche, Eskoms auditor, expressed concern that the company may not be able to continue operating. The auditor found evidence of failure by the utility to take action to correct breaches of the National Environment Management Act or comply with the Public Finance Management Act, Eskom said in a stock-exchange filing. Story continues Other irregularities were also identified, including the purposeful destruction of tender documents in a fire, the possible recreation or falsification of records and a failure to investigate and report financial misconduct and irregularities. --With assistance from S'thembile Cele, Prinesha Naidoo and Rene Vollgraaff. (Updates with De Ruyters reasons for resigning) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. M&M Home Building Superintendent John Hanks, right, and his crew at the Sauk Village home of Mary Williams, whose late husband, Alvin, was a U.S. Army veteran who served in Vietnam. (Jeff Vorva / Daily Southtown) Cretes Max Martin is learning the ropes in the marketing business. He has been a videographer/photographer for almost a year at the Crete-based M&M Home Remodeling Services. He is absorbing knowledge about the marketing craft from his father, Jim, the companys marketing manager. Advertisement But Max is also receiving an education about what a company can do to help people in the community. On Friday, M&M started work to build a new roof at the home of Mary Williams in Sauk Village through an initiative that helps veterans across the country. Advertisement M&M installed four free roofs in the area in 2022, and Max, there to capture the joyful moments with his cameras and drones, has an appreciation for the project. Its always fun to be able to come here and talk to those we are helping, he said. Seeing how much they appreciate it adds a new level to it. In marketing, you are selling something. But here you are giving stuff away so its awesome. Materials for a new roof for Sauk Village's Mary Williams were in place Thursday morning, but the project was postponed because of the weather. (Jeff Vorva / Daily Southtown) The Williams project was scheduled for Thursday, but snowfall caused the existing roof to be too slippery. So the M&M team returned 24 hours later. Williams is the wife of the late Alvin Williams, a Vietnam Army veteran who received a Vietnam Campaign Medal, a National Defense Service Medal and Vietnam Service Medal, according to Abby Donnell, Owens Corning senior community affairs specialist. Mary Williams was not available for comment. M&M, Owens Corning and Habitat for Humanity joined forces for this project. The Owens Corning Roof Deployment Project has offered more than 400 new roofs to former military members or their families since 2016. Advertisement The first was built in San Antonio for Sgt. Juan Rodriguez. According to the Owens Corning website, the project helps to strengthen the morale and well-being of their current military service members and their families. Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy > Jim Martin says Habitat for Humanity reviews the applications and makes recommendations to Owens Corning. Owens Corning provides the supplies and contacts various preferred contractors to perform the labor. Donnell said Habitat For Humanity has a verification process and does a background check, and Owens Corning keeps a list of independent contractors considered top-tier companies. M&M, which also has offices in Arlington Heights, Crown Point and Indianapolis, was happy to help. Any time you can help out a veteran and someone who has served, why wouldnt you want to do it? Jim Martin said. M&M has been blessed by people throughout the years and anytime you can turn around and bless somebody else, thats why you want to get involved in that. Advertisement Former Steger resident John Hanks has been a field superintendent for M&M since June and said he was looking forward to overseeing his first project because he has a military veteran in his family and appreciates what they go through. Its nice to see that people out there actually are willing to give, Hanks said. Its not a matter of this persons hurting, its a matter of actually helping this person out. That the nice thing. Thats what were all about and thats what we want to do. Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown. By Nick Carey LONDON (Reuters) - Rolls-Royce on Monday reported record sales last year despite an average price tag of around $534,000 for its luxury cars and a drop in Chinese demand, with orders stretching into 2023. The British carmaker, which began as Rolls-Royce in Manchester, England nearly 120 years ago and is now owned by Germany's BMW, said that it sold 6,021 cars in 2022, up from 5,586 in 2021, which was also a record year. Rolls-Royce's sales were led by the Americas, with the U.S. remaining its top market with around 35% of sales. In China, the carmaker's second-largest market, coronavirus-related lockdowns led to a "single-digit drop" in sales. But CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos said in an online presentation that this decrease was offset by growth in other markets. "Our order book stretches far into 2023 for all models," Muller-Otvos said. "We haven't seen any slowdown in orders." Rolls-Royce said that pre-orders for its fully-electric Spectre, due to go on sale at the end of 2023, had exceeded all of its expectations. The CEO told reporters that the growth anticipated for 2023 came despite Rolls-Royce halting sales in Russia, which typically accounted for 250 to 300 units per year, in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine last February. Muller-Otvos said the luxury brand's bespoke, customised approach had lead to "ever more imaginative, personal and technically demanding" orders from customers. ($1 = 0.9370 euros) (Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Alexander Smith) Ron Jeremy, who has been accused of rape and sexual assault by dozens of women, some of them as young as 15 years old at the time, is expected to be declared incompetent to stand trial due to severe dementia. As the Los Angeles Times reported, it is unlikely the 69-year-old former adult film star will stand trial on Jan. 17 because of the condition, which involves impaired brain function, including the ability to remember or think. Jeremy, whose legal name is Ronald Jeremy Hyatt, is expected to be placed in a state-run hospital, according to the outlet. In June 2020, he was first charged with raping or sexually assaulting four women. Later, scores of other women came forward to accuse the porn star of abuse over the years. Last August, he was indicted on more than 30 counts of sexual assault involving 21 alleged victims ranging from ages 15 to 51. The incidents span more than two decades, with some accusations dating back to 1996. He has pleaded not guilty. Adult film actor Ron Jeremy is accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women across more than two decades. Adult film actor Ron Jeremy is accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women across more than two decades. In an email obtained by the Times, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson shared that mental health experts called on by both the prosecutors and Jeremys legal team determined he has severe dementia and that his condition is genuine. He may still have to go to trial if his condition improves, but dementia often accelerates and most symptoms worsen over time, according to the Alzheimers Association. Thompson wrote that his prognosis for improvement is not good, the Times reported. If he does not improve, we will not be able to try him for his crimes, Thompson said in the email. Because criminal proceedings are suspended as long as he is incompetent, we also cannot get a guilty plea from him or discuss other measures to get justice for the victims in this case. HuffPost has reached out to the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office for comment. Story continues Lianne Young, a former British adult film star and one of Jeremys accusers, voiced her concerns to The Times about the case becoming an indication to other predators or viewers of pornography that they can get away with such crimes. Another one of Jeremys accusers, who was 15 years old at the time she alleges he attacked her, previously testified on the stand that the former star had forcibly penetrated her with his finger during a rave in June 2004. I was just shocked and frozen pretty much, she testified, telling the court that she tried to push him away and was unable to do so. It all happened so fast. Hes a lot stronger and bigger than me. Jeremy was charged with 12 counts of forcible rape, seven counts of forcible oral copulation, six counts of sexual battery by restraint, four counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object, two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious or asleep person and one count of committing a lewd act on a minor. If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please reach out to the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org for support and resources. Related... A reconciliation with Prince Harry is impossible because Charles, Camilla and William fear anything they say will be made public, The Independent understands. A source close to the royal family said the King, Queen Consort and heir to the throne believe the situation will remain unchanged while the Duke of Sussex remains effectively kidnapped by a cult of psychotherapy and Meghan Markle. They are trapped, said the source. They really can't engage because everything they say will be shared with the media. It is impossible to have a conversation or write a letter because of the risk that anything they say being put in the public domain by Harry, potentially for commercial benefit. "There has been a complete breakdown of trust. Buckingham Palace has remained silent over the flurry of allegations made by Prince Harry in his memoir, Spare, and numerous television interviews. Despite claiming he was attacked by his brother, and describing Camilla as a villain, Harry has insisted he would like a relationship with his family. I would like to get my father back, I would like to have my brother back, Harry told ITVs Tom Bradby, adding that he hoped that a reconciliation will have a ripple effect across the entire world. Maybe thats lofty, maybe thats naive, whatever. But I genuinely feel that. The Sussexes have also indicated they would like an atonement meeting similar to the one held by palace aide Lady Susan Hussey for Black charity boss, Ngozi Fulani. But the King is understood to be adamant there will be no form of apology to the Sussexes. The royal source said: They aren't going to apologise because they don't recognise Harry's version of events." Buckingham Palace has remained silent over the allegations made by Prince Harry (Getty Images) The source also likened Harrys removal to California, and isolation from the rest of the family, to joining a cult a comparison likely to prove explosive. He has been kidnapped by a cult of psychotherapy and Meghan. It is impossible for him to return in these circumstances. Story continues Harry and Meghans unofficial biographer, Omid Scobie, on Monday predicted the couple would be sort of retreating from speaking out on personal issues for the rest of this year, and acknowledged that any reconciliation is very difficult after the amount shared in this book. In addition to the princes teenage drug-taking and losing his virginity behind a pub, the book recounts violent arguments with his brother, Prince William, frosty treatment of Meghan by the royals and palace leaks to the press. And in an interview with CBS on Monday, Harry referred to Camilla as the villain and dangerous when describing her image rehabilitation following Dianas death. "I don't look at her as an evil stepmother, he said. I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image for her own sake. In his book, Harry wrote that William had asked to attend one of his sessions with a psychologist, worrying Harry was being brainwashed. I would like to get my father back, I would like to have my brother back, Harry told ITV (Getty Images) His strategy was obvious: I wasnt well, so I wasnt sane either, and thats why I was behaving questionably, the younger prince wrote. However, he previously credited William for encouraging him to get help for his mental health, telling podcaster Bryony Gordon: My brother, you know bless him, he was a huge support to me. He kept saying This is not right, this is not normal, you need to talk to [someone] about stuff. Its OK. Harry has also cited help from Californian energy practitioner John Amaral, whose work addresses fight or flight mode. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were invited to respond to the remarks. A Buckingham Palace spokesperson declined to comment. (Reuters) - Russia's government extended support to a legislative amendment that would classify maps that dispute the country's official "territorial integrity" as punishable extremist materials, the state-owned TASS news agency reported on Sunday. The amendment to Russia's anti-extremism legislation stipulates that "cartographic and other documents and images that dispute the territorial integrity of Russia" will be classified as extremist materials, the agency reported. Russia's sweepingly ambiguous anti-extremism legislation it applies to religious organizations, journalists and their materials, as well as the activity of businesses, among others - has allowed the Kremlin to tighten its grip on opponents. The new amendment, TASS reports without citing sources, emerged after its authors pointed out that some maps distributed in Russia dispute the "territorial affiliation" of the Crimean Peninsula and the Kuril Islands. Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea in 2014 - a move rejected by Ukraine and many countries as illegal. Ukrainians and their government have since often objected to world maps showing Crimea as part of Russia's territory. Russia and Japan have not formally ended World War Two hostilities because of their standoff over a group of islands just off Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. The Soviet Union seized those islands - known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories - at the end of the war. The amendment must be proposed to the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, and after a review go through three readings. It is then sent to the Federation Council, the upper house, and to President Vladimir Putin for signing. Separately, Russian politicians began debating punishment for Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine and who, as the former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, "wish their fatherland to perish." Story continues Medvedev, one of the most forthright allies of Putin, said that "in times of war," there are special rules that allow to deal with traitors. "In times of war, there have always been such special rules," Medvedev said on the Telegram messaging app. "And quiet groups of impeccably inconspicuous people who effectively execute the rules." Medvedev's rhetoric has become increasingly vitriolic since the war in Ukraine began, though his published views sometimes chime with thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite. (Reporting by Ron Popeski and by Lidia Kelly; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Paul Simao) Russia and Belarus are escalating the tensions on the border with Ukraine, but Ukrainian border guards have not recorded any provocations near the state border recently. Source: Andrii Demchenko, speaker of the State Border Guard Service on the air of the national joint 24/7 newscast Quote: "Fortunately, we do not observe any movement of equipment, heavy aviation flights directly near the border, or any other provocations. However, we are ready to repel anything that Russia can do on this front. They are constantly escalating the situation with reports about the build-up of the so-called regional grouping of troops of the Union state, so we are forced to keep the necessary number of forces and resources in this direction to fight back in the event of an attempt to re-invade the territory of Ukraine." Details: According to the speaker of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus constantly keep the defence forces of Ukraine on their toes in this particular direction specifically, by holding their joint exercises. At the same time, the defenders of Ukraine are strengthening their positions on this front and strengthening the border and border area. Demchenko once again expressed regret that Belarus continues to support the aggressor state. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Russian authorities on Monday announced parallel criminal probes against a famous actor critical of the war in Ukraine and a philanthropist who supports the Russian opposition, the latest in a months-long, sweeping crackdown on dissent. Russia's Investigative Committee said in a statement that its chief Alexander Bastrykin ordered the launch of a criminal case against Artur Smolyaninov, a prominent Russian film and theater actor who left the country after Moscow's forces invaded Ukraine and repeatedly spoke out against the war. According to the statement, Smolyaninov made a series of statements directed against Russia in an interview to a Western media outlet. The Investigative Committee didn't clarify which of Smolyaninov's actions constituted a criminal offense and what charges it would bring against him. Smolyaninov's most recent interview last week sparked outrage among Kremlin supporters. The actor told the Novaya Gazeta Europe that if he had to fight in the war, he would fight on the side of Ukraine. For me, it is on the side of my brothers who were attacked by my other brothers, Smolyaninov said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday welcomed a probe against Smolyaninov, noting that it is important that our relevant (law enforcement) bodies think about these remarks. The probe against Smolyaninov comes amid increasingly harsh rhetoric about Russians who left the country because of the war. Lawmakers have suggested seizing the property of those who moved abroad, or increasing taxes for those continue to work remotely for Russian companies. Others have simply condemned them as "traitors." Separately, Russia's Interior Ministry placed prominent philanthropist Boris Zimin on an international most wanted list on fraud charges, officials said Monday. Zimin has funded several Russian independent media outlets as well as projects of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He was reported to have left Russia in 2015. Navalny, the Kremlin's fiercest foe, said that it was Zimin who paid 79,000 euros for his medical evacuation to Berlin in August 2020, when the politician was poisoned with a nerve agent and lay in a coma in the Siberian city of Omsk. People look at the site of a missile strike that occurred during the night, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne Russia said it killed hundreds of Ukrainian troops in revenge for a deadly strike on its forces. The Kremlin claimed over 600 Ukrainian troops died in a strike on Sunday in Kramatorsk. However, journalists and officials reported that there's no evidence that a single soldier died. Russia claimed it killed hundreds of Ukrainian troops over the weekend in response to a deadly attack carried out by Kyiv over the New Year holiday, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that happened. Moscow said it killed over 600 Ukrainians in a Sunday missile strike on temporary bases in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, state-run news outlet TASS reported. "Over the past day, Russian intelligence means detected and reliably confirmed through various independent channels some temporary bases of Ukrainian servicemen in Kramatorsk," Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said, according to the report. "As a result of a massive missile strike on these temporary bases of Ukrainian units, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were killed." However, there appears to be no evidence to support the Russian claim. Journalists from multiple news outlets visited the area and reported that there were no indications of mass causalities. A Reuters team even said there were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living in the building. Ukrainian officials have also pushed back on Moscow's claim. The mayor of Kramatorsk said no soldiers had been killed or injured, and Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military, told CNN that Russia's story is "nonsense." Municipal workers clear the rubble on the roof of College No. 47 which was damaged by a Russian rocket attack in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka Even Russian mil-bloggers have questioned the Kremlin's claims and criticized Moscow's military leadership for making things up in an attempt to try and make it seem like Russia successfully retaliated for a recent Ukrainian strike that killed scores of Russian troops, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an analysis. Story continues Critics, ISW explained, said Russia's defense ministry regularly makes false claims and expressed dissatisfaction with the leadership for fabricating a story of revenge rather than addressing the failures responsible for Russian losses. According to TASS, the Kramatorsk strike was carried out in response to a devastating Ukrainian attack on Russian forces that took place over the New Year holiday. Kyiv used a US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to strike Russian positions in the occupied city of Makiivka. The Kremlin said the attack killed nearly 90 of Moscow's troops in a rare disclosure of battlefield losses. Ukraine's military offered a much higher death toll, claiming as many as 400 troops were killed with another 300 injured. Neither of the estimates could be independently verified. The attack immediately stirred sweeping criticism of Russia's military leadership and ignited calls within Russia to punish top officials. Moscow later pinned blame for the attack on the use of cellphones by its own soldiers which Russia said allowed Ukraine to determine their location and carry out the strike. That story was dismissed by many in both Russia and Ukraine. The losses suffered by the Russians in Makiivka have been attributed to the stationing of Russian troops close together near ammunition storage within firing range, actions considered to be substantial missteps on the part of Russian commanders. Read the original article on Business Insider Russian President Vladimir Putin visits a bridge connecting Russia with the Crimean Peninsula across the Kerch Strait, December 5, 2022 Sputnik/Pool via Reuters Maps that don't respect Russia's claimed "territorial integrity" are to be labeled extremist material. Russia's government supported the amendment to its anti-extremist bill on Sunday, Reuters reported. Lawmakers objected to maps that don't show occupied Crimea as part of Russia. Russia's state government moved ahead with a bill on Sunday that would classify maps that question its "territorial integrity" as extremist materials. An amendment to anti-extremism legislation would include as extremist "cartographic and other documents and images that dispute the territorial integrity of Russia," according to Reuters. In recent years Russia's anti-extremism law has been continually expanded to assert increasing control over political opponents. The latest amendment, first introduced in December, was added after lawmakers noted that some maps dispute what Russia calls the "territorial affiliation" of Crimea and the Kuril Islands, according to Reuters. Russia has claimed Crimea as Russian territory since its troops seized the land from Ukraine in 2014 a claim rejected not only by Ukraine but by almost 100 UN member states. Independent Russian outlet Meduza, in editorial remarks, said the amendment will likely apply to the regions of Ukraine occupied by Russia since its 2022 invasion. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the partially-occupied Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk as Russian territories. However, Russian forces have struggled to maintain control over large swathes of the claimed regions. As of January, much of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson including Kherson city remain in Ukrainian hands, according to the most recent assessment by US think tank the Institute for the Study of War. Read the original article on Business Insider Russian forces have launched a missile attack on the market in the village of Shevchenkove, Kharkiv Oblast, taking the life of two people and injuring several others. Source: Oleh Syniehubov, Head of Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram; Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Head of the Presidents Office, on Telegram; Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutors Office Quote from Syniehubov: "The enemy is launching missile attacks on Kharkiv Oblast once again. A missile strike (preliminary reports indicate the use of S-300 surface-to-air missiles) has been reported on the local market in Shevchenkove, Kupiansk district". Details: Syniehubov added that emergency services are working at the scene. Seven civilians, including a 13-year-old girl, were injured in the missile attack, according to Kharkiv Oblasts Centre for Emergency Medical Care. Tymoshenko said that people may remain trapped under the rubble. Later, Syniehubov said that a 60-year-old woman had been killed in the attack. The Prosecutors Office subsequently reported that two women had been killed as a result of the Russian missile strike. Three more women and a 10-year-old girl had been injured. Other victims have been taken to hospital. Emergency workers are continuing to clear the rubble. Preliminary reports indicate that the Russians struck the settlement using S-300 surface-to-air missiles fired from Belgorod Oblast in the Russian Federation. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has noted that Russian propaganda claims about the alleged capture of Soledar are untrue. Source: Oleksandr Sirskyi, quoted by Military Media Center on 9 January Quote: "The enemy has once again made a desperate attempt to storm the city of Soledar from different directions and has cast the most professional detachments of the Wagner Group into battle. At the same time, thanks to the courage of our defenders and the skillful and competent use of their weapons, the enemy has suffered significant losses and has once again retreated, despite the enemys propaganda claims about the alleged capture of Soledar." Previously: In an evening address on 8 January, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had visited Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut and Soledar in Donetsk Oblast and that additional units would be transferred there. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! (Reuters) - The Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners will meet in Turkey this week, news agencies from both countries reported on Monday, for talks likely to include the possibility of further exchanges of prisoners of war. Interfax quoted the Russian commissioner, Tatiana Moskalkova, as saying the meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets would take place during an international forum in Turkey between Thursday and Saturday. She said there had already been discussion of the "approximate agenda of our negotiations", but gave no details. Ukraine's Ukrinform news agency quoted Lubinets as saying the main issue was "the return of our heroes and heroines", a reference to prisoner exchanges. Russia and Ukraine have conducted numerous prisoner swaps - most recently on Sunday - in the course of the war, which is now in its 11th month. "Separately, we want to raise the issue of the return of civilian hostages, whom the Russian Federation has detained en masse in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine and whom it does not allow to go home," Lubinets was quoted as saying. Ukraine has condemned the forced deportation of many civilians in the south and east of the country, whom Russia has moved from their homes in what it calls evacuation operations. Some have been taken to Russia or to Russian-annexed Crimea. Peace talks between the two countries collapsed in the early months of Russia's invasion and have not been renewed. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is open to negotiations, but Ukraine and its ally the United States have reacted sceptically, suggesting he is seeking to buy time to regroup after a series of defeats and retreats. (Additional reporting by Max Hunder, Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gareth Jones) On 5 January, Russian occupiers launched attacks using mortars on a cemetery in Chernihiv Oblast during the burial of a local resident. Source: Suspilne Details: The incident occurred in the village of Hremiachi in the Novhorod-Siversk hromada [an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories ed.] in Chernihiv Oblast of Ukraine. Andrii Irha, Head of the village, reports that the cemetery has been struck two times. Crosses and tombs were damaged by shell fragments. Shells hit old tombs, and funnels were formed 30 metres away from the new grave. Irha specified that there were no casualties. Suspilne, with reference to a local who witnessed the attack, reports that shells damaged the tombstones, some of them were completely destroyed. One of the missiles hit a tomb. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! The Russian occupiers have killed two civilians and wounded two more in Donetsk Oblast in the course of the past 24 hours. Source: Pavlo Kyrylenko, Head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration Quote: "On 8 January, the Russians killed two civilians in Donetsk Oblast: in Bakhmut and Soledar. Two more people in the oblast sustained injuries." Background: Russian troops are actively attacking Bakhmut and Soledar, trying to capture them and approach the border of Donetsk Oblast. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has intercepted a telephone conversation between occupiers which testifies to the fact that the Russians killed civilians and raped women during their retreat from Lyman, Donetsk Oblast. Source: SSU on Telegram Quote from the invader: "When we surrendered Lyman, we slaughtered everyone out there, f**king khokhols [a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians]... We raped them, slaughtered them, shot them. In Lyman and Torske, we just walked around shooting everyone. All the men who were younger were taken to us out there, and the women, young ones: they were all f**ked, slaughtered, shot." Details: The SSU has promised that these words have been documented and will serve as a further piece of evidence at The Hague. In total, the SSU has already instituted more than 21,000 criminal proceedings with respect to instances of violations of the laws and customs of war by the Russian army. With the help of SSU materials, a Russian woman who gave her husband her "blessing" to rape Ukrainian women in the spring has been put on an international wanted list. Background: The SSU has intercepted Russian occupiers telephone conversations in which their relatives, friends and acquaintances advise them to loot Ukrainians property and to rape, torture and kill women, children and unarmed people. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Since founding the Sykesville, Maryland-based nonprofit Safe Haven Equine Warriors in 2017, Tina Snyder and her team have rescued and rehabilitated more than 60 horses, ranging from thoroughbred ex-racers to miniatures from petting zoos. Many are saved from kill buyers, who she says resell the animals from auction houses to foreign slaughter plants. Others come from owners who can no longer afford to or want to care for them. Each has its own story. Theres Pickpocket, the sickly pony who stole Snyders phone out of her back pocket at an auction and held it gently in his teeth. Or Opa, another pony who hadnt left his Appalachian shed for 20 years and was found standing atop 5 feet of compacted manure. SHEWs mission is to find new homes for as many horses as possible, after providing the animals with proper medical care, food and rest. At the same time, the organization hopes to educate the public on responsible horse ownership and about the slaughterhouse pipeline they say is still playing out across the country. I never realized how much horses were just shuffled from one spot to another, said Eldersburg resident Janet Ward, a retired nurse and SHEW volunteer. All horses deserve a chance to feel loved, she says, even if their injuries preclude them from adoption. After arriving at the farm, Opa was able to bond with the rescue herd and celebrate a birthday before a recurring injury required him to be euthanized. It was a sad day, Snyder said. But we had given him one year of being able to be a pony and do all the things that ponies should do. Marylanders have a tradition of loving horses With more than 50 licensed rescue stables throughout the state, Maryland is a national leader in horse rescue and aftercare operations. Marylanders have a tradition of loving horses and looking after the welfare of horses, said Ross Peddicord, executive director of the Maryland Horse Industry Board, which promotes equestrian activities and sets standards for care. Story continues A former Baltimore Sun reporter, Peddicord traced the journey of thoroughbred racehorses from Maryland to a slaughterhouse in Connecticut that then shipped the meat to France, where it was turned into sausages sold at soccer matches. His four-part 1989 series was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and helped spark a series of industry reforms, including a federal ban on the use of double-decker trailers for transporting horses bound for slaughter. Since 2007, the domestic slaughter of horses for human consumption has stopped in the U.S. because funding for inspectors of such facilities has not been included in the U.S. Department of Agricultures annual budget. Advocacy groups lobby Congress each year to continue defunding inspectors and are working to get federal legislation passed that would officially ban slaughtering or exporting U.S. horses for human consumption. The pressure has paid off, with the number of U.S. horses exported to Canada and Mexico for slaughter falling from 166,000 in 2012 to just over 23,000 in 2021, according to the Humane Society of the United States, a national nonprofit focused on animal welfare. At the same time, rescue and rehabilitation programs have proliferated. You cant save every horse, unfortunately, but the [number] has tripled or quadrupled from what it used to be, Peddicord said. A lot of it is centered here in Maryland. After years of riding competitively, Snyder suffered a career-ending injury in 1976 and took a break from horses. When she moved to Maryland in the early 1990s, she began volunteering for Days End Farm Horse Rescue, a nationally recognized horse rehabilitation and welfare center in Lisbon. Snyder, 64, bought her own farm in 1994 and opened an equine learning center for private horsemanship lessons. As she discovered more about the slaughterhouse pipeline, she found her ultimate calling in horse rescue and decided to start her own operation with a broad focus. We do amazing things on this tiny little farm, said Snyder, whos in the process of looking for a larger property and recently launched a capital campaign to assist with the expansion. While her current farm can only rehab about five horses at a time, Snyder wants to eventually open a boarding facility and education program for first-time adopters to ensure theyre capable of providing quality long-term care to their animals. Any horse that comes through our door has a safety net for the rest of their life, Snyder said. Were always looking for that great forever home. After rescue, horses help humans As the number of horses SHEW has found new homes for steadily grows, so does the organizations outreach efforts. I have this vision of a rescue thats all inclusive, Snyder said. Its for the horses to help the people just as much as the people to help the horses. The organization conducts a variety of programming with veterans, seniors and student groups and is hoping to expand its equine-assisted therapy offerings. Horses are very soulful beings, said Brittany Robey, a psychologist with Howard County Public Schools, who recently took 10 students from the special education Bridges program on a field trip to SHEW. They can be very reactive but they can also be very comforting. Robey is already planning more trips for Bridges students in addition to spearheading SHEWs equine therapy efforts as a volunteer. She says horses can offer numerous therapeutic benefits, with activities such as riding, grooming and feeding being used to treat a range of mental and physical illnesses. We really want to build this beautiful continuum that cultivates wellbeing and prioritizes mental health, but also promotes horsemanship and equine education, Robey said. Thats our ultimate goal. Schnitzer Steel Industries (NASDAQ:SCHN) First Quarter 2023 Results Key Financial Results Revenue: US$598.7m (down 25% from 1Q 2022). Net loss: US$17.7m (down by 138% from US$46.2m profit in 1Q 2022). US$0.64 loss per share (down from US$1.64 profit in 1Q 2022). All figures shown in the chart above are for the trailing 12 month (TTM) period Schnitzer Steel Industries Earnings Insights Looking ahead, revenue is forecast to stay flat during the next 3 years, in line with the revenue forecast for the Metals and Mining industry in the US. Performance of the American Metals and Mining industry. The company's shares are up 4.8% from a week ago. Risk Analysis Be aware that Schnitzer Steel Industries is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis that you should know about... 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 Serial killer Joe Goldberg hops the pond in season four of You, but the location isnt the only thing thatll be different when Netflixs psychological thriller series returns next month. A trailer released Monday shows Joe (played by Penn Badgley) posing as a professor named Jonathan Moore as he follows his love interest Marienne Bellamy (Tati Gabrielle) from the California suburbs to London. Once Joe begins to settle into his new life abroad, however, he finds himself in the role of a reluctant detective once it becomes clear that hes not the only killer roaming the streets of the British capital. Joining Badgley and Gabrielle on season four of You are a slew of new cast members, including actors Eve Austin, Brad Alexander, Lukas Gage, Amy-Leigh Hickman and Charlotte Ritchie. Watch the trailer for You season four: Many fans may be surprised by the new seasons London setting, as the shows third season finale hinted that Joe would be relocating to Paris in search of Marienne. Last April, however, Netflix posted a snapshot on Instagram that appeared to show the character in England rather than the City of Lights. You, based on Caroline Kepnes bestselling novel of the same name, premiered on Lifetime to minimal fanfare in 2018. The series surged in popularity after it was snatched up by Netflix later that same year. Though the shows inaugural season was set in New York, season two moved the action to Los Angeles. By season three, Joe and his now-deceased wife, Love (Victoria Pedretti), had relocated to the small town of Madre Linda, California, to start a family, only to discover that they couldnt keep their murderous impulses at bay for long. Speaking to HuffPost in 2021, Gabrielle said she hoped viewers would see her You character as a reminder that women, as opposed to some man that we decided to invite into our lives, are the creators of their own destiny. Story continues She praised Badgley as a co-star, calling him so compassionate, so giving, so generous. As an actor, hes very communicative, which is something that I really appreciate, she said. When it got to our sex scenes ... I came on set that day like, Penn, Im gonna be so honest with you. Im so nervous right now. He was like, Its gonna be OK. Were going to talk through it. Part one of season four of You hits Netflix Feb. 9. Part two debuts March 9. You Netflix Season 4 You Netflix Season 4 Related... Seattle police have arrested a man after a neighbor reported seeing him load a womans body, wrapped into a blanket, into the back of an SUV and drive away. At 4:42 p.m. Sunday, Seattle police responded to the report in the 4000 block of 35th Avenue Southwest. A neighbor reported seeing the incident on his home surveillance system and he shared the video with officers. After officers watched the video and identified the man, they learned he had a felony robbery warrant. Shortly after the officers left, the neighbor reported the man and the SUV had returned home. Officers obtained a warrant, and SWAT officers entered the home, arresting the 35-year-old man. The man told police the woman he had carried out had overdosed on drugs, so he took her to Harborview Medical Center. Harborview verified the woman was alive and was receiving treatment. The man was booked into the King County Jail for his robbery warrant. PORTLAND, Maine (AP) The U.S. would risk enabling the spread of extremism in Europe if it stopped providing support to Ukraine in its war with Russia, Maine's independent senator said Monday in the wake of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Sens. Angus King of Maine and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who sit on the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, traveled to Kyiv last week to meet with Zelenskyy. King said he came back more certain that U.S. aid to Ukraine is vital. Ukraine is slated to receive $44.9 billion in U.S. aid as part of the recent government spending bill. The U.S. should continue supporting Ukraine until Russian President Vladimir Putin is out of power, King said. He characterized Putin as a dictator. Failure to continue supporting Ukraine would be akin to Western nations' failure to combat the rise of Germany in the 1930s, King said. He said he plans to make that case to constituents and Republican lawmakers who have voiced skepticism of continued U.S. involvement in the war. I get letters every now and then, people saying, Why are we doing this? Ukraines far away. Its not our fight. Well, it is our fight, because if we dont fight it now, it will spread, King said. And it will become something that we cant avoid being involved in, just as occurred in the late 1930s at the beginning of World War II. King met with Zelenskyy while wearing a sweatshirt depicting Maine native and Civil War hero Joshua Chamberlain. The senator said it would be a mistake to set a date on how long the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine, because that would give Putin the ability to wait out that deadline. King said he did not think it's necessary for the U.S. to consider sending troops to Ukraine. It makes more sense to supply Ukraine with equipment, he said. Reed, who is the chair of the armed services committee, has also said he supports the U.S. decision to keep funding Ukraine. Reed said last week that Ukraine is fighting for the values that we cherish: freedom, democracy, a civil society, opposing autocracy and illegal and unconscionable warfare. The fourth "Happy Chinese New Year" film festival kicked off on Saturday evening with the Chinese film "The Bravest" at Malta's National Center for Creativity in Valletta. Maltese audiences will have the opportunity to watch four more Chinese films "The Climbers", "Looking Up", "The Wandering Earth" and "The Captain" during the film festival, which will last until Jan. 24. Chinese film-making had become more and more sophisticated in recent years, and its topics and themes were becoming more diversified, Aida Daoud Bushra told Xinhua after watching the film, adding that she loved Chinese culture very much and hoped to see more Chinese films in the future. Fiona Vella said she was delighted to watch the fine Chinese films on the occasion of the Chinese New Year. These films brought interesting Chinese cultural experience to Maltese audiences, whom would have the opportunity to enjoy the unique charm of Chinese culture and arts, she said. This was the first time Kevin Debono and his wife saw a Chinese film and they were amazed by the charm of the film. They said they hoped to see more Chinese films in Valletta in the future. "Happy Chinese New Year" film festival has become a vital brand event for Maltese people to experience Chinese culture, Yuan Yuan, director of the China Cultural Centre in Malta, told Xinhua, adding that she hoped more local people understand further the development of Chinese culture and society through visual arts. The Chinese Lunar New Year for 2023, or the Spring Festival, falls on Jan. 22. With its stock down 4.2% over the past month, it is easy to disregard Singapore Telecommunications (SGX:Z74). To decide if this trend could continue, we decided to look at its weak fundamentals as they shape the long-term market trends. Specifically, we decided to study Singapore Telecommunications' ROE in this article. ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments. See our latest analysis for Singapore Telecommunications How Do You Calculate Return On Equity? The formula for ROE is: Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Singapore Telecommunications is: 7.9% = S$2.2b S$28b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2022). The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. So, this means that for every SGD1 of its shareholder's investments, the company generates a profit of SGD0.08. What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth? We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or "retains", and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a companys earnings growth potential. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that dont share these attributes. A Side By Side comparison of Singapore Telecommunications' Earnings Growth And 7.9% ROE When you first look at it, Singapore Telecommunications' ROE doesn't look that attractive. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 12%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. Therefore, it might not be wrong to say that the five year net income decline of 34% seen by Singapore Telecommunications was probably the result of it having a lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures. Story continues So, as a next step, we compared Singapore Telecommunications' performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 14% in the same period. Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. Doing so will help them establish if the stock's future looks promising or ominous. Has the market priced in the future outlook for Z74? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report. Is Singapore Telecommunications Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits? Singapore Telecommunications' very high three-year median payout ratio of 148% over the last three years suggests that the company is paying its shareholders more than what it is earning and this explains the company's shrinking earnings. Its usually very hard to sustain dividend payments that are higher than reported profits. Additionally, Singapore Telecommunications has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company's management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 78% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in Singapore Telecommunications' payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 9.6%, over the same period. Conclusion In total, we would have a hard think before deciding on any investment action concerning Singapore Telecommunications. The low ROE, combined with the fact that the company is paying out almost if not all, of its profits as dividends, has resulted in the lack or absence of growth in its earnings. Having said that, looking at current analyst estimates, we found that the company's earnings growth rate is expected to see a huge improvement. To know more about the company's future earnings growth forecasts take a look at this free report on analyst forecasts for the company to find out more. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Join A Paid User Research Session Youll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here (Reuters) -SK Bioscience Co Ltd chief executive Jaeyong Ahn said in a Financial Times interview that it is unlikely that the vaccine maker can supply COVID-19 vaccines to China amid its recent outbreak due to Beijing's "national pride". Ahn said that it was "unrealistic" to supply COVID vaccines to China, as the country insists on using its own, the newspaper quoted him as saying. SK Bioscience is monitoring whether any COVID variants are emerging from China, the report said. On Sunday, China's National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) did not include Pfizer Inc's Paxlovid in an update to its list of medicines covered by basic medical insurance schemes, saying that the U.S. firm quoted a high price for the COVID-19 drug. Chinese hospitals are under intense pressure after the government abandoned its "zero-COVID" policy last month, sending infections soaring. The abrupt changes have exposed many of China's 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time, triggering an infection wave that is overwhelming some hospitals, emptying pharmacy shelves of medication and causing international alarm. (Reporting by Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) Dish-owned live TV streaming service Sling TV is looking to catch up with competitors with the launch of new features like user profiles and the promise of more changes to come in 2023. The company began quietly rolling out the user profiles feature just ahead of the Consumer Electronic Show last week, initially on Android TV and Fire TV devices, with support for more platforms in the near future. Over the past several months, it's also expanded its newer direct-to-consumer subscription integrations with the addition of discovery+, which joins 50 other services now available through Sling. And it's made a Sports Scores feature available across Roku, Fire TV and Android TV devices. Sports Scores has been rolling out to users since last year, making it easier to access scores from NFL, college football, NBA, NHL and MLB games while continuing to watch live TV or on-demand programming. Meanwhile, Sling TV's subscription lineup, which now nears 50 services, has been available since last August. Image Credits: Sling TV Combined with the rollout of user profiles (which had not yet been formally announced), the changes suggest a streamer that's again trying to innovate to attract subscribers. Though one of the early leaders in live TV streaming, having launched in 2015, Sling TV lost traction as newer services like Hulu with Live TV and YouTube TV arrived on the market. For the first three quarters last year, Sling TV faced subscriber losses, for example. However, the company more recently reversed that downward trend in its Q3 2022 earnings in November, when it reported a total of 2.41 million subscribers after 214,000 net additions. But this figure is still down from the 2.6 million subscribers Sling TV had in the third quarter of 2021, for comparison. Sling TV needs to do more -- and faster. TechCrunch sat down with Sling TV EVP and Sling TV President Gary Schanman in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, to find out what's next for the service in the months ahead. Story continues Sling TV parent Dish hired the industry vet last year, whose experience includes pay TV with roles at Spectrum, Charter and Cablevision (now Altice USA) and in the streaming space. Most recently, Schanman served as chief product officer at Common Sense Networks, where he led the launch of the kid-safe streaming service Sensical. Now he hopes to revitalize the Sling TV brand. "Over the next number of quarters, you'll see a lot faster innovation of the product and the product set," Schanman told TechCrunch. "When people join our company, we expect them to be creative and innovative and be all about winning. And so we're starting to bring a lot more people into the company to help grow that," he said. The company is also looking at how it can better serve the different types of streamers and their needs in the year to come. "We're focused on helping consumers find, consume and engage all the content they want. And we are comfortable with a variety of different types of consumers that have different needs. And that includes people that keep our paid service and they're completely subscribed to all of our add-on packs. But it could also be people that come in for a period of time and want to watch some free content," Schanman said. "Free is part of our thoughts about how we think about that engagement with the customer. We want a lifelong relationship with the subscriber where they see value in what we provide -- and [free content is] a piece of that," he added. Schanman couldn't specifically comment on what Sling TV has in mind around any sort of free streaming plans to come. But overall, the streaming industry has shifted a lot of its focus in recent months to serving consumers free "live TV" channels, also known as FAST channels, which appear in a grid-like guide that feels more akin to a cable TV experience rather than ad-supported video on demand. Roku, for example, has launched FAST channels via its Live TV Guide as has Amazon with Freevee, in addition to offerings from Pluto TV, Xumo and Plex. For some services, the idea is to lure in customers with free streaming -- as Roku does via its free movies and TV hub, The Roku Channel -- then upsell them paid streaming subscriptions. Of course, if Sling TV were to go farther down the free route, it could complicate its relationship with streaming media platforms, like Roku and Amazon, which want to direct consumers to their own free streaming products. Beyond its plans to innovate on product, Schanman believes Sling TV has other advantages, including being simple and straightforward to use. He also touted the service's reliability. It's been a long time since "Game of Thrones" crashed its service, after all. But what Sling TV touts as simple could also be viewed as bare bones, depending on who you ask. Still, the company believes that Sling TV's bigger advantage is not necessarily the user interface, but how it organizes its programming into affordable packages. Today, the streamer differentiates itself by way of a la carte programming packages that begin with a base subscription (Sling TV's "Orange" or "Blue" packages) and various add-ons. Rival services, meanwhile, tend to bundle a larger number of channels into one offering, forcing subscribers to continually pay higher prices as new deals are forged. "From the live TV perspective, we still have the best value in the market by far. We also have the most flexibility in the market. The truth is, you know, I think we're a very pro-consumer customer offering. Most of our competitors are what I would call true one-for-one cable replacements, but they're in some cases more expensive," said Schanman. The company plans to talk more about Sling TV's affordability in the months to come, he said. That message is timely, as consumers are beginning to feel the financial impacts of having too many streaming choices and are facing a market where live TV plans are often no longer cheaper than traditional cable TV. "We start at $40. So our flexibility and choice is a huge value proposition in the market," the exec explained. "You can switch between packages any time you want. We have over six add-on packs that, when you add them on, are still less than what you'd have to pay on YouTube TV or Hulu TV," he pointed out. "The more consumer choices there are, the more that our service has value in the market, because the share of wallet is challenged across the board," Schanman said. Power Outage Vandalism Patrons dine by candlelight at Red's Corner during the Moore County power outage, Monday, Dec. 5, 2022, where authorities say two power substations were shot up by one or more people with apparent criminal intent. Credit - Kaitlin McKeownThe News & Observer/AP A string of mysterious attacks on power stations across the U.S. has rekindled fears about the vulnerabilities of Americas electricity infrastructure, which security officials have warned presents a growing target to extremists and saboteurs. Attacks and suspicious activity at U.S. power stations reached a decade-long high last year, with more than 100 reported incidents in the first eight months of 2022, according to a TIME review of the Department of Energys most recent data, which runs through August. Since then, there have been at least 18 more publicly reported attacks or potential attacks on substations and power plants in Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington. The tally includes at least half a dozen at Duke Energy facilities in Florida and at least six others on electrical substations in the Pacific Northwest in November and December. In one attack on Thanksgiving, two intruders cut through the fencing around a substation in Clackamas County, Ore., and used firearms to shoot up and disable numerous pieces of equipment and cause significant damage, according to an incident report. And in the most high-profile incident, intruders breached the gates and opened fire on two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, N.C., in early December, damaging equipment in what local authorities called a targeted attack that cut off the power for more than 45,000 people. Its not clear whos behind all this. But the surge has alarmed federal officials and security analysts, who warned last year of credible, specific plans by violent domestic groups to attack the power grid. Violent conspiracies focused on targeting and destroying energy infrastructure have become one of the top themes on extremist social-media platforms and messaging apps. In each of the last three years, law enforcement has foiled plots by right-wing extremists designed to sow chaos by attacking Americas electrical infrastructure. Story continues Now, officials say, the rise in incidents suggests the perpetrators may be drawing inspiration from one another, fine-tuning strategies to pursue potentially more damaging copycat attacks. Each incidentand each suspect that escapes undetectedfurther emboldens a determined cadre of criminals and highlights the U.S. power grid as a target. Domestic terror groups understand that citizens losing power from gunfire or sabotage is an easy way to receive media attention, which they crave, says Brian Harrell, a former Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who tells TIME he expects a significant increase in attacks on U.S. energy infrastructure in 2023. The utility sector has a real problem on its hands. Power stations are an attractive target, and domestic terror groups know that destroying this infrastructure can have a crippling effect. Barriers designed to absorb oil are placed near a damaged transformer that Duke Energy workers said was hit by gunfire that crippled an electrical substation after the Moore County Sheriff said that vandalism caused a mass power outage, in Carthage, North Carolina, U.S. December 4, 2022. Jonathan DrakeREUTERS The motives and methods of the recent attacks vary. Some of the perpetrators may have been seeking money, not mayhem. Federal authorities say that the attacks on four substations in western Washington State on Christmas Day, which left more than 14,000 residents in the dark, were perpetrated by two men seeking to knock out power so they could commit a robbery. Yet many others remain mysterious to law enforcement and federal regulators. The case that most concerns authorities is the Dec. 3 attack on two power stations in Moore County, N.C. A month later, despite an ongoing FBI investigation continues, no one has been arrested for acts of sabotage that left more than 45,000 people without power amid frigid temperatures. Law enforcement officials, who have offered up to $75,000 for anyone who can provide information that would lead to the arrest of those responsible, have said that the perpetrators took aim at the substations with firearms with the intention to cause widespread outages. Several experts and former officials told TIME they believed that attack was committed by someone who knew what they were doing. Im certain that the North Carolina attackers have insider knowledge on substations and critical energy infrastructure and knew how to attack, undetected, says Harrell, noting they knew where to access sites and what to shoot atand that no security would be in place. Jon Wellinghoff, who served as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from 2009 to 2013, says the incident in Moore County was the most sophisticated he had seen since a 2013 attack on the Pacific Gas and Electric Companys substation near San Jose, Calif., in which multiple gunmen fired on the facility and caused $15 million in damages. No one was ever arrested in that case. Whoever perpetrated the attack in North Carolina were fairly sophisticated, Wellinghoff says. They wanted to knock out a particular area of that countyand were able to select the substation that would knock out that entire line. The effectiveness of the attack in Moore County is likely to lead more bad actors or extremist groups to learn more information about the infrastructure itself and how it operates online in order to carry out similar attacks, Wellinghoff adds. You have the ability now to look at selected areas of the country and knock those out depending on how they are interconnected, and that information of where those lines and those substations are is all available to anybody on the Internet. Read More: The United States of Political Violence. That makes the U.S. power gridwhich spans more than 7,300 power plants, 55,000 transmission substations and 160,000 miles of high-voltage power linesa particularly soft target for determined attackers. Its inherently vulnerable, because its constructed in such a way that if one part of it can be destroyed or impaired it can have a very significant impact on other larger parts of it very quickly, says Dr. Granger Morgan, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University who chaired three National Academy of Sciences reports on the power grid for the federal government. Kind of like dominoes. Saboteurs have been taking aim at this infrastructure for decades. In some parts of the country, for instance, hunting season has always brought an uptick in troublemakers taking potshots at insulators and other equipment. But the attacks like the ones on the North Carolina substations are a different ballgame, FERC Commissioner Mark Christie said at the agencys December meeting, calling them sophisticated. Morgan has also noticed a shift in recent incidents. These increasing attacks on things like large transformers and circuit breakers are significantly more troubling, he says, raising concerns of a copycat effect which could eventually lead to a more coordinated attack by perpetrators with the knowledge to cause significant damage. Many of these [power stations] are only blocked off by chain-link fences in the middle of nowhere, he says, often without personnel guarding them. An analysis by the FERC reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2014 found that the U.S. could suffer a blackout across the country for weeks or months if saboteurs simultaneously targeted just nine of the 55,0000 substations, threatening the collapse of the entire network. Natural events have previously highlighted this vulnerability. In 2003, tree branches touching power lines in Ohio created a cascading effect that ended in the most widespread blackout in North American history. Workers set up an automated display warning drivers on NC211 of the power outage in the area and how to approach the upcoming intersections in Southern Pines, N.C., Monday, Dec. 5, 2022. Karl B DeBlakerAP Authorities have said little about the culprits behind the surge in attacks. But officials have suggested they are worried about coordination between more nefarious actors. Is there something more sinister going on? Are people trying to take part of the grid out and have people lose power on purpose? And for what reason? Richard Glick, who chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) until Jan. 3, said at a press briefing in December. I dont think anyone knows that right now. But theres no doubt that the numbers are up in terms of reported incidents. While there are no public indications that the attacks have been perpetrated by people motivated by extremist groups or ideologies, violent conspiracies and manifestos focused on targeting and destroying energy infrastructure in order to cause fear and chaos have been widely shared on extremist social-media platforms and messaging apps. Law enforcement has foiled several plots inspired by these narratives in recent years. In May 2020, three men claiming to be members of the far-right Boogaloo movement were arrested for allegedly conspiring to firebomb power substations in Las Vegas to provoke violence during Black Lives Matter protests in the city. The three men, who had military backgrounds, have pleaded not guilty to federal conspiracy charges and still remain in custody awaiting trial in both state and federal courts. In August 2021, four neo-Nazis in North Carolina were charged with a conspiracy in which they intended to take down a critical substation with firearms and explosives, according to prosecutors. The group, which met on a neo-Nazi accelerationist forum and included two former U.S. Marines, discussed their plans to take out the power grid and assembled a list of a dozen targets. They discussed targeting energy infrastructure for the purpose of creating general chaos and to provide cover and ease of escape in those areas in which they planned to undertake assassinations and other desired operations to further their goal of creating a white ethno-state, according to the government. Two of the men have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government while others await trial. In Feb. 2022, three avowed white supremacists pleaded guilty in Ohio to terrorism-related charges for a similar plot to knock out parts of the U.S. power grid, in what prosecutors described as an attempt to cause panic and chaos to start a race war. The group wanted to attack regional power substations and expected the damage would lead to economic distress and civil unrest, Timothy Langan, the assistant director of the FBIs Counterterrorism Division, said in a statement. Read More: Election Works Face a Surge of Cyberattacks. A DHS intelligence memo last year warned of credible, specific plans by domestic violent extremists adhering to a range of ideologies who would continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure. Officials said extremists were encouraging attacks on the power grid on encrypted messaging apps and other platforms, making suspicious activity difficult to detect. They also noted that extremists seemed to reference the 2013 attack in California, which is widely cited by some extremist groups as a model of how to cause widespread disruption and get away. At the same time, a 14-page handbook circulated on accelerationist channels on Telegram called for followers to strike a blow to this system by damaging electricity infrastructure to spark revolution and chaos. After the Moore County attack in December, federal regulators ordered a review of the physical security of electrical facilities. But experts say the aging state of the nations electricity infrastructure, a patchwork of public and private ownership, and the overlapping federal, state and local regulations will continue to make many substations easy targets. And even as authorities work to tighten the security of these facilities, they sound resigned to the attacks continuing. A determined adversary with insider knowledge as to what to shoot, and how to cripple key components, is difficult to stop, says Harrell, the former DHS official. If the attackers stay underground, dont highlight themselves, and dont get caught, they preserve their ability to attack again. Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/White House The 10th North American Leaders Summit (NALS) that will unfold Monday and Tuesday in Mexico City is likely the most consequential trilateral summit amongst the three neighbors and partners since former President George W. Bush launched the annual regional summitry mechanism in 2005 in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001. It didnt take a Bismarck to figure out that common prosperity and common security were holistically intertwined between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Its also unsurprising that any threator a perceived threatto U.S. national security emanating either from the Canadian or Mexican borders would bring down the edifice (and the promise) of integrated trade and cross-border trade facilitation that has existed since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Bidens Midterm Foreign Policy Report Card While in theory this premise should have provided greater strategic traction, clarity, and attention within the three nations, the NALS has consistently underwhelmed and underdelivered. Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice even likened relations amongst the three North American nations to a co-op board. True, some important policy drivers have arisen as a result of the NALSsuch as the North American Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (NAPAPI) launched after the 2007 summit, which led to a comprehensive document designed to prepare for a pandemic in North America. In 2009, faced with the H1-N1 pandemic, the NAPAPI allowed Mexico, the U.S., and Canada to effectively confront and contain that public health crisis. But thats the exception to the rule. Unfortunately, most of the previous summits have been more symbolic than substantive. Despite whats at stake geopolitically today in the world and for U.S. foreign policy, this summit will most likely be symbolic, too. After a troubling four-year hiatus as a result of President Donald Trumps diplomatic vandalism, it is undoubtedly encouraging to see the Biden administration continue its rebuilding and relaunching of the bilateral and trilateral architecture that underpins relations in North America. Nonetheless, a lack of strategic vision and appetite continue to bedevil ties amongst the three nationsand Washington, Ottawa, and Mexico City are, to one extent or another, all to blame. Story continues President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador participate in the first North American Leaders Summit (NALS) since 2016 in the East Room at the White House Nov. 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images Moreover, today theres no doubt that theres a mismatch between opportunity and reality in North America. The opportunity lies in the fact that the U.S. is in the midst of the most important recalibration of its foreign policy and national security interests since the end of the Cold War, as it reviews and seeks to recast its strategic stance vis-a-vis China. If that recalibrationand the strategic paradigm that results from itis to prove successful, particularly in the trade and economic domains, Canada and Mexico need to become an integral part of that vision. There are four areas of common North American engagement where this is particularly relevant. First, as the COVID pandemic revealed, we need to protect our integrated and essential supply chains and joint production platforms, one of the most salient byproducts of three decades of regional trade integration. Regional integration has made North America an economic powerhouse; it accounts for a third of global GDP and its combined GDP has more than doubled over the past decade. The U.S. traded more than $3 million per minute in goods with its neighbors from January through October 2022, while Mexico and Canada were the top two U.S. trade partners in 2022, accounting for double the U.S.-China trade volume that year. Roughly 79 percent of Canadian exports to the U.S. are incorporated into U.S. final goods and around 40 percent of the value of Mexican exports to the U.S. are made up of U.S. components. Moreover, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act in the U.S.creating tax incentives for electric vehicles, batteries, and other products manufactured in North Americaworking to take advantage of this potential for companies and investment in North America is a very big opportunity which should only buttress greater inflows of re-shoring and nearshoring into the region. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a speech at Canada's first large-scale EV manufacturing plant in Ingersoll, Canada. R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images Second, as the region and its huge manufacturing footprint moves towards a digital economy and the North American auto parts and automotive juggernaut transitions towards electric vehiclesachieving a joint paradigm for regional energy security, resilience, sustainability, and independence will be paramount. It would also be a keystone in that economic, trade, and business recalibration to ensure North Americas greater global competitiveness. We Need a New Approach to Fighting Malevolent Forces Online Third, despite measures seeking to stem record levels of migration across the Americas, the massive North American labor demand is undeniable. Canadas economy lost an estimated $9.6 billion in 2021 due to a nationwide labor and skills shortage in the manufacturing sector. In the same year, in the U.S., more than 47 million workers quit their jobs during the Great Resignation, contributing to a gap of 11 million job openingsbut only six million unemployed workers. Meanwhile, two in three Mexican employers reported difficulty finding talent in 2022. A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle sits on a hillside as a freight train carries cargo containers in the El Paso Sector along the US-Mexico border between New Mexico and Chihuahua state on Dec. 9, 2021 in Sunland Park, New Mexico. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images Building upon the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration which the three nations signed there during the Summit of the AmericasCanada, Mexico, and the U.S. should strive to find ways to create legal, orderly, transparent mechanisms to foster North American labor mobility. Human capitaland the retraining of skilled workers in our regionwill be another key component of that successful recalibration of Washingtons ties with Beijing. And finally, common domain awareness in North Americaparticularly when it comes to cybersecurity and the protection of both intellectual property and industrial data and national security infrastructure from Alaska to Chiapasrequires deeper and more consistent efforts to ensure common protocols, standards. It also requires helping to boost Mexicos governmental and private sector capabilities in regards to preventing cyberattacks by extra regional state or non-state actors. This is an issue that was starkly delineated when the countrys defense ministry suffered a major hack that made millions of classified documents and emails public. But herein comes the reality check. These enormous opportunities are not being met by the necessary diplomatic bandwidth. Whether its Washington naturally preoccupied with and focused on Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, or Mexico Citys public policy mix and lack of appetite and vision, the fact remains that the opportunity to forge a more cohesive and forward-leaning North America may come to naught. On energy, whereas the U.S. and Canada are aligned on the importance of climate change, mitigating emissions, a green economy, and renewable sources of energy, Mexico is heading backwards, in the opposite direction, pursuing fossil fuel policies and the boondoggle of building new refineries. Here Are the Top U.S. National Security Flashpoints in 2023 This, in part, explains why the U.S. and Canada requested consultations under the revamped trade agreement, the USMCA, in response to Mexicos energy policy. And Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador continues to poke his finger in the eye of the U.S.whether its regarding Julian Assange or stating that while Biden is his partner, Putin is his friend, or what he insists is Washingtons proclivity to intervene in the domestic affairs of hemispheric nations. Moreover, his pro-Russian neutrality (regarding its unjustified war of aggression and invasion of Ukraine), his defense of the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan regimes, and his boycott of the Summit of the Americas all mean that when it comes to seeking to a more coordinated and cooperative North American posture regarding regional or global affairs, the U.S. and Canada cannot count on their Mexican partner. More importantly, the deterioration of Mexicos democratic underpinnings, the erosion of checks and balances and the weakening of autonomous institutionswhich will predictably not be on the agenda of the trilateral conversations, but are nonetheless an important backdrop to the summitcould, at the end of the day, be the most salient challenge to the cohesion, well-being and security of North America in the coming years. 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. Steve Bannon, talk show host and former White House advisor to former President Donald Trump, November 15, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque Steve Bannon hyped the protesters who stormed Brazil's Congress, calling them "freedom fighters." The former Trump advisor has long stoked unsubstantiated rumors of election fraud in Brazil. Bannon has seized on the issue in the same way he did with Trump's own election fraud claims. Steve Bannon cheered on Brazilian demonstrators who stormed the country's Congress on Sunday, after he continued to stoke election fraud claims there. Bannon shared a video that showed protesters pouring into the congressional building in Brasilia on alt-right social media platform Gettr, labeling them "Brazilian freedom fighters." The attack, which lasted three hours, spilled through the country's national congress, its Supreme Court, and its presidential palace, Reuters reported, in scenes that bore distinct echoes of the riot at the US Capitol two years ago. The attack was the latest incident since former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lost his election in a tightly-fought race to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also known simply as Lula, in October last year. Months before the election, Bolsonaro sowed rumors of voter fraud, in moves starkly similar to those made by former President Donald Trump and allies such as Steve Bannon. Lately Bannon, a former Trump advisor, has also amped unevidenced claims of election fraud in Brazil. In November, Bannon spoke with Brazilian congressman and Bolsonaro's son Eduardo during the latter's visit to Mar-a-Lago, The Washington Post reported. Bannon told the paper that they discussed potential challenges to the election results and the impact of pro-Bolsonaro protests. He also said, per the paper: "The [Brazilian] people are saying they've been grossly disenfranchised." Around the same time, the younger Bolsonaro also shared a video on Twitter in which Bannon suggested that Brazil's digital elections system had been set up to enable fraud. Story continues A review by Brazil's military late last year found no credible evidence of widespread election fraud, according to The New York Times. However, a proviso in the review that Brazil's electronic system meant that a specific fraud scenario could not be definitively ruled out has been seized on by Bolsonaro supporters, the Times reported. Read the original article on Business Insider Superscript, an insurance broker and tech platform targeting SMEs and "high-growth" tech firms, has raised 45 million ($54 million) in a Series B round of funding. Founded out of London in 2015, Superscript constitutes two core insurance businesses: an online-only "self-serve" platform that's available to U.K. customers including SMEs, sole traders and landlords, and an advised broking service called SuperscriptQ that's available in the U.K. and across the European Economic Area (EEA). This is targeted at tech businesses with complex risks that are more difficult to insure, such as medical malpractice or professional indemnity, with customers including London-based fintech unicorn Paddle. The underwriting factor As with just about every other sector, the insurance tech industry has been hit hard by the global economic downturn, with the likes of Policygenius and Next Insurance all cutting back their headcount over the past year, and publicly traded firms such as Lemonade, Hippo and Root all trading way down. But for every yin there's a yang, and there are signs that the insurtech realm is still very much alive and kicking. Germany's Wefox last year raised $400 million at $4.5 billion valuation, while Ohio-based Branch reached unicorn status off the back of a $147 million raise. And now, it's Superscript's turn to remind the world that insurtech might be doing just fine after all. But what separates the wheat from the chaff in insurtech -- why do some float while others flounder? "Insurance has a more complex value chain than most tech businesses, in that you need to focus on both your acquisition strategy as well as the going performance of the policies that youre selling," Superscript co-founder and CEO Cameron Shearer explained to TechCrunch. "While fast-growth in customer numbers is typically seen as a good thing, if the underwriting is not right then claims -- in other words, losses -- will start to compound over time. If you carry long-term liabilities, then you might not experience the businesss true results for a number of years." Story continues Superscript co-founders Ben Rose (chief underwriting officer) and Cameron Shearer (CEO). Image Credits: Superscript Superscript's underwriting partners include a slew of well-known names from the insurance world, including AXA, Beazley At Lloyd's, RSA and MS Amlin. And this multi-carrier approach, spanning regions and sector-specific expertise, is partly why Shearer thinks that Superscript is well-positioned to flourish as it looks to scale over the long term. It's all about providing bespoke coverage for the types of risks that SMEs specifically need. "Historically, many investors have mirrored the tech-investment models and focused on acquisition," Shearer added. "More recently, now with the hindsight of more mature insurtechs and a number of IPO experiences, weve seen investors shifting focus towards underwriting differentiation and strength. Superscript has focused on sustainable growth and quality underwriting from day one to give us more favourable loss ratios. Sophisticated underwriting, tech and data capabilities enable us to provide a highly personalised user and underwriting experience." From a technology and data perspective, Superscript says it uses "proprietary machine learning technology" to set itself apart, including throughout the acquisition and onboarding process in its self-serve product, which guides would-be customers toward the correct channels. And big data insights is also a big part of its promise, where it uses machine learning models to price its risks "more accurately" through crunching a range of data points. "Other parts of our tech looks at data weve collected about the insurance market to assess the probability of where risks are likely to be accepted by insurers and carriers, and what data points are key to a particular insurer's underwriting process," Shearer said. "This again drives operational efficiency for both our process and the insurers." The company had previously raised around $24.4 million, including a roughly $20 million tranche raised across two rounds in 2020. With another $54 million in the bank, the company said that it plans to bolster its underwriting and broking capabilities, and continue investing in its machine learning tooling. While Superscript is limited to the European market, it has longer-term ambitions to become a global player. In fact, it already claims some clients in North America, Australasia and the Middle East, though apparently they are customers who need access to the European insurance markets. Superscript's Series B round of funding was led by Comparethemarket owner BHL UK, with participation from The Hartford, and Concentric. The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a Utah mans long shot case challenging the 2020 election results and demanding the removal of nearly 400 federal officials. Lower courts previously dismissed the case brought by Raland Brunson who represented himself for lack of jurisdiction, but Brunson appealed to the justices and demanded the removal of President Biden, Vice President Harris, former Vice President Mike Pence and hundreds of lawmakers who did not object to the certification of the electoral votes. Brunsons appeal garnered attention from right-wing figures like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), who falsely suggested last month in his newsletter that the justices had agreed to hear the case appropriately on the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The justices instead on Friday considered whether to hear the case in their closed-door conference, with four justices needed for the case to move forward. They ultimately decided not to do so in an order made public on Monday, which came without surprise after the federal government previously waived its right to file a response to the justices. Brunsons case argued that 291 House lawmakers and 94 senators violated their oaths of office by refusing to further investigate unfounded claims of mass electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election. He had asked for $2.905 billion tax-free in damages and a removal of the officials from office. The petition was denied. We will now make our next move. A petition for reconsideration. Hang in their everyone, Brunson wrote on Facebook following the decision. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. A retrospective exhibition of a Cuban visual artist of Chinese descent opened on Saturday ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in the Caribbean nation. Under the title "The son of a migrant: the road," the exhibit of Alfredo Chong, 74, features 20 paper mache sculptures and nearly a dozen paintings that pay tribute to the contribution of Chinese migrants to Cuba. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chong displayed most of his artworks on his home's terrace, surrounded by orchids, ornamental plants and fruit trees in the Havana district of Arroyo Naranjo. "We inherited strength and determination from Chinese migrants," the self-taught artist told Xinhua. "The friendship between the Chinese and Cuban people is unbreakable." Among Chong's artworks exhibited at the House of Chinese Arts and Traditions are "Terracota warrior holding an arrow," "Footprint," "Poetry of a migrant" and "Faraway nostalgy." "These artworks captivate the public through different and interesting techniques," said exhibition curator Teresa Toranzo. "It will help enhance the cultural and historical links between China and Cuba." Teresa Li, director of the House of Chinese Arts and Traditions, said the exhibition, which runs through March 20, is embedded with the spirit of the Spring Festival. "We are very happy with the opening of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations on the island," she added. "This is just the beginning." (Bloomberg) -- Taiwanese lawmakers have passed new rules that let local chip firms turn 25% of their annual research and development expenses into tax credits, part of efforts to keep cutting-edge semiconductor technologies at home and maintain the islands technology leadership. Most Read from Bloomberg Officials there have repeatedly said they will ensure the latest chip technologies remain in Taiwan, a point that has been reaffirmed by executives at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and other local chip giants. While Taiwans assisted local chipmakers in the past with infrastructure construction and other measures, the island is now stepping up its efforts. Shares of TSMC and United Microelectronics Corp. were up more than 4% in Taipei on Monday, the first trading day after the announcement of the new rules. As the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union are all offering massive incentives to build domestic supply chains, Taiwan should bolster the global competitiveness of its key industries, Taiwans Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement on Saturday. The new rules will help encourage Taiwanese companies to keep their roots here. Governments from Washington to Seoul have been offering incentives for domestic chip production, in hopes of reducing a heavy reliance on Taiwan for advanced semiconductors and avoiding future supply disruptions. To mitigate those concerns, TSMC is building new facilities in Japan and the US, and is considering an additional site in Germany. The new incentives should take effect sometime from 2023. Chip companies in Taiwan can also claims tax credits on 5% of the annual costs of buying new equipment for advanced process technologies, the ministry said in whats been dubbed the local version of Americas Chips Act. Any credits earned, however, cannot exceed 50% of the total annual income taxes a firm owes. Story continues Procurement of equipment is the largest cost in setting up a new chip plant. For instance, ASML Holding NVs essential extreme ultraviolet lithography machines now cost close to $200 million apiece. (Updates with shares in third paragraph) Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek 2023 Bloomberg L.P. Protesters in Afghanistan have demanded Prince Harry be put on trial after he claimed to have killed 25 people in the south Asian country while serving in the military. The Duke of Sussex claims in his forthcoming memoir Spare that he killed Taliban militants while serving as an Apache helicopter copilot gunner in Afghanistan in 2012-13. He likened the killings to chess pieces removed from the board and claimed those he had killed were bad people eliminated before they could kill good people. My number is 25. Its not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me, he wrote in the memoir, according to pre-release excerpts obtained by several media outlets. His admission has been met with widespread criticism from several quarters, including former members of the British military as well as the ruling Taliban administration in Afghanistan. The militant group returned to power there after seizing Kabul in August 2021. Around 20 faculty members and students on Saturday demonstrated at a local university in Helmand province, where British forces were concentrated during the US-led war in Afghanistan. Demonstrators carried posters showing Harrys portrait with a red x across it. We condemn his action which is against all norms of humanity, one protester told the Associated Press. Mullah Abdullah, who lost four family members in what he described as a British airstrike in 2011 that hit his family home in Nahr-e-Saraj district, called for Harry to face legal consequences for his actions. We lost our house, life, and family members. We lost our livelihood and also our loved ones, he said. We ask the international community to put this person (Prince Harry) on trial, and we should get compensation for our losses. Sayed Ahmad Sayed, a teacher at the university, condemned the Duke, saying: The cruelties which have been committed by Prince Harry, his friends or by anyone else in Helmand or anywhere in Afghanistan is unacceptable, cruel. Story continues These acts will be remembered by history. Earlier, Taliban leader Anas Haqqani lashed out against Harry in a tweet saying the ones killed were not chess pieces but human beings with families that were awaiting their return. He, however, added that few of those who killed Afghans have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes. 1/3- Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return. Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes. pic.twitter.com/zjDwoDmCN1 Anas Haqqani( ) (@AnasHaqqani313) January 6, 2023 He alleged civilians and ordinary people were targeted as the Taliban did not have any casualties in Helmand on the days Prince Harry mentioned. Taliban commander Molavi Agha Gol went on to brand Harry a big mouth loser who has been trying to get attention. I do not even believe what he said about the Mujaheddin, the commander said. He is a loser and scared to go to a combat zone. We made history by kicking him and his army out of our homeland and he should be very angry about that. Rapper Tay-K has been using Twitter as of late to vent about the unfairness of his 55-year sentence. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BIG TAY-K (@tayk47shawty) He was given long-term imprisonment in 2019 after being found guilty of killing 21-year-old Ethan Walker. However, he heads to social media to vent his resentment and call into question how long his sentence should have been, Complex reports. I really just need 1 chance @ adulthood, Tay-K tweeted on Thursday. I really just need 1 chance @ adulthood RUGR@ (@tayk) January 5, 2023 On his 21st birthday in June 2021, Tay-K gave an update from prison, expressing optimism about his appeal. The Tarrant County jury found the 19-year-old Texas artist guilty of first-degree murder in Walkers home invasion shooting death; the convicted shooter in the case was already serving a life sentence. On Thursday, Tay-K made a sweeping generalization about his case, implying that he wouldnt be in this predicament if he were a lil white kid and thus given a second chance at adulthood. I bet if I was a lil white kid they wouldnt have gave me no 55 years for a crime I was alleged to play the most insignificant role in when I was 16 . they woulda rightfully argued that my mind wasnt fully developed and gave me rehabilitation and a 2nd (1st) chance at adulthood RUGR@ (@tayk) January 5, 2023 I bet if I was a lil white kid, they wouldnt have gave me no 55 years for a crime I was alleged to play the most insignificant role in when I was 16 . they woulda rightfully argued that my mind wasnt fully developed and gave me rehabilitation and a 2nd (1st) chance at adulthood, he said on Twitter. Story continues Tay-K brought up one of his white co-defendants in the case. Due to their different races, he implied, her punishment was much lighter than his. one of my codefendants was a white girl who was 16 jus like methey didnt certify her as an adult but they certified me n pimp as adults, pimp got 30, I got 55, she ended up getting 10 years of probation without no dealthat girl @ home rn RUGR@ (@tayk) January 5, 2023 One of my codefendants was a white girl who was 16 just like me they didnt certify her as an adult, but they certified me n pimp as adults. Pimp got 30, I got 55, she ended up getting 10 years of probation without no deal that girl @ home rn, he tweeted. Tay-K, whose real name is Taymor McIntyre, was indicted for a second murder in April 2017. This was completely separate after he was found guilty of killing Walker in a home invasion in July 2019. Addy McCord, a 5th grade teacher at Shook Elementary School in Marshfield, works with Joseph Keeling, right, and Holdyn Reese on fractions on Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. JEFFERSON CITY Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of the General Assembly can agree: something should be done about teacher pay in Missouri. It remains to be seen what, exactly, that something is. The legislature returned to the Capitol last week for the first days of session, largely a formality committees have yet to be formed, and new members and leadership had to be formally sworn in and chosen. But in opening remarks and news conferences held by both parties in both chambers, the question of how to bolster Missouri's educator workforce loomed large. The Republican Senate president said it was key that "world-class teachers should be paid like world-class teachers," and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate characterized the current pay situation for teachers as unacceptable and "disastrously low." Last year, lawmakers brokered a deal within the state budget that raised the minimum salary for teachers in Missouri from $25,000 to $38,000. But that deal lasts only one year, and leaves districts to foot part of the bill forcing the legislature to return to the issue this session. School districts and the state board of education have asked for a relatively straightforward solution: a permanent increase of the state minimum to $38,000, which would likely require a change in state law. But Republican leaders have expressed early on that they have some reservations with that route. Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican, speaks to reporters at the Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City on Jan. 5, 2023. "If we just keep raising the floor for everybody with no accountability and no ability to determine who's good and who's not, I'm not sure that does a tremendous amount of good," said Senate President Caleb Rowden of Columbia. Speaker of the House Dean Plocher, of St. Louis County, outlined a similar line of thought, acknowledging that "teaching is very difficult" but declining to specifically endorse a plan that would raise the minimum to $38,000. In his opening remarks to the House, he called for a plan that could see a reworked pay scale based on merit rather than length of tenure. Story continues More:Missouri's board of education weighs open enrollment, backs permanent teacher pay raises Democrats, meanwhile, "absolutely" support raising the salary floor, said Minority Leader Crystal Quade of Springfield. "When it comes to the Speaker's plan, I'm interested to see what it is," Quade said, asking lawmakers to avoid "weird games to try and move money around" to solve the issue. House Minority Leader Crystal Quade speaks to reporters at the State Capitol in Jefferson City on Jan. 4, 2023. Senate Democrats would "look at" a proposed merit-based pay scale, Minority Leader John Rizzo of Independence said, but argued an immediate raise remained the most urgent issue as Missouri continues to rank among the lowest states for starting teacher pay. "If we have billions of dollars (in surplus) that we can't find room to get another teacher pay raise in there in order to be competitive, I mean, that would be a travesty," Rizzo said. Several bills have been proposed to raise the minimum salary under state law. More:SPS wants Missouri legislature to continue teacher pay raises, stay out of curriculum House Bill 189 from Rep. Ed Lewis, a Moberly Republican, would raise the minimum teacher salary from $25,000 to $34,000 starting in 2024-25, increasing annually until it hits $38,000 in 2026-27. It also raises the minimum salary for a teacher with a master's degree and 10 years of experience to $42,000 in 2024-25 and eventually $46,000 in 2026-27 (currently, the minimum for those teachers is $33,000). Another proposal from Lewis, House Bill 190, would create different salary schedules, allowing districts to raise pay scales on "hard-to-staff subject areas and schools." It would not allow districts to move teachers to a new salary schedule that would decrease their salary. Isabelle Smith, a paraprofessional at Nixa's Century Elementary, plans to be a special education teacher. House Bill 578, from Rep. Louis Riggs of Hannibal, takes a different approach: establishing a grant program for the purpose of increasing teacher salaries. That grant program would be subject to spending by the legislature, and would not result in the salary floor increasing permanently. It would also require districts to put up matching funds of their own, requiring them to foot part of the bill to receive the grant money. Galen Bacharier covers Missouri politics & government for the News-Leader. Contact him at gbacharier@news-leader.com, (573) 219-7440 or on Twitter @galenbacharier. This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Teacher pay top of mind for MO lawmakers, but way forward is unclear An elementary school teacher was found shot and killed in a homes backyard in what police in Texas are calling a domestic-violence related incident. Police in Sugar Land, a southwest suburb of Houston, were dispatched to a neighborhood around 9:50 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 7, after neighbors heard gunshots, police said. Officers found the 28-year-old woman, identified by police as Wendy Duan, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds in the backyard. She was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Police said a man has been identified as a suspect, but officers did not say if anyone was arrested. Duan was an assistant elementary school teacher in the Alief Independent School District, where she has been employed since 2017, KHOU reported. We are deeply saddened to learn about the tragic passing of Alief ISD employee Wendy Duan, school district officials told KHOU. Our thoughts are prayers are with her family during this difficult time. Duans social media shows she taught second grade at Boone Elementary School and was named MVP of the month in September 2021. A few months later, she was celebrating being named the ESL Teacher of the Year. Teacher shot dead while walking dog, Arizona police say. Loved everything about life Beloved teacher found shot to death in Texas. Shocked and deeply saddened By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK (Reuters) -A man charged with using a truck to kill eight people on a Manhattan bike path in 2017 believes his attack was justified and sought to die a martyr for Islam, his defense counsel told the jury at his terrorism trial on Monday. At the first federal death-penalty trial since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, defendant Sayfullo Saipov, 34, acknowledged through his lawyers that he intended to murder and maim his victims and still believes he had a religious duty to do so. The only point of contention with prosecutors was whether he carried out the attack in order to join the Islamic State militant group, also known as ISIS, which the United States brands a terrorist organization. "That is not why he did this," David Patton, a public defender representing Saipov, said in an opening statement at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, saying Saipov was only inspired by Islamic State, and not planning to survive his attack and join as a member. "He expected to die. He expected to become a martyr." Most of the charges in the 28-count indictment include as an element that Saipov committed murder and attempted murder in order to join Islamic State. Saipov has pleaded not guilty. He sat by his lawyers in court wearing a green pullover and gray pants, a bushy black beard curling beneath his face mask. An Uzbek national who moved to the United States in 2010 and last worked as an Uber driver in Paterson, New Jersey, Saipov was provided a headset to listen to an interpreter. In the public gallery behind him sat some of the wounded, including a woman who lost both her legs, and relatives of the dead. Five Argentinian tourists, one Belgian tourist and two Americans were killed. In the prosecution's opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Li said Saipov left behind "a scene of devastation and horror" when he mowed down his victims using a rental truck on Oct. 31, 2017, before leaving a "truck-sized hole" after crashing into the side of a school bus, leaving one child with brain damage. Story continues Saipov expected the city to be busy with people celebrating Halloween and had planned to also attack people on the Brooklyn Bridge that day, Li said. He carried serrated knives and fake guns that looked real. "Right after the attack, he proudly declared why he did it," Li said. "He did it for ISIS, the brutal terrorist organization." Saipov was taken to the hospital after a police officer shot him near his crashed truck, and later that night told an FBI agent that he wanted an Islamic State flag to display in his room. His lawyers confirmed this, saying Saipov still believed what Patton called a "twisted and awful version of Islam." He told the jury that Saipov had become isolated from his extended Muslim family in Uzbekistan, and became convinced by sophisticated Islamic State propaganda he had consumed online for years that there was a Western conspiracy to eradicate Islam. The U.S. Department of Justice told Judge Vernon Broderick in September that it intends to seek the death penalty for Saipov, although there has been a moratorium on federal executions since July 2021 while the department reviews its use of the punishment. If convicted, Saipov could also be sentenced to life in prison without parole. He has been jailed since his arrest. The jury will not consider punishment during the first phase of the trial, which could last three months. If they find Saipov guilty of any capital crimes they would then weigh whether to sentence him to death. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Writing by Jonathan Allen and Tyler Clifford; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Howard Goller) (Reuters) -Israeli drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd said there was sufficient participation from U.S. states and local authorities to move forward with its nationwide settlement agreement to resolve opioid-related claims and litigation. Teva said on Monday it has either already settled with or confirmed participation from 48 of the 50 states and will continue to pursue participation by the states that are yet to join. The sign-on process for states' subdivisions will now begin, it said. The company in November finalized the settlement agreement to resolve thousands of U.S. lawsuits over the marketing of opioid painkillers and agreed to pay up to $4.25 billion, including a supply of the overdose drug naloxone. It, however, did not admit wrongdoing. The litigation over opioids, which began in 2017, has yielded more than $40 billion in settlements from drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains. State and local authorities have said they will use the money to combat the opioid crisis. More than 932,000 people have died since 1999 from a drug overdose, according to Federal data. (Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli) Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) called on the Biden administration and local authorities in Florida on Sunday to send back to Brazil its former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, whose supporters stormed the countrys Congress and Supreme Court. Bolsonaro should be extradited to Brazil, Castro said to CNNs Jim Acosta. In fact, it was reported that he was under investigation for corruption and fled Brazil to the United States. Hes a dangerous man, they should send him back to his home country, Brazil. Bolsonaro flew to Florida in late December as he faced multiple investigations from his time in office, according to The New York Times. Bolsonaro, who lost his bid for reelection in October, did not completely concede to the newly elected Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Thousands Bolsonaros supporters broke into Brazils Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace Sunday to protest the results of the election. Castro, who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, compared the countrys protests to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, which hit its two-year anniversary mark on Friday. Bolsonaro was an authoritarian leader, and I stand with the democratically elected leadership in Brazil, he said. He basically used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists to try to take over the government. Bolsonaro should not be in Florida, he added. The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian, who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil. He should be sent back to Brazil. President Biden also condemned the violence in Brazil Sunday, saying that he will continue to work with Lula and that Brazils democratic institutions have the United States full support. I condemn the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil, Biden said in a statement posted on Twitter. Brazils democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined. Story continues When asked during a trip to the southern border what he thought of the situation as it was unfolding, Biden called it outrageous. The U.S. Embassy on Twitter on Sunday warned its citizens in Brazil that, Media and police report that an antidemocratic protest has turned violent and is now occupying areas of central Brasilia including the Brazilian National Congress and areas surrounding the Plaza of the 3 Powers. Brazilian police forces are responding, the tweet added. U.S. citizens are warned to avoid the area until further notice. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. By Napat Wesshasartar BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand has rescinded an entry policy announced at the weekend requiring visitors to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination, its health minister said on Monday, citing sufficient immunisation levels in China and globally. Anutin Charnvirakul said checking evidence of vaccinations was inconvenient and a panel of heath experts had agreed to withdraw the new rule, which was announced on Saturday by aviation authorities ahead of an expected deluge of visitors from China, where COVID-19 cases have surged. Anutin said those not vaccinated would also be granted entry without restriction. "Showing proof of vaccination would be cumbersome and inconvenient, and so the group's decision is that it is unnecessary," Anutin told reporters. One of Asia's most popular travel destinations, Thailand is enjoying an influx of visitors during its first peak season since the removal last year of tight entry restrictions that had caused its tourism sector to collapse. In November, it recorded 1.75 million visitors, quadruple the number for the whole of last year when flights and foreign arrivals were limited. China has been crucial for Thailand, accounting for about a quarter of its annual visitors before the pandemic. Anutin said the government was now expecting 7-10 million Chinese visitors, compared to an earlier 5 million estimate. The first flight from China arrived in Thailand on Monday with the first group among an expected 3,465 passengers on the first day. "We're very excited to come back to Thailand. We have been waiting for three years already," said Wang Zhenyin, 39, one of the first to arrive. "Before the start of COVID, we came here every year. And this time I take my family to come here." Thailand's tourism authority is expecting arrival numbers for last year to have exceeded 11.5 million, just over a quarter of the record of nearly 40 million in pre-pandemic 2019, who spent about 1.91 trillion baht ($55.17 billion). Story continues The about-face on the vaccine rule follows similar policy U-turns by Thailand during the pandemic that have caused widespread confusion among travellers about its entry requirements. Thailand will still require foreigners to show evidence of health insurance cover for COVID-19 if their next destination requires a negative pre-entry test, Anutin said. (Reporting by Napat Wesshasartar and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Ed Davies and Nick Macfie) Khanh Hoa focuses on tourism attraction plan for 2023 As 2023 brings new opportunities for tourism development, the central coastal Khanh Hoa Province is looking to establish itself as a key tourism hub in the country. An overview of Nha Trang City in central coastal Khanh Hoa Province. Nha Trang is one of Vietnam's most important tourist hubs thanks to its beautiful beaches with fine and clean sand and clear ocean water with mild temperatures all year round. The provincial Department of Tourism has announced plans to boost the province's tourism market and make the most of the coming year. The provincial tourism industry saw a huge decrease in visitors due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the province was among the first localities to re-open for tourists and become a locality with the fastest tourism recovery in the country. The province has since welcomed 2.5 million visitors, of which more than 155,540 were foreign visitors. Total revenue from tourism is estimated at over VN10 billion, 170 per cent higher than planned. The departments director Nguyen Thi Le Thanh, said this year, the tourism industry aims to attract 500,000 international visitors. This number is quite modest compared to the industrys goals before the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. Thanh said the tourism industry had prepared special events and promotion programmes to attract tourists. At the beginning of this year, the province launched special tour packages to welcome the return of international visitors during the New Year holiday; 120 foreign tourists from Incheon (South Korea) landed at Cam Ranh International Airport to start their tour in Khanh Hoa Province. Local leaders and representatives from departments and sectors welcomed the passengers. Hwichan Jang, a South Korean tourist, said it was the first time he and his family came to Vietnam. He was happy to be warmly welcomed with flowers and gifts. We hope to have a wonderful New Year holiday in Vietnam, he said. Khanh Hoa is also a popular destination for international tourists from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. On the first day of this year, 180 tourists from Kazakhstan, Russia and Uzbekistan landed at Cam Ranh International Airport. This is a positive signal for Vietnam to promote its image to the world and fully tap potential markets. Alxeander Avery said travel agencies in his country highly recommend Vietnam due to its beautiful scenery, hospitality, good weather and good food. He carefully researched Vietnam before arriving here. "As my first time coming to Vietnam, Im expecting the trip will bring me experiences and understanding about the country, he said. The department's reports showed that the province received 355,200 tourists in the first three days of this year. The average room capacity reached over 63 per cent, mainly in four or five-star hotels along beaches in Cam Ranh City and Nha Trang City. Thanh said special tour packages are the first activities to welcome back foreign visitors to Vietnam this year. The province will continue to welcome more international flights and diversify tourism products to lure international tourists in the coming time. According to the provincial Party Committee's action programme, tourism is a spearhead economic sector in the 2021-25 period. The province targets to attract 11 million visitors, including five million international visitors, by 2025. By 2030, the number of tourists will reach 15.4 million, of which more than eight million are international visitors. Thanh said the department would continue to promote tourism activities by developing mechanisms and policies related to tourism, applying information technology and training local human resources for tourism development. The tourism industry will cooperate with businesses to launch stimulus tour packages, which feature typical tourism products of the province. Permanent Deputy Chairman of Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association Pham Minh Nhut said to attract international visitors, the province should give priority to developing tourism products and facilities. Each tourist market has its own characteristics, so it is necessary to consider tourists' habits, spirituality, and cuisine to develop suitable products and services in the province, he added. Craftsman shapes wood into various forms to make it seem alive. At the entrance to Tanbian village, Xianyou county, Fujian province, there is an old tree that has stood proudly for about 100 years. Under the tree there is a crudely built iron-sheet structure with its doorway often filled with sawdust. It is the studio of Wu Furong, a craftsman specializing in wood carving. "What I carve are often large-sized works roughly three to five meters long, and I usually work for more than 10 hours every day. Therefore, I work in the studio so that the noise won't disturb neighbors," says Wu. Now in his 50s, he has worked in this profession for more than three decades, and is a sophisticated craftsman who enjoys his work. Xianyou is famous for its arts and crafts industry, which is a pillar of the local economy, and includes carving, painting, embroidery and lacquerware. According to statistics released by the Xianyou government, nearly 200,000 people are engaged in such businesses, creating an output of approximately 53 billion yuan ($7.7 billion) in 2021. Among them, wood carving plays a significant role. Xianyou has a wood-carving history stretching back more than 1,000 years, and is known as "the capital" of the craft in China. Wood carving has been listed as a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage of Fujian. It is not surprising that Wu, who became interested in handicrafts in childhood, learned the craft at 16. At first, he learned the skills from his cousin, and then by working in a local company established by You Liangzhao, a master of wood carving in Xianyou. He worked for the company for more than two decades, but in recent years, he has branched out on his own. His carving covers a wide range of subjects, including Buddhist statues and artistic works depicting famous paintings, legends, historical stories and musical instruments. He cannot remember how many works he has created over the years, but they have been sold to many places in China, and to countries like Singapore and Malaysia. Xianyou wood carving features simplicity and conciseness. The materials craftsmen use are often expensive with special textures and complicated patterns, and the Xianyou craft aims to give full play to the beauty of the wood itself. "Carving wood requires much patience. You need to observe the original wood, consider your plan, roughly draw the patterns and begin to carve. You need to polish the work slowly and repeatedly to make it good," says Wu. "Artistic works are flexible and have no fixed standards. Therefore, I often need to think of the plan for a long time, while I try to find the best possible way to make it," he adds. He always considers a lot of details, such as the size, costume, posture and accessories of each character he is shaping. Zhang Weimin, another wood carver in Xianyou, says, "Besides the craft, more in-depth thought is required to make an artistic piece. "Every craftsman has a unique style of wood carving, and that is formed by integrating their experience and emotions into the traditional craft," he adds. Sometimes, when Wu carves a large-scale piece up to a height of three meters, he needs to climb on a ladder. He often stays on the ladder for several hours, but the effort doesn't bother him. "I love the work. Every time when I complete a piece after repeated revision and improvement, I feel that it is the most enjoyable moment in my life, and all the difficulties of the process are worth it," says Wu. Wu has recruited dozens of apprentices over the years, but many gave up halfway. "Carving is fiddly work, which not only requires sharp insight and good mastery of the craft, but also the patience to endure hardships. "For decades, the graver has never been idle in my hands, and that comes from people's recognition of my proficiency in wood carving. Making every piece of work as good as I can, that is what I have tried to accomplish as a craftsman," says Wu. Donald Trump claimed in a speech to a Mar-a-Lago audience over the weekend that President Joe Biden convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin to go into Ukraine. Trump, without evidence, said Biden told the Russian leader it would be no problem if he took some parts of Ukraine in the invasion Russia began in February 2022. Biden actually sought a peaceful solution to Russias warmongering and condemned the invasion. It was Trump who called Putins invasion genius at the time. The Mar-a-Lago event, a mini-campaign speech, reportedly was linked to the Conservative Political Action Conference. Trump also told his audience he invited professors to the White House to explain how horrible a nuclear war would be if it came up in the presidential debates. The power is so destructive that we wont talk about it, he said. Trump claimed the experts urged him: Sir, do the best you can to not talk about it ... Its so destructive, its so powerful. The world will be gone. Trump claimed Biden is increasing the risk of a nuclear war because he has no mind left. The former president, speaking from a podium, also insisted that a lunatic fatally shot Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt during the Jan. 6 violence in 2021. There was no reason for it, said Trump. Were not going to let this go on. These are people are horrible, horrible people, he added, apparently referring to police protecting lawmakers that day. What theyve done to protesters ... Babbitt, a Trump supporter, was shot by a police officer during the insurrection as she was climbing through a smashed window in the Capitol as a violent mob tried to reach lawmakers in their bid to overthrow Trumps defeat. (See the video below). The Justice Department investigated Babbitts shooting and chose not to prosecute the Capitol police officer who shot her. Trump again insisted the rioters were merely protesting a dishonest election. Theres no evidence the vote was dishonest. Story continues Nearly 1,000 rioters have been charged or convicted in the Jan. 6 riot. The Justice Department continues investigating. Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, was arrested after blocking traffic in a protest on Capitol grounds on Friday, police said. She ignored orders to move and instead turned around with her hands behind her back and asked to be arrested, Capitol police said in a statement. Impaired grandpa at Mar-a-Lago tonight cheering up his guests by talking about imminent nuclear war and saying that Biden convinced Putin to go into Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/tAmnVkl54u Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 8, 2023 Frequent Mar-a-Lago visitor Kari Lakeappeared at the event with Trump. She has been baselessly calling herself the duly elected governor of Arizona, even though she lost the gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs in November. Trump has mostly been hunkered down at Mar-a-Lago, even though he announced in mid-November that hes running for the presidency again. Hes surrounded by sycophants at his resort, which one Trump confidant recently referred to as a kind of Barbie Dream House where Trump can still pretend hes president. Related... Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro clash with the police on Sunday (AFP via Getty Images) The storming of Brazils seats of power by a rampaging mob backing Jair Bolsanaro has sent a shockwave through the country and become the focus of international attention. But there has been lingering fear since the presidential election that the toxic political divisions would erupt into violence. Hundreds have been arrested following the riots and the government buildings that were occupied have been cleared. There was no certainty, however, that this would end further strife by the followers of the far-right former president who refuses to accept the victory of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The hardliners, many of them armed, are on a crusade to stop the left-winger Lula whom they label, falsely, a communist, from turning Brazil into another Venezuela or Cuba, as they put it. And they have support, covertly and at times overtly, from elements of the security forces. World leaders voiced their support for the Lula government following the attacks, with Joe Biden saying: I condemn the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. Brazils democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined. It is believed that similar international support and acceptance of the election outcome within hours of results played a part in stopping any possible Bolsanaro plans of clinging to office. However, strictures from abroad are unlikely to sway Bolsanaro supporters who intend to carry on their aggressive protests, with the next flashpoint coming soon. Ever since Lula narrowly won the second round of the election, the former presidents supporters have been encamped across the country, often outside military bases calling for a coup. On Monday, Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered troops to start dismantling the camps within 24 hours and clear all highways of roadblocks. Absolutely nothing justifies the existence of full camps of terrorists, sponsored by various financiers and with the complacency of civil and military authorities in total subversion of necessary respect for the Federal Constitution," read his order. Commanders from the armed forces, police and the defence minister will be held accountable in court if this was not done, it added. Story continues This came after President Lula, who blamed Bolsanaro for the attacks, vowed that anyone involved will be punished. The attack, he said, had been carried out by vandals, neo-fascists and fanatics with the complicity of some police officers who didnt do anything at all. They just let the protesters in. The federal police chief, Anderson Torres, who previously served as Bolsonaros justice minister, has been fired and Ibaneis Rocha, the pro-Bolsonaro governor of the federal district, has been suspended from office for 90 days. Bolsanaro remains out of the country having broken precedent by refusing to attend his successors inauguration. Some reports claimed that he had fled to escape possible criminal charges over a range of alleged offences while in power. The former president turned up in Florida where, according to reports, he is due to meet Donald Trump at his home, Mar-a-Lago. There have been immediate and predictable comparisons between what happened in Brasilia and the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters two years ago. The images from both assaults were similar: flag-draped intruders lounging on office chairs, ransacking and stealing property, assaulting guards. Security forces stand guard as supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro leave a camp outside the the army headquarters in Brasilia (Reuters) Both sets of protesters were following authoritarian populist leaders who claimed they had been victims of electoral fraud. In Brazil, as in the US, the discontent has been fuelled by conspiracy theories in the social media. As the Brasilia attack unfolded, well-known Trump supporters egged on the rioters, with Steve Bannon lauding them as freedom fighters who knew criminal, atheistic, Marxist Lula stole the election. Ali Alexander, a fringe activist who became prominent in Trumps stop the steal movement, exhorted: Do whatever is necessary. The links between the camps of Trump and Bolsanaro, who revelled in his Trump of the Tropics moniker, began long before the Brazilian election and its aftermath, with Bannon one of the main conduits. During the Brazilian election campaign, Trump wrote on his social platform: President Jair Bolsonaro and I have become great friends over the past few years for the people of the United States... He is a wonderful man and has my complete and total endorsement. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva meets with Supreme Court ministers and his cabinet on Monday (AFP/Getty) Bolsanaro has so far failed to explicitly condemn the attacks. He tweeted: Peaceful demonstrations, within the law, form part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions of public buildings like those that happened today, as well as those practised by the left in 2013 and 2017, are exceptions to the rule. The mood among some who taken to the streets against Lula remained defiant. On protester, Bernardo Lopez Diaz, said: I did not go [into the public buildings] and do not agree with the damage that was caused. But we are not going to accept a fake result. If they start destroying camps, well build new ones. We have a right to be heard. Felipe Contreras, a former policeman in Sao Paolo, said: It is no longer just about Bolsanaro. He has frankly been disappointing the way he just accepted the election and is not even here now. No, this is about stopping a communist takeover of our country. We are going to stop this happening; we dont care what people in North America or Europe say, you dont face ending up like Venezuela. We are prepared for whatever happens. Bolsanaro dismantled much of Brazils gun control legislation during his time in office. Ownership of registered firearms increased six-fold during his tenure, with 700,000 now officially owned. During the election campaign, The Independent visited a gun club in Sao Paulo with booming sales. At a shooting range attached to the shop an instructor told a group of teenagers: If you are going to use a gun, you need to do it properly. Youll find this necessary to defend your family, your community. Our country faces a dark future, communists could try to take over. Wichita police have arrested two men in connection with shooting Thursday in north Wichita that left one person dead. The man who died in the shooting was identified as 43-year-old Mareo Dupree of Wichita, police spokesperson Chad Ditch said. The two Wichita men arrested were 47-year-old Jamar White on suspicion of first-degree murder and 30-year-old Darries Mitchell on suspicion of aggravated battery, Ditch said. The shooting was reported around 12:35 p.m. Thursday in the 2300 block of north Piatt. Officers arrived at a house and found Dupree who had been shot in the chest. He was taken to a hospital, where he died, Ditch added. While officers were tending to the incident at Piatt, White walked into a hospital with a gunshot wound to his upper body, according to police news release. Police learned that there had been a dispute over a drug debt between White and the people inside the home, Ditch said. Dupree and Mitchell were inside the home but it is unknown if they were involved in the debt. White reportedly drove past the home multiple times and shot at it, police said in a news release. Sometime later Mitchell and White shot at each in the area, and several homes were struck by gunfire, Ditch added. Kansas Department of Corrections records show White was previously convicted on charges of drug possession in 2005 and Mitchell was previously convicted on charges of eluding law enforcement in 2016. Two Massachusetts inmates have been indicted on charges for their role in attacking two correctional officers during an altercation on October 22. According to the Essex County Sheriffs office, two inmates and two officers sustained minor injuries during an altercation at the Middleton Jail and House of Correction. All were taken to local hospitals and treated, but none of the injuries required hospitalization Three shanks were immediately discovered near where the altercation happened, police say. Upon further investigation right more weapons were recovered during a week long search of the facility. Jorge Delgado-Medina, 26, of Melrose, was charged with assault and battery and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Adrian Corniel De La Cruz, 18, of Lawrence, was charged with two counts of armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and assault with a dangerous weapon. According to Sheriff Coppinger There has been an increase in inmate aggression at Essex County correctional facilities as the numbers of those waiting to be tried on violent and gang-related crime continues to increase. Coppinger also added that as of Jan 1 of this year, 40 percent of the countys detainees were facing or being held on violent charges, including murder, attempted murder, rape, and assault. A conviction on a charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon carries a state prison sentence of ten or more years. A conviction on a charge of assault and battery with intent to murder carries a state prison sentence of not more than 20 years. We will not tolerate attacks on our officers. We will prosecute and we will seek justice, said Essex County Sheriff Kevin F. Coppinger. This incident demonstrates the danger our officers face each and every day. For me, officer safety is the top priority. 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 MEXICO CITY President Joe Biden will host Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, in Washington in February, the White House announced on Monday. Biden extended the invitation during a call with Lula following the weekend storming of Brazils government institutions, according to the White House. During the call, Biden condemned the rioters violence and conveyed the unwavering support of the United States for Brazils democracy and for the free will of the Brazilian people as expressed in Brazils recent presidential election, which President Lula won, the White House said in a statement. The announcement came hours after Biden and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts released a joint statement pledging to support the recently elected leader of the country, whose predecessor has fueled doubts about his legitimacy. The statement of condemnation from the three North American leaders came as they attended a summit and as some Democrats called for that predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, to be kicked out of the United States. Bolsonaro is reported to have been staying in Florida after he skipped Lulas recent inauguration. Biden administration officials declined to say whether they were looking at kicking out Bolsonaro, but noted that the Brazilian government had not requested it. A Brazilian news organization, meanwhile, reported that Bolsonaro had been admitted to a Florida hospital because of abdominal pains, though that report could not immediately be confirmed. Agence France-Presse later tweeted the same information about the former presidents health and hospitalization, citing his wife. Unwilling to accept his defeat, Bolsonaro supporters on Sunday stormed Brazils presidential, congressional and supreme court buildings. The events echoed the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a vocal backer of Bolsonaro. Like Trump, Bolsonaro has a strongman style and sought to sow doubts about the election he lost. Story continues Mondays statement from Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was terse, but it put the countries full support behind Lula. We stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions, the three leaders said. Our governments support the free will of the people of Brazil. We look forward to working with President Lula on delivering for our countries, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond. Vice President Kamala Harris also condemned the riots on Monday during a swearing-in ceremony for the new U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, Elizabeth Bagley. This was an obvious and clear attack on a democratic process. And we condemn it, Harris said, adding that she was very confident in Bagleys ability to represent the United States and to extend to President Lula all that we need in terms of the work that we will do together as allies on some of the most important issues facing our world. Harris did not respond to a question about whether Bolsonaro should be removed from the U.S. Bagley, a longtime Democratic fundraiser who served as ambassador to Portugal under President Bill Clinton, is filling a position that has been vacant since Bolsonaro-ally Todd Chapman stepped down in 2021. Biden nominated Bagley in January of last year, and she was confirmed by the Senate in December. Numerous Democratic lawmakers have spoken out against the Brazilian attacks since Sunday, while Republicans, possibly due to concerns about avoiding Trumps ire, were largely quiet. One prominent GOP member to speak out on Monday was Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The scenes over the weekend in Brazil were troubling to see, McCaul said on Twitter. I thank Brazilian authorities for once again securing Brazils top government institutions and I urge calm & restraint in the country. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) was among the lawmakers who said the United States needs to kick Bolsonaro out of Florida and back to Brazil, where the former president is under investigation on a number of allegations. Bolsonaro must not be given refuge in Florida, where hes been hiding from accountability for his crimes, Castro tweeted. The State Department declined to comment on the type of visa the former Brazilian leader used to enter the United States, saying such records are confidential. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security also did not respond to questions about Bolsonaros visa status. A spokesperson for the Justice Department also declined to comment on the situation. But the United States generally has broad leeway to revoke visas. Still, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan would not say what, if anything, the Biden administration would do to shorten Bolsonaros Florida stay. We have not, as of now, received any official requests from the Brazilian government related to Bolsonaro, Sullivan said. Of course if we did receive such a request, wed treat them the way we always do wed treat them seriously. Sullivan would not say whether the United States would revoke Bolsonaros visa details of which he would not share independent of a Brazilian request. State Department spokesperson Ned Price noted Monday that if someone entered the United States on an A visa a type typically given to foreign heads of state and other diplomats and that person was no longer engaged in official government business, it would be incumbent on that visa holder to leave the United States or request a change in immigration status within 30 days. If the person didnt leave the United States or request a change in their immigration status within 30 days, they could face deportation. Price stressed that he would not comment specifically on Bolsonaro or what he may or may not have requested visa-wise. Bolsonaro left Brazil for the United States in late December. Rebecca Bill Chavez, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense who now leads the Inter-American Dialogue, urged a tough U.S. response, including revoking Bolsonaros visa. Canceling a visa wont mitigate what actually happened, but it is a clear statement condemning Bolsonaros role in instigating actions that were taken from the Trump Jan. 6 playbook, she said. O Globo, a Brazilian news outlet, reported on Monday that Bolsonaro had been admitted to a hospital in the Orlando, Fla., area due to abdominal problems. The former Brazilian leader has on several occasions had to deal with such medical problems since being stabbed in 2018 while campaigning. An aide to Bolsonaro did not respond to requests for information. Since losing office, Bolsonaro has sent mixed signals about his views on what his supporters should do to back his claims of a rigged election. He has often stayed silent, unlike Trump, who in many ways encouraged the protesters who attacked the U.S. Capitol two years earlier. Its not clear what, precisely, sparked the Brazilian attacks on Sunday. But the former Brazilian president on Sunday did tweet out a careful condemnation that also dinged his political foes: Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rule. Bolsonaros son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, has close ties with Trump-aligned conservative figures in the United States, such as Steve Bannon and Jason Miller, and has been in contact with them since the October presidential election. On his War Room podcast on Monday, Bannon asserted that the Bolsonaros had not been involved in the unrest in Brazil, and he mocked allegations that he himself orchestrated the assaults. But he has been supportive of the protesters efforts. On Sunday, Bannon called the protesters Brazilian freedom fighters. He has continued to allege corruption and fraud in Brazils election and on Monday called for Lula to open up the machines. Asked about the links between Trumps backers and those of Bolsonaro, Sullivan said he had no immediate information to share. Brazilian authorities have arrested hundreds of people alleged to have stormed the government facilities. A senior State Department official said that all embassy staff members in Brazil were safe amid the chaos. We did an accountability exercise within minutes of this first breaking and were able to establish full accountability for our team in Brazil and those visiting on temporary duty, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because it involved the sensitive topic of security. Myah Ward reported from Mexico City, and Nahal Toosi from Washington. Meridith McGraw and Kelly Garrity contributed to this report. MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Iran's nuclear program and threats posed by Tehran will be discussed when U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan travels to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government. "I'll be going to Israel and that will be a substantial topic of conversation when I go," he said. Speaking to reporters traveling with President Joe Biden on a trip to Mexico City, Sullivan did not say when his trip would take place. A National Security Council spokesperson said dates were still being worked out. Sullivan said efforts to revive an Iran nuclear deal opposed by Israel had been set aside for now while Washington pressures Iran to stop sending drones to Russia for use in its war against Ukraine and seeks to stop a crackdown on Iranian demonstrators. Israel has opposed Biden's attempts to revive the Iran nuclear deal, concerned that it will not stop Tehran's development of a nuclear weapon. "We'll have the opportunity to engage deeply with the new Israeli government on the threat posed by Iran. And I think we share the same fundamental objectives. And we will work through any differences we have on tactics, the same way that we have over the course of the past two years," Sullivan said. In Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he would discuss Iran with the American team. "The time has come for Israel and the U.S. to be on the same page, together with states - I expect to discuss this with President Biden and his staff. There is now more unanimity on the subject than at any other time," Netanyahu said. (Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Steve Holland and Emily Rose; Editing by Mark Porter and Howard Goller) By Nate Raymond (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to again hear a multi-billion dollar case pursued by shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac arising from the federal government's takeover of the mortgage finance firms during the 2008 financial crisis. The justices turned away an appeal by the investors of a lower court's ruling against their challenge to a 2012 agreement that resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars being redirected from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the U.S. Treasury. The shareholders had argued that this arrangement unlawfully deprived them of dividends without compensation. The private investors pursuing the appeal at the Supreme Court include Bruce Berkowitz's Fairholme Funds and funds managed by New York-based Owl Creek Asset Management. Fannie and Freddie were created by Congress and operate as for-profit corporations with private shareholders, with the mission of expanding the national home lending market by buying home loans from private lenders and repackaging them as mortgage-backed securities. When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the companies suffered overwhelming losses. To avoid catastrophic effects for the U.S. economy, they were placed in conservatorship under the newly created Federal Housing Finance Agency. The case before the Supreme Court arose from of a myriad of lawsuits that private shareholders filed over the 2012 agreement between the U.S. Treasury and the FHFA aimed at repaying the government for the bailout. The 2012 agreement required Fannie and Freddie to pay the U.S. Treasury quarterly a sum equal to the amount that their net worth exceeded a specified capital reserve. The investors have said this resulted in an unwarranted government windfall of $124 billion. The Supreme Court considered the agreement in an earlier case in 2021, agreeing with shareholders that the FHFA's structure was unconstitutional but throwing out a core part of the challenge to how the 2012 deal was administered. Story continues The latest case concerned shareholder claims that the agreement, called the "net worth sweep," violated the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment requirement that the government provide "just compensation" when private property is taken for public use. Lower courts agreed with the government that the shareholders lacked the right to sue because their lawsuits amounted to an allegation that the companies had overpaid the Treasury, and only Fannie and Freddie could sue to recover that money. While the shareholders argued that the 2012 agreement directly harmed them, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with a federal judge that their claims failed under Delaware law, which governed the shareholders' rights. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham) The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted a Travis County death row inmate's challenge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' decision to uphold his conviction and death sentence, sending it back to the appeals court. The Supreme Court directed the appeals court to further consider a brief that the office of Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza filed, admitting that due in part to past issues with the formerly Austin Police Department-run DNA lab prosecutors had offered flawed and misleading forensic evidence at the 2011 trial of Areli Escobar, and this evidence was crucial to the outcome of his case. The appeals court still has the option to reach the same conclusion and uphold the conviction again. The trial of Escobar, convicted of sexually assaulting and fatally stabbing 17-year-old Bianca Maldonado, is so far the most high-profile case to be reexamined after a state audit revealed that the Austin Police Department's DNA lab was incorrectly analyzing forensic evidence. The state Department of Public Safety now runs the lab. In May 2009, Maldonado was stabbed 46 times, beaten and sexually assaulted before dying of blood loss at her Decker Lane apartment, where Escobar also lived, investigators have said. The slain LBJ High School student was alone with her 1-year-old son, who was injured but survived. When Escobar's girlfriend called his cellphone early that morning, she could hear a woman screaming repeatedly, she testified at his trial. Escobar later arrived at his mother's house with a bloody shirt, according to his arrest affidavit. Two years ago, state district Judge David Wahlberg recommended a new trial for Escobar, citing a myriad of reported issues with the lab. "It would be shocking to the conscience to uphold the conviction," Wahlberg concluded, adding that Escobar's "trial was fundamentally unfair." A 2016 audit by the Texas Forensic Science Commission discovered substantial problems at the Austin police crime lab, which had tested evidence in Escobar's case or packaged evidence for testing in an outside lab. Story continues According to the audit, DNA analysts didn't follow scientifically accepted practices; lab executives lacked necessary scientific and technical knowledge; and poor quality control allowed evidence to be contaminated in the testing process. Evidence questioned Issues with the DNA evidence in Escobars case were brought to light early on. Nine months before his trial, the Austin police DNA lab asked the DPS to do additional testing on a stain on a shirt and a stain on a doorknob lock. Three days after the jury convicted Escobar of capital murder, then-DPS Analyst Jody Koehler reported that she was unable to find any DNA profiles from the stain. However, Escobars attorneys did not receive a copy of Koehlers report until years later. Had counsel for Mr. Escobar been in possession of Ms. Koehlers report when it was first issued on May 16, 2011, counsel for Mr. Escobar could have utilized the report as mitigating evidence in the punishment phase of Mr. Escobars trial, as well as moving for mistrial and/or filing a motion for new trial based on new evidence, Wahlberg wrote in his recommendation. This amounted to suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to Escobar, which violated his 14th Amendment right to due process, Wahlberg wrote. The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Escobar's conviction a year ago, ruling that although DNA statistics used to link Escobar and Maldonado to blood samples were discredited, recalculated statistics confirmed a link to some samples. Additionally, other evidence also linked Escobar to the crime, including a fingerprint, bloody shoe print and the testimony of a former girlfriend who told jurors that she called Escobar within the four-hour window in which the murder occurred and overheard "a woman screaming and screaming." In their Supreme Court briefs, defense lawyers and prosecutors argued significant testing problems at the DNA lab rendered meaningless any recalculated statistics because the evidence had still been collected and packaged by the lab. Garza also told the court that two analysts who collected and tested evidence in Escobar's case had a combined 14 "contamination incidents" while working at the Austin lab. In Escobar's case, one analyst violated rules by placing poorly sealed crime scene samples next to samples that had been collected from Escobar, he added. Additionally, Garza noted that the girlfriend's testimony about her early morning phone call to Escobar changed significantly in the two years between the crime and trial, initially telling at least four people that she heard what sounded like Escobar engaging in consensual sex, adding that their relationship was over. Analysts initially determined that Escobar matched none of the fingerprints collected from the crime scene, but one print was reanalyzed midtrial and determined to match the joint of Escobar's ring finger. An outside expert later determined that the print, taken from a lotion bottle found near the victim, was of low quality and that its link to Escobar fell short of scientific standards, Garza said. The bloody shoeprint only matched certain aspects of Escobar's shoe, and the prosecution expert did not measure the print and could not determine the size, brand or type of the shoe that made the impression, Garza said, adding, "There could potentially have been thousands of similar shoes in the Austin area." This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Supreme Court tells appeals court to reconsider Austin death row case LONDON (Reuters) -Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time to help the country fight Russian forces, Sky News reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources. Discussions have been taking place "for a few weeks" about delivering the British Army's Challenger 2 main battle tank to Ukraine, Sky said, quoting a Western source with knowledge of the conversations. Supplying tanks would represent a significant step-up in Western support to Ukraine, but the British government has not yet taken a final decision on the matter, the report added. Sky cited one unnamed source saying Britain could offer around 10 Challenger 2 tanks. The Challenger 2 is a battle tank designed to attack other tanks, and has been in service with the British army since 1994. It has been deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq, according to the British army. Britain's Ministry of Defence did not comment specifically on possible supplies of tanks to Ukraine, but pointed to its supply of over 200 armoured vehicles and other equipment including air defence missiles and anti-tank weapons to date. "We will continue to build on recent donations with training and further gifting of equipment," a ministry spokesperson said. Britain has committed to match or exceed last year's 2.3 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) in military aid for Ukraine. Foreign minister James Cleverly said last week Britain would continue working with Western allies to ensure Ukraine receives the military support it needs. "Tanks might well be part of that, and where they come from ... which allies provide them, is something that, of course, we're working in coordination with each other," Cleverly said, following a meeting with his German counterpart. ($1 = 0.8220 pounds) (Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, Editing by Kylie MacLellan and Sarah Young) Taylor Swift's new album "Midnights" has become the fastest-selling album by a Western artist in China, according to Universal Music Group (UMG). The album sold nearly 200,000 digital copies on its debut day on Oct. 21 on QQ Music, and to date has sold over 657,000 digital copies on QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music, the two largest Chinese music streaming platforms, in addition to other platforms in China. "Midnights," Taylor Swift's tenth studio album, was released by Republic Records, a label under UMG, and achieved more than 6 million album-equivalent units worldwide in just eight weeks. In the U.S. alone, it has sold 3 million units, making Swift the only artist with five albums that sold over 1 million units during release week. The blockbuster release sold nearly 1.6 million during its debut week, becoming the first album to sell over 1 million physical copies since 2015. "Taylor is a multidimensional creative force whose achievements place her among the most accomplished artists in the history of music, and we are thrilled and honored to partner with her across so many aspects of her career," said Sir Lucian Grainge, UMG chairman and CEO. Republic Records founder and CEO Monte Lipman added, "These accomplishments further exemplify Taylor's prowess as the consummate artist and storyteller defining a generation." "Midnights" has helped Swift break streaming, physical and vinyl album sales milestones worldwide. It has become the fastest-selling album of her career and she became the first artist in history to capture the entire Top 10 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Taylor Swift had 36.6 billion combined streams of her music and 22.4 million album-equivalent units in 2022. In addition to her impressive sales, Swift has also been nominated for a string of forthcoming awards, including four Grammy Awards. Her song "Carolina" is also shortlisted for Best Original Song at the upcoming 2023 Oscars. To promote "Midnights," Swift will soon embark on her highly anticipated The Eras Tour, playing 52 stadium shows in the U.S. International dates are expected to be announced soon. James Cleverly - Lucy North/PA The UK and EU hailed a breakthrough in Brexit talks over the Northern Ireland Protocol on Monday, unlocking intensive negotiations over the Irish Sea border. The agreement has given new impetus to the race to reach a protocol deal before the unofficial April 10 deadline of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Joe Biden, the US president, has warned that he will not attend the celebrations of the peace agreement unless a protocol deal has been reached. The Government and Brussels struck a mini-deal on the thorny issue of EU access to UK databases on trade flows of goods and animals from Britain to Northern Ireland during lunchtime talks in London. This means a new basis for EU UK discussions on the protocol, said Maros Sefcovic, the EUs chief negotiator. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, said: We share the same focus finding the best outcome for Northern Ireland. Todays progress on data sharing marks a positive step in discussions on the Northern Ireland Protocol. A joint statement agreed by the two negotiators said: This work was a critical prerequisite to building trust and providing assurance. EU and UK technical teams will work rapidly to scope the potential for solutions in different areas on the basis of this renewed understanding. Maros Sefcovic - Olivier Hoslet/Shutterstock There remain deep divisions between the UK and EU over the protocol, including the continued role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland. Mr Cleverly, Mr Sefcovic and Chris Heaton Harris, the Northern Ireland Secretary, are now expected to talk again on January 16, which suggests a return to weekly talks after months of deadlock and occasional discussions. Both sides said there would now be intensive negotiations to bridge other areas of disagreement over the treaty, which introduced border checks on British goods to prevent a hard Irish border after Brexit. Agreement on database access is vital in order to lay the groundwork for an eventual Protocol deal based on removing border checks in exchange for bolstered market surveillance. Story continues Brussels wants the access to better police whether British goods were crossing the invisible land border from Northern Ireland into Ireland. This would allow it to cut checks or react if British goods not being checked to ensure they meet EU standards are shown to be crossing the border. The Government wants to cut the number of border checks faced by British goods crossing the Irish Sea because they have a chilling effect on trade. London argues that the checks are too burdensome because many goods and animals do not cross the border into Ireland, an EU member. The European Commission had demanded real-time access to trade flow data from Britain to Northern Ireland. Sources said it was now satisfied with the quality of access after there was disagreement over whether the information was in real time or provided by companies or the Government. Technical talks between officials over the database had continued since UK-EU relations improved after the resignation of Boris Johnson last year. Micheal Martin, Irelands foreign secretary and former prime minister, welcomed the news of the breakthrough. He will travel to Brussels on Tuesday for talks with the commission. Any eventual deal will also need to have the support of the DUP, which has boycotted the restoration of Stormont after May elections because of its opposition to the protocol, which they fear is driving a wedge between them and the rest of the UK. 'This is not a time for sticking plasters' A DUP spokesman said: The Protocol caused the collapse of the NI executive, it must be replaced with arrangements that restore our place in the UK. This is not a time for sticking plasters. Its time for a serious negotiation which deals with the fundamental problem. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, added: I am committed to the restoration of Stormont, but such a restoration can only be durable if it is built on solid foundations which are supported by unionists and nationalists. Mr Heaton-Harris will meet with Northern Irelands major political parties on Wednesday. He has said he will call fresh Assembly elections on January 19 unless power-sharing is restored. Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, is also expected in Belfast before next weeks deadline. However, the database breakthrough will raise expectations that the deadline will be extended to April 13, three days after Mr Bidens planned visit for the Good Friday Agreement anniversary. Before the database breakthrough, RTE reported officials were making contingency plans in case the April deadline was missed. A political agreement on the broad outlines of a deal could be announced to buy time for more negotiations, the Irish broadcaster reported. David Lammy, Labours shadow foreign secretary, described progress on solving the Protocol row as pathetic and said the data deal was long overdue. Rishi Sunak is failing to make real headway on the wider negotiations because he is too weak to stand up to the ERG in his party, he said. With hard work and compromise on all sides, a deal is achievable to end this damaging, self-inflicted stand-off. LONDON (AP) U.K. government ministers met trade union leaders on Monday but fell short of ending a wave of strikes that has hobbled the rail network and strained the overburdened health system. There were small signs of progress but no breakthrough after a meeting between Health Secretary Steve Barclay and health care unions. Other ministers met with railway unions that have staged months of strikes, and teaching unions considering classroom walkouts. Barclay said the talks had made progress and the government wanted "to work constructively with the trade unions. There was definitely a change of tone today," said Sarah Gorton of UNISON, which represents some health workers. However Onay Kasab, negotiator for the Unite union, said the talks had been a missed opportunity. Unions said strikes by nurses and ambulance staff planned for this month would go ahead. Nurses are due to walk out on Wednesday, and ambulance workers next week, while junior doctors are voting on whether to strike later this year. Joanne Galbraith-Marten, of nurses' union the Royal College of Nursing, said that there is no resolution to our dispute yet in sight. Rachel Harrison of the GMB union said the talks fell well short of anything substantial that could stop this weeks strikes. Britain is going through its biggest strike wave for decades, with airport baggage handlers, border staff, driving instructors, bus drivers and postal workers among those who have walked off their jobs to demand higher pay. Nurses and ambulance workers are locked in a dispute with the state-funded National Health Service as they seek raises to keep pace with the soaring cost of living. Inflation in the U.K. hit a 41-year high of 11.1% late last year, driven by sharply rising energy and food costs. The government says double-digit raises would drive inflation even higher. Pat Cullen, head of the Royal College of Nursing union, said she saw a chink of optimism in Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks statement on Sunday that he was willing to discuss affordable and responsible salary demands. The Conservative government has so far insisted it will only discuss pay rates for the 2023-24 financial year that starts in April, rather than the current year. Story continues Sunak's spokesman, Max Blain, said the government knew that global economic headwinds are putting household budgets under pressure and that the prime minister has said we are happy to listen to those concerns." But the government has angered unions with plans to make it harder for key workers to strike by setting minimum safety levels for firefighters, ambulance services and railways that must be maintained during a strike. The strikes have added to strains on a health system already facing multiple pressures, including rising demand for care after pandemic restrictions were eased; a surge in flu and other winter viruses after two lockdown years; and staff shortages from pandemic burnout and a post-Brexit lack of European workers in the U.K. Thousands of hospital beds are occupied by people who are fit to be discharged but have nowhere to go because of a dearth of places for long-term care. That has led to ambulances stuck outside hospitals with patients who cant be admitted, and in turn to people with health emergencies waiting hours for ambulances to arrive. Health leaders say the delays have likely led to hundreds of deaths. Read also: EU Council adopts EUR 18 billion assistance to Ukraine in 2023 But Ukraine is perceived completely differently now, she states. During the conversation, the diplomat explained how the opinions of experts in the United States have evolved over 10 months of war, and how the White House views Ukraine's eventual victory. NV: The evolution of the assistance that Ukraine receives from the United States is really impressive. In those first days when the full-scale invasion began, how difficult was the communication? Markarova: As a person who is present at all the meetings, [I will say that] there are things that, of course, we will not discuss now. This is for the books after our victory. Read also: Rising number of Ukrainians see liberation of Crimea and Donbas as victory survey But in all seriousness, [it is] worth going back to President Zelenskyy's previous visit [to the United States] in 2021. We talked extensively about several things then. First, that we need to be proactive that we need preventive sanctions, that we need more military capabilities. We even signed a framework agreement with the United States for five years on the foundations of a strategic partnership, a defense partnership. The presidents then agreed on the Charter on Strategic Partnership, and we signed it in November when Minister [Dmytro] Kuleba and Secretary [Antony] Blinken met. All this work actually laid the foundation for the fact that from February, from the first day of the full-scale invasion, we could receive weapons and the first sanctions packages very quickly from our partner and ally the United States. [The sanctions] were imposed practically in the first days. This is precisely because we were preparing them. We, as Ukraine, asked for these packages [of sanctions] as preventive at the time. That is, as those that will be able to deter Russia and make it understand that they underestimate not only Ukraine in terms of fighting, but also the West in terms of readiness to impose sanctions. Story continues Read also: World must make Russia pay for new mobilization wave, Zelenskyy says Was it hard? Of course it was. On the one hand, I work in a country that is our strategic friend. And it is much easier than working in a country where the local establishment does not support your country. That is a completely different level of challenge. But also in the United States, understanding that we are supported, still most experts... I am not talking about our partners, not about President Biden or Secretary Blinken, or officially the White House or Congress, who have always supported us. But this is democracy. When making decisions in the United States, they always take into account expert opinion, public opinion. And the hardest thing was to see in the first days of the aggression, when most experts on all media platforms here were discussing how many days we would last. This was the general dominant [theme]. From the first days, everyone spoke with admiration about the president who stayed to fight with his country, about all the people who said "we will not surrender". But the prevailing expert opinion was that "two days, three days, a week who can resist Russia?", which was overestimated by the majority, underestimating us. And it was very hard. Of course, there were rare voices in those days that said "no, listen to the ambassador, listen to what President Zelenskyy says, they will not give up, they have a chance". But it was not the mainstream. Read also: Ukraine's victory will prevent Russia and Iran from meddling in Middle East Zelenskyy says Although with every new victory we had, with every day that we withstood, despite all the terrible costs, we saw this mainstream [becoming more and more popular], with them admiring us. I mean, there was never total negativity. They admired us, but some said: "They're so good, they're fighting so hard, but unfortunately, it probably won't last." And how this mainstream was replaced by the mainstream of those people who from the very beginning said: "No, you don't know Ukrainians, give them a chance. If we give them more weapons, if we give them more, they will definitely withstand [the Russians]. Let's also not underestimate the propaganda that the Russian Federation [conducted] and before that, the Soviet Union. This is a great tradition, so to speak, of Russian-Soviet propaganda, which for centuries actually spent a lot of resources in the West, in the United States in particular. In university circles, in museums, in which Kyivan Rus was always titled "modern Russia". That is, they have been systematically, for centuries and especially for the last 30 years, working to sell the point of view to everyone around that there is only one great and terrible Russia in our region, and everything else is something fleeting, a mistake that happened in 1991. Coming back to your question, it was, on the one hand, difficult, and on the other hand, during these 10 months we made them believe in everything that we had been doing for the previous 30 years, what we were trying to prove to the world. They believed in what we said before. Today we see the transition from "we support Russia" in the public opinion to "we support Ukraine, but unfortunately, Russia is bigger, perhaps Ukraine will not succeed", to the surprise that "Ukraine is doing well, it is succeeding", to the understanding that Ukraine must win, because [victory] is important not only for Ukraine. Read also: Russia to use mobilized soldiers in spring and summer offensives, Ukrainian intelligence says Russia has to lose. And the beginning of the discussion of what this loss of Russia should look like is a huge evolution. Ukraine is perceived completely differently now. And why is this important? Because in a country that is built on the principles of democracy (and the United States is exactly such a country), this understanding of expert and public opinion is very important for the Administration, the President, the Congress, who represent the people, to support us more freely and quickly. NV: We see skeptics in the American media about whether it is possible to liberate certain territories. We have information from our very high-ranking sources in the President's Office that the United States still wants to take Crimea off the table. They believe that Crimea is definitely not worth touching... Markarova: This is not true. The issue of Crimea has never been isolated. Not once. Crimea is Ukraine; this position has never been [debated] at all. Read also: Ukraine must regain Crimea. How can this happen? President Zelenskyy's peace formula is a proposal of Ukraine, a vision of Ukraine that all diplomats are actively discussing with our allies. In fact, before the president formulated the 10-step peace formula, these positions had been voiced by Zelenskyy since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Read also: Only liberation of Crimea and Donbas will bring the war to an end, says Zelenskyy When we talk about territorial integrity, we are talking about the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine. In this case, Crimea is no different from other oblasts that were seized by Russia in 2014-2015 or those that were temporarily occupied this year. Restoring territorial integrity, returning all our people, bringing everyone to justice, rebuilding these are very important positions. Everything that is written in the formula of peace is the strategy in which we are moving. When we say that this is our goal, there are different [approaches] on how and when we can reach it. But then this is also a question of what Russia is doing for this and how successful or unsuccessful we are. It is not only a question of how we want and how we planned. It is a very complicated situation. Secondly, account for the caveat that we while liberating our territories (and this is a clear position of the President and all our Armed Forces), unlike the Russians, try not to endanger our civilians who are under occupation. We try not to destroy, unlike the Russians, who wage war just to destroy, to bomb. Read also: The collapse of the Russian Federation and the victory of Ukraine: What the West fears and what it wants to control Do we understand how our allies see the victory of Ukraine and the defeat of Russia? I think that few people now fully understand this, as it is also a process. That is, we have a clear understanding of how we want our victory to look. And the rest is a matter of discussion with all our partners. On the one hand, we need to maintain our ability to fight, defend and support the viability of Ukraine all the time. It is not only about military actions, it is about business, about the ability to educate children, about the ability to provide basic things to our citizens so that they do not leave. The second is to keep the ability of all our partners and allies to help us. And Russia is working very hard to destroy this coalition, starting with energy manipulations, food, migration crises. Read also: Moscows information operations: How Russia will try to split Ukrainian society And the third is the sanctions that we are imposing on Russia so that it loses its ability to fight and attack quickly. And in the way we deal with all these points, there are many options, and modalities; there is a lot that is possible and impossible. Our task is to convince everyone that no matter how hard it is, the whole world needs the victory of Ukraine and the defeat of autocratic, aggressive Russia. Read also: How Zelenskyy helped Biden, and how Biden avoided helping Zelenskyy Piontkovsky We have heard and hear now from President Biden every time, in every press conference, during every conversation, that the United States is with Ukraine as long as it is needed. And this is a very important phrase. Our task is to accelerate this victory. It is still a big task and it is still not guaranteed. I think no one understands this as well as our military on the battlefield. But no matter what anyone thinks is likely, improbable, difficult, not difficult, today, a year from now, or three years from now, our task is to continue to actively do what we are doing, because that's the only thing that will get us closer to help. More weapons, more sanctions, more assistance to Ukraine. And we will reach the goal we set for ourselves faster. NV: Does the United States understand that Russia has declared eternal war on us? Markarova: Russia declared eternal war on us when it took Baturyn in 1708. Russia promoted its narratives, and our liberation struggle for the last 400 years has not been studied enough everywhere. And that is why in 1991 many people were surprised by independence, despite the opinion of many. Read also: Russia plans to mobilize 500,000 troops, Ukrainian intelligence says We have been fighting for the restoration of our independence for more than a century. Therefore, the eternity of our war with those who sold themselves as brothers or friends is our reality, the one in which we have lived all this time. And the last 30 years, when Russia tried to influence all the processes in Ukraine, when they infiltrated [] all our intelligence bodies [with their people], in the power bloc this is all part of this eternal war. That is why all diplomats are very active in this area as well, telling the true story, so that everyone understands that any pause which Russia really wants now is a pause to rearm, prepare, and attack us again. If you look at President Zelenskyy's peace formula, a huge role is given to security guarantees for the future. That is why the work we are doing on our future membership not only in the EU, but also in NATO, is so important. Read also: Zelenskyy to unveil peace plan in February, WSJ reports It is an illusion that we can be neutral, buffer zones everything that was sold to us before 2014 as a real alternative. There is no such alternative. It is very simple: either you are part of the civilized world and defend yourself together with the civilized world, or Russia will attack us. Our victory means not only that Russia stops shooting, not only the restoration of territorial integrity, not only the return of people, but [also] bringing them to justice. This is an important topic that all diplomats are working on now. This is a big task the issue of the tribunal for the crime of aggression. There is a national prosecution in Ukraine. More than 10 countries have opened criminal proceedings. We have appealed to all international courts. Why is the tribunal important, and [specifically] the tribunal for the crime of aggression? Because, if I may say so, it is the basis of all the crimes that are taking place. Therefore, this part of prosecution is very important not only to win now, but to stop or put an end to the eternal war, because Russia must be punished, and must pay criminally, morally, and legally for this. Read also: Vladimir Putins dark journey from economic reformer to war criminal NV: Russia's closest ally is Belarus. Does the United States have any leverage to influence Belarus? Markarova: In our relations with the United States, we have never actually ruled out or ignored the role of Belarus in this aggression, which de facto takes part in it, because it allowed the use of its border. It let troops pass, strikes were and are being inflicted on us from the territory of Belarus, troops are trained in Belarus. Therefore, in our work on sanctions, for example, we never separate Belarus from Russia. If you look at the sanctions packages, of course, the main focus is sanctioning Russia, Russian officials, military, business, citizens and organizations. But Belarusian organizations are there on par with them. As soon as we find confirmation of participation somewhere, we also immediately react to it. Restrictions have been imposed on Belarus recently, for example, on Iran or on those countries that help Russia to avoid sanctions. There are even EU member states or partners [among them]. That is, if businesses, citizens or organizations are involved in such shameful things, they also fall under sanctions. Read also: Russia's crude exports plunge by 54% in first week under G-7 sanctions, Bloomberg Is there any way to influence Lukashenko? To me, this is part of the same story whether it is possible to influence Putin. Our task is to sanction as much as possible and to show them, to create such a price so that Lukashenko and the leaders of Belarus understand that they should not continue to participate in this absolutely shameful, unfair, unprovoked war. For example, I never call it Putin's war, because it is the war of the Russian Federation. We see that the vast majority of Russians support this war because it is an old, eternal war. And this Great Russian imperialism, unfortunately, is not solely confined to the Kremlin. In Belarus, obviously, the situation is a little bit different. And I don't know how much we can trust the polls when the repressive regime is working in the country, but we saw that Belarusians came out to protest, there are rail partisans and so on. We see that there are people who, even at risk to themselves, still try to fight against it. Whether this country can be called fully occupied or not [is up for debate], but for Belarus as a country we have a very clear message with our partners: sanctions and restrictions. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Podolyak emphasized that, unlike Russia, Ukraine does not interfere in the sovereign affairs of other countries and doesnt give any advice. Therefore, Ukraines offer to treat Saakashvili is an official appeal, not informal pressure. I really sympathize with Mikheil Nikolozovich, Podolyak said. Read also: Imprisoned Saakashvili, loved by some Georgians, hated by others, faces grim future I respect him because he is a historical figure. Our official position is to hand Saakashvili over to us for treatment. And if you dont want to send him directly to Ukraine, send him to any third European country where he can be provided with the medical care that, unfortunately, cannot be provided in Georgia. Saakashvili, who also served as governor of Odesa Oblast from 2015-2016 and holds Ukrainian citizenship, has been behind bars since his return to Georgia on the eve of local elections in the autumn of 2021. He had not been in the country since his second term as president ended in 2013. Saakashvili has claimed that his imprisonment is due to political reasons, and has gone on hunger strike several times in an effort to secure his own release. According to a statement made by Saakashvilis lawyers, family, and supporters, as a result of the hunger strike and improper treatment at the prison, the former presidents health is deteriorating seriously, and he needs treatment abroad. Reportedly, Saakashvili has been diagnosed with dementia and tuberculosis, according to attorney Shalva Khachapuridze. Read also: Saakashvili diagnosed with dementia and tuberculosis, attorney says Currently, Saakashvili is said to have been transferred from prison to the Vivamedi medical clinic in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine Lars Danielsson, Swedish Ambassador to the EU, has stated the Ukraine-EU summit will take place on 3 February in Kyiv. Source: Danielsson during a meeting with journalists in Brussels on Monday, 9 January; European Pravda, citing DW Details: Danielsson has said that "Ukraine and military aggression against Ukraine will dominate everything that Sweden will do during its presidency" in the EU. Stockholm intends to contribute to Kyiv's "strong desire" to move closer to EU membership. Danielsson states that the European Union has already done a lot to support Ukraine, "but more must be done to ensure that the process of humanitarian, financial, and military support does not stop". The Ambassador has also reported that Sweden would seek opportunities to prosecute those who committed war crimes in Ukraine and to use frozen Russian assets to restore Ukraine's infrastructure and economy. Earlier, Barend Leyts, the spokesperson for Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, reported that the Ukraine-EU summit should be held in Brussels, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had received an invitation to participate in it. However, later it became known that the European Union had not yet confirmed that the Ukraine-EU summit would take place in Kyiv and not in Brussels. The Association Agreement stipulates that the Ukraine-EU summit is an annual event. The last, or 23rd, summit took place in Kyiv in October 2021. It was planned that the 2022 summit would take place in December, and it was supposed to be in Brussels. The Ukrainian side made preliminary announcements regarding its holding. However, in the end, it was decided to postpone the summit until early 2023. European Pravda sources state that among the reasons for the postponement was the lack of a real outcome from such a meeting; in particular, the EU was known to have had problems until the last moment even with approving the 18 billion macro-financial assistance package promised under the G7. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! By Tom Balmforth and Vladyslav Smilianets KYIV/NEAR BAKHMUT, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces were still holding onto positions in the eastern mining town of Soledar, withstanding assaults by wave after wave of Russian soldiers and mercenaries seeking Moscow's first battlefield victory for months. Earlier, the British Defence Ministry said Russian troops and fighters of Wagner, a mercenary company run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin, had probably taken control of most of the settlement of Soledar after four days of advances. But Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said in a statement on Tuesday evening that fighting for the town was still raging. "The enemy disregards the heavy losses of its personnel and continues to storm actively," she said. "The approaches to our positions are simply strewn with the bodies of dead enemy fighters. Our fighters are bravely holding the defence." There was no immediate word from Moscow on the situation in the town and Reuters was not able to verify it. Seizing Soledar would be Russia's most substantial gain since last August, after a series of humiliating retreats throughout much of the second half of 2022. Russian forces have been fighting for months to capture the nearby larger city of Bakhmut, a few kilometres (miles) to the southwest. But any victory would come at a massive cost, with troops from both sides having taken heavy losses in some of the most intense combat since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago. Kyiv has released pictures in recent days showing what it says are scores of Russian soldiers strewn dead in muddy fields. Moscow says capturing Bakhmut would be a major step toward taking full control of Ukraine's Donetsk region, one of four provinces it claimed to have annexed two months ago. "Russia's Soledar axis is highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north and disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication," the British defence ministry said in a short daily intelligence briefing earlier on Tuesday. Story continues In an overnight address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged that the situation in Soledar was "difficult", but said Ukrainian defenders had bought more time by holding on, and Kyiv would eventually drive Russians out of the entire eastern Donbas industrial region. "And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost: the whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes," he said. "This is what madness looks like." Near Bakhmut, a team of Ukrainian soldiers was firing volleys of shells from a heavy anti-aircraft gun at what they said were Russian ground positions, across a barren snowy field. "We're frying orcs," said soldier with the nom de guerre "Pilot", using a common Ukrainian slur for Russian troops. His crew receives coordinates of Russian bases from spotters or drones. They periodically shell Russian bases, and unleash storms of heavy fire when enemy troops advance: "If they creep in very actively, then we kill them in great numbers." KYIV SEEKS MORE WEAPONS Wagner, a mercenary company founded by Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, has taken a leading role in the Bakhmut fighting as Russia's regular military forces elsewhere on the front line have dug into mostly defensive positions. Prigozhin, whose fighters are also active across Africa and the Middle East, has released videos showing himself recruiting fighters in Russian prisons with offers of pardons. He said on Saturday Soledar was important for a network of cavernous mining tunnels. Washington says Prigozhin may want personal control of the area's minerals. Zelenskiy has repeatedly urged Ukraine's Western supporters to supply more sophisticated weapons. Last week, one of Ukraine's biggest pleas was answered when the United States, Germany and France promised large numbers of Western armoured fighting vehicles for the first time. Kyiv is still seeking Western battle tanks. In a nod to Kyiv's battlefield successes of recent months, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Kharkiv. The eastern city, Ukraine's second largest, was nearly surrounded by Russian forces and under constant bombardment until Ukraine drove the Russians from its ramparts in a breakthrough in September that shifted the war's momentum. "This city is a symbol of the absolute insanity of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and of the endless suffering that people, especially here in the east of the country, are confronted with every day," she said. She promised aid for Ukraine and support in its bid to join the EU. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesperson said London had not yet made a final decision on sending tanks to Ukraine. A U.S. official said Ukrainian troops would soon arrive in the United States to begin training on Patriot air defence missiles, which Washington promised to Kyiv last month. In addition to sending weapons to Kyiv, the West has repeatedly tightened economic sanctions on Moscow. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the latest move, a price cap on Russian oil, appeared to be achieving its goals of keeping Russian oil on the market while limiting Moscow's revenues. "While the crude oil price cap has only been in effect for around a month, we have already seen early progress towards both of those goals, with senior Russian officials having admitted that the price cap was cutting into Russia's energy revenues," Yellen said. Russia began what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine on Feb. 24, claiming Ukraine's close ties with the West and ambition to join NATO posed a security threat. Kyiv and its allies accuse Moscow of an unprovoked war to seize territory from Ukraine. (Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Writing by Michael Perry, Alex Richardson and Peter Graff; editing by Himani Sarkar, Angus MacSwan and Mark Heinrich) KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine has exported almost 23.6 million tonnes of grain so far in the 2022/23 season, down from the 33.5 million tonnes exported by the same stage of the previous season, agriculture ministry data showed on Monday. The volume included around 8.6 million tonnes of wheat, 13.3 million tonnes of corn and about 1.7 million tonnes of barley. After an almost six-month blockade caused by the Russian invasion, three Ukrainian Black Sea ports were unblocked at the end of July under a deal between Moscow and Kyiv brokered by the United Nations and Turkey. The government has said that Ukraine could harvest about 51 million tonnes of grain this year, down from a record 86 million tonnes in 2021, because of the loss of land to Russian forces and lower yields. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Jason Neely) Serhii Cherevatyi, Ukraines Eastern Military Command spokesman, reported that the city of Soledar, Donetsk Oblast, which has long been a target of Russia's Bakhmut offensive, is practically destroyed. According to Cherevatyi, Russian troops had recently attempted to find a weakness in Ukraines defenses. "Now they simply managed to concentrate more of their units there with more systematic pressure on our defense, which requires us to make appropriate decisions, he said. In particular, Cherevatyi said Russia had concentrated its most combat-ready units, including the Kremlin-controlled Wagner Group militants, in the area. After an unsuccessful attempt to capture Soledar, Russian troops changed tactics and commenced another major assault, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported. The new assault is expected to be powerful as Russian troops have regrouped and transferred additional units to Soledar. According to Maliar, Russian troops have also recovered losses by deploying a "large number of assault groups formed from Wagner Group's best reserves." Along with the Russian military, the group has taken part in the fierce battle for the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, around 215 kilometers southeast of Kharkiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address on Jan. 8 that Bakhmut and Soledar hold on in spite of everything and called this area one of the bloodiest sites along the front line. Officials in Ukraine have rejected Russias claim that Kyiv lost 600 of its troops in a single missile strike in a city in Donetsk, stating that there were in fact no fatalities in the incident. A ground report by Reuters said there were no obvious signs of casualties at the site where Russia claims to have successfully targeted hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers. It comes as Ukrainian forces were defending towns and cities in eastern Ukraine in the bloodiest battle of the war so far, Volodymyr Zelensky said last night, as the conflict entered its 320th day. Mr Zelensky said: Bakhmut is holding on despite everything. And even though most of the town has been destroyed by Russian strikes, our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance. "Soledar is holding on, even though there is even greater destruction and things are very difficult," he added. Russia has resumed its offensive efforts after Vladimir Putin called a unilateral truce for Orthodox Christmas over the weekend, though there was little sign of a break in the fighting at the frontline. Key Points Ukraine denies Russia killed 600 soldiers in mass missile strike Russia using most advanced supersonic combat jet in Ukraine war - MoD Fighting batters eastern Ukraine: Bloodiest places on frontline Ukraine says its forces repel constant Russian attacks in east Ive met terrified Ukrainians who dont know how they will survive the winter 08:06 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Winter is predictable, but every year it blindsides organisations who are unprepared to support refugees through the coldest months, Josie Naughton writes. Following Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, the worlds attention turned to the millions of Ukrainians left behind to face the cold. Ongoing Russian missile strikes have destroyed half of the countrys power grid, leaving at least nine million Ukrainians without electricity to heat their homes. With snow starting to fall and a severe shortage of coats, shelters and heating fuel, cases of pneumonia, frostbite and influenza are rising. A lack of forward planning by international organisations has intensified these issues, with many now lacking the essentials needed to make it through the winter. Story continues Opinion: Ive met terrified Ukrainians struggling to survive the winter Ukraine says its forces repel constant Russian attacks in east 07:36 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukrainian forces are repelling constant Russian attacks on Bakhmut and other towns in the eastern region of Donbas, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday, after denying Kremlin claims of 600 soldiers killed in a missile strike. Russia launched seven missile strikes, 31 air strikes and 73 attacks from salvo rocket launchers in the past day, the general staff of Ukraines armed forces said in a daily report. Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on 14 settlements, including Bakhmut, it added. Bakhmut is holding on despite everything, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in nightly video remarks on Sunday. And even though most of the town has been destroyed by Russian strikes, our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance. The nearby town of Soledar was holding on, even though there is even greater destruction and things are very difficult, he added. Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports. Zelensky made a fresh denunciation of what he called Russias failure to observe a truce it had proclaimed for Orthodox Christmas by staging attacks on Ukrainian cities. Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas, he said, referring to the southern city abandoned by Russian forces in November. Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas - on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed silence for its army. On Sunday, Russia said a missile attack on Kramatorsk, northwest of Bakhmut, had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers, but a Reuters reporter at the scene found no obvious signs of casualties. A Reuters team visited two college dormitories that Moscow said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian personnel and which it had targeted as revenge for a New Years attack that killed scores of Russian soldiers and caused outcry in Russia. But neither dormitory in the eastern city of Kramatorsk appeared to have been directly hit or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson for the eastern region, described the claim of mass casualties as an attempt by the Russian defence ministry to show it had responded forcefully to Ukraines recent strikes on Russian soldiers. This is an information operation of the Russian defense ministry, Cherevatyi told Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne News. As Moscows invasion of Ukraine grinds towards the one-year mark, Russias military is under domestic pressure to deliver battlefield successes. Hawkish voices have sought an escalation of the war effort after setbacks such as loss of captured territory and high rates of death and injury. Some prominent Russian military bloggers have criticised the Russian defence ministry claims. Lets talk about fraud wrote one prominent pro-war military blogger on the Telegram messaging app, who posts under the name of Military Informant and who has more than half a million subscribers. It is not clear to us who, and for what reason, decided that 600 Ukrainian soldiers died inside, all at once, if the building was not actually hit (even the light remained on). Instead of the real destruction of the enemy personnel, which would have been a worthy response, an exclusively media operation of retaliation was invented. The militaries of both Russia and Ukraine militaries have often overstated enemy losses, while minimising their own. Ukraines top military officials said last week some 760 Russian troops had been killed or wounded in two attacks on Moscow-controlled parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. These reports could not be independently verified. Russia using most advanced supersonic combat jet in Ukraine war - MoD 07:07 , Arpan Rai The British defence ministry says Russia is almost certainly using its most advanced combat jet in operations against Ukraine while limiting the risks involved. Since at least June 2022, Russian Aerospace Forces have almost certainly used Su-57 FELON to conduct missions against Ukraine, the ministry said, noting that FELON is Russias most advanced fifth-generation supersonic combat jet, employing stealth technologies and highly advanced avionics. These missions have likely been limited to flying over Russian territory, launching long range air-to-surface or air-to-air missiles into Ukraine, the ministry said. Citing recent commercially available imagery, the ministry said at least five FELON are parked at Akhtubinsk Air Base, which hosts the 929th Flight Test Centre. As this is the only known FELON base, these aircraft have likely been involved in operations against Ukraine, the MoD said. Russia is highly likely prioritising avoiding the reputational damage, reduced export prospects, and the compromise of sensitive technology which would come from any loss of FELON over Ukraine, it said, adding that this move is symptomatic of Russias continued risk-averse approach to employing its air force in the war. (6/6) Defence Intelligence analysis of this satellite image, dated 25 December 2022, identified five Su-57 FELON multirole aircraft at Akhtubinsk airfield, Russia. pic.twitter.com/UT1lMXwsxb Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) January 9, 2023 Russia missile hit empty school, Moscows claims false - report 07:06 , Arpan Rai The claims of a retaliation operation from Russia on hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk oblast are false, said the Institute for the Study of War. Russia has not managed to inflict any damage on the Ukrainian soldiers as claimed by its defence ministry, it added. This claim is false a Finnish reporter visited the site of the strike in Kramatorsk on January 8 and noted that it hit an empty school, the US-based think-tank said. It added that several Russian military bloggers responded negatively to the Russian MoDs claim. The military bloggers tracking Russia in the war have pointed out that the Russian MoD frequently presents fraudulent claims and criticises Russian military leadership for fabricating a story to retaliate for the Makiivka strike instead of holding Russian leadership responsible for the losses accountable. Russian forces retreating in Luhansk, says regional governor 06:04 , Arpan Rai Russian soldiers are slowly retreating in Kriminna city in Luhansk amid heavy fighting, regional governor Serhiy Haidai said. The regional governor said that the Russian forces have deployed their most combat-ready units and heavy equipment in Kriminna situated in Sievierodonetsk region in Luhansk which remains under Russias control. This indicated that the Russians were slowly retreating in the region, Mr Haidai said. However, the region could see an escalation in military offensive as the night time temperatures plummet to minus 15-17 Celsius (5-1 Fahrenheit) as hard frosting of the ice will allow the invading soldiers to move their heavy equipment from one place to another, he added. Russia failed to observe ceasefire, says Zelensky 05:35 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky has yet again denounced Russias failure to observe a truce it had proclaimed for Orthodox Christmas by staging attacks on Ukrainian cities. Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas, Mr Zelensky said, referring to a city in the south abandoned by Russian forces in November. He added: Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas - on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed silence for its army. Fighting batters eastern Ukraine: Bloodiest places on frontline 05:08 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the hotspots in the war in Luhansk and Donetsk are witnessing heavy fighting with these regions witnessing one of the bloodiest places on the frontline. The situation on the frontline has not changed significantly in the first week of the year. Heavy fighting continues in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions - every hotspot in these areas is well known, he said. Mr Zelensky added: Bakhmut is holding out against all odds. And although most of the city is destroyed by Russian strikes, our warriors repel constant attempts at Russian offensive there. Soledar is holding out. Although there is even more destruction there and it is extremely hard, the war-time president said. He added: There is no such piece of land near these two cities, where the occupier would not have given his life for the crazy ideas of the masters of the Russian regime. This is one of the bloodiest places on the frontline. Ive met terrified Ukrainians who dont know how they will survive the winter 05:06 , Arpan Rai Following Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, the worlds attention turned to the millions of Ukrainians left behind to face the cold. Ongoing Russian missile strikes have destroyed half of the countrys power grid, leaving at least nine million Ukrainians without electricity to heat their homes. With snow starting to fall and a severe shortage of coats, shelters and heating fuel, cases of pneumonia, frostbite and influenza are rising. A lack of forward planning by international organisations has intensified these issues, with many now lacking the essentials needed to make it through the winter. Read the full story here: Opinion: Ive met terrified Ukrainians struggling to survive the winter Ukraine denies Russias claim it killed 600 soldiers in mass missile strike 04:20 , Arpan Rai Officials in Ukraine have denied the loss of 600 troops in a mass missile strike on barracks housing Ukrainian soldiers, as claimed by Russia yesterday. The strikes on Kramatorsk did not inflict any losses on the Ukrainian armed forces and only targeted civilian infrastructure, said Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraines armed forces in the east. Russias defence ministry has alleged that missiles had hit two makeshift bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers in the city of Kramatorsk. But the spokesperson said that the armed forces of Ukraine werent affected. Kramatorsk mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said two school buildings and eight apartments were damaged. Another account from Reuters reported that there are no obvious signs of casualties at the scene of the Russian strike. 03:32 , Arpan Rai Good morning, welcome to our coverage of the Ukraine war on 9 January, Monday. Britain is reportedly considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time to help the country fight Russian forces. Discussions have been taking place for a few weeks about delivering the British Armys Challenger 2 main battle tank to Ukraine, Sky News reported, quoting a Western source with knowledge of the conversations. Supplying tanks would represent a significant step-up in Western support to Ukraine, but the British government has not yet taken a final decision on the matter, the report added. Sky cited one unnamed source saying Britain could offer around 10 Challenger 2 tanks. The Challenger 2 is a battle tank designed to attack other tanks, and has been in service with the British army since 1994. Britains Ministry of Defence did not comment specifically on possible supplies of tanks to Ukraine, but pointed to its supply of over 200 armoured vehicles and other equipment including air defence missiles and anti-tank weapons to date. Meanwhile, Ukraine is repelling constant attacks on Bakhmut and other towns there by Russian mercenary group Wagner in the bloodiest battle of the war so far in eastern Ukraine. Key Points UK considering giving battle tanks to Ukraine - Sky News Fighting rages in Bakhmut: Bloodiest places on frontline Ukraine denies Russia killed 600 soldiers in mass missile strike Ukraine says its forces repel constant Russian attacks in east Russian missile strike kills one in east Ukraine Ukraine bolsters defences in east as Russia sends waves of attacks 15:10 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukraine said it was strengthening its forces around Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region and repelling constant attacks there by Russian mercenary group Wagner, whose leader has vowed to capture the areas vast underground mines. Kyiv had sent reinforcements to Soledar, a small town near Bakhmut where the situation was particularly difficult, Ukrainian officials said. The enemy again made a desperate attempt to storm the city of Soledar from different directions and threw the most professional units of the Wagnerites into battle, Ukraines military said in a statement. Story continues Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group, has been trying to capture Bakhmut and Soledar for months at the cost of many lives on both sides. He said on Saturday its significance lay in the network of mines there. It not only (has the ability to hold) a big group of people at a depth of 80-100 metres, but tanks and infantry fighting vehicles can also move about. Military analysts say the strategic military benefit for Moscow would be limited. A U.S. official has said Prigozhin, a powerful ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is eyeing the salt and gypsum from the mines. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in nightly video remarks on Sunday that Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction after months of attacks. Our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance, he said. In Soledar things are very difficult. In an evacuee centre in nearby Kramatorsk, Olha, 60, said she had fled Soledar after moving from apartment to apartment as each was destroyed in tank battles. All of last week we couldnt come outside. Everyone was running around, soldiers with automatic weapons, screaming, said Olha, who gave only her first name. There isnt one house left intact, she said. Apartments were burning, breaking in half. UK considering giving battle tanks to Ukraine - Sky News 14:33 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time to help the country fight Russian forces, Sky News reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources. Discussions have been taking place for a few weeks about delivering the British Armys Challenger 2 main battle tank to Ukraine, Sky said, quoting a Western source with knowledge of the conversations. Supplying tanks would represent a significant step-up in Western support to Ukraine, but the British government has not yet taken a final decision on the matter, the report added. Sky cited one unnamed source saying Britain could offer around 10 Challenger 2 tanks. The Challenger 2 is a battle tank designed to attack other tanks, and has been in service with the British army since 1994. It has been deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Iraq, according to the British army. Britains Ministry of Defence did not comment specifically on possible supplies of tanks to Ukraine, but pointed to its supply of over 200 armoured vehicles and other equipment including air defence missiles and anti-tank weapons to date. We will continue to build on recent donations with training and further gifting of equipment, a ministry spokesperson said. Britain has committed to match or exceed last years 2.3 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) in military aid for Ukraine. Foreign minister James Cleverly said last week Britain would continue working with Western allies to ensure Ukraine receives the military support it needs. Tanks might well be part of that, and where they come from ... which allies provide them, is something that, of course, were working in coordination with each other, Cleverly said, following a meeting with his German counterpart. UK considering giving battle tanks to Ukraine 14:02 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time to help the country fight Russian forces, Sky News reported on Monday, citing a Western source. Discussions have been taking place for a few weeks about delivering the British Armys Challenger 2 main battle tank to Ukraine, Sky said. Ukraine expects EU to include Russia's Rosatom in next sanctions 13:34 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Kyiv expects the European Union to include Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom in its next round of sanctions over the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Monday. Shmyhal said after talks in Kyiv with Frans Timmermans, a vice-president of the European Unions executive European Commission, that Russias nuclear energy industry should be punished over the invasion of Ukraine more than 10 months ago. Russia has occupied the Zaporizhzia nuclear power station in southeastern Ukraine since last March and President Vladimir Putin issued a decree last October transferring control of the plant from Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energoatom to a subsidiary of Rosatom. Kyiv says the move amounts to theft. We are actively working with our European partners on providing support in four areas: demilitarisation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, supply of electrical equipment, opportunities to import electricity from the EU, and sanctions against Russia, Shmyhal wrote on the Telegram messaging app. We expect that the 10th package (of EU sanctions) will contain restrictions against Russias nuclear industry, in particular Rosatom. The aggressor must be punished for attacks on Ukraines energy industry and crimes against ecology. Although the EU has progressively tightened sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, it has not imposed sanctions directly on Rosatom. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations nuclear power watchdog, has repeatedly expressed concern over shelling of the Zaporizhzhia plant, which each side blames on the other. The IAEA has also proposed the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around what is Europes largest nuclear power plant. Shmyhal also said he and Timmermans, the EUs climate policy chief, had agreed that Ukraines post-war reconstruction should be based on green principles. He thanked Timmermans for an initiative to start a strategic partnership between Ukraine and the EU in the field of renewable gases but gave no details. College dismisses Russian claims hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed there 13:04 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Officials at a vocational college in an eastern Ukrainian city have dismissed claims by Russia that hundreds of Ukraines troops were killed in a missile strike there. Russian officials had specifically named the college in Kramatorsk as the target of an attack, but college chiefs said that a rocket merely blew out windows and damaged classrooms. The Russian defence ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in the city, killing 600 of them, late on Saturday. Associated Press reporters visiting the scene in sunny weather on Monday saw a four-storey concrete building with most of its windows blown out. Inside, locals were cleaning up debris, sweeping up broken glass and hurling broken furniture out into a missile crater below. A separate, six-storey college building was largely undamaged. There were neither signs of a Ukrainian military presence nor any casualties. Yana Pristupa, the colleges deputy director, scoffed at Moscows claims of hitting a troop concentration. Nobody saw a single spot of blood anywhere, she told the AP. Everyone saw yesterday that no-one carried out any bodies. Its just people cleaning up. She said that before the war began last February the school had more than 300 students, most of them studying mechanical engineering, with most lessons moving online when Russia invaded. The students are now in shock, she said, adding: What a great facility it was. On Sunday, Ukrainian officials quickly denied the Russian claims it had lost a large number of soldiers in the attack. Despite the absence of any evidence that hundreds of Ukrainian troops died in the strike, Moscow stood firm on its claims. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports from the scene did not shake senior officials faith in defence authorities. The defence ministry is the main, legitimate and comprehensive source of information about the course of the special military operation, Mr Peskov said in a conference call with reporters, using the Kremlins term for the war. Kremlin rejects Ukrainian claim that Russia is pushing a possible peace deal in Europe 12:15 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain The Kremlin on Monday rejected a Ukrainian assertion that a senior Russian official has been floating the idea of a potential peace deal over Ukraine with European officials. Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraines National Security and Defence Council, told the countrys public broadcaster on Thursday that Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russias presidential administration, had been holding meetings with European officials in an attempt to force Kyiv to sign what he characterised as an unfavourable peace deal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked about Danilovs assertion, said it was another fake. Kremlin confident that defence ministry report on Kramatorsk strike is correct 11:45 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain The Kremlin said on Monday that it was confident its defence ministry was correct when it said that 600 Ukrainian servicemen had been destroyed in an attack on the city of Kramatorsk, despite reporting which showed the attack missed its target. The Kremlin has absolute confidence, I would like to remind you of the Presidents words that the main source of information is the Ministry of Defence, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing. A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk missed its targets and there were no obvious signs of casualties, a Reuters reporter said on Sunday, after Moscow claimed the strike had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers. Italys Ukraine arms supply decision delayed until February 11:14 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Italy will not take a decision on the supply of new arms to Ukraine until February due to political tensions, cost considerations and military shortages, newspaper la Repubblica reported on Monday. Two weeks ago Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky said Rome was considering supplying air defences after a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in which she reaffirmed her governments full support for Ukraine. Shortly afterwards, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto struck a cautious tone on whether Italy would be able to supply Ukraine with air defence systems. Citing unspecified sources, la Repubblica reported that Meloni, who is a firm supporter of Kyiv, is facing resistance on the approval of a decree to send arms to Ukraine from her right-wing allies Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi. Both politicians have longstanding ties with Moscow. But sources from their respective political parties - Salvinis League and Berlusconis Forza Italia - on Monday denied having any problems with the decree. Another issue holding back the decision is concern about depriving the Italian army of air defence systems, la Repubblica wrote, as two of its five missile batteries are already committed to Kuwait and Slovakia. The third concern, according to the daily, is the cost of the arms that are supposed to be sent to Kyiv. Zelensky is pressing Ukraines Western allies to step up military aid to help counter Russian missile and drone strikes on civilian infrastructure. Under former Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Italy sent five aid packages to Kyiv including military supplies, and Melonis government, installed in October, has been working for weeks on a possible sixth delivery. Crosetto and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajanis press offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kremlin says new Western arms for Ukraine will 'deepen suffering' 10:48 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain The Kremlin said on Monday that new deliveries of Western weapons to Kyiv would deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people and would not change the course of the conflict. This supply will not be able to change anything, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing. Ukraine, which has scored some battlefield successes since Russian forces invaded last February, has asked Western allies for heavier weapons and air defences as it seeks to tip the balance of the 10-month long conflict in its favour. Pope Francis says war in Ukraine is a crime against God and humanity' 09:54 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Pope Francis on Monday said wars such as that in Ukraine where civilian areas are subjected to what he called indiscriminate destruction are a crime against God and humanity. Francis made his remarks in his yearly speech to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, an overview of the world situation which has come to be known informally as his state of the world address. (AP) Russian missile strike kills one in east Ukraine 09:14 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain A 60-year-old woman was killed and several other people were wounded in a Russian missile strike on a market in the village of Shevchenkove in eastern Ukraine on Monday, the regional governor said. Footage posed by public broadcaster Suspilne on the Telegram messaging app showed rescue workers sifting through large piles of rubble, burning wreckage and a large crater in what it said was Shevchenkove, southeast of the regional capital Kharkiv. According to confirmed information, unfortunately a 60-year-old woman died, Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, wrote on telegram. All other victims were hospitalised. Doctors are helping them. Rescuer workers continue to clear the debris. He had said earlier that at least seven people had been wounded, including a 13-year-old girl. The reports could not immediately be verified independently by Reuters. Suspilne quoted a local official as saying at least three pavilions were destroyed in the attack and that a shopping centre was damaged, but that Monday was not a market day. Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than 10 months ago, did not immediately comment on the reported attack. How has war changed love and relationships in Ukraine? 08:31 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain With his strong build, black hair and easy smile, Vlad had little problem finding about 200 matches on Tinder in Kharkiv ahead of his military units break in the eastern Ukrainian city, as he swiped on the dating app from his position on the frontlines. It was admittedly a lower number than his halcyon prewar days in Kyiv, when Vlad says he once compiled a record 1,238 Tinder matches. But after nine months in the army, he was excited nonetheless by the prospect of a quick hookup. When he met his dates at a cafe in Kharkiv, however, Vlad found his normal charm had abandoned him. As his dating profile says, Vlads unit is among those fighting in the grey zone, part of a territory beyond the front line where the most dangerous operations are conducted. The death and destruction in his daily life weighed on him, and he found himself incapable of the kind of talk that is often the prerequisite for intimacy. Jeff Stein, Samantha Schmidt and Kostiantyn Khudov report on how fighting in Ukraine shows that the reality of love during war is far darker than the romances produced by Hollywood. How has war changed love and relationships in Ukraine? Ive met terrified Ukrainians who dont know how they will survive the winter 08:06 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Winter is predictable, but every year it blindsides organisations who are unprepared to support refugees through the coldest months, Josie Naughton writes. Following Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, the worlds attention turned to the millions of Ukrainians left behind to face the cold. Ongoing Russian missile strikes have destroyed half of the countrys power grid, leaving at least nine million Ukrainians without electricity to heat their homes. With snow starting to fall and a severe shortage of coats, shelters and heating fuel, cases of pneumonia, frostbite and influenza are rising. A lack of forward planning by international organisations has intensified these issues, with many now lacking the essentials needed to make it through the winter. Opinion: Ive met terrified Ukrainians struggling to survive the winter Ukraine says its forces repel constant Russian attacks in east 07:36 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain Ukrainian forces are repelling constant Russian attacks on Bakhmut and other towns in the eastern region of Donbas, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday, after denying Kremlin claims of 600 soldiers killed in a missile strike. Russia launched seven missile strikes, 31 air strikes and 73 attacks from salvo rocket launchers in the past day, the general staff of Ukraines armed forces said in a daily report. Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on 14 settlements, including Bakhmut, it added. Bakhmut is holding on despite everything, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in nightly video remarks on Sunday. And even though most of the town has been destroyed by Russian strikes, our soldiers are repelling constant Russian attempts to advance. The nearby town of Soledar was holding on, even though there is even greater destruction and things are very difficult, he added. Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield reports. Zelensky made a fresh denunciation of what he called Russias failure to observe a truce it had proclaimed for Orthodox Christmas by staging attacks on Ukrainian cities. Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas, he said, referring to the southern city abandoned by Russian forces in November. Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas - on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed silence for its army. On Sunday, Russia said a missile attack on Kramatorsk, northwest of Bakhmut, had killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers, but a Reuters reporter at the scene found no obvious signs of casualties. A Reuters team visited two college dormitories that Moscow said had been temporarily housing Ukrainian personnel and which it had targeted as revenge for a New Years attack that killed scores of Russian soldiers and caused outcry in Russia. But neither dormitory in the eastern city of Kramatorsk appeared to have been directly hit or seriously damaged. There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson for the eastern region, described the claim of mass casualties as an attempt by the Russian defence ministry to show it had responded forcefully to Ukraines recent strikes on Russian soldiers. This is an information operation of the Russian defense ministry, Cherevatyi told Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne News. As Moscows invasion of Ukraine grinds towards the one-year mark, Russias military is under domestic pressure to deliver battlefield successes. Hawkish voices have sought an escalation of the war effort after setbacks such as loss of captured territory and high rates of death and injury. Some prominent Russian military bloggers have criticised the Russian defence ministry claims. Lets talk about fraud wrote one prominent pro-war military blogger on the Telegram messaging app, who posts under the name of Military Informant and who has more than half a million subscribers. It is not clear to us who, and for what reason, decided that 600 Ukrainian soldiers died inside, all at once, if the building was not actually hit (even the light remained on). Instead of the real destruction of the enemy personnel, which would have been a worthy response, an exclusively media operation of retaliation was invented. The militaries of both Russia and Ukraine militaries have often overstated enemy losses, while minimising their own. Ukraines top military officials said last week some 760 Russian troops had been killed or wounded in two attacks on Moscow-controlled parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. These reports could not be independently verified. Russia using most advanced supersonic combat jet in Ukraine war - MoD 07:07 , Arpan Rai The British defence ministry says Russia is almost certainly using its most advanced combat jet in operations against Ukraine while limiting the risks involved. Since at least June 2022, Russian Aerospace Forces have almost certainly used Su-57 FELON to conduct missions against Ukraine, the ministry said, noting that FELON is Russias most advanced fifth-generation supersonic combat jet, employing stealth technologies and highly advanced avionics. These missions have likely been limited to flying over Russian territory, launching long range air-to-surface or air-to-air missiles into Ukraine, the ministry said. Citing recent commercially available imagery, the ministry said at least five FELON are parked at Akhtubinsk Air Base, which hosts the 929th Flight Test Centre. As this is the only known FELON base, these aircraft have likely been involved in operations against Ukraine, the MoD said. Russia is highly likely prioritising avoiding the reputational damage, reduced export prospects, and the compromise of sensitive technology which would come from any loss of FELON over Ukraine, it said, adding that this move is symptomatic of Russias continued risk-averse approach to employing its air force in the war. (6/6) Defence Intelligence analysis of this satellite image, dated 25 December 2022, identified five Su-57 FELON multirole aircraft at Akhtubinsk airfield, Russia. pic.twitter.com/UT1lMXwsxb Ministry of Defence (@DefenceHQ) January 9, 2023 Russia missile hit empty school, Moscows claims false - report 07:06 , Arpan Rai The claims of a retaliation operation from Russia on hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers in Donetsk oblast are false, said the Institute for the Study of War. Russia has not managed to inflict any damage on the Ukrainian soldiers as claimed by its defence ministry, it added. This claim is false a Finnish reporter visited the site of the strike in Kramatorsk on January 8 and noted that it hit an empty school, the US-based think-tank said. It added that several Russian military bloggers responded negatively to the Russian MoDs claim. The military bloggers tracking Russia in the war have pointed out that the Russian MoD frequently presents fraudulent claims and criticises Russian military leadership for fabricating a story to retaliate for the Makiivka strike instead of holding Russian leadership responsible for the losses accountable. Russian forces retreating in Luhansk, says regional governor 06:04 , Arpan Rai Russian soldiers are slowly retreating in Kriminna city in Luhansk amid heavy fighting, regional governor Serhiy Haidai said. The regional governor said that the Russian forces have deployed their most combat-ready units and heavy equipment in Kriminna situated in Sievierodonetsk region in Luhansk which remains under Russias control. This indicated that the Russians were slowly retreating in the region, Mr Haidai said. However, the region could see an escalation in military offensive as the night time temperatures plummet to minus 15-17 Celsius (5-1 Fahrenheit) as hard frosting of the ice will allow the invading soldiers to move their heavy equipment from one place to another, he added. Russia failed to observe ceasefire, says Zelensky 05:35 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky has yet again denounced Russias failure to observe a truce it had proclaimed for Orthodox Christmas by staging attacks on Ukrainian cities. Russians were shelling Kherson with incendiary ammunition immediately after Christmas, Mr Zelensky said, referring to a city in the south abandoned by Russian forces in November. He added: Strikes on Kramatorsk and other cities in Donbas - on civilian targets and at the very time when Moscow was reporting a supposed silence for its army. Fighting batters eastern Ukraine: Bloodiest places on frontline 05:08 , Arpan Rai Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the hotspots in the war in Luhansk and Donetsk are witnessing heavy fighting with these regions witnessing one of the bloodiest places on the frontline. The situation on the frontline has not changed significantly in the first week of the year. Heavy fighting continues in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions - every hotspot in these areas is well known, he said. Mr Zelensky added: Bakhmut is holding out against all odds. And although most of the city is destroyed by Russian strikes, our warriors repel constant attempts at Russian offensive there. Soledar is holding out. Although there is even more destruction there and it is extremely hard, the war-time president said. He added: There is no such piece of land near these two cities, where the occupier would not have given his life for the crazy ideas of the masters of the Russian regime. This is one of the bloodiest places on the frontline. Ive met terrified Ukrainians who dont know how they will survive the winter 05:06 , Arpan Rai Following Russias illegal invasion of Ukraine, the worlds attention turned to the millions of Ukrainians left behind to face the cold. Ongoing Russian missile strikes have destroyed half of the countrys power grid, leaving at least nine million Ukrainians without electricity to heat their homes. With snow starting to fall and a severe shortage of coats, shelters and heating fuel, cases of pneumonia, frostbite and influenza are rising. A lack of forward planning by international organisations has intensified these issues, with many now lacking the essentials needed to make it through the winter. Read the full story here: Opinion: Ive met terrified Ukrainians struggling to survive the winter Ukraine denies Russias claim it killed 600 soldiers in mass missile strike 04:20 , Arpan Rai Officials in Ukraine have denied the loss of 600 troops in a mass missile strike on barracks housing Ukrainian soldiers, as claimed by Russia yesterday. The strikes on Kramatorsk did not inflict any losses on the Ukrainian armed forces and only targeted civilian infrastructure, said Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraines armed forces in the east. Russias defence ministry has alleged that missiles had hit two makeshift bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers in the city of Kramatorsk. But the spokesperson said that the armed forces of Ukraine werent affected. Kramatorsk mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said two school buildings and eight apartments were damaged. Another account from Reuters reported that there are no obvious signs of casualties at the scene of the Russian strike. 03:32 , Arpan Rai Good morning, welcome to our coverage of the Ukraine war on 9 January, Monday. Global and domestic carriers have welcomed China's decision to ease COVID-19-related restrictions on international travelers, and plan to gradually expand capacity to meet increased demand. The International Air Transport Association said the reopening of China's borders in January would have a positive effect on the pace of the economic recovery in the Asia-Pacific region. The lifting of flight restrictions is a positive step forward. It is crucial that the entire aviation value chain in China be well prepared and adequately resourced to handle the expected surge of travelers, so as to avoid the travel disruptions and problems seen elsewhere in the world when borders reopened, the IATA said. Starting Sunday, quarantine-free cross-border travel resumed in China after three years. International arrivals will no longer be subject to quarantine, but still need to show a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 48 hours of boarding, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the General Administration of Customs. US carrier Delta Air Lines said it would continue to monitor the situation and focus on building the foundation for a gradual recovery, in cooperation with its partner China Eastern Airlines. Currently, Delta operates four weekly flights, connecting Detroit and Seattle with Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Air France plans to add a third weekly flight connecting Shanghai and Paris from Feb 4. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will increase its passenger capacity with three more weekly flights between the Netherlands and China as of Jan 30. "We are very excited to add three more weekly flights between Amsterdam and Shanghai, and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, to boost our routes this winter. It marks an important milestone as we move toward the recovery of our China network," said Wouter Vermeulen, general manager of Air France KLM Greater China. Dubai-based Emirates said it is committed to serving the demand for travel in and out of China and is looking forward to the rapid recovery of the tourism sector to pre-pandemic levels. Currently, the airline operates four weekly flights between Dubai and Guangzhou in Guangdong province on A380 aircraft. Shanghai-based budget carrier Spring Airlines said it plans to resume flights to six destinations including Singapore, and Phuket and Chiang Mai in Thailand in January. Currently, the airline runs 20 outbound flights. "We expect more outbound flights to resume at an accelerating speed after the Spring Festival," said Zhang Wu'an, a spokesperson for Spring Airlines. Shanghai-based private carrier Juneyao Air announced that it would resume flights between Shanghai and Chiang Mai from Jan 18. In addition, the airline has prepared to restart flights to other outbound destinations and plans to resume all its flights to Thailand by the end of 2023. An industry insider from China Eastern said currently, only a few flights to Southeast Asia are in the process of starting up again, as resuming flights to major international hubs will be affected by many factors, such as insufficient support at overseas airports. In addition to the excitement at passenger airlines, German express service provider DHL Express said the optimized measures will help facilitate the orderly resumption of the entry and exit of China for both foreigners and Chinese citizens. The move will further benefit economic exchanges and trade between China and the world, injecting new impetus into China's economic recovery. "DHL Express remains confident of China's long-term prospects," said Rick Zhang, senior vice-president of commercial at DHL Express China. "Looking ahead, China will serve as a key driver of global economic growth and the Chinese economy will greatly benefit global trade." After launching a new air route connecting Wuxi, Jiangsu province and Leipzig, Germany in November, the German company's latest China gateway went into operation in Wuxi late last month. KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) Officials at a vocational school in an eastern Ukraine city dismissed claims by Russia that hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed in a missile strike there, saying Monday that a rocket merely blew out windows and damaged classrooms. Russia specifically named the vocational school in Kramatorsk as the target of an attack in the almost 11-month war. The Russian Defense Ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in the city, killing 600 of them, late Saturday. Associated Press reporters visiting the scene in sunny weather Monday saw a four-story concrete building with most of its windows blown out. Inside, locals were cleaning up debris, sweeping up broken glass and hurling broken furniture out into a missile crater below. A separate, six-story school building was largely undamaged. There were neither signs of a Ukrainian military presence nor any casualties. Yana Pristupa, the schools deputy director, scoffed at Moscows claims of hitting a troop concentration. Nobody saw a single spot of blood anywhere, she told the AP. Everyone saw yesterday that no one carried out any bodies. Its just people cleaning up. She said that before the war began last February the school had more than 300 students, most of them studying mechanical engineering, with most lessons moving online when Russia invaded. The students are now in shock, she said, adding, What a great facility it was. Ukrainian officials on Sunday quickly denied the Russian claims it had lost a large number of soldiers in the attack. Despite the absence of any evidence, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said reports from the scene didnt shake senior officials faith in defense authorities. The Defense Ministry is the main, legitimate and comprehensive source of information about the course of the special military operation, Peskov said Monday in a conference call with reporters, using the Kremlins term for the war. Story continues Both sides have regularly claimed killing hundreds of each others soldiers in attacks. The claims can seldom be independently verified because of the fighting. Moscows allegations may have backfired domestically, however, as some Russian military bloggers criticized them. The Institute for the Study of War think tank said the bloggers responded negatively to the Russian (Ministry of Defenses) claim, pointing out that the Russian MoD frequently presents fraudulent claims and criticizing Russian military leadership for fabricating a story ... instead of holding Russian leadership responsible for the losses accountable. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the strikes on Kramatorsk were in retaliation for Ukraines attack in Makiivka on New Years Eve, in which at least 89 Russian soldiers gathered at a temporary barracks died, according to Moscow. Ukrainian authorities said hundreds were killed. It was one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlins forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and an embarrassing loss. Such revenge strikes have occurred before. When Ukraine in early October struck a bridge linking the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula with Russia, damaging an important supply artery for the Kremlins faltering war effort in southern Ukraine and hitting a key symbol of Russian power in the region, the Kremlin sent a first massive barrage against Ukraines energy facilities. It was billed as retaliation for the bridge attack and heralded a period of relentless bombardments against Ukraines energy infrastructure. Ukraine's deputy defense minister said Monday that Russian forces have launched a fresh assault on the town of Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region. Taking Soledar would allow Russia to intensify its attacks on the strategically key city of Bakhmut, where intense fighting has destroyed an estimated 60% of buildings. In the Luhansk region, most of which is under Russian control, two residents of the village of Nevske were killed in Russian shelling on Monday, Luhansk governor Serhii Haidai said. Ukraines presidential office reported Monday that at least three civilians were killed and 12 others wounded over the previous 24 hours as nine Ukrainian regions in the southeast of the country were shelled. In one attack on Monday, two people were killed and five others, including a 13-year-old girl, were wounded by a Russian rocket strike that hit a village market in the northeastern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials said. Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said the strike hit Shevchenkove village. Photos on his Telegram channel showed ruined pavilions, some of them still on fire, and rubble all around them. According to Ukrainian officials, more people could be trapped under the rubble. A rescue operation to find them was underway. Russia maintains it is fighting against the might of NATO, not just the Ukrainians. Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russias Security Council, repeated that argument in an interview published Monday, saying that the events in Ukraine arent a clash between Moscow and Kyiv, its a military confrontation between NATO, and particularly the U.S. and Britain, with Russia. The sooner the citizens of Ukraine realize that the West is fighting Russia with their hands, the more lives will be saved, Patrushev said in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty. Meanwhile, two U.K. citizens working as volunteers in eastern Ukraine have disappeared, the Ukrainian national police said Monday. Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Perry left Kramatorsk on Friday bound for Soledar, where heavy fighting is reported, and contact with them was lost, police said. Bagshaw, a resident of New Zealand, was in Ukraine to assist in delivering humanitarian aid, according to New Zealand media reports. ___ Follow APs coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine Key developments on Jan. 9: On Jan. 9, Russian forces renewed their attempt to capture the town of Soledar, which has long been a target of Russia's Bakhmut offensive in the eastern Donetsk Oblast, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported. The last assault resulted in a "partial success" for the Moscow troops, however, the town remained under Ukrainian control "despite the continuing heavy bloody battles," according to the Ukrainian military. Ukraine's Eastern Military Command spokesman Serhii Cherevatyi described Soledar as "practically destroyed" amid the fighting. The salt-mining town is located just 10 kilometers northeast of Bakhmut, and is a crucial stronghold for Ukraine's defense efforts of the city, which is among Russia's most valuable targets. Capturing Soledar and Bakhmut is important for Moscow to achieve its goal of occupying all eastern Donetsk Oblast in its administrative borders. Ukraine expects the new assault on Soledar to be powerful as the Russian troops changed their tactics, as well as regrouped and transferred additional units to the area. According to Maliar, Russian forces have also recovered losses by deploying a "large number of assault groups formed from Wagner Group's best reserves." The Wagner Group, run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a Russian state-controlled private paramilitary organization infamous for its brutal tactics. It has been linked to evidence of war crimes in conflicts around the globe. President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier urged the world to recognize Wagner Group as a terrorist organization. Story continues Iran accused of contributing to Russia's war crimes in Ukraine U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Jan. 9 that Iran may be "contributing to widespread war crimes" by selling lethal drones to Russia for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. "Iran had chosen to go down a road where their weapons are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine and to try to plunge cities into cold and darkness, which from our point of view, puts Iran in a place where it could potentially be contributing to widespread war crimes," Sullivan said. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has recently accelerated its efforts to stop Iran from providing drones to Russia. In the latest move, Washington announced new sanctions against Tehran's aviation and defense sectors on Jan. 6. Russia has been attacking Ukraine with Iranian-made kamikaze drones, as well as missiles, since September, targeting civilians and destroying energy infrastructure across the country. The strikes resulted in rolling blackouts implemented in all Ukrainian oblasts and multiple civilian casualties. Ukraine has shot down nearly 500 drones launched by Russia since then, according to Ukraine's Air Force. Attacks and casualties A morning attack on a local market in the village of Shevchenkove in the northeastern Kharkiv Oblast on Jan. 9 killed two women, aged 60 and 50, according to the region's governor Oleh Syniehubov. The official said the strike had also injured six people, including a child. According to Syniehubov, Russian forces most likely used S-300 missile systems to attack the market. In the afternoon of Jan. 9, Russian troops launched a missile strike on Ochakiv in the southern Mykolaiv Oblast, injuring 15 people, including a two-year-old child, the oblast governor Vitaliy Kim reported. According to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the President's Office, the attack resulted in the damage to over 100 houses in the city. On the same day, Tymoshenko reported that artillery shelling of the village of Kurakhivka in Donetsk Oblast wounded two people, as well as damaged private houses, farm buildings, and a car. Russian forces also hit a residential area of Kherson city with artillery on Jan. 9, killing one person and injuring one, according to Kherson Oblast Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych. The official reported that Russian troops had struck Kherson Oblast 77 times over the previous 24 hours with artillery, multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), and mortars, wounding a total of three people. Healing Ozone (ASSOCIATED PRESS) Earths protective ozone layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says. A once-every-four-years scientific assessment found recovery in progress, more than 35 years after every nation in the world agreed to stop producing chemicals that chomp on the layer of ozone in Earths atmosphere that shields the planet from harmful radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts and crop damage. In the upper stratosphere and in the ozone hole we see things getting better," said Paul Newman, co-chair of the scientific assessment. The progress is slow, according to the report presented Monday at the American Meteorological Society convention in Denver. The global average amount of ozone 18 miles (30 kilometers) high in the atmosphere wont be back to 1980 pre-thinning levels until about 2040, the report said. And it wont be back to normal in the Arctic until 2045. Antarctica, where its so thin theres an annual giant gaping hole in the layer, won't be fully fixed until 2066, the report said. Scientists and environmental advocates across the world have long hailed the efforts to heal the ozone hole springing out of a 1987 agreement called the Montreal Protocol that banned a class of chemicals often used in refrigerants and aerosols as one of the biggest ecological victories for humanity. Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action. Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done as a matter of urgency to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said in a statement. Signs of healing were reported four years ago but were slight and more preliminary. Those numbers of recovery have solidified a lot, Newman said. The two chief chemicals that munch away at ozone are in lower levels in the atmosphere, said Newman, chief Earth scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. Chlorine levels are down 11.5% since they peaked in 1993 and bromine, which is more efficient at eating ozone but is at lower levels in the air, dropped 14.5% since its 1999 peak, the report said. Story continues That bromine and chlorine levels stopped growing and is coming down is a real testament to the effectiveness of the Montreal Protocol, Newman said. Natural weather patterns in the Antarctic also affect ozone hole levels, which peak in the fall. And the past couple years, the holes have been a bit bigger because of that but the overall trend is one of healing, Newman said. This is saving 2 million people every year from skin cancer, United Nations Environment Programme Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press earlier this year in an email. A few years ago emissions of one of the banned chemicals, chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11), stopped shrinking and was rising. Rogue emissions were spotted in part of China but now have gone back down to where they are expected, Newman said. A third generation of those chemicals, called HFC, was banned a few years ago not because it would eat at the ozone layer but because it is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas. The new report says that the ban would avoid 0.5 to 0.9 degrees (0.3 to 0.5 degrees Celsius) of additional warming. The report also warned that efforts to artificially cool the planet by putting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect the sunlight would thin the ozone layer by as much as 20% in Antarctica. ___ Follow APs climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears ___ Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about APs climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. A slew of U.S. lawmakers have condemned the recent Jan. 6-style riots in Brazil as far-right supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed and vandalized government buildings. Im disturbed by the violence that took place in Brasilia today, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) wrote in a tweet on Sunday. I stand with the democratically-elected government of Brazil and condemn the violence trying to undermine it. Democracies of the world must act fast to make clear there will be no support for right-wing insurrectionists storming the Brazilian Congress, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who was a member of the now-defunct House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, wrote in a tweet. These fascists modeling themselves after Trumps Jan. 6 rioters must end up in the same place: prison. In a tweet, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote that the U.S. must stand in solidarity with Brazils newly inaugurated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his government, adding that the U.S. must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro, who is currently in Florida. Nearly 2 years to the day the US Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad attempt to do the same in Brazil, Ocasio-Cortez said in her tweet. When Americans show contempt for democracy, the contempt spreads, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on Sunday. Those who are trying overthrow the legitimately elected government in Brazil should be held accountable just like the traitors were here. America stands with @LulaOficial and the rule of law in Brazil. In a tweet, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) called on the Biden administration and local authorities in Florida to extradite Bolsonaro back to Brazil amid the chaos. According to The New York Times, Bolsonaro, 67, flew to Florida late last month as he is facing multiple investigations stemming from his time in office. I stand with @LulaOficial and Brazils democratically elected government, Castro wrote in his tweet. Domestic terrorists and fascists cannot be allowed to use Trumps playbook to undermine democracy. Story continues The lawmakers response come as thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed into Brazils Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday in protest of the results of the presidential election that saw Bolsonaro lose his bid for another term. The protest immediately drew comparisons to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, in which pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop lawmakers from certifying President Bidens victory in the 2020 election. Biden publicly condemned the protests in Brazil, saying the U.S. will continue to work with Lula and the current Brazilian government in an effort to have the U.S. fully support the countrys democratic institutions. Todays attacks are exactly why I pushed for the Senate to pass a resolution backing free and fair elections in Brazil, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a tweet. This is about whether Brazil is a democracy or not. We stand with the countrys democratically elected government and condemn this authoritarian violence. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Jan. 9 that Iran may be contributing to widespread war crimes by selling lethal drones to Russia for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Iran had chosen to go down a road where their weapons are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine and to try to plunge cities into cold and darkness, which from our point of view, puts Iran in a place where it could potentially be contributing to widespread war crimes, Sullivan said. On Jan. 6, the U.S. announced new sanctions against Irans aviation and defense sectors for supplying the drones Russia uses to bomb Ukraines civilian infrastructure. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has scrambled to try to block Tehran from supplying the drones, many of which use Western-made parts. However, its difficult to control these parts, many of which are widely available and have civilian applications. Ukraine has shot down more than 500 drones launched by Russia since September, according to Ukraine's Air Force. MEXICO CITY (AP) The Biden administration said Monday that Iran's sale of lethal drones to Russia for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine means the country may be "contributing to widespread war crimes." National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan leveled the charge against Iran on Monday as he spoke to reporters accompanying President Joe Biden on a trip to Mexico. While it did not signal a policy shift, the charge marked some of the sharpest U.S. rhetoric against Iran since it began providing weapons to Russia to support its nearly year-long war in Ukraine. It comes as the U.S. and European partners are looking to further ostracize both nations in the court of public opinion, as they face challenges with physically stopping the transfers of weapons on which Russia is increasingly reliant. Sullivan said Iran had chosen to go down a road where their weapons are being used to kill civilians in Ukraine and to try to plunge cities into cold and darkness, which from our point of view, puts Iran in a place where it could potentially be contributing to widespread war crimes. Sullivan pointed to European and U.S. sanctions on Iran put in place after the U.S. exposed Irans weapons sales to Russia last year as examples of how they are trying to make these transactions more difficult." But he acknowledged that the way that they are actually carrying them out physically makes physical interdiction a challenge. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday that the U.S. is already contributing money, expertise and other logistical support to Ukrainian and international investigators probing allegations of war crimes. He said those probes could well extend beyond Russias actions. If in the course of that work we are in a position to determine that the Iranian government as a whole or that senior Iranian officials are complicit or responsible for war crimes, we will work to hold them to account as well," he told reporters. ___ Miller reported from Washington. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. Anderson Cooper and Michael Strahan each made it clear that they hadnt compromised with the demands of Buckingham Palace or its lawyers over recent interviews with Prince Harry. After Coopers interview with the Duke of Sussex aired on CBSs 60 Minutes Sunday evening, the journalist spoke about his communications with King Charles team. We reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment, Cooper said in a now-viral clip, now viewed over 1.3 million times on Twitter. Its representatives demanded that before considering responding, 60 Minutes provide them with our report prior to airing it tonight, which is something we never do, Cooper said. 60 Minutes reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. Palace representatives demanded that before considering commenting we provide them with our report prior to it airing, which is something 60 Minutes does not do. https://t.co/JK98Zzaopkpic.twitter.com/VylhJ7SIz9 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 9, 2023 Strahan issued a similar statement after his sit-down with Harry aired on Good Morning America Monday. He revealed that palace lawyers contacted ABC while the interview aired that morning. We received a response from the law firm representing Buckingham Palace this morning, while we were on the air, saying that the palace needed to consider exactly what is said in the interview, in the context in which it appears and asked that we supply them immediately with a copy of the entire interview, which we do not do as a news organization, as a matter of our policy, Strahan said. HuffPost reached out to ITVs Tom Bradby, whose interview with Harry aired Sunday, to see if the palace also placed demands on the interviewer in order to comment. A source close to the network told HuffPost on Monday that the palace was not shown the program before it aired. The source added that the palace was given details of its content and offered the opportunity to respond, but declined to do so on the basis of not having seen the film. Story continues Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to HuffPosts request for comment. Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace, which represents Prince William and his family, previously asked to see clips before commenting on claims made in Netflixs recent Harry & Meghan docuseries. A royal source told HuffPost that Netflix made no attempt to contact members of the royal household, but a CNN journalist later revealed that a third-party production company had reached out for comment. The production company, Story Syndicate, later told Buzzfeed News that the Prince and Princess of Wales communication secretary had requested to see footage from the series. More revelations from Prince Harrys Spare memoir and media tour: Related... CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Venezuela's socialist government has ordered the arrest of three exiled former lawmakers at the forefront of renewed efforts to unseat President Nicolas Maduro. Dinorah Figuera leads an all-female team selected last week by fellow opposition politicians to lead the National Assembly that was voted into office in 2015. The opposition-controlled body is widely considered Venezuela's last democratically elected institution, and although its five-year mandate ended in late 2020, it continues to function as a symbolic shadow to Maduro's rubber-stamping National Assembly. On Monday, Maduro's Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced that prosecutors had ordered the arrest of Figuera and her two deputies on charges of treason, money laundering and impersonating public officials. However, the arrest order is unlikely to be carried out. All three women, like many of Maduro's opponents, have fled Venezuela in recent years, fearing retaliation. Figuera, a surgeon by training, lives in Spain. In January 2019, the National Assembly voted to stop recognizing Maduro as president after several top opponents were barred from running against him. It then appointed Juan Guaido to be the nations interim president, in accordance with the order of succession outlined in Venezuelas constitution. More than 60 countries quickly recognized him as Venezuela's legitimate leader. The opposition then boycotted the 2020 legislative elections, leaving the successor National Assembly firmly under Maduro's control. Figuera had been an unknown backbench lawmaker elected alongside Guaido. She surged to the front of the opposition's efforts to unseat Maduro as part of an internal putsch against the beleaguered Guaido, whose failure to shake Maduro's grip on power has frustrated many Venezuelans. Maduro ally Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the pro-government National Assembly, celebrated the announcement of the arrest orders, calling the 2015 National Assembly a band of thieves for their attempts to win control of Venezuela's extensive overseas oil assets, including Houston-based refinery Citgo. Story continues Figuera said the arrest order won't intimidate her and others from carrying out their role of protecting Venezuela's overseas assets. We'll continue with even greater strength, she said Monday during an online press conference, her first since emerging as an opposition leader. Meanwhile, a senior U.S. State Department official said the Biden administration stands with those courageously defending Venezuelan democracy. Further attacks on the opposition ... impede democratic solutions, Brian Nichols, the Assistant Secretary of State for the western hemisphere, said in a statement on Twitter. All efforts must be focused on charting a path to free and fair elections in 2024. From Sunday, China starts managing COVID-19 with measures designed for combating Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases. In recent months, the country has made an array of active adjustments in its COVID response, ranging from 20 measures in November, 10 new measures in December, changing the Chinese term for COVID-19 from "novel coronavirus pneumonia" to "novel coronavirus infection," and downgrading COVID-19 management measures. Confronted with epidemic uncertainties, China has always been putting people's lives and health first, adapting its COVID response in light of the evolving situation. These efforts have bought precious time for a smooth transition in its COVID response. Science-based decision making The year 2022 saw the rapid spread of the highly-contagious Omicron variant. The fast-changing features of the virus and the complicated evolution of epidemic response posed serious challenges for China's decision-makers, who have been closely following the epidemic situation and putting the people's lives and health first. Twenty adjusted measures were announced as early as November 2022. They included the measure to adjust the categories of COVID-19 risk areas from high, medium, and low, to only high and low, in order to minimize the number of people under quarantine or requiring health monitoring. The circuit breaker mechanism for inbound flights was also canceled. The adjustment was made based on a scientific evaluation of the Omicron variant which showed that the virus had become less deadly, and the social cost of sustaining the prevailing epidemic control which had rapidly increased. Meanwhile, task forces were dispatched nationwide to supervise epidemic response and assess local situations, and meetings were held to solicit suggestions from leading medical experts and community epidemic control workers. On Dec. 7, China released a circular on further optimizing its COVID-19 response, announcing 10 new prevention and control measures to ease restrictions on visits to public venues and travel, and to reduce the scope and frequency of mass nucleic acid testing. The annual Central Economic Work Conference, held in Beijing in mid-December, demanded efforts to optimize epidemic response based on the prevailing situation and with focus on the elderly and those with underlying diseases. Under such guiding principles, various sectors of the country, from hospitals to factories, have been mobilized to support continuous adjustment of epidemic control. Considering factors including the development of the epidemic, the increase in vaccination levels, and extensive epidemic prevention experience, the country entered a new phase of COVID response. Against such a backdrop, in late December, the National Health Commission (NHC) made the announcement to downgrade the management of COVID-19 and remove it from infectious disease management requiring quarantine as of Jan. 8, 2023. "When an infectious disease poses less harm to people's health and leaves a lighter impact on the economy and the society, it is a science-based decision to adjust the intensity of prevention and control measures," said Liang Wannian, head of the COVID-19 response expert panel under the NHC. Science-based, timely and necessary adjustments After fighting Omicron for nearly a whole year, China has gained a profound understanding of this variant. The treatment and control experience of the variant in multiple Chinese cities and foreign countries revealed that the great majority of patients infected with the Omicron variant had showed either no symptoms or mild symptoms -- with a very small proportion developing into severe cases. Compared with the original strain and other variants, the Omicron strains are becoming milder in terms of pathogenicity, and the impact of the virus is changing into something more like a seasonal infectious disease. The continued study of the development of the virus has been an important precondition for China's optimization of its control protocols, but it is not the only reason. To safeguard people's lives and health to the greatest extent, China has been closely monitoring the threat of the virus, the immune level of the general public and the capacity of the health care system, as well as the public health intervention measures. Efforts have been made on all fronts. By early November 2022, more than 90 percent of the population had been fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, the country had facilitated the development of drugs via various approaches, with many drugs and therapies introduced into the diagnosis and treatment protocols. The unique strengths of Traditional Chinese Medicine are also being leveraged to prevent severe cases. In addition, several other drugs targeting COVID infection are being developed, covering all three technical approaches, including blocking virus entry into cells, inhibiting virus replication, and modulating the body's immune system. Focus of COVID-19 response The focus of China's new phase of COVID-19 response is on protecting people's health and preventing severe cases. The elderly, pregnant women, children, and patients with chronic, underlying diseases are vulnerable groups in the face of COVID-19. Efforts have been intensified to facilitate the vaccination of the elderly against the virus. Services have been improved. In some regions, the elderly can have medics visit their homes to administer vaccine doses. Amid China's efforts to improve its preparedness, authorities have urged hospitals of various levels to ensure that fever clinics are available to patients in need. As of Dec. 25, 2022, there were more than 16,000 fever clinics in hospitals at or above the level of grade two across the country, and more than 41,000 fever clinics or consulting rooms in community-based health institutions. In central Beijing's Xicheng District, a makeshift fever clinic was formally opened at the Guang'an Gymnasium on Dec. 14, 2022. Starting from Dec. 22, 2022, many sidewalk facilities, originally used as part of the nucleic acid testing process, were converted into temporary fever consulting rooms in Xiaodian District of northern China's Taiyuan City. These fever rooms provide consultation services and distribute fever reducers free of charge. From coordinating medical resources to increasing the capacity of hospitals to receive severe cases, hospitals across the country have been operating in full swing and devoting more resources to the treatment of severe cases. Official data showed that as of Dec. 25, 2022, there were a total of 181,000 intensive care beds in China, up by 31,000 or 20.67 percent compared with Dec. 13. A multi-pronged approach has been adopted to meet people's needs for drugs. Speeding up the review of much-needed medical products, the National Medical Products Administration had, as of Dec. 20, 2022, granted marketing authorization to 11 drugs for COVID-19 treatment. At the same time, community-based voluntary actions were taken by residents in many cities to help each other by sharing medical products, including temperature measurement kits and antipyretics. Shoring up confidence Managing COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases is a complicated task for the country. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush began on Jan. 7. It poses a serious test for the country's rural areas, as millions of people will return home for the holiday. Guidelines have been set to ensure the supply of medicines, the treatment of patients with serious diseases, and the protection of the elderly and children in rural areas. For instance, 245 small teams have been formed in Anping County of northern China's Hebei Province for medical visits to families, covering all 230 villages and 15 communities within the county. On Saturday, China released its 10th edition of COVID-19 control protocols -- highlighting vaccination and personal protection. Through optimizing prevention and control measures, China has been injecting vitality into its economy. The GDP for 2022 is estimated to exceed 120 trillion yuan (about 17.52 trillion U.S. dollars). The fundamentals for economic resilience, potential, vitality, and long-term growth have not changed. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has weathered waves of mass infections and managed to hold its own during the periods when the novel coronavirus was most rampant. Even when the global Human Development Index dropped for two years straight, China went up six places on this index. During the early days of 2023, with sounder COVID-19 response measures in effect, domestic demand increased, consumption was boosted, and production resumed rapidly, as consumer service industries recovered and the hustle and bustle of people's lives returned to full swing. Just as President Xi Jinping said in his 2023 New Year Address: "We have now entered a new phase of COVID response where tough challenges remain. Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us." NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) In the moments before a 6-year-old Virginia boy shot his teacher, there was no fight, no physical struggle and no warning, authorities said Monday. What we know today is that she was providing instruction. He displayed a firearm, he pointed it and he fired one round, Newport News police Chief Steve Drew said. Drew, who spoke during a news conference, offered the first detailed description of a shooting that shocked the city and was notable even in a country like the United States that seems inured to constant gun violence. Drew had previously said that the shooting was not accidental and had declined to elaborate. Drew said he wanted to clarify remarks he made just after the shooting on Friday, when he said there was an altercation before the shooting. He said it was more like an "interaction" between the boy and his first-grade teacher at Richneck Elementary School, 25-year-old Abby Zwerner. But Drew also reiterated that the shooting was not accidental. It was intentional, he said. Drew also revealed that the 9mm handgun used by the boy was legally purchased by his mother and was in the family's home. He said the boy brought it to school in his backpack the day of the shooting. Zwerner put up her hand in a defensive position when the gun fired, and the bullet went through her hand and into her upper chest, Drew said. Although her injuries were initially considered life-threatening, she has improved and is currently listed in stable condition at a hospital. Drew hailed Zwerner as a hero for quickly hustling her students out of the classroom after she was shot. He said surveillance video shows she was the last person to leave her classroom. She made a right turn and started down the hallway, and then she stopped. ... She turned around and make sure every one of those students was safe, Drew said. Drew said a school employee rushed into the classroom and physically restrained the boy after hearing the gunshot. He said the boy became a little combative and struck the employee. Police officers arrived and escorted him out of the building and into a police car. Story continues The boy has been held at a medical facility since an emergency custody order and temporary detention order were issued Friday, Drew said. He said it will be up to a judge to determine what the next steps are for the boy. He also said the boy's mother has been interviewed by police, but it is unclear whether she could potentially face any charges. As questions loomed about the boy and his mother, Zwerner's friend told a crowd gathered at a Monday night vigil that the first-grade teacher has shown dedication and love for what she does day in and day out. Abby is a warrior and she demonstrates mental and physical strength every day, said Rosalie List, a 2nd grade teacher at Richneck. I'm so proud of her. Lauren Palladini, Richneck's school counselor, told the crowd that Zwerner is sweet. She's thoughtful. She's caring. And shes been one of the most amazing teachers that Ive been blessed to interact with. Amanda Bartley, who teaches at another elementary school in the city, asked everyone to pray for Zwerner and to pray for the young man who did this. As she passed out candles before the vigil, Bartley told The Associated Press that she organized the event to support Zwerner and to uplift others. But, she said, many questions remain unanswered. Among them: How did he get the gun? Why wasnt it locked up? A good gun owner knows that you lock up your weapon. You have a safety on. You keep the ammunition separate from the weapon itself. Gun owners can be prosecuted under a Virginia law that prohibits anyone from recklessly leaving a loaded, unsecured gun in a manner that endangers the life or limb of children under 14. A violation of that law is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum jail sentence of one year and a maximum fine of $2,500. Virginia does not have a law that requires unattended guns to be stored in a particular way or a law that requires gun owners to affirmatively lock their weapons. Virginia definitely has a weaker law than many other states that have child access prevention laws, said Allison Anderman, senior counsel and director of local policy at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Legal experts said even though it is theoretically possible under Virginia law to criminally charge a 6-year-old child, there are numerous obstacles to doing so and its highly unlikely that any prosecutor would even try. To be tried as an adult in Virginia, a juvenile must be at least 14. A 6-year-old is also too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty. In addition, a common law doctrine known as the infancy defense holds that children under 7 cannot be prosecuted for a crime because they are so young that they are incapable of forming criminal intent. A judge would also have to find that the child was competent to stand trial, meaning that he could understand the legal proceedings against him and assist in his own defense, said Andrew Block, a professor and the University of Virginia School of Law who was the director of Virginias Department of Juvenile Justice from 2014 to 2019. Its virtually impossible to imagine a 6-year-old being found competent to stand trial, Block said. Julie E. McConnell, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has worked on youth justice cases for more than 25 years, said prosecutors can file whats known as a Child in Need of Services petition in cases in which a childs behavior or condition presents or results in a serious threat to the childs well-being and physical safety. A judge would then have an array of options, including: ordering services such as counseling or anger management; allowing the child to remain with his parents, subject to conditions; ordering the parents to participate in programs or cooperate in treatment; or transferring custody of the child to a relative, child welfare agency or a local social services agency. ___ Lavoie reported from Richmond. LONDON (Reuters) -British telecom group Vodafone said it had agreed the sale of its Hungarian business to local IT company 4iG and the Hungarian state, and would receive a total cash consideration of 1.7 billion euros ($1.82 billion) from the deal. The disposal, first announced in August, comes as Vodafone looks for a new chief executive after the board grew unhappy with the progress made by Nick Read who failed to grow the group or pull off the right deals to consolidate a fragmented European telecoms market. Vodafone said on Monday that the proceeds from the sale would be used to pay down debt. Under Read, Vodafone, once one of the biggest mobile operators in the world, has been selling assets to focus on its core European and Africa operations. The group's interim chief executive Margherita Della Valle said in a statement that the Hungarian disposal would increase competition and accelerate competition in Hungary. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban will consolidate his hold over the telecoms sector through the deal. Under the plan, 4iG will hold a majority 51% stake while the Hungarian state will hold 49%. He has expanded his nationalist government's influence in areas such as energy, banking and the media, and now telecoms. The sale is expected to complete later this month. ($1 = 0.9361 euros) (Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Kate Holton) CINCINNATI (AP) Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said he doesnt believe in holding a coronation for a player who has a good game. So there wont be a coronation for Jarace Walker following his second straight 20-point performance on Sunday. The 6-foot-8, 240-pound freshman scored a game-high 21 points, JWan Roberts added 14 points and 11 rebounds and the No. 2 Cougars defeated Cincinnati, 72-59. Thats the first time hes had two consecutive good games, Sampson said of Walker, who also had five rebounds and three steals. But the key is putting together three, four, five, six, seven. Weve had a lot of guys thats done what hes done played two really good games. But thats the first time Jarace has done it. Im proud of him. The Cougars, who defeated the Bearcats in each of the last two American Athletic Conference tournaments, extended their winning streak to seven straight over their soon-to-be Big 12 Conference foe. Both Houston and Cincinnati are scheduled to leave the AAC for the Big 12 on July 1. Cincinnatis last two losses to Houston under coach Wes Miller were each by 13 points. Thats an improvement from the 22-point drubbing and the 18-point defeat Millers Bearcats suffered to the Cougars in the teams previous two matchups. Were in January, were in league play. Its passed silver linings at this point, Miller said. Its about theres a standard and you play to it. If you lose, youll be pissed off. But if you play to that standard, you wake up the next day and you do it again. To me, thats where we have to get now ... like, now. We didnt do that today, and thats not OK. Thats not acceptable. Cincinnati guard Landers Nolley II knocked down his first four shots all from 3-point range to keep the Bearcats (11-6, 2-2) within striking distance. Nolley scored zero points the rest of the way. Houston (16-1, 4-0), powered by Walker, went on a 12-3 run and never looked back. Walker had 11 points at halftime and the Cougars led 35-28 at the break. Story continues Houston scored seven points off six first-half turnovers for the Bearcats and owned a 16-8 advantage in the paint at intermission. That advantage ballooned to 36-20 by the end of the day. I thought we came out with a purpose (in the second half), Sampson said. We knew exactly how we wanted to guard their actions. We knew the shots we were looking for on offense. We stayed connected. Houston opened the second half with five quick points, including a 3 by Jamal Shead, prompting Miller to call a timeout. The Bearcats then committed another turnover that resulted in a breakaway dunk by Walker. Cincinnati pulled to within 10 (58-48) with 5:41 to play. Houston led by as many as 20. Any time you go on the road, you know the other team is going to make a run, Sampson said. So after we got up 20, they hit a couple 3s and then I thought we let go of the rope a little bit." Marcus Sasser took over late. The AAC preseason player of the year finished with 16 points for the Cougars, who extended their overall winning streak to seven games. Sasser also had six rebounds and five steals. Mika Adams-Woods led the Bearcats with 19. Viktor Lakhin added 16. PLAYING SICK Sampson revealed after the game that Walker had a fever before tipoff. I asked him could he play, Sampson said. He said he was going to try. I said, Well, if youre at 80%, I want 100% of your 80%. If youre at 75%, then I want 100% of your 75. UP NEXT Houston: Hosts South Florida on Wednesday night. Cincinnati: Hosts East Carolina on Wednesday night. ___ More AP college basketball: http://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 Illustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt The week was a cautiously optimistic one for an industry still shaken by the turmoil of last year. Prices grew all week with Solana leading the charge with a 36% rally, all the more surprising considering SOLs price was in freefall for the last two months following the collapse of FTX. But there are still further crises in the industry, like that of crypto exchange Gemini and its lending partner, crypto prime broker Genesis. Genesis allegedly owes $900 million to users of Geminis Earn service, who have been unable to withdraw their money since FTX collapsed back in November. Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss on Monday tweeted a sharp open letter to Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group, and by extension, Genesis, its wholly-owned subsidiary. It is now becoming clear that you have been engaging in bad faith stall tactics, wrote Winklevoss, accusing Silbert of squandering $1.675 billion of creditors and investors funds. Silbert vehemently denied the charges. Cameron rejoined and then several more tweeters piled in and bickered. DCG did not borrow $1.675 billion from Genesis DCG has never missed an interest payment to Genesis and is current on all loans outstanding; next loan maturity is May 2023 DCG delivered to Genesis and your advisors a proposal on December 29th and has not received any response Barry Silbert (@BarrySilbert) January 2, 2023 Progressive political blogger Max Berger on Tuesday deep dived into disgraced FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Frieds history of political donations. Berger claims SBF supported right-leaning Democrats and right-voting billionaires to stunt the growth of more progressive voices. Story continues I spent some time looking into SBF's political giving and what I found was pretty shocking. SBF was collaborating with AIPAC and Trump supporting billionaires to stop the growth of the squad and the electoral left.https://t.co/S5gra6NsRv Max Berger (@maxberger) January 3, 2023 That same day, blockchain sleuth @ZachXBT that day publicly pilloried Twitch streamer and NFT creator DNP3, who earlier posted a confession and an apology for squandering investors funds in crypto casino Stake to feed his gambling addiction. He also said he is working with a help group to recover. Yikes another founder who claims to have gambled away millions of investors funds (CLU, Gridcraft & Goobers) https://t.co/AjAQGwq6Ew pic.twitter.com/rvRxGy291v ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 3, 2023 Cardano founder and creator Charles Hoskinson served up a watertight economic argument for right-clicking and saving other peoples NFT profile pics. I liked the picture so I used it as my profile picture. The artist and NFT owner don't mind because it increased the value of their work and product having the historical association with me. I get a cool PFP for a little while. It's called an economy. Pretty cool isn't it? Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) January 3, 2023 On Wednesday, Financial Times reporter Kadhim Shubber tweeted an update about Celsius ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. Several tweeters responded by highlighting the advantage of self-custody. On Thursday there were rumblings of layoffs at Huobi as internal employees communications went down. By Friday, it was confirmed that Huobi had become the latest popular exchange to announce mass layoffs as a result of the bear market, following Coinbase and Crypto.com. BREAKING: Huobi shut down internal employee communication groups and feedback channels. What's going on at @HuobiGlobal Garlam (@GarlamWON) January 5, 2023 Finally, Ryan Selkis, co-founder of crypto market intelligence firm Messari, was briefly suspended from Twitter on Saturday for pretending to be Ryan Selkis. Ryan Selkis (@twobitidiot) the Co-Founder & CEO of @MessariCrypto and organiser of Mainnet, one of the most important voices of web3, just got suspended. We need to migrate to decentralized social where everyone owns their voice, not your keys not your profile #FreeRyanSelkis pic.twitter.com/dwhAvfGd8Y Stani.lens (,) (@StaniKulechov) January 7, 2023 Good to be back to this hell on earth app I call home, he posted upon his reinstatement. 48 hours of Twitter permanent suspension got me pretty excited for the year in decentralized finance, governance, social media, identity, and hardware networks. [Source] A TikTok video has gone viral for showing a plate of twitching sashimi in Japan. On Saturday, Singaporean actor, host and TikTok user Xenia Tan (@hotcheekylace) posted a video of her unique dining experience with her partner Shawn Thia. Weve never had sashimi this fresh, the videos onscreen text says in the beginning. More from NextShark: The Most Bob Ross Looking Dog Has Passed Away in Japan I cannot eat it, Thia can be heard saying before a shot of a twitching fish head appears. He hesitates to pick up a piece of sashimi with his chopsticks, saying, I feel very bad. Later on in the 38-second clip, Tan and Thia ask a server if their dishs moving head and tail can be removed. Their server can be heard agreeing to their request before the video ends. More from NextShark: OnlyFans names 36-year-old Mumbai-born Amrapali Gan as its new CEO Several TikTok users commented on Tans video, which has already amassed over 470,000 views and 34,700 likes. As a pescatarian, this kind of videos will definitely turn me into a vegetarian real quick, one user wrote. Well, you technically can't alive it again so.. Enjoy! another user commented. More from NextShark: Viral video captures elephants springing to action to save calf drowning in pool I'm sure it's dead and just nerves responding, another user said. A few users explained that the couples Japanese dish was made using "ikizukuri, which is the preparation of sashimi from seafood that is still alive. When going overseas, always ask esp with language barrier, one user noted. More from NextShark: Viral clip shows man apparently stopping Olympian Eileen Gu from leaving after a selfie in Beijing Related stories: The White House pressured Facebook to censor a viral video posted by Tucker Carlson in 2021 alleging adverse side effects in one brand of the Covid-19 vaccine. Email correspondence, released in a lawsuit leveled by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri accusing the Biden administration of collusion with social media companies, expose that White House officials had a phone call with Facebook representatives to develop an action plan for Carlsons content. After a phone call between the two parties, Facebook confirmed to White House director of digital media Rob Flaherty that it demoted the video by 50 percent, pending a 7-day fact-checking period. Facebook promised in April that it would continue to be demoted even though it was not ultimately fact checked. The social media giant initially resisted the White Houses hounding to remove Carlsons video, ruling that it did not violate its policies because the subject was the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which studies found had yielded some health complications. Regardless of popularity, the Tucker Carlson video does not qualify for removal under our policies. Following the governments decision yesterday, we are allowing claims that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine causes blood clots, but we still do not allow categorical claims that it or other vaccines are unsafe or ineffective, Facebook wrote to former Biden White House senior advisor for Covid-19 response Andy Slavitt. Following a safety review, the FDA and CDC lifted their recommend pause on the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, but then later announced strict limits on its emergency use authorization for people 18 and older in May 2022. The FDA said it made the change because of the risk of a rare and dangerous clotting condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) that some patients contracted after receiving the shot. Facebook attempted to appease Slavitt by pointing out that Carlsons video was not being recommended to users and was labeled with a link to authoritative Covid-19 information, which stated, Covid-19 vaccines go through many tests for safety and effectiveness and then are monitored closely. Flaherty shot back that the second half of the segment is raising conspiracy theories about the government hiding that all vaccines arent effective. Story continues The White House officials warned that Facebooks willingness to permit content they deemed problematic could be politically dangerous. Not for nothing but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection, Flaherty wrote, referencing the role that social media played in the January 6 Capitol Riot. Throughout our case, we have uncovered disturbing collusion between Big Tech and Big Government, Attorney General Landry, whos involved in the joint-state litigation against the government. Todays reveal is yet another example of the ongoing coercive efforts by the White House to pressure social media companies into censoring American citizens. More from National Review US Troops Participate In Estonia Exercises Members of Chaos Company, 1-68 Armor Battalion of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, stand near their M2A3 Bradley fighting vehicles and an M1 Abrams tank following a joint military combat exercise with Estonian soldiers on March 23, 2017 near Tapa, Estonia. Credit - Sean GallupGetty Images Ukraine will get a major delivery of armored fighting vehicles from the West, following a deal last week that saw the U.S., France, and Germany agree to send them. The White House announced Thursday that the U.S. would provide Bradley fighting vehicles, which can transport infantry in combat zones and fire at enemy forces, as part of the newest military aid package totaling $2.85 billion. It would send about 50 Bradleys, according to the Associated Press. The provision of Bradleys marks a continued willingness from the Biden administration to expand the kinds of weaponry and equipment they will provide to Ukraine. Back in June, the U.S. began providing the country with long-range HIMARS rockets. But they have remained reluctant to send heavier battle tanks with longer-range guns, as Ukraine has requested. Effective armored vehicles can provide Ukraine with more offensive and defensive options. The fundamental mission of fighting vehicles is to transport troops into a protective place that they can move around the battlefield, and then get out when they need to engage in combat, says Ian Williams, deputy director of CSISs Missile Defense Project. Often times the most dangerous part for infantry is just getting to the fight. This will be particularly important as the war is entering a grinding, attritional phase where breakthroughs are becoming harder, Williams says. These fighting vehicles can help Ukraine launch further offensives in a country with flat and open terrain, he adds. Below, what to know about the new weapons, and why they matter. The American Bradley A Bradley Fighting Vehicle is displayed at a show in Miami Beach, Florida Jeffrey GreenbergUniversal Images Group/Getty Images The Bradley is an effective armored personnel carrier that is capable of conquering challenging terrain that humvees and other non-tracked vehicles cannot, says George Barros, an analyst on the Russia and Ukraine portfolio at the Institute for the Study of War, in an emailed statement to TIME. It helps transport soldiers safely to take the fight to the adversary. Story continues It has a powerful 25 mm chain gun and TOW missiles that can make it effective against tanks. What the Bradley does is bring firepower, says Mark F. Cancian, a retired Marine Corps reserves colonel and senior advisor at CSIS. It is powerful enough to punch through a lot of armor, not just for lightly armored vehicles, but even tanks. More from TIME The TOW missiles in particular could prove to be effective because they can destroy Russian tanks as well as out-range some of them, Williams says. The Bradley also has sophisticated features when it comes to night vision, range calculators, and fire control. They can be used in a reconnaissance role, too. Ukraine needs more mechanized equipment to help Ukrainian forces maintain the military initiative following its successful counter offensives in Kharkiv and Kherson in late 2022, says Barros. I hope the decision to give Ukraine Bradleys is a precursor to Ukraine eventually receiving Western main battle tanks, which the Ukrainian government has been requesting for months. The U.S. had already sent some armored vehicles to Ukrainesuch as 200 M-113 troop carriersbut those mostly offered transportation, not effective firepower. They call it a battlefield taxi; its really just an aluminum box that gets soldiers around, Cancian says. The French AMX-10 Troops stand next to the AMX-10 RC as they attend the visit of French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu in Poitiers, western France, on June 9, 2022. Guillaume SouvantAFP/Getty Images The AMX-10 is often referred to as a tank killer for its powerful firepower. The gun is much larger than the American Bradley and German Marder; it does not typically carry much infantry. The AMX-10 is a wheeled vehicle that can move relatively quickly but often needs to stay on roads or firm ground, according to the Wall Street Journal. The AMX-10 has relatively light armor which could prove difficult in withstanding Russian guns. The German Marder During a demonstration of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), a Marder infantry fighting vehicle drives on a training field in 2019. Christophe GateauPicture Alliance/Getty Images The German Marder has a 20 millimeter auto cannonand has the weakest firepower of the three vehicles. Its an older vehicle, which was first developed in the early 1960s, with MILAN anti-tank missiles and steel armor, according to Forbes. The Marder can travel at 40 miles per hour and carry three crew and six infantry, Forbes reports. A pregnant Minnesota woman is dead after being shot in the parking lot of an Amazon warehouse, but her baby survived, Minnesota police say. Responding to a 911 call, officers with the Lakeville Police Department found the 31-year-old woman suffering from a gunshot wound inside a vehicle parked outside of an Amazon fulfillment center at 6:51 p.m. on Jan. 8, the department said in a news release. First responders performed lifesaving measures and the woman was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, a release said. She died at the hospital but staff were able to deliver her baby, the release said. No update on the newborns condition was given. Police say 32-year-old Donte Rapheal McCray who has employment affiliation at the Amazon facility was involved in the shooting. McClatchy News reached out to Amazon for comment on Jan. 9 and is awaiting a response. McCray knew the victim, police said, but the nature of their relationship is unclear. He was arrested on a charge of manslaughter and booked into the Dakota County Jail, police said. 4-month-old in critical condition after driver swerves to miss dog, Texas cops say Man moaned in pleasure while rubbing pregnant womans belly at Walmart, IL cops say Mom yelling at speeding car is run over by Porsche in front of her kids, Texas cops say Mom missing after she didnt pick up son from school bus stop, Pennsylvania police say Dorothy Lynn Ricker was sitting on a park bench at a Lake Michigan beach in Wisconsin on Oct. 2, 1997, when police officers had a brief chat with her, authorities said. She said she was from Chicago and mentioned she was enjoying the lakefront and the sun. That was the last time the 26-year-old was seen alive, according to a Jan. 9 news release from Michigan State Police. Nothing appeared abnormal at the time. But the next day, her vehicle was found abandoned near where she was last seen, police said. And on Oct. 27, 1997, her body washed up on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Authorities were unable to identify her for 25 years. It wasnt until December 2022, thanks to modern DNA and forensic advances, that Michigan State Police confirmed the remains belonged to Ricker, who had been reported missing/endangered to the Chicago Police Department. When Rickers remains were found, her body was unclothed. There was nothing identifying this female at the time other than a lone earring, police said in the release. Manistee Post troopers sent out many messages trying to identify her, but they never received any credible leads. An autopsy determined the woman died of asphyxia from drowning, authorities said, and her death was ruled an accident. Her case went cold. In September 2020, detectives with the Cadillac Post and the Missing Persons Coordination Unit teamed up to reexamine the case. This included exhuming her remains and taking fresh bone samples for advanced DNA testing. Through the DNA Doe Project, the samples were sent to Astrea Forensics for Forensic Genetic Genealogy. And in July 2021, experts learned of a possible family match in Maine. Authorities received samples from a possible brother in Maine and a possible daughter in Chicago, according to the release. Further testing was needed to confirm her identity, so the bone samples were sent to Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, authorities said. The lab was able to confirm the remains identity. Story continues Although DNA testing wasnt possible when Dorothy Ricker died, investigators are grateful that it brings her family some resolution today, police said. Body found in NH woods in 1971 IDd as woman never heard from after missing a flight Remains identified as woman who vanished 36 years ago, Washington officials say 16-year-old girl vanished 37 years ago. Her remains were just identified, Texas cops say Major Chinese cities have passed peak COVID-19 infections, with the number of patients in emergency wards dropping and patients in intensive care plateauing, according to a senior health official. Jiao Yahui, head of the National Health Commission's medical administration bureau, said smaller cities and rural areas have also witnessed large numbers of infections recently and will face a peak in severe patients and those needing emergency treatment during the Spring Festival travel rush. In an interview with China Central Television on Sunday, Jiao said that the number of patients contracting Omicron and showing symptoms of pneumonia accounts for around 8 percent of the total in 2022. However, as China has a large population, even a small percentage can result in a large overall figure, she said. The country as a whole will probably not witness a peak in infections during the Spring Festival travel rush but will likely have a peak in critical patients and those in need of emergency treatment, she said. With the number of patients needing intensive care rising, the occupancy rate of ICU beds increased rapidly between December and January, rising from 54 percent on Dec 25 to around 80 percent currently. The large flow of people during the Spring Festival travel rush is increasing pressure on treating severe patients in rural areas, as the country's healthcare is weaker outside cities, she said, adding that the biggest challenge is to transfer severe patients from rural to urban areas. Chen Cao, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that China had detected imported cases caused by the XBB subvariant of Omicron, as well as 16 domestic cases, most of them in October. However, the subvariant has not so far become dominant and there is currently a low possibility of a large-scale epidemic resulting from XBB, he said. Antibodies in individuals previously infected with the BA.5.2 and BF.7 subvariants will remain relatively high for a short period and should provide effective cross-protection against other Omicron variants, including XBB, he said, adding protection can even last up to six months in certain people. China has strengthened monitoring of Omicron variants, especially outbreaks caused by XBB around the world, and of the risk of imported infections, he said. Although the XBB subvariant is more transmissible, it has not led to more critical illness or deaths, he added. Chang Zhaorui, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said people are advised to take personal protection measures, such as washing their hands frequently, wearing masks, properly ventilating spaces and maintaining social distancing to enjoy Spring Festival safely. They should refrain from holding large family gatherings and be careful not to increase the risk to elderly family members, she said. People should get vaccinated as quickly as possible and continue to monitor their health. Those showing symptoms or who test positive should stay in well-ventilated, separate rooms and minimize contacts with others, Chang added. With a highly contagious coronavirus variant expected to hit Iowa in earnest in the coming weeks, infectious disease specialists and public health experts are urging Iowans to get the bivalent COVID-19 booster shot as soon as possible. Few of them have so far. The new COVID-19 offshoot of omicron, called XBB.1.5, has been dubbed by world health leaders as the most transmissible version of the virus yet and has emerged in the United States with a force. In just one month, from the last week of November to the last week of December, the subvariant rose from less than 1% of total estimated COVID-19 infections nationwide to 40%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Midwest region that includes Iowa is reporting XBB.1.5 makes up 8% of estimated infections as of Dec. 31, the CDC reports. Given that some experts say the virus appears to be five times more contagious than the earlier omicron version, it's only a matter of weeks before Iowans see a spike in new illnesses. Everyone is at risk for infection, even those who have so far avoided catching COVID-19, experts say. Some infectious disease specialists also say even the majority of Americans who have already had the coronavirus will likely catch it again. "A number of people are probably going to become infected," said Dr. Karen Brust, infectious disease specialist and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Preliminarily, it doesn't appear that the virus causes more severe illness in those it infects, but those who are immunocompromised continue to face elevated risk, Brust said. "They're not at the advantage of having good immunity after a vaccine, so I still worry about that subpopulation of people," she said. "They need to do other things to protect themselves against getting sick from COVID." Coronavirus vaccines and boosters are still effective in preventing severe disease and death. Story continues In light of the new subvariant making its way into Iowa, local public health officials say it's especially important Iowans get the bivalent booster, a shot approved by federal officials last year that offers protection against both the omicron strains currently circulating widely and the original strain of the virus. "We're really asking people to get their bivalent boosters if they haven't already," Brust said. More: COVID-19 pandemic easing slightly in Iowa but XBB.1.5 on the rise, weekly update shows Bivalent boosters offer protection against new variant, other omicron versions of coronavirus State and local public health officials continue to push Iowans to be up-to-date on their coronavirus vaccinations, but this new variant has renewed their emphasis on the newest bivalent booster dose. They say that shot is key to reducing serious illness and reducing the risk of infecting others. "Getting vaccinated and staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines remains the best form of protection from serious illness, hospitalization and death," Iowa Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Sarah Ekstrand said. Current vaccine rates in Iowa are not enough to reduce spread of the new variant, Brust said. More:People who haven't had COVID will likely catch XBB.1.5 and many will get reinfected, experts say According to the most recent data from state public health officials, 60% of the state's population was fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of December. Fewer than 1 in 6 Iowans have received a bivalent booster dose, the shot designed to protect from omicron strains of COVID-19. "For whatever reason, the bivalent booster did not have the uptake that we had hoped it would have," Brust said. "I was hoping that the bivalent booster would be seen the way an influenza seasonal booster was seen, because that's the way I'm looking at it. Every time I'm going into a respiratory season, I'm going to think about boosting myself with a COVID booster." State and Polk County public health officials say they continue to share public messaging around the importance of COVID-19 vaccination. Recently, Polk County Health Department worked with a Des Moines-based church, the Christ Apostolic Temple, to create commercials, including one in Spanish airing this month, that encourage COVID-19 vaccines. "With the emergence of new COVID-19 variants of concern, we will continue to urge the community to get vaccinated and fully boosted," said county agency spokesperson Madisun VanGundy Individuals can sign up for a free COVID-19 vaccine through the Polk County Health Department on its website, immunizepolk.com. Polk County sees drop in free COVID test kit service Polk County Health Department and other local public health agencies continue to manage COVID-19 cases like other respiratory viruses, in accordance with recommendations from the state public health department, VanGundy said. The agency is also continuing to emphasize the importance of testing. Polk County Health Department continues to offer free COVID-19 PCR test kits at its building, but officials have found the number of individuals utilizing that service has dramatically dropped in the past year. In December 2021, VanGundy said Polk County Health Department sent out 2,642 test kits for testing, averaging about 660 tests per week. By December 2022, the agency had sent 104 test kits out, or an average of about 26 tests a week. However, rapid at-home tests are widely available to Americans, including the four free tests from the federal government that can be shipped directly to each household. VanGundy said officials encourage individuals to test themselves for COVID-19 when they have symptoms, or before they visit someone who is immunocompromised. More:With super-contagious XBB.1.5 variant looming, Iowa COVID-19 cases holding steady so far What are the symptoms of XBB.1.5? An infection from XBB.1.5 has the same symptoms as an infection with earlier versions of the coronavirus. Symptoms, which can range from mild symptoms to severe illness, can appear between 2 to 14 days after exposure. According to the CDC, symptoms of COVID-19 include: Cough Fatigue Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing Body aches or headache Fever or chills New loss of taste or smell Sore throat Congestion or runny nose Nausea or vomiting Diarrhea How to avoid an infection Public health experts and health care providers continue to recommend the same strategies to keep yourself and others around you healthy. First and foremost is getting vaccinated, Brust said. The primary coronavirus vaccine series and boosters are available at most pharmacies, or through your health care provider. Individuals should also continue to wear masks to reduce the risk of infection, especially in crowded indoor spaces. They should also wash their hands often and should stay home when they are feeling sick. Brust said it's important for individuals to be informed of current transmission levels in their community and other metrics that highlight the current spread of the virus. It's also important to a step back to consider what their risk for infection might be, or the risk for immunocompromised individuals around them, she said. That includes considering how many people may be at an event and its location. "I use all of those things to determine the way I interact with the outside world, so that's usually what I tell people to do: consider those things as they go out there," Brust said. More:N95 and KN95 masks are your best mask optionheres where to buy them online Recommendations after a COVID-19 exposure The CDC recommends individuals get tested at least five days after the last exposure to COVID-19. Federal health officials say individuals who are infected, or suspect they are infected, should isolate. Those that test negative do not have to isolate, though they should continue to wear a mask and take other precautions for at least 10 days. Those that test positive should isolate at home for at least five days, when they are most infectious, according to the CDC. Those who had no symptoms can end isolation after five days, but those experiencing symptoms should continue to isolate and wear a mask for at least 10 days. Individuals with a COVID-19 infection are contagious as long as they are testing positive. 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: COVID variant XBB.1.5 symptoms, boosters and what to expect in Iowa Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, chaired a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief on Monday, 9 January to discuss the situation on the front line. Source: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his evening video address Quote: "Today I held the regular meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The main issue on the agenda is the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts - the areas that are the hottest now. The cities of Bakhmut and Soledar, Kreminna and Svatove - the overall prospects for Donbas over the next few weeks. The battle for Donbas continues." Details: Zelenskyy stressed that the result of this long and difficult battle will be the liberation of the whole of Ukrainian Donbas. Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron! Sweet Briar College President Meredith Woo announced Monday she will step down at the conclusion of the 2023-2024 school year. Woo has been leader of the private women's college in Amherst County for seven years. She became the school's 13th president after Phillip C. Stone, who retired in May 2017. Selecting a search firm is underway, and the college's board of directors will work with the campus community over the next 18 months to find a new president, the school said in a news release. Sweet Briar is an important institution with a distinctive mission. Deeply loved and supported by one of the strongest alumnae networks in the nation, it now has an unstoppable momentum, Woo said. I look forward to passing the baton to a new leader who can take the College to a new height. Woo, a former University of Virginia dean, was hired two years after previous leadership at the college in 2015 announced their intent to close the school, citing financial challenges and other issues. Students, faculty, alumnae and other supporters raised millions of dollars, challenged the closure in court and ultimately ended up keeping the school open with a new leadership and new board of directors. Upon her arrival in 2017, Woo and her team overhauled the college's curriculum to create an "Innovative Women's Leadership Core" to replace the traditional "general education" program with three collaborative interdisciplinary centers: human and environmental sustainability; creativity, design and the arts; and engineering, science and technology in society. The leadership curriculum had 10 courses that focused on effective communication, logical thinking, financial thinking, empathy, decision making and problem solving. One emphasis was ensuring students gain experience in leadership outside of the classroom. Sweet Briar's development in its landscape was another accomplishment for Woo. According to the news release release, the president encouraged the college to return to its roots in agriculture by adding a 26,000-square-foot greenhouse and 18 acres of vineyards. Investment in athletics included the addition of a water based AstroTurf field and renovations of its 130-acre facility for its equestrian program. The college also added a new health-center and renovated the common spaces of some residence halls, created an outdoor multi-use student commons and renovated dining cafe areas. The alumnae and friends of Sweet Briar gave more than $25 million during the 2021-2022 academic year, according to a release. The college exceeded alumnae donor expectations for fiscal year 2022, with a $5 million increase. In 2018, Sweet Briar enacted a tuition reset, lowering annual tuition to $21,000, a nearly 44% decrease from $37,155 in 2017. Last June, Woo described this reset as "one of the most massive tuition resets ever in the country for a private institution." Lynchburg Mayor Stephanie Reed plans to bring forth a resolution during Lynchburg City Councils Tuesday meeting to designate the city as a Second Amendment Sanctuary. Meanwhile, fellow At-large Councilor Martin Misjuns said he sent his own such resolution to city staff last week. He said he isn't sure how similar his and Reed's are. Reed, in a statement posted Sunday evening to her Facebook page, said, In January 2020, the citizens of Lynchburg spoke loudly in support of making Lynchburg a sanctuary from anti-second amendment legislation that was being considered in the Virginia General Assembly at the time. While leadership in Richmond has changed, the values of our citizens have not, Reed said. Later in the statement, she said, On Tuesday, I intend to bring a resolution to City Council supporting the designation of Lynchburg as a Second Amendment Sanctuary, finally fulfilling the desire of our constituents to uphold our Constitutional rights and support law-abiding gun owners. On Jan. 14, 2020, Lynchburg City Council held a public hearing regarding a resolution on whether or not to become a Second Amendment Sanctuary. The body after a meeting that lasted more than six hours and drew about 1,000 attendees ultimately voted to reject the resolution 5-2. The 2020 version of the resolution stood in opposition to the passage of any bill containing language which could be interpreted as infringing the rights of the citizens of Lynchburg to keep and bear arms" and declared the city council's "power to direct the law enforcement and employees of Lynchburg to not enforce any unconstitutional law. The resolution was one of many considered in localities throughout Virginia near the end of 2019 and into 2020 in response to concerns that then-Gov. Ralph Northam and Democratic leaders would pass legislation to restrict gun rights. Locally, Appomattox and Campbell County's boards of supervisors declared those localities Second Amendment sanctuaries in November 2019, and Amherst and Bedford counties followed suit in December 2019. Current Ward III Councilor Jeff Helgeson voted in favor of Lynchburg's resolution, while current Ward I Councilor MaryJane Dolan and Ward II Councilor Sterling Wilder voted in opposition. The remaining members of today's city council were not yet in their positions. If such resolutions do come before council again soon, it's unclear whether the public would have a chance to speak on them. While the body held a public hearing in 2020 to discuss the merits of the resolution, there are no legal requirements to do so, City Attorney Matthew Freedman said Monday. Due to council's regular rules of procedure, resident feedback is limited to a small portion of the 7:30 p.m. meeting, during a specifically designated public comment period. Speakers are required to sign up by noon on the Friday prior to a council meeting; Reed announced this resolution would be on the agenda after that deadline. Freedman said unless council "deviates from their rules of procedure," those rules will remain in place on Tuesday, not allowing residents to speak on the topic unless they were previously signed up. The Second Amendment Sanctuary item was not listed on council's agenda as of Friday afternoon but was added Monday afternoon as a "tentative" item during council's 4 p.m. work session, set for a discussion. It's possible council could discuss the matter at the work session and agree to bring it to a public hearing at a later date. While Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions typically state they are directing law enforcement in a certain way, Freedman later said council only has control over three city employees the city manager, city attorney and clerk of council. The city attorney said all other employees are under the direction of the city manager. "So City Council does have the power to appropriate funds. They do have the power to institute legal proceedings. And certainly they can use those tools at their disposal to be able to ensure that their message is taken seriously," Freedman said. Additionally, the city attorney said council could propose any counter-legislation or charter amendments that would grant the city special powers "in lieu of anything that they may take issue with that may come out of the General Assembly. "But typically ... unless you have a charter amendment or special law in place, general law controls over municipal law or ordinances," Freedman added. In an interview Monday, Misjuns said the five Republicans on council met in December, after the three new members Reed, Misjuns, and fellow At-large Councilor Larry Taylor were elected and "initially agreed" to put the Second Amendment Sanctuary item on the agenda for the first meeting, "so when it was not on the agenda, that was just an incredible missed opportunity." Misjuns campaigned on the idea of making Lynchburg a sanctuary for the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment." Asked about whether he was concerned about a possible lack of public hearing about the new resolutions, Misjuns said, "Citizens spoke loud and clear in multiple public hearings that they wanted the city to protect their rights to defend themselves. Citizens elected a Republican City Council last November to deliver on that right." Vice Mayor Chris Faraldi, who was the first public speaker during 2020's public hearing, said council got the vote wrong in 2020, and the new Republican caucus "plans to rectify that wrong." "We as a Council need to demonstrate our resolve [to] stand up for the inalienable rights of the citizens we represent," the vice mayor said, "regardless of what 'powers' in their infinite wisdom Richmond grants us." Faraldi said he leans more toward having a public hearing before voting. "Even for business I know I will support and that business I know Ill oppose I do think a public comment period is the right thing to do," Faraldi said. Regardless, Faraldi said, "Needless to say, if and when this Resolution comes before me tomorrow, I'm proudly and promptly voting for it." The newly elected Lynchburg City Council is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday for its work session, followed by its 7:30 p.m. meeting, both in Council Chambers at City Hall, 900 Church St. Japan's health authorities are reporting record-high deaths from the coronavirus, with over 400 people succumbing each day. Sunday's count was down slightly from the figure for recent days. But experts warn the situation could get worse in the coming weeks. Health officials across the country confirmed 407 fatalities linked to the virus on Sunday. The central prefecture of Aichi had the most of Japan's 47 prefectures, at 44. In Tokyo, 30 people died. Most of the victims were over 70. A home nursing care provider in Tokyo said vulnerable people need extra help. The provider said, "The patient's condition worsened in a short period of time. Those with underlying conditions face greater risks." He said the number of infections has also been surging in retirement homes. ...continue reading The shooting death of a 19-year-old Nebraska man in Council Bluffs is being investigated as a homicide. Tucker Dobberstein of Fremont, Nebraska was found dead in a downtown Bluffs apartment building at 5:15 p.m. Sunday, the Council Bluffs Police Department reported. Officers were sent to 209 S. 4th St. to investigate a report of gunshots and found Dobberstein inside. Police said a preliminary investigation determined that Dobberstein was struck by at least one gunshot. An autopsy will be performed at the State of Iowa Medical Examiners Office in Ankeny. Anyone with information about the shooting may call Council Bluffs detectives at 712-328-4728 or, to remain anonymous, they may call CrimeStoppers at 712-328-7867. Weather Alert ...RED FLAG WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM CDT THIS EVENING FOR WIND AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR ALL OF EASTERN NEBRASKA AND SOUTHWEST IOWA... ...RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT FROM NOON TO 8 PM CDT THURSDAY FOR WIND AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR ALL OF EASTERN NEBRASKA AND SOUTHWEST IOWA.. The National Weather Service in Omaha/Valley has issued a Red Flag Warning for wind and low relative humidity, which is in effect from noon to 8 PM CDT Thursday. The Fire Weather Watch is no longer in effect. * Affected Area...In Iowa, Monona, Harrison, Shelby, Pottawattamie, Mills, Montgomery, Fremont and Page. In Nebraska, Knox, Cedar, Thurston, Antelope, Pierce, Wayne, Boone, Madison, Stanton, Cuming, Burt, Platte, Colfax, Dodge, Washington, Butler, Saunders, Douglas, Sarpy, Seward, Lancaster, Cass, Otoe, Saline, Jefferson, Gage, Johnson, Nemaha, Pawnee and Richardson. * Winds...South 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph. * Relative Humidity...As low as 21 percent. * Impacts...Any fires that develop will likely spread rapidly. Outdoor burning is not recommended. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A Red Flag Warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now, or will shortly. A combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and warm temperatures can contribute to extreme fire behavior. && A group of unidentified armed men attacked last Saturday a train station in Edo State, south of Nigeria, and kidnapped dozens of passengers, the Nigerian police announced. Chidi Nwabuzor, spokesperson for the police said in a statement that a number of passengers were also injured when gunmen, carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, attacked the Igueben station, firing sporadically into the air. Most victims were passengers waiting to board the Itakpe-Wari train, Nwabuzor said. Security forces, according to the police official, were sent to the train station to take control of the situation and arrest the attackers. Nigeria is confronted with armed men and bandits who indulge in the abduction of people in exchange for ransom. In March last year, 8 people were killed and dozens were abducted after gunmen detonated a bomb on a railroad track and opened fire on a train carrying passengers from capital Abuja to Kaduna. You are here: China Some 34.74 million passenger trips were made Saturday, the first day of the 2023 Spring Festival travel rush, new data showed. The figure was 38.9 percent higher than the same period of 2022, according to a work group on the travel rush under the State Council. Some 6.02 million train trips and 27.35 million road trips were made Saturday, up 18.4 percent and 46.9 percent, respectively, from last year. Saturday also saw a 24.9-percent increase in air passenger trips and a 7.4-percent hike in waterway trips. The Spring Festival travel rush, also known as "chunyun," will last from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year, during which many Chinese people will travel to reunite with their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 22 this year. South Korean airlines operated last Friday two charter flights to Cairo International Airport following several years of suspension. The first flight, operated by Asiana Airlines, came from Seoul with 295 passengers onboard, while the second flight was operated by Korean Air, Egypt Today reported. In November, South Koreas Ambassador to Egypt Hong Jin Wook affirmed plans by Korean Air and Asiana Airlines to operate charter flights during January and February 2023, the Egyptian media reports. The Asian country in August eased travel advisory to Egypt, for the first time in 8 years. The move is expected to pave the way for a potential increase in the number of Korean tourists to Egypt. Benin voted for a new parliament on Sunday, January8, with opposition candidates authorized to stand in the legislative elections after four years of absence. The vote is widely seen as a key test for the West African nation, where President Patrice Talons supporters say he has ushered in political and economic development, but critics have denounced many of his actions and policies as they eroded democracy. The opposition was de facto barred from participating in the last parliamentary elections in 2019 following a tightening of electoral regulations. In 2019, only two political movements allied with Talon were authorized to participate, leading to a parliament controlled by pro-government parties. The 2019 legislative elections were also marred by violence, record abstention and an internet shutdown, rare events in a country once seen as a model of democracy in West Africa. This time around, seven political parties, including three allied with the opposition, have been authorized to take part in the election, though most of Talons main opponents are either in prison or in exile. Reckya Madougou, a politician, and Joel Aivo, an academic, were tried by a special court dealing with terrorism and economic crimes, known as the CRIET the former has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorism, while the latter was given 10 years in prison for conspiracy against the authority of the state. Critics say the court, created by Talons government in 2016, has been used to crack down on his opponents. Both the Somali government and the al-Shabab militant group have denied having held peace talks, which comes after President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had called on brainwashed young al-Shabab fighters to surrender to the government amid ongoing military offensives against the group. The denial came from a senior government official Saturday after Abdulfatah Kasim Mohamud, a deputy defense minister, said the militant group had requested talks with the government. We have not received any requests from the group, National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh Ali told the press. The minister said he was misquoted. He also said the Somali governments position on al-Shabab has not changed. We arent negotiating with them as a group. However, individuals who wish to leave the group will undergo a thorough process to defect and be eligible for government amnesty formally, he added. The militant group, on its part, has denied the existence of any talks with the Somali government. I can confirm that there arent and can be no talks between us, a militant official said. In the past, the group has expressed distrust in opening dialogue with the Somali government. In January 2018, the groups official spokesperson, Ali Mohamud Rage, known as Ali Dhere, said dialogue is more dangerous than the weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, speaking at a mosque in the countrys capital Friday (6 January), Somali president, who last year declared an all-out war against the Islamist insurgents, called on the al-Shabab fighters to denounce the terrorist ideology before it is too late. President of the Spanish government Pedro Sanchez said, Monday in Madrid, that the new roadmap established between Spain and Morocco last April, on the occasion of his visit to Morocco at the invitation of King Mohammed VI, places bilateral cooperation on stronger pillars. This new stage of relations between the two countries will also strengthen mutual trust, said Sanchez, who chaired the 7th Conference of Spanish ambassadors accredited abroad. The President of the Spanish government stressed the importance of stability of North Africa to move towards a more prosperous cooperation. Stability and security in our southern neighborhood must remain a top priority, he said. I said earlier that during the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, we will organize a summit with the southern neighborhood at the European level to implement and develop this positive agenda that we must have with our southern neighbors, Sanchez said. Based on the new roadmap, the two countries are committed, among other things, to address issues of common interest in a spirit of trust and consultation, while reactivating the working groups created between the two countries to revive bilateral multisectoral cooperation. The Speaker of the Bahraini Council of Representatives, Ahmed Salman Al Musallam, reiterated his countrys support to Moroccos sovereignty over its southern provinces, as well as to its security and stability and announced his countrys plans to open a consulate in Dakhla after the one set up in Laayoune. This came during a meeting in Manama Sunday, January 8, with Khalid bin Salman Al Musallam, Ambassador of Bahrain to Morocco, reports the Bahrain News Agency. The President of the Council of Representatives also highlighted the depth and solidity of the fraternal relations linking the two Kingdoms, emphasizing the common desire to consolidate bilateral cooperation, particularly in the parliamentary and economic fields, and to open up broader prospects to this cooperation. The distinguished relations and multi-faceted partnership uniting the two brotherly countries have been further strengthened thanks to the efforts of the two countries leaders, King Hamad Ben Issa Al Khalifa and King Mohammed VI, said Ahmed Salman Al Musallam. Bahrain was among the first countries to open consular representations in the Moroccan Sahara, inaugurating a consulate general in Laayoune in December 2020. At least 1,176 people were killed by law enforcement officers in the U.S. last year, the most of any year since at least 2013. Thats 36 more people than 2021, according to the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence, which last updated its database on Dec. 31. It may be an undercount as the organization continues to compile data, which it does regularly for all of the years it tracks. Of people killed by law enforcement last year, 287 were Black. Thats 24% of the total number of police killings, the group found. US Census data show 13.6% of the population is Black. Police shooting incidents accounted for 96% of the killings. The database also tracks killings by Taser, vehicles or other use of force. The majority of these killings began with a response to a mental health call, routine traffic stop, a nonviolent offense or disturbance or a situation where there was no crime alleged, Samuel Sinyangwe, Mapping Police Violences founder, said. Creating alternative community-based responses to these types of situations could make a real difference in reducing police violence and saving lives. Calls to reform or defund police departments have grown from activists and protesters in past years, particularly in the wake of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer. That years Black Lives Matter protests are believed to be the largest movement in U.S. history, and international protests also decried anti-Black police brutality. The 50 largest cities in the U.S. reduced their fiscal 2021 police budgets by 5.2% from the year prior in aggregate, but police funding also comprised a slightly higher percentage of the overall budgets. Cities including Tampa, Florida, and Phoenix, Arizona, increased their police funding in fiscal 2021, a Bloomberg analysis showed. New York and Minneapolis were among those that decreased their budgets that year. New York allocated $5.53 billion toward police spending in fiscal 2023. A history of police violence in America Intro 1704: Start of slave patrols in South Carolina 1838: First police department 1865: Southern states establish first 'black codes' Dec. 24, 1865: Ku Klux Klan formed 1877: Protesters and law enforcement clash in the Great Railroad Strike May 4, 1886: Labor leaders, strikers protest police brutality in the Haymarket riots Sept. 10, 1897: Immigrant miners are attacked in the Lattimer massacre 1904: Parchman Farm in Mississippi shifts from plantation to prison 1916: Start of Great Migration causes racial tensions May 22, 1917: Ell Persons lynching 1919: The 'Red Summer' of 1919 1929: President Herbert Hoover establishes the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement May 30, 1937: Chicago police shoot 10 protesters at Republic Steel Plant protests 1943: LAPD officers complicit in attacks against Mexican Americans during Zoot Suit Riots 18821968: Lack of law enforcement and government intervention during lynchings and murders 1956: COINTELPRO is founded to monitor radicals and activists 1960s: Rising militarization of police forces around the US 1963: Over 250,000 attend March on Washington 1965: Watts Riots highlight tensions between police and Black Americans 1965: Special Weapons and SWAT team established in LA 1967: Racial profiling and police brutality culminate in Detroit riots 1967: Federal Kerner Commission admits that police action is the cause of urban rebellions of 1960s 1969: New York City riots after a police raid on Stonewall Inn 1971: Death of George Jackson in prison sparks controversy June 18, 1971: War on Drugs campaign kicks off 1970s1980s: Spike in urban crime perpetuates stereotypes and creates 'broken windows' policies 1991: Video of police officers beating Rodney King sparks outrage 1992: Riots begin in Los Angeles due to Rodney King beating and Latasha Harlins killing 1994: Congress passes the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 1994: Violent Crime bill's "three strikes" provisions pave way for mass incarceration 1997: 1033 program helping to militarize police is created Feb. 4, 1999: Police shooting of Amadou Diallo 2000: Prison population almost doubles in a single decade 2000s: School-to-prison pipeline emerges with increased police presence and zero-tolerance policies in schools April 7, 2001: Cincinnati police officer shoots Timothy Thomas 20012013: NYC police target people of color due to 9/11 and expansion of 'stop and frisk' 2002: NYPD's Street Crimes Unit disbanded 2006: Police shootings of Sean Bell and Kathryn Harris Johnston further escalate tensions 2007: Under pressure, NYPD releases data showing racial disparities in its policing Dec. 20, 2011: Police shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith May 16, 2010: SWAT shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Jones 2014: Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown all die at the hands of police Nov. 28, 2014: UN Committee against Torture condemns police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement in the US 2015: Deaths of Freddie Gray and shooting of Keith Childress Jr. raise questions July 13, 2015: Sandra Bland is found dead after being arrested during a traffic stop July 2016: Police shootings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling happen just a day apart September 2016: UN's Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent issues scathing report on police killings 20172020: Trump administration peels back Justice Department programs that investigate local police departments for racism and excessive force May 2020: Deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd reignite worldwide protests against police brutality and racism Nebraskans curious about nitrate levels in their drinking water, take heed: You can get your water tested. And once that water is tested, there are a few potential options though sometimes costly that can help protect you from high nitrate levels. Some private wells are more vulnerable to nitrate contamination and should definitely be tested, such as shallow wells and wells in sandy aquifers, said Katie Pekarek, an educator with Nebraska Extension. Though cities are required to keep nitrate levels below 10 parts per million the Environmental Protection Agencys decades-old standard there may be reason to test there, too. Recent research has suggested that lower levels of nitrate may still be linked to potential health risks in children. The first step for private well owners is to get a baseline understanding of levels of nitrate, bacteria, pH and other basic drinking water contaminants, Pekarek said. She then recommends re-testing for nitrate concentration every few years to track any changes. Testing labs include the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Environmental Laboratory in Lincoln, and a list of state-certified labs that do testing and analysis. The charge for testing at the state lab is $16, Pekarek said. A person can request a kit online and have it mailed to their home. Another good first stop may be your local Natural Resources District. The state is divided into 23 NRDs, local governments dedicated to natural resource conservation and protection. Some offer free water testing or other help, though whats available varies depending on the NRD. The Lower Loup NRD offers free testing for nitrate in-house and encourages landowners to get a verified sample read by a certified lab. The Upper Niobrara White NRD will collect one free sample annually from domestic wells. The Lower Elkhorn NRD which created and promoted its own website on nitrate in drinking water helps private well owners get samples tested for bacteria, nitrate and two herbicide/pesticide panels, according to assistant manager Brian Bruckner. It covers the cost for owners of registered domestic wells. The state maintains a well database thats accessible to the public. To see testing data: the states groundwater clearinghouse has results for wells sampled by state and local governments, including irrigation wells and some domestic wells. You can learn more about your communitys water quality, and see historical trends, at Drinking Water Watch. (To see nitrate levels at that website, do the following: Search by community, then sort sample class by Analyte click Chem/Rad Samples/Results by Analyte and choose nitrate-nitrite.) Another resource: Two University of Nebraska-Lincoln programs, called Know Your Well and Water Quality + Citizen Science. Know Your Well provides materials, training and other resources to high school classrooms so students can identify and sample private wells and run tests in their classrooms, said Sara Brock, a graduate research assistant who co-runs the program. Duplicate samples are tested at the Water Sciences Laboratory at UNL. Results are reported back to well owners. Well owners interested in the program can reach out to their NRD, Brock said. If theres not already a program in the area, you could potentially spur its start. Know Your Well recently won a grant to help it grow. Separately, the Water Quality + Citizen Science program provides anyone interested in testing water whether it be a local stream or their own well with test strips that provide less-specific results. The program then provides resources to well owners so they can decide whether and how to pursue more testing. Data is gathered in a map thats available publicly online, where people can see results and trends over time. Nebraskans request between 600-1,000 tests every monthlong testing window, said Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, who runs the program. About a quarter of wells tested through the program exceed the Environmental Protection Agencys drinking water standard of 10 parts per million, she said. What should you do if your own test results show high nitrate levels? Pekarek said Nebraska Extension recommends that well owners with nitrate concentrations above the EPA drinking water standard take action. The quickest way to do that, short-term, is to find a different water source perhaps bottled water. That is your personal responsibility: to make sure that you are consuming that safe drinking water, she said, to avoid the health risks associated with high nitrate levels, which are most concerning for women of childbearing age and infants. Long-term, a person may decide to treat water for their entire home with ion exchange or reverse osmosis, which comes with a hefty price tag: About $20,000, Pekarek said. Many people opt for a point-of-use system: A reverse osmosis or ion exchange system under the kitchen sink. That fix comes at the more-palatable cost, often in the neighborhood of $3,000. A distiller may also be an option, according to NebGuides, a set of educational resources from Nebraska Extension. Each system comes with its drawbacks theres a NebGuide for each type of system available online, and the Penn State Extension website also offers a good overview. Some NRDs will help defray these costs. The Upper Niobrara White NRD, for example, helps private well owners and offers cost-sharing of up to 50% for reverse osmosis systems or re-drilling a well. The Lower Elkhorn NRD also has a cost-sharing program. And theres other help on the way: the Nebraska Legislature approved a bill last year that directed federal COVID-19 relief money to cover the cost of installing reverse osmosis systems for private well owners with nitrate levels above 10 ppm. Property owners will be able to apply for rebates of up to $4,000 per installation, according to the Department of Environment and Energy. More information on the program and applications will be made available online at dee.ne.gov. The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraskas first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter. Top Journal Star photos for December NSW residents are fuming after a council pruned protected mangroves this week to give luxury waterfront mansions unimpeded water views. Critics of the works, conducted on the Mid North Coast, have been sharing their frustration online, with one calling the situation "absolutely horrendous". Another person said they were amazed the area was not protected. Images supplied to Yahoo News Australia show habitat along the Manning River dramatically slashed. Residents who snapped the photos are outraged that council dollars are being directed towards what they call destruction of the wetlands for the wealthy few. In 2018, industrial diggers drove on top of them during pruning works. Source: Geoff Leighton It's the first time the periodical works have been completed since 2018, when photos show an industrial digger and slashing equipment being driven along the waterfront. MidCoast Council, whose contractors are undertaking the works, did not respond to direct questions from Yahoo News Australia, and has not yet agreed to an interview. In a statement, it confirmed similar works have been carried out periodically since 2004 to maintain views along the Harrington Waters foreshore. Despite concerns from residents, council argues the works do not damage the mangroves. "They grow back over time which is the reason for the pruning every number of years," it said. Why are mangroves important? Federally, mangroves are classed as ecologically important ecosystems and they are ordinarily protected by state law. While corporations who destroy mangroves can face fines of up to $220,000, MidCoast Council was granted a permit from the NSW Department of Fisheries (DPI) that allows it to conduct pruning, although it has refused to supply a copy of the document. Mangroves being trimmed in 2018. Source: Geoff Leighton Mangroves are protected across the state because they improve water quality, stop erosion and provide essential habitat for aquatic life and birds. Council slashing mangroves to stop their destruction Council justified the pruning, saying it will eliminate unauthorised damage or removal of the mangroves, ensuring they can continue to stabilise the bank. Story continues This reasoning was labelled absurd by Geoff Leighton who lives on the opposite side of the river in Manning Point. So basically, if you threaten to poison or cut down mangroves, the council will come and prune them for you, he said. He believes MidCoast Council's hypothesis contrasts with the efforts of councils in other parts of the state to fight habitat vandalism. In 2013, Waverley Council initiated a two for one tree replacement policy for damaged trees, while a year later Manly Council erected a fabric screen to block a view created by tree removal. Speaking to Yahoo News Australia on Friday, Mr Leighton renewed his call for local government to abandon its pruning program and let the mangroves reach their true height to match nearby ecosystems. However, change to the pruning policy looks unlikely with council telling Yahoo News Australia it has been in place since 2004. "(It) was a condition of the development approval for the Harrington Waters estate, it said in a statement. Despite their ecological significance, many Australians continue to see mangroves as 'ugly'. Source: Getty (File) Expert believes thin mangrove strip offers limited protection Dr Vincent Raoult is an expert on Mid North Coast mangroves and advocates for their protection. He said its unfortunate that mangroves remain a hairy subject as many people still see them as ugly, despite their ecological significance. However, when it comes to the Harrington Waters mangrove strip, he believes they likely only offer limited protection to the river bank. When the mangrove forest is very narrow, which is the case in this particular area, then it's quite hard for that mangrove to actually have that good stabilisation effect, he said. Hes also pragmatic when it comes to habitat preservation versus human needs. I could say objectively yes destroying mangroves is not usually not a great thing, he said. But we have to balance managing our ecosystems with our needs as a society. And that's not always easy to do. Roche Group, which developed the 172-hectare Harrington Waters estate, has been contacted for comment. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play. Prince Harrys ghostwriter JR Moehringer appears to have taken a subtle swipe at the Duke of Sussex on social media. Eagle-eyed fans noticed over the weekend that the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist had liked a tweet that slammed Harry for confessing his controversial kill count and labelled him as selfish. Spare ghostwriter JR Moehringer has taken a subtle swipe at Prince Harry online. Photos: Getty Harry revealed in his explosive memoir Spare, which will officially hit shelves tomorrow after being released early in Spain last week, that he had killed 25 people in Afghanistan while working as an Apache helicopter pilot between 2012 to 2013. It wasn't a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed, he wrote. Naturally, I'd have preferred not to have that number on my military CV, on my mind, but by the same token I'd have preferred to live in a world in which there was no Taliban, a world without war. He also added that he didnt think of the 25 deaths as people but rather chess pieces removed from the board. RELATED: Several people have since criticised Harry for making the confession, including former journalist and broadcaster Andrew Neil who took to Twitter to share his thoughts. Harrys claim that he killed 23 Taliban is a nightmare - an absolute nightmare - for his security teams. How stupid can you be? he tweeted. One user then replied, It is all me me me, which JR appeared to have liked. It is unclear whether or not he intentionally liked the tweet, however, it has since been unliked. JR Moehringer liked a tweet calling Prince Harry selfish. Photo: Twitter Harry claims William physically attacked him Harrys memoir features a number of headline-making bombshells, including claims he begged his father King Charles not to marry his wife Camilla, and that his brother Prince William and Kate Middleton convinced him to wear the infamous Nazi costume in 2005. Story continues One of the most shocking stories to come from the book involves the physical fight between Harry and William, who is referred to as his arch-nemesis. Harry says that his brother came over to discuss the furore surrounding his relationship with Meghan and the way the couple were being treated by the press. However, the Prince of Wales was piping hot when he arrived and began complaining about Meghan, calling her difficult, rude and abrasive. After Harry accused William of parrot[ing] the press narrative about Meghan, the pair became embroiled in a shouting match before escalating further, Harry says. Harry then lashed out at William, accusing him of acting as an heir. The pair traded insults, when William told Harry he was attempting to help, Harry writes. Are you serious? Help me? Sorry is that what you call this? Helping me? Harry recalls telling his brother. SHOP: According to Harry, this made William furious, who swore before following him into the kitchen. He claims that he offered his brother a glass of water while trying to calm him down. Willy, I cant speak to you when youre like this, he recalls saying. Harry writes: He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dogs bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out. Harry claims that his brother tried to get him to retaliate physically, but he refused to engage. Never miss a thing. Sign up to Yahoo Lifestyles daily newsletter. Or if you have a story idea, email us at lifestyle.tips@yahooinc.com. Dotdash Meredith and Yahoo Inc. may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Tom Bradby, Prince Harry Tim P. Whitby/Getty; Chris Jackson/Getty When Prince Harry sat for an interview to promote his book Spare in the U.K., he spoke to a familiar face. The Duke of Sussex, 38, opened up to Tom Bradby for the first interview on his upcoming memoir that will hit television, airing Sunday evening on ITV News. Bradby, 55, anchors the network's flagship news show ITV News at Ten and has known Harry for years. In 2004, Bradby traveled with Harry to Lesotho to make the documentary The Forgotten Kingdom to shine a light on the difficulties faced by people with AIDS and HIV. Prince Harry founded his charity Sentebale to help support young Lesothan people living with or affected by HIV in 2006, and Bradby returned to Africa with Harry in 2016 for the charity's 10th anniversary, ITV reported. That summer, Bradby appeared on stage during the Sentebale Concert at Kensington Palace in London. No stranger to royal circles, the TV presenter and novelist also interviewed Prince William and Kate Middleton for their engagement interview in November 2010 and attended their wedding that spring. Bradby and his wife, Claudia, would later attend the weddings of Kate's sister Pippa Middleton and James Matthews in 2017 as well as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle the following year. RELATED: Prince Harry Says He Saw 'Red Mist' in Prince William During Fight About Meghan Markle Tom Bradby Tabatha Fireman/Getty Bradby also exclusively interviewed Harry and Meghan, 41, for the 2019 ITV documentary Harry and Meghan: An African Journey, which offered a rare peek behind the curtain of the couple's tour of southern Africa that fall. In a now-famous exchange, Meghan opened up to Bradby about the negative press attention during her pregnancy and first months with son Archie Harrison, who was born in May 2019 and joined his parents on the tour. "Any woman, especially when they're pregnant, you're really vulnerable, and so that was made really challenging. And then when you have a newborn, you know. And especially as a woman, it's a lot," Meghan said at the time. "So you add this on top of just trying to be a new mom or trying to be a newlywed. It's um yeah. I guess, also thank you for asking because not many people have asked if I'm okay, but it's a very real thing to be going through behind the scenes." Story continues RELATED: The Biggest Revelations from Prince Harry's Book Spare Bradby then asked if it "would be fair" to say that she's "not really okay, as in it's really been a struggle?" to which Meghan responded, "Yes." In two clips shared to social media of Bradby's upcoming conversation with the Duke of Sussex, titled Harry: The Interview, Prince Harry addressed whether he'll attend the coronation of his father King Charles III in May and recalled the "red mist" that seemed to shroud his brother Prince William as they fought in 2019. Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage? Sign up for our free Royals newsletter to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! Harry says he 'wants his father and brother back' in trailer ahead of ITV interview | ITV News ITV News ITV previously revealed that Harry: The Interview was filmed in California and will run for 90 minutes. The interview airs Sunday on ITV1 and ITVX at 9 p.m. London time. Prince Harry is also set to appear in televised interviews with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes (airing Sunday), Michael Strahan on Good Morning America (airing Monday) and Stephen Colbert on The Late Show (airing Tuesday). On Sunday, the Beijing Capital International Airport welcomed its first international arrivals after China lifted its three-year-long requirement for inbound travelers to quarantine and take multiple nucleic acid tests. The first group of cross-border travelers included 291 passengers traveling with the Cathy Pacific CX334 flight from Hong Kong, which landed at the Beijing Capital International Airport at around 10: 30 a.m. "It's lucky to go back to Beijing without quarantine," said Li Jin, a passenger on board the flight. After learning the new border policy, Li said she immediately snatched up four tickets to Beijing for her and her family. Li said it took her some effort to buy the tickets, which costed her more than 3,000 yuan each. She said it was probably because the demand shot up soon after China's recent announcement of ending the requirement for incoming travelers to quarantine. Prior to the new policy, international travelers to Beijing also had to first enter the Chinese border in another city. Song Jiarong, a 23-year-old Beijing native working in Hong Kong, said she was happy to be among the first inbound passengers since quarantine was no longer required. She said that last year she had to transfer in Shenzhen and took a 21-day quarantine before flying to Beijing where she had to take another multiple-day quarantine. A total of 10 cross-border flights arrived at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Sunday, according to the airport. Terminal 3-E and Terminal 2 resumed customs entry services on Sunday, as Terminal 3-D, which had been designated as a special checkpoint area since March 10, 2020, ceased its operations on the same day. Terminal 3-E has added 12 lanes for customs entry and a waiting area to expedite the process. A special lane has also been set up for passengers with special needs. Immigration inspection officers have tested the facilities and information systems to ensure the smooth entry of cross-border passengers, according to Xu Chunjing, a Beijing border inspection officer. According to the National Migration Administration, Beijing also resumed the 24/144 hour visa-free transit services for international travelers at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Sunday. The relaxation of border controls just came after Saturday's start of the Chinese New Year travel rush, as people travel to their hometowns for long-awaited family reunions. China's civil airlines have scheduled an average of 11,000 flights per day during the upcoming travel rush, and the figure is about 73% of 2019 levels, the Ministry of Transport announced at a press conference Friday. Under the new entry policy, passengers traveling to China from overseas still need to provide a negative COVID-19 test result taken within 48 hours before departure. A tourist visiting Thailand has wound up in a hospital after a motorbike accident left him with serious injuries including a fractured skull, broken ribs and a punctured lung. Adam Davies, from Pembrokeshire, South Wales, is now facing thousands in medical costs that aren't covered by his travel insurance after failing to read a tiny detail on his policy. The 28-year-old was holidaying on the island of Ko Tao when he was involved in a road collision on Boxing Day. His sister Jessica Davies, 30, said he came around a bend and went "straight into an electric pole" and remains in a Koh Samui hospital. Jessica Davies is urging others to check their travel insurance after her brother Adam Davies wound up in a Thai hospital. Source: Facebook "He has sustained multiple injuries including a fractured skull in 3 places, bleed on the brain, punctured lung, 5 broken ribs, a fractured clavicle, broken scapula, fractured ankle and other minor injuries," she wrote on a GoFundMe page set up for her brother. "His insurance has failed to pay out, meaning he is left to find the funds himself to pay the mounting bills which will continue rising, as long as he stays in hospital." Missed detail in policy 'small print' While her brother had worldwide travel insurance, the policy taken out though Lloyds Bank would not pay for medical expenses as he'd been away from the UK for more than 31 days, Ms Davies explained to BBC. It's understood Mr Davies' policy was valid for one year but required him to return to the UK after 30 days before travelling again. "It was something in the small print. He took out an insurance policy that enabled him to travel worldwide, that's how it was sold. But it would only insure him for one country for 31 consecutive days," she explained. She's now urging other travellers to be aware of the "small print" noting "nobody really reads it". Mr Davies was in Thailand on the island of Ko Tao. Source: Getty Money raised for medical costs Ms Davies started a GoFundMe page with hopes to raise 15,000 ($26,336) which would cover her brother's medical costs. It hasn't been revealed what the cost is yet, but ongoing treatment is likely. The family has already surpassed their original target and has raised over 22,000 ($38,605). Story continues Mr Davies' parents have flown to Thailand from Wales to be with their son at their own expense. Any leftover money raised after settling hospital bills will be donated to charity, Ms Davies said. "We're just grateful that he has his life but his circumstances of being alone and hospitalised in a foreign country continue to have a lasting impact on his wellbeing and we're keen to minimise his distress," she said. Aussies warned to know what they're covered for With Aussies starting to spread their wings again, it's important they understand how travel insurance helps look after them, a spokesperson for Cover-More told Yahoo News Australia. Unlike, Mr Davies' policy, "Cover-More travel insurance will cover the duration of your trip even if you are away from Australia for more than 12 months at a time," they said, however, all policies are different. Because of this Cover-More urges travellers to understand exactly what they're covered for before leaving Australia. Motorcycle and moped riding cover is additional protection that can be added to your travel insurance policy for an additional premium. "And if you cant return home on your original date due to an unforeseeable circumstance outside your control (e.g. you are in hospital), the policy will automatically extend until you are physically able to travel home," they said. Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and download the Yahoo News app from the App Store or Google Play. Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema has named Theo Moore II, of Opelika, as the winner of the first ever David Brower Grant for Alabama Filmmakers. This $1,500 mentorship grant was established in 2022 with a goal to give one Alabama filmmaker aid in a filmmaking endeavor, of any genre, at any stage of production. Moore is the founder and executive director of Hiztorical Vision Productions, a nonprofit documentary film organization he created in 2017 that focuses on sharing the untold success stories of African Americans in Alabama. Since creating the film organization, Moore has produced three documentaries: Crown the County of Lowndes, Hobson City: From Peril to Promise and Afrikan By Way of American. Hes now in the pre-production stage of his fourth documentary, which will feature north Prattville. Moores goal is to preserve stories, provide a platform for people to tell their stories, shine a light on communities, tell the states history through the lens of African Americans and create films that inspire all. In his films, he highlights the beginning of Black leadership, entrepreneurship and education in the state as well as African Americans who created spaces of their own by establishing their own settlements and cities. Moore said most films about African Americans are from a victimization standpoint, and he wants to create content that is inspiring, motivational, uplifting and something people can be proud of. It was definitely an honor to be recognized, first of all, because the work that I do is not for me, Moore said. Im not trying to put myself out there. Im just offering my skill set and offering my passion for history to give people a platform to tell their stories because a lot is being misinterpreted and a lot is being lost in regards to African American history. Moore said he hopes his films give people a broader perspective of the narrative of Alabama history. Work like Theos is always important, but in a time when attempts are being made to sweep history under the rug it is important to tell both the negative and the positive so that we can continue to move toward Americas potential, and forward in the struggle to equal justice, David Brower stated in an email. With encouragement from his wife, Moore decided to apply for the David Brower grant, and was selected by a committee of local filmmakers, including Brower, to be the first ever recipient. There were 19 applications for the inaugural grant this year, and Brower said there were so many worthy projects that it was difficult to choose only one. He is hopeful that more people will apply for the grant in 2023, but also thinks it will make it even more difficult to choose one. Sidewalk Film Festival is a well-known, one of the most well-known, film festivals in the south and especially in the state, so its definitely an honor to be recognized by them, Moore said. It was definitely a surprise to be notified that I was selected for this grant that will support my project. Moore said it was like an early Christmas gift. Moores next project will feature the civil rights history and the African American community of north Prattville. He hasnt settled on a title for film yet, but is hoping to complete the film sometime in 2023. Im in the pre-production stage, he said. This is the time where Im just gathering information, visiting with the community and talking to people, and getting to know everyone and everyone getting to know me. This is the time to just have open ears and an open mind to their stories and their experiences. Moore plans to take it all in and follow where his spirit leads him. The funds from the David Brower Grant will go towards this production along with funds from the Alabama Humanities Alliance. Besides receiving funds, Moore said the David Brower Grant also includes a mentorship opportunity, which will allow Moore to get advice and opinions from Brower and others while working on his next project. Brower said this grant was established in recognition of his mentorship to filmmakers over a couple of decades. He said having a grant created in his name is a greater honor than any awards hes ever received for his film work, and hes looking forward to helping other filmmakers grow. This is something I do because it is the way I love to work, and Im just glad it has a positive impact on others, Brower said. I very much appreciate the recognition, and hope that it serves to inspire others to collaborate in the most positive ways. Film is a collaborative art and is at its best when we are lifting each other up in both the stories and the process. Hiztorical Vision Productions also received a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, which Moore said will be used to launch an internship program in February for college students and high school seniors who want to learn more about filmmaking, research, journalism, graphic design and more. With that particular grant we wanted to make sure that we give back in a way where students that (are) looking to get into this type of work can actually develop their skills, Moore said. Moore will be able to support three interns for the spring and fall semester. Students ranging from high school seniors to college level interested in the Bama Black History 365 internship program can contact Moore at theo@hiztoricalvp.org. The head of the UKs leading nuclear body has urged the government to pursue small modular reactors (SMRs) with pace and urgency, amid reports of a funding delay with ministers squabbling over the cost of the countrys energy ambitions. Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), told City A.M. that the UK needed to develop a pipeline of projects to ramp up nuclear power in line with the governments energy security projects. He said: Proceeding with pace and urgency will not only make power more reliably and predictably priced, but it will also mean that UK technology will create long term, high quality jobs and export opportunities from which the country will benefit. This would mean nuclear power generated 25 per cent of the UKs energy demand, with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson establishing plans for the UK to build eight new reactors this decade. Currently, the UKs ageing nuclear fleet makes up around 15 per cent of the countrys energy generation, but the remaining five power plants are set to be shut down by the middle of the next decade. With the UK needing to bump up capacity quickly, Greatrex was convinced the UK could become a global leader in SMRs. He believed that they could supplement renewables and a larger nuclear fleet and strengthen the UKs energy security. Greatrex said: There is no doubt that the UK can be a global leader in SMR. Working alongside larger reactors and renewables, they will provide a vital source of reliable, clean power, essential to reducing our reliance on burning volatile fossil gas for power, heat and transport while simultaneously strengthening UK energy security. The industry boss has previously urged the government to speed up announcements for new projects, with Sizewell C still awaiting a final investment decision and Hinkley Point Cs completion delayed two years to 2027. Nuclear projects stall as Government dithers The industry chiefs latest comments follow reports first covered in The Times that ministers have so far not been able to agree a funding deal for small modular reactors. The government is now not expected to confirm funding plans for at least another 12 months, with Whitehall concerned about the spiralling costs involved in Britains wider nuclear ambitions. Its concerns come with growing expectations Hinkley Point C will come in over budget at 26bn orginally projected at 18bn while the fee for Sizewell C has been estimated between 20-35bn. The government has previously announced the creation of Great British Nuclear (GBN) to deliver the next generation of reactors and SMRs. Related: Largest U.S. Refinery Back Up and Running The body will be overseen by experienced nuclear specialist Simon Bowen and launch later this year. So far, the government has failed to confirm any other future sites for nuclear projects despite rumours linking to projects at sites in Wales such as Wylfa and Trawsfynydd. Rolls-Royce, the potential leading player in domestic SMRs, announced its final shortlist its proposed nuclear pipeline of small modular reactors last month. Its three sites include the International Advanced Manufacturing Park (IAMP) in South Tyneside, Teesworks in Teesside and Gateway in Deeside. A decision on the location is expected to be made this year following final evaluations. Its designs are for a 470MW plant at a cost of around 2bn each site powering one million homes. SMRs are constructed in factories and are transported to construction sites, making them cheaper and quicker to build. Rolls-Royce confirmed to City A.M. it is progressing through the regulatory consent process for its designs, and believed it was making strong progress with its SMR plans. A spokesperson said:We are ready to enter into negotiations with the government and, If we can agree a route forward within a reasonable timeframe, we could start building British factories, commissioning supply chain contracts and agreeing export deals abroad before the next general election. Rolls-Royce could face SMR competition The government is currently supporting the SMRs which could be built at dozens of locations across the UK with 210m in funding to back the first project. However, further resources would be needed to build the 30 SMRs targeted by Rolls-Royce and its consortium of investors. The Treasury is reportedly not prepared to sign off on any orders or significant funding until the technology had approval from the Office for Nuclear Regulation, which is not expected until 2024. ADVERTISEMENT It is now looking at whether to boost competition by opening the bidding to rival plans from other companies such as GE Hitachi. There are also proposals for thorium-based SMRs, proposed by Copenhagen Atomics, which has submitted its UK reactor design for approval. Thomas Steenberg, chief executive, told City A.M.: We are providing a radical different technology and that enables us to deliver at a price point of 40 MWh levelised cost energy, which is a very strong price for baseload energy supply The prospect of more competition has been welcomed by Andy Mayer, energy analyst at free market think tank The Institute for Economic Affairs. He told City A.M. that if the government is truly concerned about costs it needs to remove the regulatory barriers delaying deployment, and encourage competition rather than pick winners through bespoke subsidy schemes for individual projects, technologies, and firms. Mayer said: If the government wants a national nuclear champion on the French model, it will need to write vast blank cheques, now and forever, gambling that the investment will deliver a technology others wish to buy. This approach was tried in the 20th century. It failed, and we are still paying 3bn a year as a result. By CityAM More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Italys former PM Mario Draghi suggested it first, then U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen took up the idea and built on it. What if, the idea was, large oil importers united against oil producers? Many from the analytical field were skeptical. With oil demand where it is, the global oil market was effectively a sellers market, which meant producers had a greater say in where prices go than buyers. Limitations to large producers spare capacity contributed to this greater say, putting oil buyers in a risky position. Some say, however, that a buyers cartel could work and that it did work last year, cushioning the blow that high oil prices would have served up to many large consumer countries. Barrons Avi Salzman, for instance, argued in a recent piece that the Biden administrations massive180-million-barrel release from the strategic petroleum reserve of the United States had been just such a successful move, especially since it was combined with strategic oil reserve releases from other countries, mostly in Europe. Oil prices indeed fell last year, and the fall overlapped with the SPR release to an extent, prompting perceptions of the move being a success. Skeptics, however, pointed out that once sold, these 180 million barrels would need to be restored to the strategic reserve, so it continues to deserve the name. Related: U.S. Oil and Gas Is In No Hurry To Grow Countless calls on the U.S. oil industry to boost production, eventually devolving into threats, did not result in any actual significant production gains, so whether the reserve release move was, in fact, a success remains an unanswered question. Moving on, the very idea of buyers telling sellers what price to set for their commodity shriveled and died, replaced by a much trendier one: cut off imports of Russian oil to punish Putin for the Ukraine invasion and reduce his oil revenues. This is the idea that made progress, first in G7 and then in the EU, which had come up with a much harsher punishment that would have punished its own citizens, too: a full oil and fuel embargo. The G7 price cap, on the other hand, aimed at keeping Russian oil flowing into global markets but reducing the money Russia could receive for it. This would seem like an admission enough that the worldand especially the Westcannot really quit Russian oil in a matter of months. It would also suggest that buyers could never take the upper hand over sellers when sellers are organized and prepared to shift production in a way that would allow them to retain control over prices. Because now that the EU has stopped buying Russian seaborne crude oil, it would have to replace it with Middle Eastern oil from countries that Russia is a partner with in OPEC+. Another thing big oil importers in Europe did to cushion the blow of high oil prices was fuel subsidies. Across the EU, national governments subsidized the gasoline and diesel drivers put in their tanks to relieve an already significant financial blow coming from the gas market. They also instituted a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, much to their chagrin, to get the money for the subsidies. According to Barrons Salzman, this intervention on the part of oil-consuming countries showed that there was an alternative to pleading with OPEC to increase supply. In fact, this alternative has always been there, as has the alternative of boosting your own supply, which is what the U.S. did after the 1970s Arab oil embargo and its fallout, which caused one of the graved economic crises in U.S. history. Unfortunately, as weve seen from the White House, the plead with OPEC option has gone nowhere. It has simply become one of two options, the other one being plead with local producers. Neither approach has worked, and there could be one possible reason why it hasnt worked or, rather more accurately, two: China and India. The worlds biggest importers of crude oil by far, and the biggest clients of all the leading OPEC+ members, China and India, would have been instrumental in any buyers cartel initiative. Only they refused to take part. Why would they, when they were getting all the discounted Russian crude they could take in? ADVERTISEMENT At the same time, Saudi Arabia is cutting its official selling price for crude for Asian buyers and is expected to cut it again to keep its market share in the vast Asian market, where the demand outlook remains foggy because of Covid developments in China. When the U.S. Secretary of State lobbied for support for the price cap idea, she went to Asia. The media covered her visits to Japan and South Korea and their commitments to the price cap (Japan eventually got an exemption), but the actual targets were China and India. That mission failed, and the very idea of an oil buyers cartel failed, too, because of one simple fact. It all comes down to who needs what more. For now, it seems that oil buyers in the U.S. and Europe, especially the latter, need OPEC oil more than OPEC needs to sell it to these specific buyers. In the U.S., OPEC oil is needed not so much as a literal import but also as a commodity that is being produced in order to put a cap on prices and, consequently, on fuel prices in the U.S. itself. In such a situation, the balance of powers is really not distributed evenly between buyers and sellers. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: After drawing over 221 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 2022, Washington is having a tough time refilling it in the New Year, with the Department of Energy (DoE) rejecting the first offers on the grounds that they failed to benefit taxpayers. The DoE has by now received several offers for February purchases to refill the SPR, according to both Bloomberg and Reuters. However, those offers have been rejected as too expensive or failing to meet other requirements. For February, the plan was to purchase 3 million barrels, ideally when oil dropped to around $70 per barrel. This 3-million-barrel pilot program would have given sellers a fixed price for future deliveries and is in contrast to the DoEs normal operating procedure, which had seen it purchase oil for faster delivery without fixed-price contracts. Right now, WTI is trading around $75/$76 per barrel, and new data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released on Monday shows another 0.8 million barrel draw from the SPR. According to Bloomberg, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the DoE will now postpone its originally planned February purchases and embark on a new approach for fixed-price offers. DOE will only select bids that meet the required crude specifications and that are at a price that is a good deal for taxpayers, the DoE said in a Friday statement carried by news agencies. Following review of the initial submission, DOE will not be making any award selections for the February delivery window. The rejected bids are prompting speculation that refilling the SPR will be challenging, at best. The plan to fill the SPR, which has reached its lowest level since 1984, might not be attractive enough to sellers, despite the DoEs efforts at enticement. Additionally, the Wall Street Journal speculates that the DoE may not have enough funding to refill the SPR completely. According to WSJ, the DoE has $.48 billion in purchasing power. At the desired $70 per barrel, that would give it enough funding to refill the SPR to 440 million barrels. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com ADVERTISEMENT More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Russian oil giant Rosneft is seeking a slot for its gas reserves to be exported to China via a planned second route of the Power of Siberia pipeline, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Monday, citing sources. Rosnefts chief executive Igor Sechin, considered a close ally to Vladimir Putin, has asked the Russian president in a letter that Rosneft be considered as a potential supplier of gas to the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, in addition to the project leader, Russian gas giant Gazprom, Kommersant reported. Russia currently supplies natural gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline, which went into operation at the end of 2019 after eight years of construction. Power of Siberia 2 is expected to be operational by 2030 and to connect gas fields in western Russia with such in eastern Russia and deliver gas to China via Mongolia. The Power of Siberia 2 route is close to oil and gas fields operated by Rosneft, with reserves of 1 trillion cubic meters in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and another 0.5 trillion in the Irkutsk Region. Therefore, Rosnefts Sechin asked Putin in the letter to take into account the volumes of independent producers to achieve a synergistic effect in the construction of the gas pipeline, a source familiar with the contents of the letter told Kommersant. Apart from being Russias largest oil producer, Rosneft is the third-biggest natural gas producer in the country after Gazprom and Novatek. Yet, analysts believe that in view of its own enormous gas resources, Gazprom is unlikely to be interested in receiving gas from third parties for the future pipeline to China, according to Kommersant. At any rate, Putin instructed in December Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak to work out the issue with the Rosneft request together with Gazprom, Kommersant reports. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com ADVERTISEMENT More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Norway will continue to pump the current high volumes of natural gas for at least another five years as operators have pledged $30.3 billion (300 billion Norwegian crowns) to develop new fields and extend the lifetimes of producing fields, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate said on Monday. These are remarkable investments for the future. This will help ensure that Norway can continue to be a reliable supplier of energy to Europe, said NPD Director General Torgeir Stordal. Only rarely have we seen so much oil and gas produced on the Norwegian shelf as was the case last year and only rarely have we seen such significant investment decisions, the NPD said in its yearly overview of the production and investment activity on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. In 2022, Norways gas production was 9 billion standard cubic meters higher compared with 2021. Gas now accounts for more than half of production from the shelf, the Norwegian authority said. Production is extremely high, and it will continue to grow in the years to come. Gas production is projected to remain at around 2022 levels for the next four to five years, the directorate said. The consistently high production has been the result of the higher number of producing fields, as several start-ups took place last year, as well as older fields producing longer and producing more than previously expected, according to the NPD. Natural gas production in Norway, which supplies around 25% of the gas consumed in the EU and the UK, was expected to rise by 8 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, government estimates showed at the end of 2022. In the summer of 2022, Norways authorities approved applications from operators to boost production from several operating gas fields, to allow higher gas production as its key partners, the EU and the UK, scrambled for gas supply ahead of the winter. ADVERTISEMENT Last year, Norway became Germanys single-largest natural gas supplier, overtaking Russia, as total German gas imports dropped by 12.3% compared to 2021, the German Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur, said last week. Norway provided 33% of the gas Germany imported last year, followed by Russia, whose share fell to 22% for last year, compared to a 52% share in 2021, the German regulator said. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Inbound passengers arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 8, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua] At around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, flight NZ289 from New Zealand landed at the Pudong International Airport. It was the first international inbound flight to arrive in Shanghai after China downgraded its management of COVID-19, meaning those on board would not be subject to quarantine. Shaly Rauss, a German passenger on the flight who lives in Shanghai, went to New Zealand for a holiday three weeks ago. "I felt so lucky. We booked tickets one year ago. I did not know then that this would happen. We were expecting quarantine but now we don't have to quarantine. I feel very happy," she said. China now manages COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases, in a major shift of its epidemic response policy. This downgrade in management policy will facilitate the smooth and orderly cross-border travel of Chinese and foreign nationals, enhance international exchanges and cooperation, and also help boost the global economy. On Jan. 9, Shandong Airlines will fly its first inbound flight under the new measures, from Seoul to Jinan, Shandong Province. "This shift brings convenience for cross-border travel. We are now fully promoting the resumption and opening of international and regional routes," said Wu Wanyuan, director of the media center of Shandong Airlines. According to a recent survey conducted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, 91 percent of foreign enterprises and business associations surveyed strongly supported China's optimization of epidemic policies, while 99.4 percent of the foreign companies surveyed were bullish about the prospects of China's economic development in 2023. "China's adjustment and optimization of epidemic prevention measures and orderly resumption of international flights provide favorable conditions for the recovery of the international air transport market," said a spokesperson for the China Air Transport Association. China's relevant air transport enterprises are making careful preparations to increase international capacity in an orderly manner, actively and steadily promote the resumption of operation of international passenger flights, and meet the needs of international personnel exchanges and economic and trade cooperation, the spokesperson added. The country is also witnessing a tourism recovery. According to the latest data from China's online travel service provider Tuniu, inter-provincial travel is expected to return to its dominant role in tourism consumption during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday this year, with inter-provincial travel orders accounting for nearly 70 percent of the total. Sun Qian, a tourist from Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, is on vacation with her daughter in Sanya, a resort city in Hainan Province. "There are obviously a lot more visitors in Sanya than in the previous two years, and people are having a great time and are feeling safe here," she said. A report from Trip.com Group showed a 45 percent year-on-year increase in travel product bookings for the Spring Festival holiday period and a 53 percent increase in per capita travel spending as of Thursday. "With the new measure officially implemented, we are full of confidence in a tourism recovery," said Zhang Lei, deputy general manager of a tourism service company in the city of Qufu, Shandong Province. Shipping rates in the Black Sea have risen by 20% since the start of the year as war risk insurance premiums increase, Reuters reported, citing unnamed industry sources. Whats more, some insurers have stopped providing coverage for ships and planes moving goods to and from Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. Reinsurers have also pulled out of the region on heightened risks, the report noted. The Black Sea, which is shared by Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, and Turkey, is a major oil and oil product shipping artery. The effect of (the exit of reinsurers) is reducing (underwriting) capacity in the market for war risk and will mean people will pay more this year, one of the Reuters sources explained. These higher rates and limited availability of reinsurance coverage add to industry woes related to the G7 price cap imposed on Russian oil exports. Per the rules of the cap regime, Western insurers, which constitute about 90 percent of all maritime insurers, are banned from providing coverage for vessels carrying Russian crude sold at over $60 per barrel. According to a recent FT report, about a quarter of Russian oil shipments in December had Western insurance coverage, suggesting at least this quarter was sold at less than $60 per barrel. Indeed, Russias Urals has been trading below $60 per barrel for more than a month. Higher freight rates for Black Sea shipping, however, would add to the costs of the goods being shipped through the chokepoint. For shipments going in and out of Russia you will find premiums going up. It could easily rise by 50% (from the end of last year) to reflect the cost of capital from not being reinsured, another Reuters source said. ADVERTISEMENT On the flip side, tanker rates have declined despite expectations of a spike after the EU embargo on Russian crude went into effect. Among the reasons is the embargo itself: European refiners ramped up their intake of Russian crude before December 5 and after that date came the buying spree subsided and died out, effectively reducing demand for tankers. By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: China has allowed several large coal importers to resume purchases of Australian coal, easing an unofficial ban that has lasted more than two years, as Beijing looks to strengthen energy security after ditching the zero Covid policy. China enacted an unofficial ban on Australian coal in October 2020 after Australia backed a call for an international inquiry into the way China handled the initial COVID outbreak in early 2020. China's decision to allow four big importers to restart imports of coal from Australia is a sign of a thawing in relations between the two nations and sparked hope that trade between the two could return to normal. Last week, Chinas National Development and Reform Commission discussed the idea to allow four large Chinese coal importers to make new purchases of Australian coal this year. These are China Baowu Steel Group Corp, China Datang Corporation, China Huaneng Group Co, and China Energy Investment Corporation. China Energy Investment Corp has already placed an order for purchasing coal from Australia, and the first cargo could load as early as this month, according to Reuters. Moreover, the surge in Covid cases after the end of the restrictions has resulted in lower coal supply from Chinas key coal-producing centers Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, traders told Reuters. With demand for winter heating rising, China now looks to avoid another coal crunch. China has put more emphasis on energy security since the autumn of 2021 when power shortages crippled its industry. In 2022, China said it would continue to maximize the use of coal in the coming years as it caters to its energy security, despite pledges to contribute to global efforts to reduce emissions. ADVERTISEMENT In recent months, China has significantly boosted its coal production, following government orders. Chinas daily coal production hit a record high in November 2022 as demand for heating jumped, beating the previous record set in September 2022. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Brazils state oil major Petrobras has stepped up security at its refineries in response to threats of attacks on the infrastructure, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources. The threats come as supporters of Brazils previous president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Brazils Congress, the presidential palace, and the Supreme Court this weekend. The riots first erupted following the narrow victory of President Ignacio Lula da Silva over Bolsonaro in October and have been going on since then. "These vandals, who we could call ... fanatical fascists, did what has never been done in the history of this country," President Lula said. "All these people who did this will be found and they will be punished." Petrobras, meanwhile, issued a statement over the weekend saying that all its units were operating as usual, adding that "Petrobras is taking all the preventative protective measures required, as a standard procedure." "Besides monitoring the status of protests in these structures, we remain alert and in coordination with other ministries and states to ensure the supply," said the Mines and Energy Minister of the Lula government, Alexandre Silveira, as quoted by Reuters. According to the news agencys unnamed sources, Petrobras refineries in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Parana are among the potential targets of the rioters. President Lula da Silvas victory has not been good news for Petrobras shareholders. Lulas plans involve turning Petrobras into a renewable energy major, which caused a plunge in Petrobras stock price when he took office earlier this month. Theres more, too. In his inauguration speech, President Lula vowed increased government intervention in the economy to stimulate growth. He also said that Petrobras, along with the national development bank, BNDES, should be the biggest drivers of this growth, suggesting there wont be much independence for either in decision-making. ADVERTISEMENT By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Russia has ramped up oil production from the Sakhalin-1 project and expects the field to soon pump at the full level of 220,000 barrels per day (bpd) after the projects previous operator, U.S. supermajor ExxonMobil, quit Russian operations, an industry source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters on Monday. Currently, oil production at Sakhalin-1 is around 150,000 bpd, or 65% of its capacity, according to Reuters industry source. Output is set to hit the 220,000 bpd peak level in three to four weeks, the source added. Exxon announced at the start of March 2022 that it was going to withdraw from Sakhalin-1 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Exxon said it would exit the venture, as well as all its Russian projects, and make no new investments in Russia. In April 2022, Exxon declared force majeure on the Sakhalin-1 project due to Western sanctions against Moscow. Before the war in Ukraine, the project exported some 273,000 barrels daily of Sokol crude, with the main destination for the shipments being South Korea. Sakhalin-1 crude was also shipped to Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the United States. After Exxon abandoned the project, oil production at Sakhalin-1 collapsed. In October, Russia removed Exxon as a shareholder from the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project and transferred its stake to a Russian business entity. Exxon had a 30-percent stake in Sakhalin-1, but Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree with which a new entity was set up to manage the operations of the Far East oil and gas project. The decree allowed the Russian government to distribute the stakes in the project and kick out foreign partners if they saw fit. Russia has decided to let Japanese firms keep their stake in the Sakhalin-1 oil project in Russias Far East as Moscow reshuffled ownership of domestic oil and gas projects after a mass exodus of Western firms following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: In its first major overseas asset sale following Russias invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions, Lukoil, Russias second-largest oil company, has agreed to sell its Italian ISAB refinery to a Cypriot company backed by Geneva-based commodities trader Trafigura. The deal will see Lukoils 100% subsidiary, Litasco S.A., sell the ISAB refinery to Cyprus-based G.O.I. Energy Limited, a private equity firm backed by Trafigura, according to a statement on Lukoils website. The deal value was not disclosed. According to Lukoil, the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of March this year upon fulfillment of certain conditions precedent including receipt of necessary approvals of competent authorities, particularly the Italian Government. ISAB encompasses a large petrochemical complex in Italy, which combines refining, gasification and electricity cogeneration plants. Cyprus-based G.O.I Energy is run by Israeli Green Oil CEO Michael Bobrov, according to Reuters, while Green Oil holds a major stake in Bazan Group, Israels largest refiner. The deal will allow Western-based Trafigure to handle oil supplies for the Italian refinery, should the Italian government agree to the sale. ISAB is an important strategic asset for Italy, refining approximately one-fifth of Italys crude oil, according to Reuters. As of December 5th, in line with the European Union ban on Russian seaborne crude, the ISAB refinery is no longer permitted to import Russian oil. In early December, the Italian government said it was considering direct state intervention to keep the refinery running after December 5th, noting that ISAB had been forced to rely fully on Russian oil because banks halted financing and guarantees for other oil purchases, Reuters reported. Lukoil also owns a network of some 230 branded gas stations in the United States, distributing in 11 states. At the beginning of Russias invasion of Ukraine, these gas stations garnered much media attention, with vague calls for boycotts. Those calls, however, dissipated by the end of March, when it became clear that boycotting them would harm the American franchise owners. ADVERTISEMENT By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Tesla owners in China are apparently not pleased with the company's new policy of cutting prices on what now seems like a weekly basis. The swift pace of price cuts caused several of Tesla's showrooms and distribution centers to swell with new Tesla owners, furious that they had missed out on the company's price cuts by a matter of days. Customers were demanding rebates and credits, claiming that they had overpaid for the same cars that weren't marked down at the time they were purchased, a new report from Reuters says. Prices of Tesla vehicles in China are now between 13% and 24% lower than they were in September. About 200 recent buyers of the Tesla Model Y and Model 3 made their way to a Tesla delivery center in Shanghai to protest, the report says. Recall, Tesla cut prices for the second time in just three months at the end of last week. Some of the customers claimed that they didn't think the prices would be cut so quickly. Many of the buyers were rushed into buying their vehicles before the end of 2022 to beat the deadline on a government subsidy for EVs. Reuters reviewed video on social media that showed "crowds at Tesla stores and delivery centres in other Chinese cities from Chengdu to Shenzhen", suggesting that the protests were carried out widely across the country. One owner told Reuters: "It may be a normal business practice but this is not how a responsible enterprise should behave." He told reporters that police had facilitated a meeting between the customers and Tesla staff. The customers handed over a list of demands, the report says, which included an apology, compensation and other credits. Tesla has said it would respond by early next week. "About a dozen police officers" were on site at the protests in Shanghai. "Return the money, refund our cars," a crowd in one protest video, posted to social media, chants out loud. Tesla has cut prices to help spur demand as the company heads into the new year. In Q4 2022, Tesla reported a record number of vehicle deliveries, but still missed Wall Street's estimates. ADVERTISEMENT By Zerohedge.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The shooting death of a 19-year-old Nebraska man in Council Bluffs is being investigated as a homicide. Tucker Dobberstein of Fremont was found dead in a downtown Bluffs apartment building at 5:15 p.m. Sunday, the Council Bluffs Police Department reported. Officers were sent to 209 S. Fourth St. to investigate a report of gunshots and found Dobberstein inside. Police said a preliminary investigation determined that Dobberstein was struck by at least one gunshot. An autopsy will be performed at the State of Iowa Medical Examiners Office in Ankeny. Anyone with information about the shooting may call Council Bluffs detectives at 712-328-4728 or, to remain anonymous, call CrimeStoppers at 712-328-7867. Omaha World-Herald best videos of 2022 Piece by piece, researchers are unearthing the history of the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School. The results of a recent geophysical survey and the discovery of a historical document may be the most significant finds to date in the search for the schools cemetery. Data gathered from ground-penetrating radar surveys last year shows four anomalies consistent with the presence of graves. While the 6-foot-deep anomalies arent necessarily conclusive evidence of graves, its still a positive result, said State Archeologist Dave Williams. They strongly resemble what we would expect to see for graves in a cemetery, Williams said. The fourth federal boarding school to be built in the U.S., the Genoa Indian Industrial School operated from 1884 to 1934. At its peak in 1932, the schools 640-acre campus housed 599 students, who ranged in age from 4 to 22 years old. Students were brought to Genoa from more than 40 tribes that spanned the United States. At least 86 students are believed to have died at the school. It had taken more than a year to narrow the possible location of the schools lost graves to the grassy patch of land in Genoa, Nebraska. The existence of a cemetery was never doubted, but the number of children buried there and its exact location were lost to history decades ago. With the help of a dog team last May and a historical plat map, the search team narrowed the possible location to an area near the Loup Canal on the eastern outskirts of town. Leaders of the search effort, which include Judi gaiashkibos of the Nebraska Indian Affairs Commission, and the Nebraska State Archeology Office, a program of History Nebraska, partnered with the Midwest Archeological Center to use ground-mapping technology for surveys last October and November. Were cautiously optimistic, Williams said. Every step of the way, we seem to be getting little bits and pieces that keep stacking up toward a result. A newly discovered document also helps solidify the location. The document, a licensing agreement for the Loup Power District, was discovered by 12-year-old Anna Johnson in a 1934 Federal Power Commission report. The license was for the Loup Canal, which was dug on the eastern edge of the school soon after the schools closure in 1934. The school cemetery was referenced in a list of requirements related to the canals construction: The licensee shall relocate the High Line Canal to avoid the cemetery on the Indian school land, or remove and reinter the remains of the Indian children buried therein in a manner satisfactory to the superintendent of the Indian school, at such location as he may designate. Anna Johnson found the document at the Iowa State University Library while on a field trip with her National History Day Club. She and her father, Ben Johnson, have continued their research since, joining the effort to piece together the schools history. The search team will use the document and other findings by the Johnsons to help explore the possibilities of what happened to the graves after the schools closure. When the school closed in 1934, documents were scattered across the United States. Locating them has proved challenging for both the Genoa project and others working to gather information on the government boarding schools. Records found show that disease played a large role in the deaths of those at the Genoa school. An accidental shooting and drowning were recorded as well. If remains are found, tribal leaders may choose to leave the buried where they lie and construct a memorial to mark the site. Another option would be to excavate one of the four anomalies to see if burials remain, if the children were exhumed, or if the anomalies arent graves but something else entirely, Williams said. As the director of the Nebraska Indian Affairs Commission, gaiashkibos will help facilitate discussions among the tribes. A citizen of the Ponca Tribe, gaiashkibos has been the lead organizer of the grave search. Shes also a descendant of a former Genoa student. Her mother and aunt both attended the school. The U.S. Indian Boarding Schools served as a blueprint for Canadas Indigenous residential schools, where the discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves brought renewed attention to practices that historians have described as cultural genocide. Shortly after the discovery in Canada, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the Federal Indian Boarding School Truth Initiative. The effort led to a massive report, released last spring, on the U.S. schools. The federal investigation has so far identified more than 500 deaths at 19 schools, though the Interior Department said that number could climb to the thousands or even tens of thousands. The department has so far found at least 53 burial sites at or near U.S. boarding schools. Photos: Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School, search for the cemetery While the number of COVID-19 cases in Nebraska remains low, health officials have detected the states first cases of a coronavirus subvariant that is driving an increase in cases and hospitalizations in many Eastern states. In Nebraska, COVID case numbers dropped last week. The state recorded 1,420 new cases last week, down 18% from the week before, according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nebraskas case rate is currently in the bottom fourth among the states and nearly half the national rate. Hospitalizations for COVID also dipped again last week. Cases are uniformly low throughout the upper Midwest, in the mountain states and into the Pacific Northwest. But theyre much higher in the East and South, where hospitalizations also are rising. Those increases are largely being attributed to a rapid increase in the new subvariant called XBB.1.5, which the CDC says now dominates in the Northeast. The new subvariant has made its first appearance on the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services genomic report for the week ending Dec. 31, although it accounted for just a fraction of samples sequenced. Dr. James Lawler, a co-executive director of the University of Nebraska Medical Centers Global Center for Health Security, called XBB.1.5 a pretty significant upgrade for the virus in terms of transmissibility compared to previous variants. Combined with the low rate of people who are up to date on their booster shots, the more contagious variant is translating into more cases, hospitalizations and deaths where the variant is dominant, he said. Its important for folks to recognize that the viruses were dealing with now are very different than the viruses we dealt with early in the pandemic, Lawler said. World Health Organization officials said in a briefing last week that the subvariant has been detected in 29 countries so far but could be more widespread. The WHO doesnt have any data yet on the severity of XBB.1.5, said Maria Van Kerkhove, the agencys technical lead for COVID-19. A WHO assessment of whether it leaves people more or less sick than previous versions of omicron is expected soon. But Lawler said anytime virus levels increase, that increases the possibility of bad outcomes, including hospitalizations and deaths. In the U.S., the CDC estimates just over one in four virus samples that have undergone genomic sequencing have been found to be for the new variant. While that was lower than previous estimates, Lawler said he didnt think that changes the overall trend of XBB.1.5 taking over as the dominant form of the virus. As for what steps people can take to combat a future surge, Lawler said, The first and most important thing is to get up to date on vaccines. Theres no more important and effective intervention you can do than being up to date on vaccines. Only about a third of adults over 50 have received any dose of vaccine in the last six months, he said. Slightly under 30% have received a dose of the updated bivalent vaccines, which target some of the latest omicron variants. Those without the latest boosters have been shown to have less protection from COVID, Lawler said. The vaccines work, but you have to stay up to date with them, he said. As the pandemic has progressed, the nation has done well at reducing hospitalizations and deaths among the elderly, he said. While they still comprise the majority of hospitalizations and deaths, they make up a smaller percentage than earlier in the pandemic. Nationally, more deaths than would normally be expected occurred in 2022 among all age groups from 0 to 64 than in 2021 and 2020. Lawler said thats mostly because people of those ages are not as well-vaccinated as those 65 and above. Nebraska has recorded more than 556,500 cases of COVID-19. The state added 38 COVID deaths last week, bringing the figure for the pandemic to 4,723. Deaths tend to be added to the state toll in bunches. But recent figures suggest Nebraska is averaging nearly a dozen COVID deaths a week. Omaha World-Herald best videos of 2022 If your New Years resolution is to get outside and walk more, the weather this week in Omaha and eastern Nebraska will make it hard to break. Were expecting a high of around 45 (degrees) Monday and about the same for Tuesday and Wednesday, Becky Kern, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, said Sunday. There will be about a 10-degree cooldown on Thursday and Friday, but we will see temperatures right back up there over the weekend. Warm, dry weather through at least much of Wednesday is forecast, with temperatures reaching into the 50s along the Nebraska-Kansas border. The average high temperature for Omaha at this time of year is 33, with lows about 15, Kern said. Thank a large high-pressure ridge across central North America for blocking the cold air of Canada from dropping down in the U.S., she said. The really cold air is bottled up in Siberia, Kern said. There is a cold pocket from the North Pole into Russia. Cooler air will move into eastern Nebraska on Wednesday night, bringing chances for pretty significant rain to southern Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, Kern said. Omahas forecast calls for highs in the low 30s on Thursday and Friday but likely dry conditions. An upper-level weather system is expected to build back up for next weekend, bringing a return to temperatures in the 40s for most of eastern Nebraska. A few locations could even make a run at 50 degrees again. We are definitely seeing above-average temperatures, Kern said. We do have February left, and that tends to be one of our colder months. If your New Years resolution was to walk more, this week will give you a good start. Omaha World-Herald best videos of 2022 A McCook man was killed in a two-vehicle collision near Wellfleet, Nebraska, south of North Platte, the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office reported. Just after 4:15 p.m. Saturday, the Lincoln County 911 center was informed of a crash on U.S. Highway 83 near Wellfleet. The vehicles had hit nearly head-on. Investigators found that a northbound 1999 Ford Taurus had crossed the center line of the highway. The car struck a southbound 2013 Chevrolet pickup. The driver of the Taurus, 33-year-old Jordan Lauger of McCook, was pronounced dead at the scene. The four people in the pickup were taken to Great Plains Health in North Platte for treatment. Omaha World-Herald best videos of 2022 Nebraskans are about to learn who Gov. Jim Pillen is selecting to replace Ben Sasse as one of the states two U.S. senators for the next two years. But in a snub to citizens and the principle of open government, Pillen and his staff wont even say who has applied for the job. The appointment decision itself, which is expected any day now, is already a huge change from the normal democratic process. When Sasse was re-elected in 2020 to his current term, more than 930,000 Nebraskans cast ballots in the senate race. About 583,500 of them voted for Sasse, which put him in office for the past two years. For the next two years, in contrast, Sasses replacement will be chosen by just one voter: Pillen. (An election in 2024 will decide the final two years of the term, with Pillens appointee likely having the inside track in that race.) Like it or not, those are the established rules for dealing with an unexpected vacancy. But Pillen could have made the situation better by being more open about the replacement process. Transparency is especially important given that its widely speculated that Pillen will choose his most prominent supporter in last years governors race, former Gov. Pete Ricketts. Anything that keeps the process in the shadows gives the impression, justified or not, that the decision has already been made. The public knows that Ricketts applied for the job because he announced it on Dec. 6. But Pillen has, so far, declined to release a list of any other applicants, who had until Dec. 23 to apply. Weve been asking for a list since before that deadline. Pillens staff has said they would provide it, but only after the governor makes the appointment. They held back a similar list last month of applicants to replace Mike Hilgers, who left his legislative seat after being elected attorney general. Pillens office released the names only after Beau Ballard was appointed. The Pillen administrations approach differs from past practices that ensured transparency. Under Ricketts, for example, the governors office released lists of applicants for positions as soon as the deadline passed often along with the applicants resumes. Delaying the release of such information is unfair to Nebraskans. It keeps the public from knowing who Pillen is considering, and undermines their ability to influence the choice before the decision is made. It also prevents important information about would-be appointees from coming to light at the time when that knowledge might make a difference. The World-Herald renewed our request last week for the list of applicants to replace Sasse. We received an email from Pillens office saying that they would respond within four business days, the maximum allowed under the states public records statutes. That would be sometime this week. But theres no legitimate reason it should take that long. Pillens office has known the names of the applicants for more than two weeks, and theyve had our request for even longer. Its tempting to conclude that they are just trying to run out the clock. Nebraska has a tradition of open government and giving its citizens access to information. Both political parties have supported that. And the state has laws to enforce it, too. At their heart, such traditions and laws amount to public officials and public bodies treating Nebraskans with respect, acknowledging their standing as citizens to watch what their government is doing or plans to do. Lets hope that this rocky start in terms of transparency is just a matter of a new administration learning the ropes. Nebraskans wont agree with everything that Pillen does over the next four years. Controversial issues are sure to produce divisions and differences of opinion. And thats fine. Elected leaders cant satisfy everyone they serve. But they can treat their fellow citizens as fully deserving of information about government policies, decisions and actions. Were hoping that Pillen will meet that standard. BLOOMINGTON A $16.5 million project at Illinois Wesleyan University will update two residence halls for freshmen students. IWU plans to update Munsell and Ferguson Halls over the next two summers, through support from the Ames family, the university said. Officials plan to renovate Munsell this coming summer and then Ferguson in the summer of 2024, ending in time for fall classes of each year. The two buildings are connected and have a combined capacity of 344 students, which is not expected to change, said spokeswoman Julia Perez. The two house only first-year students. The buildings are some of the first impression students have of the university, said Karla Carney-Hall, vice president of student affairs, in a statement. The spirit of this project will be to elevate the student life experience for those who reside in Munsell and Ferguson, and encourage a vibrancy of communal living foundational to those enduring Titan connections that define Illinois Wesleyan, she said. The project includes improvements to living spaces, such as new windows, heating, ventilation and air conditioning upgrades in Ferguson, bathroom remodeling and renovations to finishings throughout the buildings, the university said. Other renovations include modernizing the lobbies on the first floors and changes to the bridges which connect the two buildings. IWU also anticipates construction on The Petrick Idea Center to start later this summer. The new 50,000-square-foot facility is expected to provide both residential space and technology and innovation space open to all of campus. Gulick Hall used to house freshman but is being demolished this year to make way for The Petrick Center, Perez said. The ceremony was held at the Urbana Armory/IBCT's headquarters at 600 E. University Ave., Urbana. Col. Michael Eastridge, outgoing commander, of Northville, Michigan, relinquished command of the Urbana-based 33rd Infantry Combat Team to Col. Seth Hible, incoming commander, of Winfield, Illinois. With more than 3,500 soldiers, the 33rd IBCT is the largest brigade in the Illinois Army National Guard and has units with lineage dating as far back as the Black Hawk War in 1832. BLOOMINGTON The 53rd Legislative District Committee voted to appoint state Rep. Thomas Bennett, R-Gibson City, to fill the state Senate seat vacated by Jason Barickman, who announced his resignation in December. Committee chairman Dave Rice said of the five who applied to fill the term, Bennett was the best choice to meet the needs of the new 53rd District. Other applicants in the running included Normal City Council member Stan Nord, Washington Mayor Gary Manier, Mike Levin of Normal and Mike Kirkton of Gridley. With Bennett vacating his position to join the Senate, the 53rd Legislative District Committee now must appoint a new House Republican to take his place within 30 days. Barickman announced his resignation on Dec. 5 and said he hoped to make his children the priority while they are at an age where parental involvement is critical. Photos: Election Night in Illinois Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Governor Dan Brady Dan Brady Sharon Chung 1 110822.JPG Sharon Chung 2 110822.JPG Scott Preston Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Senate Election 2022 Illinois Senate Election 2022 Illinois Senate Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Governor Election 2022 Illinois Governor The Ghana Education Service (GES) has directed heads of Senior High Schools (SHS) and Basic Schools to reopen on Tuesday, January 10, 2023. Senior High Schools were supposed to have reopened on Monday, January 9, 2023, but have to resume on Tuesday, due to the Constitution Day holiday. According to the GES statement signed by the Head of the Public Relations Unit, Cassandra Twum Ampofo, noted, management of Ghana Education Service (GES) wishes to inform students, staff, parents and the general public that due to the Statutory Holiday on Monday, 9th January 2023, the Senior High Schools are expected to reopen on Tuesday, 10th January 2023. The statement further indicated that heads of basic schools are to note that the reopening date for primary and Junior High schools remains 10th January 2023. Students, staff, and the general public are to take note. The government has declared January 9, 2023, a public holiday. A statement issued by the Minister for Interior, Ambrose Dery, said the day has been declared a Public Holiday to mark Constitution Day. The day is purposed to remind Ghanaians of their commitment to upholding the rule of law, constitutionalism, and democracy. It called on Ghanaians to observe the day as a statutory public holiday throughout the country. 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 An Accra High court has placed an interlocutory injunction on the residential policy decision by the University of Ghana (UG). This was after some frustrated students of the Commonwealth Hall of the University on Friday, January 6, 2023, filed a lawsuit against the university for directing residing students to seek accommodation outside the campus as a result of possible perennial housing problem at the University as some freshmen always have to rent outside the campus during reopening periods. On October 26, 2022, University of Ghana asked the continuing students of Commonwealth Hall to find accommodation outside the campus. All continuing students of Commonwealth Hall and continuing male students of Mensah Sarbah Hall will not return to these halls or any of the traditional galleries. They are to be randomly assigned to available rooms in any of the UGEL and private hostels. Beginning from the 2022/2023 academic year, only Level 100 and graduate students (Masters and Ph.D. level) will be assigned to Mensah Sarbah and Commonwealth Halls. Subsequently, undergraduate students will vacate the halls at the end of Level 100 and may secure accommodation in the private hostels from Level 200 until completion, UG management said. However, the court ruling on the matter said the status quo must be maintained as it used to be before UGs instruction on October 26, 2022. IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the Defendant herein is hereby restrained either by itself or its officers, assigns, privies, agents, workmen, or anybody working under the Defendants instructions from going ahead to implement the decision of the Defendant, dated 26th October 2022 in respect of the residential policy decision affecting continuing students of Commonwealth Hall, University of Ghana. The status quo must be maintained, as it used to be before the 26th October 2022 decision. Below are UGs full arrangements for students residence from the 2022/2023 academic year. The University Council has deliberated on recommendations from the Residence Board and the Academic Board regarding changes to student residence arrangements. Council requested these changes following repeated incidences of violence involving students. Council approved the following measures to take effect from the start of the 2022/2023 academic year, which are to prevent future occurrences of violence: All continuing students of Commonwealth Hall and continuing male students of Mensah Sarbah Hall will not return to these halls or any of the traditional galleries. They are to be randomly assigned to available rooms in any of the UGEL and private hostels. This measure will not affect female students of Mensah Sarbah Hall and students with special needs in both halls. Beginning from the 2022/2023 academic year, only Level 100 and graduate students (Master and Ph.D. level) will be assigned to Mensah Sarbah and Commonwealth Halls. Subsequently, undergraduate students will vacate the halls at the end of Level 100 and may secure accommodation in the private hostels from Level 200 until completion. Level 100 students who opt for traditional halls will be randomly assigned to the halls. Progressively, all the traditional halls (Mensah Sarbah, Commonwealth, Volta, Legon, and Akuafo halls) will be reserved for Level 100 and graduate students only, culminating in a full in-out-out-out policy by 2025/2026. Additionally, the University is installing CCTV cameras and Electronic Access control systems in all halls to improve security. All students are to take note of these arrangements. Further details will be announced before the beginning of the 2022/2023 academic year. 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 A collision between two buses in central Senegal has left 40 people dead and dozens injured. Preliminary investigations suggested that one of the buses suffered a burst tyre and collided head-on with an oncoming bus, officials said. President Macky Sall has declared three days of mourning and has promised to take measures to improve road safety. Traffic accidents are common in Senegal, but this was one of the deadliest in recent years. Emergency services official Cheikh Fall told AFP news agency that 87 people were injured in the collision, near the central town of Kaffrine. The wounded have been taken to hospital and a medical centre for treatment, he added. Confirming the 40 deaths, Mr Sall said on Twitter that he was "deeply saddened by the tragic road accident". "I extend my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured." Meanwhile, 21 people have died and 49 others have been wounded in a bus accident in Kenya. The bus had just crossed the border from Uganda into Kenya when it crashed. Ugandan regional police spokesman Rogers Taitika told AFP that the driver appeared to have lost control and veered off the road. Those killed were mostly Kenyans, but included eight Ugandans, he was quoted as saying. Source: BBC Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) Kathleen Addy has joined the many Ghanaians calling on the government to implement stringent measures to prevent the increasing activities of illegal mining also known as Galamsey in the country. Addressing the media at a press conference in Accra to commemorate Constitution Day, Madam Kathleen Addy categorically stated that the country is currently under serious terrorist threats which are linked with illegal mining activities in the Northern parts of the country. Another threat to our democracy and our very existence is the destruction of our environment, primarily through the illegal activities of galamsey and through deforestation. If we carry on with illegal mining as we are doing now, we will very soon not be too far from the debilitating wars fought in Sierra Leon and Liberia in the 90s she stated. She further urged the government and the various security agencies to clamp down on illegal mining activities to prevent terrorism, which may lead to a breakdown of law and order, proliferation of arms, emergence of warlords, and a total breakdown of society. As witnessed in Liberia and Sierra Leone when the country reached its vulnerable stage as a result of the monetization of democracy facilitated by illegal mining it destroys the democracy system she added. Meanwhile, Mr. Samuel Abu Jinapor, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources on several occasions has assured the governments commitment to the fight against illegal mining in the country which has resulted in the vast destruction of the countrys natural vegetation. According to him, the fight against illegal mining is a collective effort and as such cannot be won without the support of important stakeholders like the queen mothers, chiefs, and the traditional authority. 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 National Democratic Congress(NDC) Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has asked for the sacking of those responsible for the despicable desecration of the Jubilee House by Meek Mill an American Rapper. Meek Mill shot a music video at the Jubilee House, the seat of Ghanas government and posted it on his social media page. Mr. Ablakwa raised the concerns on his social media handles after Meek Mill released portions of the video via Instagram reel. Meek Mill and his crew are seen in the viral video rapping and dancing at the Jubilee House. The crew later stood in front of the lectern mostly used by the President during nation addresses, to take some shots. All those responsible for this despicable desecration of the Jubilee House by Meek Mill must be fired immediately, Mr. Ablakwa fumed. "How do those explicit lyrics from the President's lectern project Ghana positively? "Is Ghana's seat of government no longer a high security installation?," Mr Ablakwa sought to know. Rapper Deletes Video Rapper Meek Mill has deleted the music video he posted which was shot at the Jubilee House in Ghana. On late Sunday, January 8, 2023; the celebrated American rapper posted an Instagram reel announcing that he was set to release a new track. It turns out that portions of the said video were shot in and around the Jubilee House during his visit. He was seen in different places at the presidency, from the frontage, through the main corridors, in the main conference hall at a point positioned behind the presidential lectern and later in a sitting area rapping. 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 National Leaders of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) completed the partys religious thanksgiving service with a visit to one of the major charismatic churches in Accra. Led by National Chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the newly-elected leaders joined the congregation at Perez Chapel International for worship on Sunday, January 8, 2023. Asiedu Nketiah, in an address, recounted how 2020 was a busy year for the party having elected over 400,000 party officers in over 47,000 elections nationwide. That the party suffered no casualties through the entire process and having asked God for guidance and protection, it was right to return to church to thank God for being faithful to the NDC. On behalf of the party, we present a token of GH20,000 to the church as thanksgiving to the Lord for how far he has brought us. Thank you very much and may God bless us all, Asiedu Nketiah said at the tail end of his address. He subsequently handed the envelope with the sum to some officials of the church as leader of the church, Archbishop Charles Agyinasare looked on. The Archbishop admonished the party in his address to at all times act in ways that project the interest of the nation over all other interests. He also congratulated the new executives and prayed for them. 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 American rapper Meek Mill has deleted a promo video he posted on Instagram hours after he shared it with his followers on the platform and on Twitter. Even though no reason has been given for the deletion, it is widely believed that it is from backlash arising from the fact that portions of the viral video were shot in and around the Jubilee House during his recent visit. The Twitter link that led to the Instagram reel is still up but leads to a blank page. In the said video, Meek Mill is captured in different places at the presidency, from the frontage, through the main corridors, in the main conference hall at a point positioned behind the presidential lectern - and later in a sitting area rapping. Social media users, especially on Twitter, were largely angered with what they describe as near desecration of the presidency, citing moral and security grounds. Influencers on the platform have also attracted tonnes of comments that are largely critical of government for allowing such sensitive areas to be filmed for a music video. Meek Mill, Jubilee House and White House were in the top trends from Sunday evening through to Monday morning. It must be noted that a small portion of the commenters are justifying it, stating that it is not too much of a big deal. Meek Mill in Ghana for Afro Nation cencert Meek Mill enjoyed himself when he came to town last December as one of the guests at the Afro Nation concert. From a quadbike riding session, claims of his phone having been pickpocket at an event, fighting off hoodlums before getting on stage to perform and meeting with the president at Jubilee House, these were some major highlights of his time in Accra. Meek Mill is back in the United States but his name is back in the trends here in Ghana. Along with the presidencies of Ghana and the United States Jubilee House and White House. On late Sunday, January 8, 2023; the rapper posted an Instagram reel announcing that he was set to release a new track. It set off a wave of critique directed at the presidency and the president over how easy it must have been for global showbiz people to have access to the president and even go as far as film what is effectively a security zone for business purposes. 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 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Tim van Deursen from Hack The Planet installing an AI-enabled camera trap in Lope National Park Gabon. Credit: Floris Tils A new project, jointly led by the University of Stirling and Dutch start-up Hack the Planet, has for the first time developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered wildlife camera that could hugely benefit conservation by identifying real-time animal-human conflict. The technology, which can detect different animal species and humans in real time, has the potential to discover conflicts between people and wildlife, as well as illegal activities in protected areas, and provide live alerts to eco-guards. Trail cameras are regularly used in wildlife surveys to detect ecosystem threats but are often hampered in remote regions due to a lack of broadband connectivity. Using AI-powered wildlife cameras could fix this issue by providing instant alerts without the need for WiFi, long-range radio or cellular coverage, helping better conserve, protect and restore ecosystems as a result. The study, titled "Real-time alerts from AI-enabled camera traps using the Iridium satellite network: a case-study in Gabon, Central Africa," and published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, accurately identified elephants and humans in remote areas of Gabon, where the technology was deployed. The pilot from researchers and engineers at the University of Stirling and Hack the Planet, part of digital product studio Q42, shows that these smart cameras could help to detect poachers and prevent human-elephant conflicts that often take place in the African rainforest, among other places. The smart camera trap they have developed can immediately label images thanks to AI and, if necessary, send a warning to, for example, rangers or a village. Credit: University of Stirling The research shows that remote monitoring and offline analyses can be made reliably. The system is also able to prevent conflict between humans and animals by deterring elephants from entering a village in search of food. It is the first time that such an innovative camera system has been rigorously tested under the tough conditions of a rainforest. By combining an AI model, ready-made camera traps and custom hardware with a satellite connection, it is now possible to send real-time information to rangers from remote locations. The research shows that reliable analyses can be made with a view to nature conservation and ecology. Dr. Robin Whytock, Post-doctoral Researcher at the University of Stirling during the study, said, "Real-time data from smart cameras and other sensors could revolutionize how we monitor and protect the world's most threatened ecosystems. The advances made in this study show that real-time data could be used to make better decisions during time-critical situations." Tim van Deursen, founder of Hack The Planet, said, "With this pilot we have demonstrated that our AI-powered camera technology works and can have a positive impact on nature conservation. Our solution does not depend on the installation of additional network infrastructure in the landscape and can be deployed in the field by non-experts anywhere in the world." Lee White, Gabonese minister of Water, Forests, the Sea and Environment, said, "Fewer of our eco-guards will die, and more poachers will be caught, if we can deploy this technology." During the pilot in the Gabonese rainforest, five camera systems took more than 800 photos in 72 days. 217 photos of elephants were taken. The AI model achieved an accuracy of 82% in recognizing elephants. Rangers received an alert from the system within seven minutes on average. More information: Robin C. Whytock et al, Realtime alerts from AIenabled camera traps using the Iridium satellite network: A casestudy in Gabon, Central Africa, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (2023). DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.14036 Journal information: Methods in Ecology and Evolution This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A sky survey image centred on the newly-discovered O(H) star SALT J203959.5-034117 (J2039). Credit: Tom Watts (AOP), STScINASA, The Dark Energy Survey, Licence type Attribution (CC BY 4.0) An international team of astronomers has discovered eight of the hottest stars in the universe, all with surfaces hotter than 100,000 degrees Celsius. The work was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The paper is based on data gathered using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, with a 10m x 11m mirror. The study describes how a survey of helium-rich subdwarf stars led to the discovery of several very hot white dwarf and pre-white dwarf stars, the hottest of which has a surface temperature of 180,000 degrees Celsius. For comparison, the sun's surface is a mere 5,800 degrees. One of the stars identified is the central star of a newly discovered planetary nebula, which is one light year in diameter. Two of the others are pulsating, or "variable" stars. All of these stars are at an advanced stage of their life cycle and are approaching the end of their lives as white dwarfs. Due to their extremely high temperatures, each of these new discoveries is more than one hundred times brighter than the sun, which is considered unusual for white dwarf stars. White dwarfs are roughly the same size as planet Earth, but a million times more massive, with masses closer to that of the sun's. They are the densest stars in existence that consist of normal matter. Pre-white dwarfs are a few times bigger and will shrink to become white dwarfs within a few thousand years. Simon Jeffery, an astronomer at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, who led the research, says, "Stars with effective temperatures of 100,000 degrees Celsius or higher are incredibly rare. It was a real surprise to find so many of these stars in our survey. These discoveries will help to increase our understanding of the late stages of stellar evolution and they demonstrate that SALT is a fantastic telescope for our project." He adds, "It has been exciting to work with an experienced team, who collectively enabled the discovery of the stars, the analysis of their atmospheres, and the discovery of pulsations and a nebula in a very short space of time." The University of Tuebingen's Professor Klaus Werner, who co-authored the paper, comments, "I am proud to have helped develop this ground-breaking research. The discovery of eight very hot white dwarf and pre-white dwarf stars and a new planetary nebula is hugely significant, and we hope that these findings will help to shed new light on the formation of our galaxy." Dr. Itumeleng Monageng, of the Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, and South African Astronomical Observatory, observes, "It is an honor to have played a part in this incredible discovery. The SALT survey of helium-rich hot subdwarfs was intended to explore evolutionary pathways amongst groups of highly evolved stars. "It is fascinating to have discovered eight new extremely hot stars in the process, one of which is surrounded by a planetary nebula." More information: C S Jeffery et al, Hot white dwarfs and pre-white dwarfs discovered with SALT, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stac3531 Journal information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The U.S. Coast Guard was working with state officials Saturday to determine the cause of a large oil slick in the waters off Santa Barbara County. The 1.5- to 2-mile sheen was spotted Friday about five nautical miles from Summerland Beach, an area with a petroleum-rich sea floor that is home to numerous abandoned gas and oil wells. Early Saturday morning, a Coast Guard helicopter flew over the slick to look for clues as to its source, according to Petty Officer Matthew West. "We are still waiting to hear back," he said. Oil and natural gas can enter the ocean naturally through fractures in the sea floor, known as seeps, that are common in Santa Barbara's waters. But slicks can also come from leaky wells or other sources of pollution. "Because this was an area where there are a lot of naturally occurring seeps, it's important to determine whether it is one of those seeps or from a legacy gas or oil well," said Sheri Pemberton, public information officer for the California State Lands Commission. The waters off Summerland, which is six miles east of Santa Barbara, were home to hundreds of largely unregulated oil and gas wells in the 19th century, according to the commission. Many drilling operations were abandoned in the early 1900s with little oversight and pose an environmental threat that the state is working to address. Part of the investigation will be chemically analyzing the slick to see if it is consistent with the petroleum seeping naturally from the sea floor, said Eric Laughlin, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. That department is among several agencies working to address the slick. There have been no reports of injured wildlife. "There are teams out there, but we are still waiting for a report from them," Laughlin said. 2023 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Shutterstock Nobody wants to be average. But for a long time, scientists have found it convenient to think of bacterial cells as just that: "average." Researchers have traditionally relied on population-level strategies to understand fundamental aspects of bacterial physiology. These population-level approaches describe the behavior of idealized average cells, and they serve as the foundation for prevailing models of bacterial growth. Models based on an average cell are useful, but they may not accurately describe how individual cells really work. New possibilities opened up with the advent of single-cell live imaging technologies. Now it is possible to peer into the lives of individual cells. In a new paper published in PLOS Genetics, a team of biologists and physicists from Washington University in St. Louis and Purdue University used actual single-cell data to create an updated framework for understanding the relationship between cell growth, DNA replication and division in a bacterial system. Petra Levin, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, an author of the new paper, has a keen interest in single-cell biology. In her research work, Levin has made seminal contributions to our understanding of bacterial cell growth. A chance encounter at the Aspen Center for Physics led to a collaboration with Srividya Iyer-Biswas, a physicist at Purdue University with expertise in both first-principles-based physics theory and high-precision single cell experiments. Taking advantage of the Zoom era brought on by the early days of the pandemic, Levin and Iyer-Biswas developed their virtual collaboration to revisit some of the "beautiful, classic models of the bacterial cell cycle," as Levin describes them. They found exciting bits were missing. What was the problem? The models counted on the behavior of an "average" cell within a population. But using the average to infer what an actual cell does can be misleading. "Imagine each bacterium as singing its own whimsical tune, following its own rhythm," Iyer-Biswas said. "The collectivea population of millions of cellshas its own music, where no single voice especially stands out, but a song nonetheless emerges. From hearing just the collective rendition, how could one possibly uncover what precisely an individual's song might be? That is the problem we were faced with." "What is true for the average cell is not necessarily true for the individual cell. Bacteria are just like us in this regard," Levin added. For this new paper, Levin and Iyer-Biswas worked together with Sara Sanders, a postdoctoral scientist in the Levin lab who recently moved to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Kunaal Joshi, a Ph.D. student in the Iyer-Biswas lab, to tackle one basic question. They wanted to figure out how these "whimsical" individual bacterial cellsor, as a more typical physicist might say, these stochastic cellsmanage to exquisitely coordinate DNA replication with growth and division, so that overall events happen in the right sequence despite the "noisiness" of each process. To answer the question, the authors carefully looked at single-cell growth data from the model organism Escherichia coli collected by the Jun laboratory at the University of California, San Diego. They then constructed a minimal mathematical model that captured complex, stochastic behaviors of individual cells and accurately matched individual cell data. Based on average cell behavior, others had come to view the basic cell cycle steps of DNA replication and cell division as dependent on each other. But that wasn't how Levin and Sanders saw it. "Decades of genetic and molecular studies indicate that although DNA replication and division are clearly coordinated, they are not dependent on one another," Levin said. "As long as there are mechanisms to prevent division across uncopied chromosomes, or fix the situation in the unlikely event that does happen, everything is fine. E. coli does not have cell cycle checkpoints like eukaryotic cells do." Meanwhile, Iyer-Biswas and Joshi realized that there was a simple way to understand the individual cell data. Each cell has three independent (stochastic) timers (equivalent to the whimsical tune from above) that start ticking each time DNA replication begins, and whose orchestration determines the sequence of cell cycle events. Starting from this simple idea, Joshi discovered he could predict the sequence of DNA replication initiation, the end of DNA replication and division based on when the three timers independently go off and reset. His predictions matched exquisitely with the extant data on individual cell DNA replication and cell division in many different growth conditions. By describing a stochastic, not deterministic, relationship between DNA replication and cell division, the authors have shifted how scientists understand a basic process in cell biology. "Our ultimate goal is to build a community around high-precision approaches in biology that seamlessly integrate theory and experiment," Iyer-Biswas said. "A more immediate goal is to transcend system-specific details and provide a unifying framework also applicable to other bacterial species." More information: Sara Sanders et al, Beyond the average: An updated framework for understanding the relationship between cell growth, DNA replication, and division in a bacterial system, PLOS Genetics (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010505 Journal information: PLoS Genetics This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A summer scene at the Magellanic penguin colony at Punta Tombo in Argentina. Credit: Dee Boersma/UW Center for Ecosystem Sentinels Climate change will reshape ecosystems worldwide through two types of climate events: short-term, extreme eventslike a heat waveand long-term changes, like a shift in ocean currents. Ecologists call the short-term events "pulses," and the long-term changes "presses." Presses and pulses will likely have different effects on animal species. But how? And how will animals respond? Answering these questions is no easy feat because individual events can have dramatically divergent impacts on an animal species. Yet understanding the effects of presses and pulses is essential as conservationists and policymakers try to preserve ecosystems and safeguard biodiversity. Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered how different presses and pulses impacted Magellanic penguinsa migratory marine predatorover nearly four decades at their historically largest breeding site in Punta Tombo, Argentina. In a paper published the week of Jan. 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team from the UW's Center for Ecosystem Sentinels reports that, though individual presses and pulses impacted penguins in a variety of ways, both were equally important for the future survival of the penguin population. They also found that these types of climate changes, taken together, are leading to an overall population decline at this particular site. A Magellanic penguin pair with their chick at Punta Tombo in 2016. Credit: Dee Boersma/UW Center for Ecosystem Sentinels "We found that penguin survival doesn't rest solelyor even largelyon one or a few climate effects," said lead author T.J. Clark-Wolf, a UW postdoctoral researcher in biology and center scientist. "Instead, many different presses and pulses impact penguin reproduction and survival over time." The study analyzed data collected at Punta Tombo from 1982 to 2019 by co-author Dee Boersma, founder of the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels and a UW professor of biology, and collaborators. The data include: survival and reproductive success for nearly 54,000 penguins at the site, which historically is where hundreds of thousands of Magellanic penguins have come to breed each summer climate conditions during each breeding season ocean conditions off the coast of Punta Tombo, where adults feed during the breeding season and bring food back to the nest to feed their chicks offshore ocean conditions along the coast of South America, where adults and juveniles feed when migrating outside of the breeding season Rain soaks the down plumage of a Magellanic chick, left, that is still too young to have the waterproof plumage of its parent, right. Credit: Dee Boersma/UW Center for Ecosystem Sentinels Clark-Wolf and senior author Briana Abrahms, a UW assistant professor of biology, folded these data into an integrated population model that parsed out the effects of separate presses and pulses on penguin survival over time. They found that different climate effects had distinct impacts on the Punta Tombo population. For example, heat wavesa climate pulsehave a detrimental effect on the population by killing both adults and chicks, as illustrated by a 2019 single-day heat wave at Punta Tombo that killed more than 350 penguins. A climate press, increased rainfall at the site, also negatively impacted the population, because storms during the breeding season kill chicks due to exposure. The gradual weakening of the plume of silt expelled into the ocean by the Rio de la Plata, the second largest river basin in South America, is one press that positively affected penguin survival. This press impacts the penguins' winter feeding waters off the coast of northern Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. Past research by Ginger Rebstock, a co-author on the new study and a UW research scientist, has indicated that a weaker plume may make it easier for penguins, particularly females, to catch enough food each winter and return to the breeding site in prime condition. But the positive effects of a weakening plume could not overcome the negative effects of other climate events at Punta Tombo, which over nearly four decades has become warmer and wetter. The number of breeding pairs at the site has declined from a high of approximately 400,000 in the early 1980s to about 150,000 in 2019. University of Washington doctoral student Katie Holt examines adult Magellanic penguin corpses (circled) at Punta Tombo, just after a heat wave on Jan. 19, 2019, killed at least 354 penguins. Temperatures that day spiked to 111.2 F in the shade. Credit: Anna Sulc/University of Washington "This colony will be 100 years old in 2024, but we finished another on-the-ground survey in late October at Punta Tombo and its numbers continue to decline," said Boersma. "The penguins are instead moving north to be closer to their food." Surveys have reported that Magellanic penguins are establishing other breeding sites farther north on the South American coast in search of better foraging opportunities. A 2002 satellite view of the Rio de la Plata, which forms at the confluence of the Parana and Uruguay rivers and expels a plume of silt that impacts winter feeding conditions for Magellanic penguins. Credit: Jacques Descloitres/MODISRapid Response Team/NASA/GSFC Understanding how these presses and pulses shape this population is crucial for informing conservation efforts, the researchers said. "For conservation to be most effective, we need to know where, when and how to apply our limited resources," said Abrahms. "Information generated by this study tells us which climate effects we need to worry about and which ones we don'tand therefore can help us focus on measures that we know will have a positive impact." A summer scene along the coast of the Punta Tombo site in 2012. Credit: Dee Boersma/UW Center for Ecosystem Sentinels The decades of data faithfully collected at Punta Tombo made it possible for the team to consider the effects of long-term climate changes and extreme events in combination, and as a result, to better predict how climate will impact this population in the future. It is this same approach, they believe, that can help conservationists and scientists understand how climate shifts will shape other long-lived animal species across our warming globe. More information: Climate presses and pulses mediate the decline of a migratory predator, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209821120 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Many of the products we buy are linked to deforestation. Credit: Richard Whitcombe/Shutterstock Most European consumers' shopping baskets tend to include items linked to deforestation in tropical regions, involving agricultural commodities such as beef, soybeans, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, coffee, timber and paper. These so-called "forest-risk" commodities are used in thousands of consumer goods ranging from hamburgers to chocolate bars. Yet this may be about to change. In December, the EU provisionally agreed on a new regulation to ensure that supply chains are free from processes and products that cause deforestation. The regulation, which is expected to come into force in mid-2023, states that companies will be unable to sell products in the EU that were produced on land cleared after 2020. Companies must prove that their products are produced legally. But these requirements may harm small-scale farmers and fail to make a visible difference to global deforestation. We offer five tips to ensure that the EU can reduce global deforestation while avoiding unintended outcomes. 1. Local benchmarking The new regulation involves a benchmarking process that determines whether commodity producing regions have a high, standard or low risk of deforestation. Products from higher risk regions require more stringent due diligence procedures. But large tropical countries, such as Brazil and Indonesia, have a variety of deforestation risks. The Cerrado, a vast region of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, has less stringent legal and voluntary protections than the Amazon rainforest. Most deforestation for soy takes place in the Cerrado as a result. A single risk rating at a country scale could mask these variations and fail to distinguish between higher and lower risk regions. A benchmarking scale at the state or province level could differentiate these risks and is therefore likely to be more appropriate for larger countries. One state in the Cerrado, Maranhao for example, could have a high risk rating for deforestation, while another, such as Mato Grosso do Sul, could have a low one. Deforestation risks at at the state or province scale may be more similar and the monitoring of deforestation more feasible. Greater engagement with companies in these areas may also be encouraged by strong local governance. Deforestation has historically been prevalent across Brazil's Mato Grosso state, but in 2015, the state launched its Produce-Conserve-Include strategy. State departments and private companies have collaborated here to align local policies and incentives with the goals of reaching deforestation reduction targets and stimulating investment. The strategy aims to deliver inclusive and sustainable development in Mato Grosso. The region is targeting a 90% reduction in deforestation by 2030 while simultaneously increasing grain production from 50 to 92 million tons. 2. Traceability Companies sourcing products from regions at a higher risk of deforestation must be able to trace the origin of their products to individual farms to comply with the new EU regulation. But in sectors such as cocoa farming, where there are many small farms and informal markets, this approach is costly and often not feasible. Companies may be encouraged to remove small farms from their supply chains or purchase land for production directly. Tracing supply to villages or particular forests would be a fairer and more practical option. The Dutch organization IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative apply this idea through their Sourceup platform. The platform highlights producing regions where commodities meet specific sustainability criteria. 3. Common standards The EU's regulation relies on threats and punishment to ensure compliance rather than incentivizing behavioral change among producers. It requires that all products entering the EU market must not contribute to deforestation. This may level the playing field among companies from regions exporting products into the EU. But consumers in China and the domestic markets of "forest-risk" commodity-producing regions in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia purchase far more of these products than European consumers. Some commodity producers may avoid selling products to the EU and instead pivot towards these other markets. This would reduce EU imports of products linked to deforestation but fails to address deforestation at its roots. Promoting similar standards in these markets will be key to avoid division between different markets. 4. Combat deforestation at source The contribution of these approaches towards reducing deforestation will depend on how companies integrate them into their supply chains. Rates of deforestation tend to fall when the majority of the companies in a region voluntarily stop sourcing products linked to deforestation. A commitmentcalled the "soy moratorium"by global traders and the Brazilian industry to stop purchasing soy produced on forest lands cleared after 2006 caused direct deforestation for soy in the Brazilian Amazon to fall by 57% between 2006 and 2015. Yet leakage (where deforestation is pushed to other regions) and low global market coverage weakens the global effectiveness of these regional supply chain policies. The EU's new regulation will help to address some of these challenges, but channeling European finance towards regions that take action to deliver sustainable development would be a further positive step. This would reduce industry opposition in producing regions by showing that the EU is willing to invest in the changes it requires from these regions. 5. Rewarding inclusion Small farms could be excluded from export markets if the EU regulation fails to encourage companies to improve the sustainability of commodity producers' operations. But if coupled with training in sustainable agricultural practices, price premiums and outreach to promote conservation, the regulation could benefit these farmers. Rewarding companies that encourage smaller suppliers to adapt could deliver widespread and permanent reductions in tropical deforestation. For example, companies could be required to report the number and types of small farming communities that they source from on an annual basis. This is already the case for palm oil production, where industry-wide reports are used to monitor changes in the composition of companies' supply chains over time. The EU's regulation will be insufficient to halt global deforestation on its own. These steps would maximize the impact of regulation and avoid unintended consequences on small-scale farmers. But further efforts, underpinned by new research and involving international collaboration across sectors, will be needed to achieve transformative progress. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Police investigating the murders of four University of Idaho students have said they used DNA to link evidence found at the crime scene to their suspect, 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger. Kohberger was arrested Friday in Pennsylvania, more than six weeks after the Nov. 13 murders of Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, in a Moscow, Idaho rental house. He appeared in court Thursday and was read the murder and burglary charges against him. His court-appointed public defender in Pennsylvania, Jason A. LaBar, told the Today show that Kohberger has maintained his innocence: "He said this is not him, he said he believes he is going to be exonerated." The wait for more information on the case and the identification of a suspect stirred panic in the small college town. Newly released court filings detail how authorities zeroed in on Kohberger using DNA even as he returned to his family's home state in December. Here's how they did it. Investigators used DNA to identify Kohberger According to an affidavit made public on Thursday, authorities were able to locate DNA of a single male source that was left on the button of a knife sheath found near one of the victims. Investigators also used surveillance video to link a vehicle they believed to be the suspect's and cell phone location to Kohberger. They got a warrant to go through trash from Kohberger's family home in Pennsylvania, and obtained DNA from the trash, which they were able to identify with a high level of probability as belonging to the biological father of the person whose DNA was on the knife sheath. The methods and technology used to arrest Kohberger were conventional DNA profiling techniques using what's known as Short Tandem Repeat (STR) analysis, used for everything from identifying criminal suspects to conducting paternity tests, according to Daniele Podini, chair of the Department of Forensic Sciences at The George Washington University. What kinds of DNA can be used to profile a potential killer? DNA is present in every single cell in the body, and it can be deposited at a crime scene in a number of different ways, including through saliva, blood and sweat. In this case, Podini said the DNA found on the knife sheath could have come from a number of different types of cells or a combination, including what's known as touch or trace DNA that involves a small amount of skin cells. "When we touch an object, we deposit some of our cells. They may be some skin cells, there may be saliva cells because we just coughed on our hand," Podini said. How did they link DNA to the suspect's father? Every person inherits 50% of their DNA from their biological mother and 50% from their biological father. Podini said investigators likely used items from the family home's trash that came into contact with a single person, like a plastic spoon or a razor blade, to extract and analyze the DNA on them. "They evidently found a profile that was consistent with being the biological father of the DNA profile obtained from the knife (sheath), which means that at least for every region that they analyzed, half of that was present in both individuals," Podini said. How the science has evolved, allowing more killers to be caught In the nearly four decades since DNA profiling was introduced, advancements in science and technology have led to more accurate analysis, Podini said. Different segments of DNA are now able to be analyzed. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) can now make copies of small amounts of DNA to make it detectable and analyzable. And, the tools to analyze DNA have become more sensitive, so samples from touch DNA with less information on it, for example, can be used. Today, researchers are focusing on improving the type of information that can be gleaned from a genetic profile, with the aim of determining someone's eye color or skin pigmentation, for example, Podini said. Current advancements also hope to refine a technique called DNA methylation to determine the age of a person from whom a sample was collected. Scientists also want to come up with methods to more accurately analyze DNA mixtures, when multiple people's DNA are found on surfaces. The rise of genealogy sites Technological advancements in DNA forensicsand the rise of genealogy sites such as 23andMe and Ancestry.comhave led to the solving of decades-old cases, including the arrest and capture of the "Golden State Killer" in California, who operated in the 70s and 80s and was arrested in 2018. In that case, police had a DNA sample from an old crime scene but no suspect to match it to. Decades later, they conducted a familial search using a public database of records from private testing companies uploaded by people who hope to find matches with potential relatives. Then, they constructed a family tree of the potential relatives of people the original DNA sample matched, and narrowed down by the suspected age of the suspected killer and known location at the time of the killings. That led them to Joseph James DeAngelo, who ultimately pleaded guilty. After a suspect is identified through that process, more traditional analysis is done using STRs between the sample from the crime scene and a new sample from the individual suspect, usually obtained through a warrant. Police wiped DeAngelo's vehicle door handle to get his DNA while he was inside a store. The way investigators found the Golden State Killer and the suspect in the Idaho slayings was quite different, Podini said, because of the different DNA analysis methods used involving different technology and sets of genetic markers. Though Kohberger, too, will likely have his DNA from a cheek swab compared to what was found on the knife sheath now that he is in custody to confirm a perfect match, Podini said. (c)2023 USA Today Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Flooded Lake House, Keswick, Cumbria, U.K. Credit: Gavin Lynn More people are vulnerable to the effects of flooding than ever before due to changes in climate, land use, infrastructure and population growth in recent decades. It is, therefore, crucial to accurately predict flood frequency and severity to reduce physical and economic losses. Conventional analysis of flood frequency assumes that flooding follows historic patterns, and the methods used often do not take into account changing conditions such as climate change, river regulation, and land cover variation. This creates a higher risk of underestimating the frequency and severity of floods and designing less resilient infrastructure. In a recent study published in the Journal of Hydrology, researchers from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China; Chung-Ang University, Korea; and the University of Liverpool, U.K., proposed that an alternative method is more appropriate for analyzing flood frequency in a changing environment. The team of researchers propose a model that is a type of nonstationary flood frequency analysis. Nonstationary models provide more reliable estimations for water-related structures and flood prevention measures as they take into account variations of factors influencing flood frequency. Despite nonstationary flood frequency analysis now being a hot research topic, there is a lack of consensus on the most appropriate methods. The existing models are either too complicated or too expensive for engineers or hydrologists to implement in practice. Mengzhu Chen, the first author of the paper, is a Ph.D. student at XJTLU's Department of Civil Engineering. In 2021, she published a study that used a different model of nonstationary flood frequency across the U.K. However, she found there were limitations in applying this approach to practices like engineering design and hydraulic structure design. (a) Location of the 161 catchments used in the study (b) summary of catchment size and (c) available record length. Credit: Mengzhu Chen (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) "We were unable to express the model as a simple mathematical formula which made it difficult to interpret and calculate. Therefore, we wanted to find a more suitable model," Chen says. To assess and compare different modeling techniques in the current study, the researchers analyzed historical flood data from 161 catchments across the U.K. These areas, also known as watersheds or drainage basins, have natural boundaries such as ridges, hills or mountains, and all surface water drains to a common channel to form rivers or creeks. They found that the "fractional polynomial-based regression" model is the most flexible, effective, and user-friendly among all the models. This method is an emerging tool in certain applied research areas like medical statistics and clinical research but is currently used very little in the hydrology field. Bridging the gap Chen says, "Currently, there is a gap between hydraulic research and practice, as most practitioners are not familiar with nonstationary models even though they have gained popularity in academia. "The findings of our recent study provide recommendations to hydrologists and engineers to help them choose from the available analysis models. Quantified seasonality index (seasonal flood peak variance) for the 161 catchments across the UK. The higher the index, the more significant the flood variability is in these catchments; the wet season may be wetter, and the dry season may be drier. Credit: Mengzhu Chen (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) "For practitioners, the fractional polynomial model we propose in our paper can be an additional valuable tool for application. It can be expressed as a mathematical formula and is more user-friendly. "After all, the primary purpose of nonstationary flood frequency analysis is to provide estimations for the design, construction, and management of water-related infrastructure. "Nevertheless, there's a long way to go before nonstationary methods can be widely used in practice. A more user-friendly, straightforward, and generally agreed-upon approach for nonstationary flood frequency analysis is still worth exploring in the future," Chen says. "We also need further investigation into the complex underlying factors influencing flood frequency to help prepare for future extreme weather events," she adds. More information: Mengzhu Chen et al, Linear, nonlinear, parametric and nonparametric regression models for nonstationary flood frequency analysis, Journal of Hydrology (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.128772 CPC maintaining vigor through rigorous self-governance Xinhua) 08:15, January 09, 2023 BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The second plenary session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will open on Jan. 9. It will make plans for advancing full and rigorous self-governance and making progress in disciplinary inspection and supervision work for 2023. At the 20th CPC National Congress last year, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, said in the report presented by him that the CPC found a second answer to the question of how to escape the historical cycle of rise and fall, and the answer is self-reform. He called on the whole Party to unswervingly exercise full and rigorous self-governance in the new era. "As the largest Marxist governing party in the world, we must always stay alert and determined to tackle the special challenges that a large party like ours faces, so as to maintain the people's support and consolidate our position as the long-term governing party," said Xi. SELF-REFORM WITH NO END On Oct. 25, three days after the conclusion of the 20th CPC National Congress, the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee convened its first meeting in Beijing, which Xi presided over. One of the items on the agenda of the meeting was to deliberate a set of detailed rules for implementing the "eight-point decision on improving conduct." First made public on Dec. 4, 2012, the eight-point decision targets pointless formalities, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance and seeks to rein in privilege-seeking attitudes and behavior. During the past decade, the Party leadership has made consistent efforts to improve Party conduct and implement the eight-point decision thoroughly and effectively. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress set out a series of arrangements for full and rigorous self-governance and advancing the new great project of Party-building in the new era. It urged improving the systems for rigorous self-governance as a vital step to intensify Party-building. The report also made arrangements for improving Party conduct, tightening Party discipline, and combating corruption, among other requirements for Party-building. Concerning the anti-corruption campaign, the report stated that as long as the breeding grounds and conditions for corruption still exist, the Party must never rest to fight corruption. HIGHER-CALIBER ENFORCEMENT Within just over a month after the closing of the 20th CPC National Congress, more than 10 officials who were suspected of severe violations of discipline and laws turned themselves in, according to the CCDI and the National Commission of Supervision. Statistics show some 81,000 people have voluntarily surrendered to disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies over the past five years. Centering on major tasks of the country such as ecological protection, a raft of concrete, targeted and regular political oversight moves have been taken. From January to September last year, 53 cases of corruption and misconduct in the eco-environmental field were investigated in Guilin, a city in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A total of 80 people received various penalties as a result of effective political supervision. The list of such examples can go on and on, from COVID-19 response to poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, and the implementation of a series of major strategies and key tasks. Political oversight has remained powerful and effective. TOWARD A NEW JOURNEY As China has embarked on a new journey toward building a modern socialist country in all respects, full and rigorous Party self-governance will be further sustained. "We will stay vigilant against pointless formalities and bureaucratism that affect the implementation of CPC Central Committee's decisions and plans, undermine the country's security and development, or raise the burden at the primary level," read a circular issued by the CCDI. Local disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies across the country have made efforts to keep leading officials under effective oversight, improve Party conduct on a consistent and sustained basis, and uproot corruption in sectors with a high concentration of power, funds and resources. Through joint efforts at various levels, the atmosphere of the Party's full and rigorous self-governance has gained further momentum. As a result, the people-centered philosophy is further implemented on the new journey and translated into concrete benefits for the people. Localities have seen improvements in areas such as elderly and child care, subsidy granting and government services thanks to proper supervision. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Barely a week into the new year, a 6-year-old boy shot his teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, becoming one of the youngest school shooters in the nation's history. While details of the case are still emerging, his teacher remains hospitalized with serious injuries. David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, discusses the relative rarity of school shooters under age 10 and the likely aftermath of the event. How rare is it to have a school shooter this young? This is the 17th shooting involving a student under the age of 10 at a school since 1970the first year for which my database keeps track. Most of these shootings were not intentional. But in 1975, a 9-year-old student at the Pitcher School in Detroit was in a fight with a 13-year-old, left campus, got a rifle from his house and came back to the school and shot the student in the head, killing him. In 2000, a 6-year-old boy fatally shot his 6-year-old classmate, Kayla Rolland, in their classroom at Buell Elementary School in Michigan while their teacher lined up other students in the hallway. The shooting followed a dispute on the playground. How do kids this young typically get guns? In most school shootings, the gun is taken from the student's home or from the house of a friend or relative. In the 2000 shooting at Buell Elementary, the student's uncle pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to prison for a minimum of two years for leaving a firearm in an easily accessible place. The 6-year-old shooter did not face charges due to his age. What stands out about this recent case? The most striking part of this shooting is that it appears to be intentional. While many details remain unknown, it is likely that the student had the gun with him the entire day, possibly multiple days, before shooting his teacher. In many states, the legal system assumes that young children are not capable of the thought and planning that goes into committing a violent crime. In Virginia, the minimum age to charge someone with a felony is 14 years old. Do schools need to start searching first graders? Despite the attention that they generated, school shootings at any age are relatively rare. There have been 17 shootings involving kids under 10 publicly reported across a 52-year period. More than 50 million students attend schools every year, and fewer than 300 of them shoot someone on campus. When most guns that end up in schools come from the home, I'd argue it is the responsibility of parents, relatives and older siblings to make sure that every firearm is locked, secured and accounted for. The use of metal detectors has been shown to increase students' anxiety and are only effective with constant maintenance, training, staffing and screening procedures. Some of the incidents involving children have resulted from adults putting a firearm in the kid's bag and the child firing it when they find the gun at school. What's next for this boy? This remains unclear, and due to juvenile privacy laws, we may never know. The 6-year-old who killed his classmate at Buell Elementary in 2000 was not charged with a crime. In 2021 in Rigby, Idaho, a 12-year-old girl shot three people during a planned attack at Rigby Middle School. Based on her written plan, this young girl intended to kill 20 students and wound 40 to 60 others. She is being held in juvenile custody until she turns 19and possibly until age 21 if she is not deemed fully rehabilitatedfollowing a guilty plea to three counts of first-degree murder. What's next for the school? While much attention is focused on the shooter and teacher, a classroom full of first graders witnessed their classmate shoot the teacher. She was critically injured, which means that it was likely a gruesome scene. These students will all need extensive counseling to understand and deal with this trauma. For the other students, teachers and parents, this is also a traumatic experience, and many students may no longer want to go to school. What does this case suggest for school safety in the US broadly? There were 302 shootings in school property in 2022, more than in any other year since 1970. Since 2017, the number of shootings each year has significantly increased. This pattern matches the spiking rates of violent crime and gun crime across the country. It is important to remember that most shootings at schools are committed by current or former students, not outsiders breaking into the building. Because of this, school security plans need to include all levels of schools and shootings by all ages of students. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A 30-foot juvenile humpback whale washed up on the beach in Atlantic City on Saturday morning, the second time in 15 days a young whale has been swept ashore in the casino town. This time, officials with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center decided not to bury the whale immediately, as they did on Dec. 23, when a similar-looking baby humpback whale washed ashore near Tropicana. Sheila Dean, executive director of the Stranding Center, said on Saturday this whale had only recently died, and that a full necropsy would yield valuable information. The whale was rolled up past the high-tide lines by a large bulldozer, as its bloated insides popped and squirted, but did not, as officials had warned gawkers, explode. Atlantic City's fire, emergency, and police departments prepared for a long night of keeping people away from the creature until Sunday morning. A small crowd had gathered to take pictures and video, even as police urged them to back up to avoid being in the path of any whale insides. "We don't want anybody touching it," said Battalion Chief Michael Famularo, the deputy emergency management director for Atlantic City. It was a scene described by onlookers as both magical, at least at first, seeing evidence that such a wondrous and large creature lives in Jersey Shore waters, and tragic, with the sad fate of the whale a literal deflating reality. "It's sad," said Daryl Bulthuis, a nearby resident whose son, John Bulthuis, discovered the whale early Saturday at high tide. "But even though it is sad, it is a part of nature. People speculate on different things that might have happened, like it was the sonar from the wind farms. I like to dwell on that they migrate through here. This was kind of a late migration, and some of them don't make it." A handful of protesters from the Protect Our Coast group that opposes the plans to build massive wind turbine farms off the coast also came out. One, Jim D'Allesandro, held a sign that said, "Stop wind turbines, stop killing whales." He noted that it was the fourth whale to wash up in recent months, including one in Wildwood and another in Strathmere. As people gathered to take photos and videos, Dean and another person from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center used a long knife to take samples from the carcass, and determined that the whale had only recently died, she said. Rather than bury right away, she said necropsy teams would be brought in Sunday. After that, the whale, like the Dec. 23 one, would be buried right on the beach. "You can't tow something that big away," she said. "You can't take it out to sea because it's a navigation hazard." "It's pretty sad," said John Bulthuis. "Two whales in a short time. It's a bummer." 2023 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Scientists studying masersnaturally occurring lasers that amplify microwave radio emissionsaround the massive star MWC 349A discovered a 500 km/s jet of material launching out of the star's gas disk from within the winds that are flowing away from the star. The bigger surprise is that the jet may be caused by magnetic forces. This artist's conception shows a zoomed in view of MWC 349A and its surrounding disk of gas and dust that are being shaped by the winds and high-speed jet. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Weiss (NRAO/AUI/NSF) While using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the masers around oddball star MWC 349A scientists discovered something unexpected: a previously unseen jet of material launching from the star's gas disk at impossibly high speeds. What's more, they believe the jet is caused by strong magnetic forces surrounding the star. The discovery could help researchers to understand the nature and evolution of massive stars and how hydrogen masers are formed in space. The new observations were presented today (January 9) in a press conference at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle, Washington. Located roughly 3,900 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cygnus, MWC 349A's unique features make it a hot spot for scientific research in optical, infrared, and radio wavelengths. The massive starroughly 30 times the mass of the sunis one of the brightest radio sources in the sky, and one of only a handful of objects known to have hydrogen masers. These masers amplify microwave radio emissions, making it easier to study processes that are typically too small to see. It is this unique feature that allowed scientists to map MWC 349A's disk in detail for the first time. "A maser is like a naturally occurring laser," said Sirina Prasad, an undergraduate research assistant at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), and the primary author of the paper. "It's an area in outer space that emits a really bright kind of light. We can see this light and trace it back to where it came from, bringing us one step closer to figuring out what's really going on." The massive star MWC 349A is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky. But, at 3,900 light-years away from Earth, scientists needed help to see what's really going on, and in this case, to discover a jet of material blasting out from the star's gas disk at 500 km/s. Previously hidden amongst the winds flowing out from the star, the jet was discovered using the combined resolving power of ALMA's Band 6 (right) and Band 7 (left), and hydrogen masers naturally occurring lasers that amplify microwave radio emissions, shown here in this ALMA science image. The revelation may help scientists to better understand the nature and evolution of massive stars. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S. Prasad/CfA Leveraging the resolving power of ALMA's Band 6, developed by the U.S. National Science Foundation's National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), the team was able to use the masers to uncover the previously unseen structures in the star's immediate environment. Qizhou Zhang, a senior astrophysicist at CfA, and the project's principal investigator added, "We used masers generated by hydrogen to probe the physical and dynamic structures in the gas surrounding MWC 349A and revealed a flattened gas disk with a diameter of 50 au, approximately the size of the Solar System, confirming the near-horizontal disk structure of the star. We also found a fast-moving jet component hidden within the winds flowing away from the star." The observed jet is ejecting material away from the star at a blistering 500 km per second. That's akin to traveling the distance between San Diego, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, in the literal blink of an eye. According to researchers, it is probable that a jet moving this fast is being launched by a magnetic force. In the case of MWC 349A, that force could be a magnetohydrodynamic winda type of wind whose movement is dictated by the interplay between the star's magnetic field and gases present in its surrounding disk. "Our previous understanding of MWC 349A was that the star was surrounded by a rotating disk and photo-evaporating wind. Strong evidence for an additional collimated jet had not yet been seen in this system. Although we don't yet know for certain where it comes from or how it is made, it could be that a magnetohydrodynamic wind is producing the jet, in which case the magnetic field is responsible for launching rotating material from the system," said Prasad. "This could help us to better understand the disk-wind dynamics of MWC 349A, and the interplay between circumstellar disks, winds, and jets in other star systems." More information: These results will be presented during a press conference at the 241st proceedings of the American Astronomical Society on Monday, January 9th at 2:15pm Pacific Standard Time (PST). This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The new year brings challenges to Biden administration regulators: how to handle environmentally unfriendly riders inserted by lawmakers into the fiscal 2023 spending bill. The provisions protect the use of lead-based bullets and fishing tackle, thwart steps to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale and sage grouse, and block new climate regulations under the Clean Air Act. Congressional Republicans touted the provisions as small wins in an omnibus spending law many of their GOP peers voted against. Environmentalists condemned the inclusion of the whale and sage grouse riders as possibly ushering in the total collapse of both species in the wild, while Maine's congressional delegation and its governor, Democrat Janet Mills, cheered the added whale language, which delays until 2028 new fishing gear rules drafted to protect the vulnerable species. "There are only about 340 right whales left," Danielle Kessler, U.S. director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said by phone. "This is really a population that teeters on the brink of extinction," Kessler said. "We cannot keep losing right whales to what are avoidable risks." The legislative add-ons became law as populations of plants and animals are plummeting in number and researchers warn humans have driven the Earth into a period of mass extinction and biodiversity loss. To blunt mass die-offs of flora and fauna, more than 190 nations reached an agreement during December talks in Montreal to set aside at least 30 percent of the world's lands and waters by 2030. The U.S. is not a signatory to the international convention on biological diversity, the organizing mechanism behind last month's gathering, and participated as an observer last month in Canada rather than an official party. But the Biden administration has set a goal of protecting 30% of its land and water before the decade ends. Found often in coastal waters, especially during their breeding season, North Atlantic right whales can weigh as much as 70 tons, stretch more than 50 feet and live 70 years. Nearly hunted to extinction by commercial whalers in the late 1800s, the bus-sized mammals face deadly threats from fishing gear and vessel strikes, their leading causes of death. Whales often get tangled in fishing lines that run from buoys down to the ocean floor. As whales migrate along the Eastern Seaboard, they may move through about 1 million vertical ropes, Kessler said. When they hit a rope, they often roll to the side, leading to more entanglement, she said. "It may not kill them instantly. But it's going to have this toll," Kessler said, adding that entanglements also put rescue crews dispatched to untangle the animals in danger. "It's putting those folks at risk as well." Maine fisheries The Maine delegation took issue with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule that would require U.S. lobster and Jonah crab fisheries to use gear safer for the whales by, among other steps, utilizing fishing lines designed to break free if snagged. Between 2010 and 2019, fishing gear was found on 62 whales out of 114 documented right whale entanglements, federal officials said. Lawmakers from Maine bristled against the requirements of new gear under the rule, saying it was hard to find and expensive. Once the provisions to delay the NOAA rule were in place, Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the legislation sidestepped an "economic death sentence" for his state's lobster industry. The law authorizes $50 million for a grant program through 2032 and includes $20 million in funding for fishermen to shift to ropeless gear. "We would like to see this money land in the pockets of fishermen," said Kessler, adding that IFAW is working with Massachusetts fishermen to deploy a new generation of whale-safe gear. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., called the inclusion of the whale provision "terrible," while Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., the incoming House Natural Resources ranking member, said the bill "undermines the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and will send the North Atlantic right whale even further along the trajectory to extinction." Ninety-one right whales have been found dead or gravely hurt in the past five years, according to NOAA data. Entanglements may not kill a whale, but they can stress and fatigue the animal, making it harder for them to give birth. Like right whales, sage grouse have plummeted in numbers because of human encroachment. "Once numbering 16 million birds, the greater sage grouse population has dwindled to a few hundred thousand," said Josh Osher, public policy director at Western Watersheds Project. "The species continues to decline due to impacts from oil and gas drilling, livestock overgrazing that leads to invasion by flammable weeds, habitat fragmentation and other human-caused factors." Lead ammunition Protecting the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on and in federal lands and waters is a priority of hunting and gun clubs. A provision in the new funding law blocks any of the money it distributes from being used to "regulate the lead content of ammunition, ammunition components, or fishing tackle" under the Toxic Substances Control Act. The Union of Concerned Scientists, the American Bird Conservancy and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonpartisan group, petitioned the Interior Department in November to ban lead ammunition and fishing tackle from national parks. Lead threatens birds and fish when it enters the food chain, ultimately killing or contaminating wildlife species, they said. In 2009, the National Park Service began a campaign to ban lead from parks before scrapping it, although some parks ended the use of lead in culls and other NPS sites stopped selling fishing tackle with lead in it. California began to phase out lead ammunition in state parks in 2019, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in September that it would phase out lead-based ammunition and tackle in 18 refuges, citing health risks for humans and animals. One measure in the new law blocks steps to "promulgate or implement" new federal rules that require permits to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, water vapor or methane emissions from cattle. And another provision halts any steps to report greenhouse gas emissions from "manure management systems." 2023 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The site of Aguada Fenix, viewing east. Credit: Takeshi Inomata A trio of researchers from the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the University of Arizona, and Colgate University has found examples of Mesoamerican structures aligned for use as a 260-day calendar, built thousands of years ago along Mexico's gulf coast. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Ivan Sprajc, Takeshi Inomata and Anthony Aveni describe how aircraft-based LIDAR allowed them to see the alignment of the ancient structures. They also discuss how these structures could have been used by ancient cultures. Prior research has shown that ancient people living in Mesoamerica had developed and used a 260-day calendar as far back as 300 to 200 B.C. The written evidence was found on plaster mural fragments. The site of El Macabil. Credit: Takeshi Inomata But since that discovery, researchers have suspected that such a calendar had been developed long before the people using it developed a means of writing it down. In this new effort, the researchers found evidence of such a calendar made thousands of years earlier using large structures. The work involved pointing LIDAR equipment at the ground from an airplane flying above Mexico's gulf coast. The researchers observed the remains of 415 ceremonial complexes built by Olmec or Mayan people. Analysis of the structures showed that they were aligned in ways that noted the rising and setting of celestial bodies on certain days represented in a 260-day calendar. They noted that most of the angles of the complexes were aligned east to west, which would have corresponded to the rising and setting of celestial objects such as the sun. The structures have been dated to between 1100 B.C. and 250 A.D. The site of Buenavista on the day of sunrise alignment. Credit: Takeshi Inomata Ancient peoples belonging to the Olmec society lived in parts of Mesoamerica as far back as 3,500 years ago. Prior research has found that after the decline of the Olmec society, the Mayan culture developed. Inscriptions and documents made by the Mayans described a 260-day calendar. Having such a calendar, the researchers note, would have allowed ancient people to plan rituals as well as to coordinate farming activities. They note also that some modern Maya communities still use the 260-day calendar. Excavations at Aguada Fenix. Credit: Takeshi Inomata More information: Ivan Sprajc et al, Origins of Mesoamerican astronomy and calendar: Evidence from the Olmec and Maya regions, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq7675 Journal information: Science Advances 2023 Science X Network This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: CC0 Public Domain Working with one of the world's preeminent thermoelectric materials researchers, a team of researchers in the Clemson Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Clemson Nanomaterials Institute (CNI) has developed a new, fool-proof method to evaluate thermoelectric materials. Department of Physics and Astronomy Research Assistant Professor Sriparna Bhattacharya, Engineer Herbert Behlow, and CNI Founding Director Apparao Rao collaborated with world-renowned researcher H. J. Goldsmid, professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, to create a one-stop method for evaluating the efficiency of thermoelectric materials. Goldsmid is considered by many to be the "father of thermoelectrics" for his pioneering work in thermoelectric materials. Bhattacharya first connected with Goldsmid on LinkedIn, telling him she had confirmed one of his theoretical predictions during her graduate studies at Clemson University. Later, Bhattacharya shared a paper she wrote with Rao after she joined his research group. Goldsmid mentioned to her that he had a new method in mind for studying thermoelectrics and shared his one-page theory with her. He was 89 years old at the time and enthusiastically started collaborating with the CNI researchers because he considered Bhattacharya part of his own research "family." Thermoelectric materials use a temperature gradient (DT) to generate electricity. They can be used for power generation by converting heat to electricity (Seebeck method) or refrigeration by converting electricity to cooling (Peltier method). Thermoelectric materials are used in applications ranging from NASA space missions to seat warmers and coolers in vehicles. The efficiency of thermoelectric materials is measured by a figure-of-merit, or zT, which considers the material's temperature, electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity. The traditional method of determining zT requires two measurements using different sets of equipment, something that sometimes causes researchers to report incorrect results. In other words, researchers sometimes mistakenly measure electrical conductivity (charge flow) and thermal conductivity (heat flow) along different directions in their sample when it is switched from one instrument to the other. Peltier cooling had not been used previously for evaluating zT because of a high DT , or the maximum achievable difference in temperature between the cold junction and ambient. "We used thermocouples containing a metal and a semiconductor junction to reduce the DT to a much narrower range so that the temperature dependent zT may be determined with a higher resolution," Behlow said. "The idea to use a metal and a semiconductor to reduce DT was hidden in plain sight until Professor Goldsmid recognized this was the case and proposed this new method for measuring zT," Behlow added. "The experimental setup we developed at CNI (with the help of the Department of Physics and Astronomy Instrument Shop) to test Professor Goldsmid's theory ensures that the charge flow and the heat flow are measured in the same direction in the sample," Rao said. "Therefore, by design, our method provides accurate zT." Isabel Rancu, a high school student at the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics, also contributed to the study. Rancu, who worked with the team through Clemson's Summer Program for Research Interns, independently verified the model calculations reported by Behlow. The bismuth telluride sample used in the study was synthesized by Department of Physics and Astronomy Senior Lecturer Pooja Puneet as part of her doctoral research. The UNSW-Clemson study titled "Thermoelectric figure-of-merit from Peltier cooling" was published in November in the Journal of Applied Physics. It was selected as an "editor's pick," which the team regards as a tribute to Goldsmid. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Language policy in Canada suggests misunderstanding among government officials and the general public about language use, international language rights and their implications. Credit: Shutterstock In August 2022, Statistics Canada released the latest census data on languages in Canada. According to the data, over nine million peopleor one in four Canadianshas a mother tongue other than English or French (a record high since the 1901 census). Twelve percent of Canadians speak a language other than English or French at home. Statistics Canada observes that the country's linguistic diversity will likely continue to grow into the future. Yet, recent developments in language policy and practices in Canada reveal that there is confusion and misunderstanding among government officials and the general public about language use, international language rights and their implications. In Canada, there must be greater understanding of the cultural and linguistic rights of minorities. According to universally accepted human rights, persons belonging to majorities and minorities should have equal rights. Minorities are entitled to equal conditions and services to enable them to maintain their identity, culture and language. The 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a human rights treaty to which Canada is a party, provides that "In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language." The 1992 UN Declaration on Minorities clarifies and expands on this treaty provision. It stipulates that UN member states should enact legislative and other measures to protect minority identities. Confusing words Two words are often confused in Canada: integration and assimilation. When speaking about immigrants and refugees, Canadian law's stated objective is integration. And the default framework for integration is the majority culture and language. Non-anglophone and non-francophone immigrants are expected to adapt and conform to the Canadian way of doing things, learn Canadian history, celebrate Canadian holidays and speak in one or both of Canada's official languages. But these languages reflect the cultures of Canada's two historically dominant groups. For many Indigenous people and immigrants, histories, holidays and languages differ from the majority of Canadians. Involuntary assimilation is prohibited under international law. This is a colonialist and imperialist practice which ultimately forces people to alter or surrender their identity, culture and dissolve into the majority. Canada's notorious residential schools were one of the harshest examples of such assimilationist policies. Other essentially assimilationist practices continue to this day. For example, the law states that provinces must provide education to English or French-speaking minorities in their own language. But there is no similar legislation for Indigenous languages, nor for those spoken by people who immigrate from all around the world. These policies will increasingly conflict with growing diversity as Canada seeks to welcome 1.5 million immigrants over the next three years. A street sign in the English and Inuit languages at Pond Inlet on Baffin Island, Nvt. Credit: Shutterstock In contrast, integration is based on recognition of diversity. Integration is a two-way process through which minorities and majorities learn about and engage with each other's cultures and languages. While maintaining their own distinctiveness, majority and minority groups contribute to shared foundations and institutions of the society out of common interest and for mutual benefit. This is important for the many individuals who possess multiple or overlapping identities. In 2012, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, of which Canada is a participating state, released Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies, in which it explained: "Integration is a process that requires that all members of a given society accept common public institutions and have a shared sense of belonging to a common State and an inclusive society. This does not exclude the possibility of distinct identities, which are constantly evolving, multiple and contextual. Mechanisms aiming at mutual accommodation are essential to negotiate the legitimate claims put forward by different groups or communities." Integration requires accommodation of diversity. It also means that governments should invest proportionally in the promotion of majority and minority cultures and languages with a view to facilitating full lives in dignity and equal rights for everyone. This requires more than token support for cultural activities such as traditional food and dance. There is also confusion around the issue of minority language status. In Canada there is a common belief that the only minority language(s) entitled to protection are the ones with official or other recognized status. But according to international human rights principles, all minority cultures and languages should be protected regardless of whether they hold "official" status. This means that the languages of Indigenous Peoples as well as of other people living in Canada should be acknowledged and facilitated. This is essential for their well-being and for genuine equality in rights. Not a zero-sum game Genuine integration should respect and promote diversity in the languages used in various contexts of public life. This does not necessarily require changing the number and status of official languages; it's not a zero-sum game. But it does require adjusting language policies to reconcile with existing realities in reasonable and meaningful ways. The aim is real and effective equality. Technological innovations (such as easily accessible real-time translation) make this more possible and cost-effective than ever. In order to live together peacefully and embrace diversity, Canadians need to understand that languages are not just a means of technical communication, but are often at the core of people's identity and culture. Taking away a person's language often amounts to taking away their sense of self, dignity and community belonging. It also suppresses the remarkable linguistic assets that Canada possesses. Building a Canadian nation through assimilation of minorities in the face of increasing diversity only generates social tensions and conflicts. It is not democracy, it is majoritarianism. It is contrary to fundamental human rights and signals social regression rather than progress. Instead, Canada should foster a forward-looking, human-centered and dynamic society that embraces diversity, multiculturalism and multilingualism. This is to our advantage. Canada's rich linguistic diversity is an asset that should be valued. We must cast off the old colonialist thinking and seize the rich possibilities that are at hand. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Lights brighten the night sky in this image of Europe, including Poland, taken from the International Space Station. Aboard the orbiting laboratory is NASAs OCO-3, an instrument that can be used for tracking carbon dioxide emission changes at a local scale. Credit: NASA A case study involving Europe's largest coal-fired power plant shows space-based observations can be used to track carbon dioxide emissionsand reductionsat the source. The paper is published in the journal Frontiers in Remote Sensing. A duo of Earth-observing missions has enabled researchers to detect and track carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission changes from a single facility, using the world's fifth-largest coal-fired power plant as a test case. In the recent study, researchers used space-based measurements from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 2 and 3 missions to quantify the carbon dioxide discharged hundreds of miles below at Bechatow Power Station in Poland, the largest single emitter in Europe. Analyzing the plant's emission plumes from several satellite overpasses between 2017 and 2022, they detected changes in carbon dioxide levels that were consistent with hourly fluctuations in electricity generation. Temporary and permanent unit shutdowns (for maintenance or decommissioning) reduced the plant's overall emissions, which the team was able to detect as well. The findings demonstrate that space-based observations can be used to track carbon dioxide emission changes at a local scale, the scientists said. Launched in 2014, NASA's OCO-2 satellite maps natural and human-made (anthropogenic) carbon dioxide emissions on scales ranging from regions to continents. The instrument samples the gas indirectly by measuring the intensity of sunlight reflected off Earth's surface and absorbed by carbon dioxide in the column of air from the ground to the satellite. OCO-2's spectrometers are tuned to detect the specific signature of CO 2 gas. This illustration shows NASAs OCO-2 satellite, launched in 2014. As it orbits Earth, the spacecraft maps natural and human-made carbon dioxide emissions on scales ranging from regions to continents. Light-analyzing spectrometers are tuned to detect the telltale signature of the gas. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Spare components from that mission were used to create OCO-3, an instrument that has flown on the International Space Station since 2019. OCO-3 was designed with a mapping mode that can make multiple sweeping observations as the space station passes over an area, allowing researchers to create detailed mini-maps from a city-scale area of interest. Neither OCO instrument was originally designed specifically to detect emissions from individual facilities such as Bechatow, so the new findings are a "pleasant surprise," said Abhishek Chatterjee, project scientist for the OCO-3 mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "As a community we are refining the tools and techniques to be able to extract more information from the data than what we had originally planned," he added. "We are learning that we can actually understand a lot more about anthropogenic emissions than what we had previously expected." Tracking carbon into the future Emissions from large facilities such as power plants and refineries account for about half of global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. Bechatow Power Station, in operation since 1988, is the largest lignite-fired power plant in the world, with a reported capacity of 5,102 megawatts. Lignite (brown coal) typically leads to higher emissions per megawatt generated than anthracite (hard coal). The Polish government has drafted plans to close the plant by the end of 2036. This illustration shows NASAs OCO-3 mounted on the underside of the International Space Station. The instrument, launched in 2019, was not originally designed to detect carbon dioxide emissions from individual facilities but scientists said it will be used for more point-source studies in the future. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Ray Nassar, a senior researcher at Environment and Climate Change Canada and the study's lead author, noted that most carbon dioxide emissions reports are created from estimates or data collected at the land surface. Researchers account for the mass of fossil fuels purchased and used, then calculate the expected emissions; they generally do not make actual atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements. "The finer details about exactly when and where emissions occur are often not available," Nassar said. "Providing a more detailed picture of carbon dioxide emissions could help to track the effectiveness of policies to reduce emissions. Our approach with OCO-2 and OCO-3 can be applied to more power plants or modified for carbon dioxide emissions from cities or countries." Because of the mapping mode observations of OCO-3, NASA data could be used more extensively in quantifying CO 2 point-source emissions in the future. NASA recently announced that mission operations will be extended for several more years aboard the space station, and the instrument will operate alongside another greenhouse gas observer aboard the space station, the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT). "It is really exciting to think that we will get another five to six years of operations with OCO-3," Chatterjee said. "We are seeing that making measurements at the right time and at the right scale is critical." He added that OCO-3 can serve as a "pathfinder" for next-generation satellite missions. More information: Ray Nassar et al, Tracking CO2 emission reductions from space: A case study at Europe's largest fossil fuel power plant, Frontiers in Remote Sensing (2022). DOI: 10.3389/frsen.2022.1028240 Journal information: Frontiers in Remote Sensing This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: A trio of faint objects (circled) captured in the James Webb Space Telescope's deep image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 exhibit properties remarkably similar to rare, small galaxies called green peas found much closer to home. The cluster's mass makes it a gravitational lens, which both magnifies and distorts the appearance of background galaxies. We view these early peas as they existed when the universe was about 5% its current age of 13.8 billion years. The farthest pea, at left, contains just 2% the oxygen abundance of a galaxy like our own and might be the most chemically primitive galaxy yet identified. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI A new analysis of distant galaxies imaged by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shows that they are extremely young and share some remarkable similarities to "green peas," a rare class of small galaxies in our cosmic backyard. "With detailed chemical fingerprints of these early galaxies, we see that they include what might be the most primitive galaxy identified so far. At the same time, we can connect these galaxies from the dawn of the universe to similar ones nearby, which we can study in much greater detail," said James Rhoads, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who presented the findings at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle. A paper describing the results, led by Rhoads, was published Jan. 3 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Green pea galaxies were discovered and named in 2009 by volunteers taking part in Galaxy Zoo, a project where citizen scientists help classify galaxies in images, starting with those from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Peas stood out as small, round, unresolved dots with a distinctly green shade, a consequence of both the colors assigned to different filters in the survey's composite images and a property of the galaxies themselves. Green pea galaxy colors are unusual because a sizable fraction of their light comes from brightly glowing gas clouds. The gases emit light at specific wavelengthsunlike stars, which produce a rainbow-like spectrum of continuous color. Peas are also quite compact, typically only about 5,000 light-years across, or about 5% the size of our Milky Way galaxy. A green pea galaxy imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is shown alongside an infrared picture of an early pea captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. At left is J122051+491255, a green pea about 170 million light-years away that's about 4,000 light-years across, a typical size. At right is an early pea known as 04590, whose light has taken 13.1 billion years to reach us. Compensating for the cluster's gravitational lensing effect and the galaxy's greater distance to us, 04590 is even more compact, comparable to the smallest nearby green peas. Credit: SDSS and NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI "Peas may be small, but their star formation activity is unusually intense for their size, so they produce bright ultraviolet light," said Keunho Kim, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cincinnati and a member of the analysis team. "Thanks to ultraviolet images of green peas from Hubble and ground-based research on early star-forming galaxies, it's clear that they both share this property." In July 2022, NASA and its partners in the Webb mission released the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe yet seen, capturing thousands of galaxies in and behind a cluster known as SMACS 0723. The cluster's mass makes it a gravitational lens, which both magnifies and distorts the appearance of background galaxies. Among the faintest galaxies behind the cluster was a trio of compact infrared objects that looked like they could be distant relatives of green peas. The most distant of these three galaxies was magnified by about 10 times, providing a significant assist from nature on top of the telescope's unprecedented capabilities. Webb did more than image the clusterits Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument also captured the spectra of selected galaxies in the scene. When Rhoads and his colleagues examined these measurements and corrected them for the wavelength stretch resulting from the expansion of space, they saw characteristic features emitted by oxygen, hydrogen, and neon line up in a stunning resemblance to those seen from nearby green peas. Additionally, the Webb spectra made it possible to measure the amount of oxygen in these cosmic dawn galaxies for the first time. As stars produce energy, they transmute lighter elements like hydrogen and helium into heavier ones. When stars explode or lose their outer layers at the ends of their lives, these heavier elements become incorporated into the gas that forms the next stellar generations, and the process continues. Over cosmic history, stars have steadily enriched the universe. The James Webb Space Telescopes Near-Infrared Spectrograph captured the chemical fingerprints of selected galaxies behind SMACS 0723, including three faint, distant objects. When corrected for the wavelength stretch caused by the expansion of space over billions of years, the spectra of these galaxies (shown in red) exhibit features emitted by oxygen, hydrogen, and neon that show a stunning resemblance to those seen from so-called green pea galaxies found nearby (in green). Additionally, the Webb observations made it possible to measure the amount of oxygen in these cosmic dawn galaxies for the first time. The spectral lines have been stretched vertically in order to clarify these relationships. Credit: NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center/Rhoads et al. 2023 Two of the Webb galaxies contain oxygen at about 20% of the level in our Milky Way. They resemble typical green peas, which nevertheless make up less than 0.1% of the nearby galaxies observed by the Sloan survey. The third galaxy studied is even more unusual. "We're seeing these objects as they existed up to 13.1 billion years ago, when the universe was about 5% its current age," said Goddard researcher Sangeeta Malhotra. "And we see that they are young galaxies in every sensefull of young stars and glowing gas that contains few chemical products recycled from earlier stars. Indeed, one of them contains just 2% the oxygen of a galaxy like our own and might be the most chemically primitive galaxy yet identified." NIRSpec was built for ESA (European Space Agency) by Airbus Industries. Its array of nearly half a million microshutterstiny doors that can be opened or closed to admit or block lightallow it to capture spectra of up to 100 individual objects at a time. The microshutter array and detector subsystems were fabricated by NASA. More information: James E. Rhoads et al, Finding Peas in the Early Universe with JWST, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2023). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acaaaf Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: (A) Representative HPLC chromatogram of an A. cruentus extract (PI 566897) using the analysis method described by Cai et al. (2001a). Example normalized chromatograms of PI 608761 (A. tricolor), Garnet Red (A. cruentus), PI 689689 (A. cruentus), and an extract of store-bought red beet (Beta vulgaris) are shown in (B) to emphasize the relatively minor scale of compositional differences between amaranth cultivars and, in contrast, their substantial differences in comparison to betanin-dominant beet extracts. Credit: Frontiers in Plant Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.932440 Artificial food dyes have been linked to multiple health concerns, including hyperactivity in children, allergies, and certain cancers. The science isn't settled and the Food and Drug Administration says color additives are safe, but consumers are nonetheless clamoring for natural alternatives. Recent University of Illinois research shows amaranth plants are a good source of red pigments called betalains, which could be used in a wider variety of food applications than other plant-derived pigments. The study, published in Frontiers in Plant Science, quantified betalain content in 48 amaranth varieties, providing the food industry with multiple promising candidates for future product development. "Our paper serves as a global survey of vegetable amaranth to determine the diversity in hue, concentration, and chemical structure of magenta-red color compounds. It also provides methodology for accurate and high-throughput color quantification. This information builds a strong basis for additional work to investigate commercial scale-up and color performance in food applications," says lead author Jay Howard, who completed the study as a master's student in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U of I. Howard is now applications manager at Kalsec Inc. The researchers selected four dozen amaranth varieties from the USDA National Plant Germplasm System, representing a full spectrum of foliage coloration from deep burgundy to lime green. They grew the plants in a greenhouse and extracted pigments from stem and leaf tissue using a simple water method, in accordance with FDA guidelines. Then they fed the extracts through lab equipment to discover which betalain pigments were most prevalent. "We developed a chemical profile for each extract, looking at the ratio of dominant pigments. Some of the minor components, which are co-extracted in the water method, may contribute to the color and stability of the main pigments. These properties are very interesting for food companies, because you might get a very bright pink or red color, but then if it fades to brown after a day, it's useless. We found that, for some of our plants, the extracts were stable over days or even weeks. We're planning to follow up with more research on that," says study co-author Chance Riggins, research assistant professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at ACES. Most food companies currently source betalains as a co-product from red beet production, but Riggins says beet-derived pigments have some drawbacks. "Beets are off-putting for some people. Those earthy flavor compounds often get transferred in a basic betalain extract. So, food companies are really open to natural food colorants from alternative sources and doing it in a way that could extend applications for different food products," he says. The researchers did a basic taste and color test by mixing up a Kool-Aid-type concoction with their amaranth extracts. "A few were slightly reminiscent of beets, but mostly we couldn't smell or taste anything," Riggins says. For a few amaranth varieties in the study, the betalain extracts appeared bluer than the bright reds from beets. With further research, the unique color could fill a gap in the available portfolio of natural colorants. Another plus? Amaranths are famously tough and can grow in less-than-pristine conditions. Betalains, along with anthocyanins and other pigments, allow amaranths to handle environmental stress, acting as antioxidants and repairing cellular damage due to drought, heat, or intense solar exposure. But the researchers don't expect amaranth plantations to start popping up on weedy roadsides across the U.S., at least not solely for betalain production. "I don't think amaranth is ever going to be a crop strictly grown for pigmentation; there aren't many crops like that. But amaranth is already approved by the FDA for food use, and under those guidelines could be approved as a natural food colorant," Riggins says. "Amaranth is mainly grown commercially for the seeds, often for gluten-free applications, but there's a lot of biomass wasted from the seed harvest. Our data suggests the pigment could be a value-added product down the line." Howard adds, "The shift from synthetic ingredients requires a diverse toolkit of natural options so that the food industry can match the color hue and stability of synthetic colors at an effective cost-in-use. Amaranth is an exciting crop that addresses each of these pointsit is a scalable, resilient, antioxidant-rich crop with impressive biomass yields. Unlike red beets, the current sole commercial source of betalains, vegetable amaranth also provides green chlorophylls and yellow carotenoids that provide additional hues. These added byproducts enable lower costs and greater sustainability." The study extends a longstanding research theme in the College of ACES that investigates natural food compounds as colorants and health promoters. For example, as an undergraduate, Howard got involved in the purple corn project to identify rich sources of anthocyanin pigments in purple and blue corn varieties. College faculty, especially those in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and the Division of Nutritional Sciences, are also actively pursuing bioactive compounds for human health. More information: Jay E. Howard et al, Amaranth as a natural food colorant source: Survey of germplasm and optimization of extraction methods for betalain pigments, Frontiers in Plant Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.932440 Journal information: Frontiers in Plant Science This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The Orion space capsule from Artemis I has come full circle, having launched from Kennedy Space Center, traveled 1.4 million miles in space and around the moon, splashed back down to Earth in the Pacific Ocean, and now journeyed 2,500 miles over land for its return to Florida. After Orion was recovered at sea on Dec. 11, it made its way to Naval Base San Diego before heading by truck to arrive at KSC on Dec. 30. It now sits at NASA's Multi Payload Processing Facility, still sealed tight from its celestial journey. The passengers have been waiting patiently to get out of the capsule. Since they're just mannequins, though, they can wait a little longer. The most human-looking of the three, named Commander Moonikin Campos in deference to the late Arturo Campos who helped NASA bring the Apollo 13 crew safely back to Earth, was joined by two partial-body mannequins named Zohar and Helga. Their presence will help NASA determine just what sort of radiation levels and other flight stresses humans will face during the first crewed flight of Orion on Artemis II. Teams will also analyze Orion's heat shield that endured nearly 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit on reentry traveling at 24,500 mph, the fastest any human-rated spacecraft has ever returned to Earth. During an end-of-year senior leadership event, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he's most looking forward to "accelerating Artemis II into next year, but it's going to take a while to get those avionics out of Artemis I, get them retested and recertified, and in '24, we will do what we've been looking forward to doing for a long time." Artemis II plans to send four crew members on an orbital mission to the moon expected to last about eight days. The mission is still officially on NASA's docket to fly as early as May 2024, although leadership signaled that it expected more of a two-year turnaround from when Artemis I finished its mission, which would mean a launch closer to the end of next year. NASA officials have said the names of the four astronauts is likely to come this spring. Already announced is that one of the four will be from Canada. Already parked at KSC's Operations and Checkout facility is their ridethe crew capsule for Artemis II as well as the European Service Module that provides the majority of Orion's power. They await all the sundry parts of the Space Launch System rocket to arrive this year for an eventual stacking in the Vehicle Assembly Building. Boeing, the core stage main contractor, is putting the final touches for the Artemis II core stage at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. "We are prepping Core Stage 2 for the integration of the engine section," the company said in an emailed statement. "From there, we will attach the four RS-25 engines and perform final testing before our targeted delivery of the integrated core stage to NASA's Kennedy Space Center by mid-year." The segments for the two solid rocket boosters from Northrop Grumman await travel by train from Utah and are just awaiting the call from NASA before shipment. Combined, the core stage and solid rocket boosters made the SLS for Artemis I the most powerful rocket to ever successfully achieve orbit generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust and sending the uncrewed Orion capsule on its multiweek mission to the moon. While the Orion crew capsule for Artemis II has been at KSC for some time, it awaits the transfer of some parts that flew on Artemis I. including avionic components for guidance navigation and control, radio communications antennas and transponders as well as the video processing unit. Since it's flying with living, breathing passengers this time, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to sign off on environmental control and life support systems before flight. Reuse on the Orion capsules will increase from mission to mission across the Artemis program in an effort by Orion contractor Lockheed Martin to reduce costs. The human factor also requires NASA to enhance the launch site for the next SLS rocket. NASA's Exploration Ground Systems team based at KSC already has the mobile launcher used on Artemis I back at the VAB, and work needs to be done on Launch Pad 39-B to build out an emergency exit system and install a new liquid hydrogen tank. "We have a comprehensive plan for Artemis I through V, hardware in production all around the world, and multibillion-dollar procurements in work, all enabling us to tell a story of what we are doing to build a long-term presence at the moon," said NASA's Jim Free, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. It won't be until Artemis III scheduled for no earlier than 2025 that NASA will attempt to return humans, including the first woman, to the surface of the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. NASA then wants to fly at least one Artemis mission a year. "Artemis is no longer hardware at the launch pad and being on a path to the moon is no longer plans on paper. It is here and it is now," Free said. 2023 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The 2019 ozone hole. Credit: NASA In rare good news for the environment, a UN report confirmed Monday that the hole in the ozone layer that had been threatening Earth since the 1980s is shrinking. The discovery of a large hole in the gaseous shield that protects life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation triggered global alarm and action. AFP looks back at how policymakers, scientists and industry worked together to plug the hole: 1975-84: hole above Antarctic Between 1975 and 1984, British geophysicist Joseph Farman conducts research using weather balloons that reveals a gradual and worrying drop in the ozone layer in the stratosphere above the Halley Bay scientific base in the Antarctic. This "hole", which habitually appears during the southern hemisphere spring, complements the findings of two University of California chemists, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland. They had argued back in 1974 that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), widely used in refrigeration and in hairspray and other aerosols, are depleting the ozone layer. The two researchers win the 1995 Nobel chemistry prize for their research. 1985: first treaty In March 1985, 28 countries sign up to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, the first international treaty on the issue, which commits members to monitoring ozone depletion and its effects on human health and the environment. The United States, which had banned the use of CFCs in aerosols in 1978, ratifies the convention in 1986. 1987: landmark protocol The Vienna accord paves the way for the landmark Montreal Protocol two years later, which sets targets for phasing out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances. Initially signed by 24 countries and the then European Economic Community (now EU) it is eventially ratified by all UN members, making it one of the most successful environmental treaties ever. It aims to slash by half the use of CFCs and halon gases (widely used in fire extinguishers) over 10 years. In late 1987, after scientists reveal the hole over the Antarctic has gotten even bigger, the big chemical firms agree to develop less harmful alternatives to CFCs. 1989: crater over the Arctic In early 1989, a thinned area is also detected in the ozone layer over the Arctic. In 1990, the Montreal Protocol is strengthened to end production of CFCs in industrialised countries by the end of 2000. Rich countries also agree to help poorer countries meet the costs of complying with the Protocol. A year later, China joins the accord. India joins in 1992. 1995: HCFCs By late 1995, the European Union has totally banned CFCs and begun eliminating replacement gases called HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons, used in refrigeration and air-conditioning) which both deplete the ozone and are powerful greenhouse gases. At a conference that December, industrialised countries agree to ban HCFCs by 2020. 2006: record hole The biggest ever hole seen in the ozone layer over the Antarctic is recorded in late September 2006. In September 2007, a historic accord is reached in Montreal to advance by 10 years to 2030 the elimination of HCFCs by developing states. 2016: gap closing In June 2016, US and UK researchers write in Science magazine that the hole over the Antarctic is shrinking. They expect it to completely heal by 2050. 2023: recovery within four decades On January 9, 2023 the UN announces that the ozone layer is on track to fully recover within four decades. But it warns controversial geo-engineering schemes to blunt global warming could reverse that progress. 2023 AFP This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Speciesism places Homo sapiens at the top of a hierarchy that is often used to justify sacrificing other animals, plants, fungi and microbes for the benefit of humanity. A different perspective is needed to ensure the survival of Earth's ecosystem and ultimately humans themselves, a new book argues. Credit: Brian Swartz, UC Berkeley With the world's population topping 8 billion last year, it's clear that humans have achieved a unique status in Earth's history. We are the only creature that dominate all other organisms on the planet, from animals and fungi to plants and microbes. It remains to be seen whether humans can retain this dominance as we push the global climate to extremes while driving to extinction the very organisms that we climbed over to get to the top. In a new book, a group of scientists and philosophers places part of the blame on an attitude prevalent among scientists and the general publicthe false belief that species are uniquely real, and that some species are superior to others. To the researchers, this is analogous to racismthe fallacious belief that races exist as branches on the tree of life, and that some races are superior to others. ""People these days are very conscious of how evil it is for one group of people to think that they're superior to another race, and yet the same people who are very woke about that are perfectly happy to say, well, humans are in charge of everything, so the rest of the world is ours to use as we see fit," said Brent Mishler, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-editor and co-author of the book with UC Berkeley Ph.D. recipient and former postdoctoral fellow Brian Swartz. "The two preceptsthat species are uniquely real and that one or more are superior to otherscascade into how humans see themselves and how we behave on this planet," said Swartz, who is also affiliated with the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere at Stanford University. "Our cultural and biological manifestations flow from this worldview and snowball to affect how we interact with other forms of life, the physical world and other people." In the new book, Swartz, Mishler and nine other contributors argue that speciesismthe belief that species are real and that humans are the superior species"leads to behavior that challenges our future on this planet." They instead urge humans to remove themselves from their pedestal and treat all creatures as they would members of the human family by valuing and protecting their lives and habitats. "The way I put it to my students is that it's like we're a huge, diverse family living in the same house, which is Earth, and we need to get along. Not just the human family. We're talking about everythingplants, animals and bacteria. What one does stresses another," said Mishler, an evolutionary biologist who is director of the University and Jepson Herbaria at UC Berkeley. "We're not arguing that humans are not important. We're just saying they're only one of many of the life forms at the tips of the tree of life." The book, Speciesism in Biology and Culture: How Human Exceptionalism is Pushing Planetary Boundaries, was published this month as an open access eBook by Springer, an imprint of Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Dominionism The attitude that humans are at the top of the heap has been with us for millennia. In the Bible, God urges man in Genesis to "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." In one of the new book's chapters, "Species, God, and Dominion," philosopher of science John Wilkins of the University of Melbourne in Australia argues that the concept of species derives from religion and philosophy, not from any empirical or scientific need. As such, it remains politically important for the religious movement known as dominionism and ultimately impacts environmentalist and conservation politics in the United States and worldwide. "Having a 'theoretical' notion of species is inimical to science and polity," Wilkins wrote. "It is not needed, as it retains much of its original essentialistic religious origins and emphasizes human exceptionalism to the detriment of ecological stewardship." Though dominionism is only one interpretation of the Bible, the concept became codified when Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, considered the father of modern taxonomy, and others established a hierarchy or ranking system of life on Earth, with species as the smallest grouping. He lumped species into larger and larger unitsgenus, family, order, class and kingdombased on shared physical characteristics. HumansHomo sapiens in Linnaeus's binomial system, grouped within the hominid family, primate order, mammalian class and animal kingdomwere presumed the pinnacle of God's creation within a ladder-like scale of nature, what the ancient Greeks called a scala naturae. Charles Darwin arguably took God out of the equation, as well as the ladder. The hierarchy evolved into the tree of life, where the tips of each twig represent a living creature and the branches that support them represent extinct ancestorslineages that descend from common ancestors shared by all life on Earth. Mishler has argued for decades against considering individual species as the most important grouping, particularly when discussing conservation. He laid out his arguments in a 2021 book, What, If Anything, Are Species? (CRC Press), in which he proposed getting rid of taxonomic rankings altogether, including the binomial system for naming species that is used universally today. One key reason is that species distinctions are not equivalent across all branches on the tree of life. Bacteria that look identical may vary as much genetically as a dog from a cat, while some birds that live in totally different areas and look different can be nearly identical genetically. On the other hand, lineagesthe sequence of organisms that have evolved from one another over millions of yearsare consistent across all forms of life. "Evidence shows that a species of amoeba does not mean the same thing as a species of fungus, animal or anything," Swartz said. "And if species are not uniquely real, then where does that leave us? Is there anything that means the same thing across the tree of life? The answer to that question is: lineages. These are branches on the tree of life that maintain genealogical connections across time and space. They include children, or descendants, and their parents, or ancestors, on through animals broadly and their distant relatives. Lineages are branches across the tree of life." Throwing out the concept of species would eliminate the artificial dividing line that helps justify the belief that some species are more important. Instead, the authors maintain that humans are just one part of a genealogy connecting all living things. This interconnectedness forms an ecological web that sustains the planet and us, and that deserves to be protected equally with humans. "Every living thing is related to every other living thing. The only issue is: How far back do you have to go until you hit a common ancestor?" Mishler said. "Humans are certainly important, but we're just one of millions of these lineages, all of which have equal importance. We should at least be mindful of when we have to destroy some of the lineagesthat is, eat other living thingsin order to live." Mishler goes one step further, arguing that lineages should be respectednot for how they can benefit humans, but intrinsically, as part of the web of life. He detests the term "ecosystem services," which implies that the natural world exists to service humanity. "Healthy ecosystems benefit everybody, from humans to any other lineage connected to them," Swartz noted. Sex: too much or too little The authors point out that the standard definition of a species is a population that cannot breed with closely related populations. But Mishler said this definition is muddied by the fact that there is often wide variation within a breeding population; sometimes two separate species can and do successfully interbreed, and some species don't breed at all. "Alan Templeton summarized it most succinctly: The trouble with species is too little sex and too much sex," he said. "There are asexual groups that don't do sex at all, but still have lineages. And then there are plants, like the orchid, which can just about be crossed with every other orchid, yet they're bizarrely different from each other. So, reproductive compatibility, while a nice idea, just doesn't work empirically." Species also can evolve because they get separated geographically or ecologically, not because of an inability to breed. A more natural grouping is by lineageancestor-descendant pairs connected across timeor by clade, which consists of all the descendants of a creature. "These ancestor-descendant pairs mean the same thing, irrespective of whether you are talking about a lineage of bacteria, amoeba, mammal or anything else," Swartz said. "Contrariwise, the species level or any other level in traditional classification is inequivalent. They are arbitrary cross sections across the tree of life. Species are human constructs." Yet, when scientists and conservationists talk about saving animals from extinction, they inevitably talk about species, Mishler said. Lineages and clades share many genes that contribute to a living thing's ability to adapt. Species alone do not capture that genetic diversity. Speciesism akin to racism More insidious is the common belief that some speciesor even lineagesare superior to others. This has led to prioritizing humans and human culture over everything else and accepting that ecosystems and life within them should be destroyed to make way for humans. But perceived superiority depends on your perspective, Swartz said. "Eagles have far better vision than humans, and bats are more maneuverable than any human-made machine. Adaptation is to the prevailing environment, which makes it hard to argue that whole organisms are ubiquitously and objectively superior to others. The world constantly changes, and the ultimate punchline is that we are all simply different," he said. "Those differences don't necessarily correspond to superiority. They correspond to biology and extensions of biologyculturethat are adapted to the environment of the moment." Yet, viewing humans as superior has consequences not unlike viewing one race as superior to others. "To complete the analogy, races are to racism as species are to speciesism," Swartz said. "We know the landscape of race and racism, especially when people think that races are branches on the human tree of life, and that one race is superior. The same parallels play out with species and speciesism. How you view yourself and what you think is real will impact your behavior. This is the historical and psychological reality that undergirds our present moment." Swartz and Mishler acknowledge that this means, ultimately, that eating animals poses philosophical challenges. While humans can harvest parts of plants, and those parts regenerate, this is not true of domestic animals. "Humanity is at an inflection point with its growth and technology curves, and we are reinventing agriculture at the cellular level. The implication is that we will soon be able to grow food for the masses in environmental, ethical and culturally appropriate ways that will turn the horrors of factory farming into the days of yesteryear," Swartz said. "This obviously makes vegans happy, but stepping beyond the ideology, it also makes happy the researchers, entrepreneurs and policy experts who are looking to manage global issues like climate change, food security, the future of energy and the future of humanity itself." The authors are not expecting to change engrained attitudes overnight, but they hope to make people think about the implications of speciesism for the planet, not just for humanity. "What we're grappling with in the book is, if we take a broader view of family, where all of life is our family, then how do we deal with that?" Mishler said. "We've still got to live. We've still got to eat. But can we be more mindful of everybody else, all of our relatives, and try to do it in such a way that it doesn't destroy what our relatives need to do to make their living." The book emerged from a seminar series at UC Berkeley in 2012-13 titled "Speciesism and the future of humanity: biology, culture, sociopolitics," which was supported by a Sawyer Seminar Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The foundation also funded the book's open-access publication. More information: Speciesism in Biology and Culture: How Human Exceptionalism is Pushing Planetary Boundaries, link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-99031-2 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the temporal evolution process of plasmonic vortices with the same topological charge generated by different couplers. (a-c) Sample 1 introduces only the geometric phase through varying the orientation angles of the slit resonators. (d-f) Sample 2 introduces both geometric phase and propagation phase through varying the radial position of slit-pairs. Credit: Opto-Electronic Advances (2022). DOI: 10.29026/oea.2023.220133 A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances discusses tailoring spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices. A plasmonic vortex is an optical field distribution with topological features formed by interfering surface plasmons, which enriches the class of vortex phenomena in nature. Due to their special orbital angular momentum feature in the evanescent field region, plasmonic vortices hold great promises for many cutting-edge applications, such as plasmonic tweezers for microparticle manipulations and on-chip quantum information processing. The generation methods and evolution dynamics of plasmonic vortices have thus elicited great research enthusiasm in the last decade, which have provided many insights into the nature of plasmonic vortex and rapidly promoted the related applications forward. For plasmonic vortex generation, the most common method is constructing special couplers and utilizing the design degrees of freedoms of propagation phase and geometric phase to convert circularly polarized light carrying spin angular momentum into on-chip plasmonic vortex. Despite the sole or combined use of propagation and geometric phase can all achieve plasmonic vortex of target topological charge, the actual differences of their spatiotemporal dynamics have remained unexplored. For characterization methods, the currently used photoemission electron microscopy and nonlinear near-field optical microscopy are limited by the probing principle and optical systems, thus can hardly obtain the exact evolution dynamics. The research documented by this article mainly focused on the objective characterization of plasmonic vortex and the subjectively tailoring of its spatiotemporal dynamics for specific applications has not been achieved. The research group from Tianjin University, Guilin University of Electronic Technology and authors of this article propose a new method to tailor the spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices. It is demonstrated that the plasmonic vortices with the same topological charge can be endowed with distinct spatiotemporal dynamics by simply changing the coupler design (Fig 1). The full amplitude and phase information of surface plasmons fields and the exact evolution dynamics with ultrahigh temporal resolution were directly obtained based on a near-field scanning terahertz microscopy. Fig 2. Schematics of designed structures and corresponding numerical results. Coupler design and corresponding intensity fields and phase distributions for Sample 1 (a-c) and Sample 2 (d-f). Snapshots of the normalized amplitude field (g, i) and absolute amplitude value extracted on the target orbit (h, j) for Sample 1 and Sample 2, respectively. Credit: Opto-Electronic Advances (2022). DOI: 10.29026/oea.2023.220133 Based on the orthogonal slit-pairs, the group designed two plasmonic vortex couplers to generate plasmonic vortices with the same topological charge (l = 4). By introducing different propagation phase and geometric phase, the spatiotemporal dynamics of generated plasmonic vortices can be totally different. In order to numerically reveal the processes of the formation, revolution and decay stages in the lifetime of plasmonic vortex, the group generalized the 2D Huygens-Fresnel principle to time-domain and obtained the time-resolved snapshots of the plasmonic vortices field distributions (Fig 2). Although two couplers' performances in frequency domain are similar, in terms of intensity and phase distributions, the spatiotemporal dynamics of the two plasmonic vortices have distinct characteristics. As depicted in the figures, the surface plasmon fields reach and decay simultaneously (Sample 1) or successively (Sample 2) at the same revolution orbit, which corresponds to the uniformity or decomposition of the carried orbital angular momentum in spatiotemporal distribution. The results based on near-field scanning terahertz microscopy revealed the exact spatiotemporal evolution dynamics of plasmonic vortices with ultrahigh resolution (~1/66 of the optical-cycle at center frequency), and experimentally verified the feasibility of tailoring plasmonic orbital angular momentum in time-domain based on different plasmonic vortex coupler designs. This research on the distinct generation and evolution behaviors of plasmonic vortices is of great importance for the practical applications related to time-varying characteristics. The manipulation of orbital angular momentum in both spatial and temporal dimensions will provide a new design degree of freedom and higher precision for plasmonic tweezers and on-chip information processing. In addition, the proposed strategy is general and can be directly applied to the infrared and visible regimes, providing a new approach to explore more intrinsic nature and potential applications of plasmonic vortices. More information: Xinyao Yuan et al, Tailoring spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices, Opto-Electronic Advances (2022). DOI: 10.29026/oea.2023.220133 Provided by Compuscript Ltd This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Over the past year, the U.S. has intensely focused on returning to pre-pandemic "normal." As many embrace their prior lives, many voices are missing and being ignored in the national conversation. What about those who were permanently impacted by COVID-19? When COVID-19 first emerged, it was believed to be the "great equalizer"an equal threat to all Americans and the world. However, the pandemic proved to be a "great amplifier" of existing racial disparities and inequities among Black youth and families. The root cause? Structural racism. Black youth and families disproportionately experienced significantly higher rates of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. Black Americans were over twice as likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and more likely to die from COVID-19 when compared to white Americans, despite being only 13 percent of the population. Black youth were also twice as likely to lose a caregiver compared to white children. Black youth are still struggling with the psychological distress, grief, and loss of social support related to these losses. Not only have Black youth been more likely to experience loss and grief, but my research has found that constant exposure to news coverage of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black communities is linked to increased anxiety about losing loved ones. Furthermore, Black youth also experienced racial trauma related to racialized police violence, such as the murders of George Floyd, Sandra Bland, and Ahmaud Arbery. These experiences have exacerbated the mental health crisis brewing before the pandemic. Since the 2000s, the suicide rate among Black youth has been increasing faster than any other racial/ethnic group, and the pandemic significantly increased Black youths' reports of anxiety and depression. Because of the systematic under-resourcing of Black communities, there are few accessible, affordable, and high-quality mental health supports and services available to support Black youth and families. In addition to mental health, other aspects of Black youths' development were affected. Black youth were more likely to have inadequate access to technology and experience loss of instruction when remote learning was the norm, resulting in significant losses in learning. One third of Black families with children experienced three or more simultaneous economic and health-related adversities during the pandemic, such as unemployment, financial instability, and food insecurity. Despite the evidence that racial disparities and inequities worsened during the pandemic, little is being done to address their deleterious effects on Black youth and families. We know that racial disparities and inequitiesand their root cause, racismsignificantly increase the risks for negative developmental and adult outcomes among Black youth. What steps need to be taken to ensure Black youth and families thrive? Janelle Jones, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, proposed the Black Women Best framework. She argues that policies, systems, and institutions addressing the impact of the pandemic should center Black women, who experience significant harm due to structural racisma harm now exacerbated by the pandemic. By eliminating structural barriers, inequities, and disparities that prevent Black women from thriving, we can become an inclusive society that results in widespread prosperity for everyone, regardless of race. This framework applies to Black youth, too. During the pandemic, we have demonstrated the ability and capacity to implement policies that address the negative effects of COVID-19 on Black youth and families. For example, the child tax credit expansion of 2021, which provided monthly allowances to families, reduced child poverty by 30 percent. It not only kept 737,000 Black youth from poverty, but also 163,000 Asian children, 1.4 million Latino children, and 1.4 million white children. Providing long-term federal and state financial support to families with childrensuch as ensuring the minimum wage is a living wage, providing paid sick leave, and providing free or affordable high-quality childcare to reduce employment disruptionscan help Black families meet their basic needs and thrive financially. Local policies that provide job training and guidance to youth would increase the number of employed Black youth, such as the city of Boston's Summer Learn & Earn Program, where young people from under-resourced communities earn money while taking college-level courses and a virtual internship. Moving toward a universal health care system and significantly investing in mental health services in Black communities would increase the accessibility, availability, and quality of health services for Black families, and provide mental health support for Black youth. In addition, policymakers should implement fair tax strategies to fund public schools equitably instead of the current geographically based tax revenue, which leads to the underfunding of schools in Black communities. School-based health centers and training for educators to help Black students cope with the caregiver and family loss, pandemic stresses, and racial trauma can help youth thrive. By centering those living with permanent effects of the pandemic and by implementing policies that address racial inequities exacerbated by COVID-19, we can create a new normal in our society that allows Black youth and families to thrive. Related research is published in the journal Social Policy Report. More information: Erin Bogan et al, "Wearing a Mask Won't Protect Us from Our History": The Impact of COVID19 on Black Children and Families, Social Policy Report (2022). DOI: 10.1002/sop2.23 ATLANTIC CITY A beached whale was examined and buried in the sand Sunday morning. It was the second whale to come ashore in the city in the last month. While the event drew an audience, the phenomenon is perhaps a symptom of a multi-year phenomenon high death event currently facing the marine mammal. The whale was stranded off Mississippi Avenue on the beach fronting Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall. Dozens came and stood on the sand and dunes over the approximately five hours crews were working, watching them dissect and dispose of the corpse. A bulldozer was driven onto the beach to dig the whale its grave and bury the sea creature. The most common observation made by passersby was the pungent smell of the whales corpse. The whale, a female humpback, was about 10 yards long and described as a sub-adult. Experts on the site hoped to collect the samples to help determine the cause of death. The team examined the whales superficial features as well as its internal organs and stomach contents. Lawrence Perez came to the shore with his wife, Selina Dixon, and children Lathan, who turns 9 Tuesday; and Lamar, 10. The family had heard about the beached whale on the news and decided to make the 1-hour trip from Willingboro, Burlington County to make sight of the whale in person. Ive never seen anything like this before, Dixon said. Its amazing, and it stinks really bad, but its amazing. Linsie Abshire, of Smithville in Galloway Township, said she learned of the whale from a friend. It was her first time seeing a beached whale, and she brought her two children, Max, 5, and Miles, 4, who are both homeschooled, to learn biology up close. What better science than to see this? Abshire said. Big and nasty The event was an opportunity for plenty of other young people. Curtis and Colin Smith, 16 and 14, had come down from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, to the shore with their grandmother for the weekend. Their aunt told them about the whale. Its very cool. I havent really seen a whale before, a beached one, Curtis Smith said. It smells like a dead fish, Colin Smith added. Glenn Villamor, a Navy veteran living in Galloway, said he saw live whales during his time in the service, although it was his first time seeing one on the beach. He said he missed the beached whale in the summer in North Wildwood and was determined to bring his daughter, Crystal, and great grandchildren, Bella and Jovanni Corkery, to see the creature Sunday. Bella offered an apt description of what she saw. Its really big and nasty, Bella Corkery said. The beached whale was first reported to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine at around 8 a.m. Saturday. Stranding Center Director Sheila Dean said the organization came to the scene soon afterward to measure it and collect preliminary samples, which are important to get as soon as possible. It was towed from the point where it had washed up to a point farther up the beach. The Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, of New York, joined the Stranding Center on Sunday. There were also a multitude of local, state and federal agencies on the scene, including the Atlantic City Fire Department and Office of Emergency Management; the Division of Fish & Wildlife at the state Department of Environmental Protection; and federal law enforcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Dean said it was common in her experience to have such agencies at multiple levels of government responding to a beached whale. The burial itself was a gory spectacle. Workers flayed sections of the sea creature, taking knives to hack off skin and collect samples for analysis. The cutting soon escalated to evisceration, with blood dripping off equipment and some innards spilling out onto the sand. The bulldozer yanked and battered the whale corpse, nearly pulverizing it, and placing it into its grave piecemeal. The air grew heavier with the corpses stench, forcing some onlookers to retreat from the scene or cover their noses. Some of the spectators had more experience with the process. Leah Marks, a veterinarian from Philadelphia, came to scene. She had previously volunteered to help with a whale necropsy near Asbury Park when she was in veterinarian school, describing it as a powerful experience. Andrea Denish, of Ventnor, is a biology teacher. She said a friend sent her a picture of the whale washed ashore Saturday, and Denish later read an article about it. I didnt believe it, I thought it was a joke, Denish said. I wanted to see it for myself, and I love sea life, so this is something I really wanted to do. Her husband, Adam Denish, is a veterinarian. While he does not specialize in marine life, he said he found the situation intriguing and said he was eager to learn more about the investigation into the whales cause of death. To some extent, its curiosity, but also being a veterinarian its interesting to see how they handle this situation, Adam Denish said. In the zoo world, when an animal passes away, we always do a necropsy to find out the cause of death, and its very important to find out, is this something that is related to other events that have happened in the area? Is it related to a traumatic event? Is it related to disease? A concerning trend That question is currently taking on critical importance. While saying there was a large variance in the number of beached whales each year, Dean said humpback whales on the East Coast are experiencing an extraordinary spike in deaths referred to as an unusual mortality event, or UME. A page on the NOAA website indicates that the UME traces it has been occurring since 2016. The NOAA said more research is needed to determine the cause of the UME. They want to find out whats going on, Dean said of the multitude of investigators on site. Why are we losing so many humpback whales? The beached whale Sunday was the second that the city has experienced in as many weeks. Another humpback whale, of similar size, washed ashore Dec. 23. A humpback whale also was found ashore in North Wildwood in July. Shari Smith and her husband, Jonah, emphasized the importance of the whale population and the collective responsibility to care for the environment. Inspired by her daughter, a wildlife biologist, Shari Smith said she felt people had a humanitarian duty to show compassion for the animals and tend to the environment. She added it was important for researchers to identify what is driving the exceptional number of whale deaths and appreciated their efforts on Sunday. Shari and Jonah Smith related their attendance Sunday to their activism protesting planned windmills off the coast of Atlantic City, arguing that the clean-energy source could hurt sea life. (Windfarm developers active in the state have said they are working with state and national wildlife advocacy groups to prepare their designs and protect local fauna.) We all need to take an interest in whats happening, Shari Smith said. These beautiful creatures are our responsibility, so we need to come down and respect them. Dean, of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, said it could take months to obtain results from the necropsy and identify a cause of death. She cautioned that answers might not be forthcoming. Sometimes, you never find out, Dean said. The U.S. remains in the midst of an ever-worsening drug overdose crisis. Because prescription opioids drove its earlier phases, the nation responded by drastically reducing access to those drugs with prescriptions dropping by nearly 50% over the last decade. But its now clear that approach was ineffective at combating overdoses, and it left many patients with painful medical conditions stranded. Overdose deaths have continued to soar even as fewer opioids have been prescribed. More dangerous drugs filled the gap: At least two-thirds of overdose deaths are now tied to synthetic opioids, mostly fentanyl, a powerful black market opioid. Meanwhile, physicians have had to balance the risk of criminal prosecution for prescribing opioids against their responsibility to treat patients pain. Yet there is promising news amid the nations cycle of failed attempts to tackle the crisis. Two key shifts in federal policy hint that the pendulum is beginning to swing back toward more access to opioids for patients who need them. The first is opioid prescribing guidelines that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated recently. They undo a controversial feature of the agencys 2016 guidance: the cap on opioids at 90 morphine milligram equivalents, or MME, per day. Although this number was never meant to serve as a hard line, law enforcement, regulators and health care providers widely interpreted it as one. The problem is that some patients need more than that amount. The validity of using any MME metric has also come under fire. Recent studies show that there is no universal standard for calculating appropriate MME, and methods to determine cutoffs vary widely; a patient who is considered high risk for overdose or addiction when evaluated using one method could be undertreated according to another. But these arbitrary standards changed the landscape. Following the 2016 guidelines, insurance companies began to deny payment for pain management above 90 MME. Physicians faced a climate of mounting fear: Although U.S. law allows physicians to prescribe opioid medications for legitimate medical purposes, that definition grew more contentious. Law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, cited the 90 MME limit in investigations. While some doctors were financially incentivized to overprescribe opioids, others caught scrutiny simply for providing relief to patients in debilitating pain. After taking higher doses for years, many patients were rapidly tapered under the limit, no matter how painful their health condition was. Some were cut off entirely, unable to find a doctor still willing to prescribe for their chronic pain. Since then, extensive research has shown that some health care providers were inappropriately reducing opioid prescriptions even for cancer, palliative and end-of-life patients, who were supposed to be exempt from limits. Tragically, recent studies found that chronic pain patients who are rapidly tapered off opioids have high rates of suicide and overdose, as people turn to desperate measures for pain relief, including seeking illicit street opioids. In a step forward for treatment, new CDC guidelines avoid emphasizing specific thresholds. Recognizing the harms of excessive tapering and limits, they instead discuss ranges of dosages appropriate for different conditions and highlight the need for doctors to use their clinical judgment for each patient. The other major shift on opioids was the June Supreme Court ruling in Ruan vs. United States making it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to prosecute doctors for prescribing painkillers. The decision raises the bar for criminal convictions, requiring that prosecutors prove that physicians knowingly or intentionally prescribed opioids inappropriately, not just that their practices deviated from government-defined standards. This will help give doctors more legal cover to treat pain as they see fit. These shifts are early signs that the tides are beginning to turn back toward more access to opioids for patients who need them. But achieving that access will not be easy. Physician willingness to prescribe opioids is a cultural phenomenon. Doctors have reduced their level of opioid prescribing not just from fear of prosecution but also based on trends in the field. Seminars, institutional guidelines and professional organization statements over the last decade have instilled the idea that prescribing opioids is something to be avoided. Prescription opioids also remain an enemy in the public consciousness. Although the drugs have been overtaken by black market fentanyl in the overdose crisis, lawsuits against opioid manufacturers continue to command a disproportionate amount of big-swing prosecutorial attention. Of course, companies that deceptively promoted opioids in unsafe ways should be held accountable. But lawsuits against them do nothing to address the current fentanyl crisis, and they may give the false impression that prescription opioids still dominate the overdose problem. Changing these narratives will take time. Similarly, it is not automatic that the Drug Enforcement Administration, other law enforcement, state governments or billing and insurance companies will change their protocols in line with the new CDC prescription guidance. Tangible improvements for pain patients probably will happen over years, rather than days or months. They will also require attention to deep disparities in pain care and treatment access. My colleagues and I found in a 2019 study that opioid prescription rates in California varied by 300% based on neighborhood income and racial composition (with predominantly white neighborhoods being most likely to receive opioids and other controlled substances). This reminds us that medical guidelines are not neutral and need an intentional focus on equity to be implemented fairly. Nonetheless, advocates, physicians and researchers working toward the goal of adequate pain treatment have cause for optimism. The question now is how readily doctors, insurance companies and law enforcement will respect the wisdom of current scientific evidence and legal standards. Joseph Friedman is a substance use researcher at UCLA who studies the overdose crisis. An employee works at an automobile company in Yuyao, east China's Zhejiang Province, Jan. 5, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua] The year 2022 was unique and extraordinarily difficult for China's economy, but the nation ultimately overcame huge challenges. The Chinese economy demonstrated strong resilience and potential by surviving shocks even more severe than anticipated. The Central Economic Work Conference recently concluded in China. The conference, often considered the nation's high-level discourse on economics, policy initiatives, and government priorities, examined state affairs in 2022 and charted China's course for 2023. The conference stressed strengthening coordination and cooperation of various policies to create a joint force to promote the country's high-quality development in 2023. The conference ordered the organization of policies in the five major sectors of finance, currency, industry, science and technology, and society. It called for increased macro-policy regulatory oversight, strengthened coordination and cooperation of various policies, and creation of a joint force to boost high-quality development. Coordination and integration of monetary and fiscal policies are deemed essential to ensure that the economy operates within a reasonable range. A number of 2023 budget funds were recently released by the central government, covering employment, senior care, rural revitalization, and agriculture. It also stressed better coordination between epidemic response and economic and social development, between qualitative and quantitative growth, between supply-side structural reform and domestic demand expansion, as well as between economic policies and other policies. To foster a new development paradigm, the endogenous dynamics and reliability of domestic circulation should be strengthened, while the quality of international circulation should be elevated. The conference also identified the need to handle current work well and at the same time take future development into consideration. Regarding science and technology policies, China planned to implement a variety of large-scale national research and development projects, emphasizing the crucial role of businesses in technological innovation while fully recognizing the significance of the government in directing work on technological breakthroughs at central and critical points. Significant growth in the Chinese economy is anticipated in 2023, and many are looking for a swift recovery just around the corner. China will start a fresh phase of real economic growth. Numerous opportunities for the nation to actively develop the greener future have emerged, including addition of renewable energy generation capacity, increased environmentally-friendly and cost-effective coal usage, accelerated growth of new-energy vehicles, and increased issuance of green bonds and policies. People will move around more easily as China's anti-COVID measures improve, and all economic and social activities will hasten their recovery pace in the new year. Movement of individuals and goods will become easier, and the rebound of all facets of social and commercial activities will accelerate with the enhancement of China's anti-COVID measures, which together will effectively boost the economy. Gyirong port in southwestern China's Tibet Autonomous Region bordering Nepal has seen rising traffic since the government optimized epidemic response. The first batch of imported goods from Nepal was delivered to China via the Gyirong port on December 28, 2022, the first time since it closed on March 23, 2020. The port's exports were restored in July 2020, providing much-needed goods to the Nepali market, but imports didn't resume until December. According to Lhasa Customs, the Gyirong port has imported 38.7 tons of goods from Nepal with a value of 825,800 yuan ($119,824) since its full resumption, and exported 42,400 tons of Chinese goods with a value of nearly 1.63 billion yuan ($240 million) from January to November 2022. China's economic growth has picked up as a result of continually improved measures for pandemic prevention and control and progressive release of outcomes of various practices to stabilize the economy. China has already increased efforts to enact policies and follow-up measures to stabilize the economy, with solid progress made in designing policy-oriented financial instruments, issuing unique loans for updating equipment, offering subsidized loans, and expanding medium- and long-term loans for the manufacturing sector. Policies to expand effective demand and promote structural optimization have been introduced and implemented. According to real emerging needs, new initiatives and policies will be introduced over the course of 2023 to actively foster economic growth and recovery. The international community is also optimistic about China's prospects for economic growth. China needs to increase foreign trade and investment cooperation in 2023 to stimulate growth. The nation plans to work harder to use foreign capital, facilitate market access, encourage opening up of modern service industries, and expand domestic treatment to foreign-funded businesses. Overall, the Chinese economy has demonstrated strong resilience and potential by withstanding the impact of shocks beyond expectations. Development quality has steadily improved while employment and pricing trends have largely remained stable. China's economy has been a force for maintaining global stability in an unsettling international environment. It has progressed while maintaining stability and upholding sound long-term fundamentals, ushering in a new stage of high-quality development and creating chances for the global economy to emerge from the mire to a new day of better development. The author is chairman of the Nepal China Friendship Forum, a visiting scholar at Kathmandu University, managing director of Nepal AOE Tourism Company, and a member of the board of directors of Vidhyut Utpadan Company Limited. After a year that included the allocation of millions in American Rescue Plan Act dollars, a new taxing district and economic-development projects, Rock Island is forging ahead on long-term growth, the mayor said. Mayor Mike Thoms on Monday delivered his annual State of the City address, focusing on community partnerships and investments. He highlighted investments in downtown revitalization, the allocation of $26.5 million in ARPA funds and a budget that keeps property taxes flat while containing a surplus of $1.8 million in reserve. "We continue to forge a path forward that uses these partnerships to improve our economy, spur new development, grow our population and invest in long-term growth," Thoms said. In partnership with the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce, the city secured a $3 million grant in August through the Rebuild Illinois Downtowns and Main Streets Capital program that will go into a $7 million reinvestment in downtown revitalization. The city also is using $2.5 million in ARPA funds and $1.5 million in tax increment financing district funds. After months of deliberation, the council passed an ordinance in December 2022 to establish a downtown Special Services Area. Property owners in the SSA will pay an additional 1.15% that will then be used to enhance and maintain the downtown. Downtown Rock Island Director Jack Cullen told the Quad-City Times/Dispatch-Argus, with the investments in downtown, a synergy is being created that will set the area up for success. "Downtown is the heart and soul of the community," Cullen said. "When the downtown thrives, the city thrives." Negotiations on management of the SSA are underway with the Chamber. The city allocated $26.5 million in ARPA funds that will be used to support businesses, road maintenance, public safety, new citywide software and capital-improvement projects. Allocations include $1 million for road repairs, $2.2 million for new citywide software, $1.2 million for a portion of the demolition of the downtown parking garage next to City Hall and a new parking lot in its place. Council members also approved a five-year Capital Improvement Plan that invests $20 million on various projects funded by ARPA, gaming tax, the general fund, TIF funds and other taxes. Projects include $3.5 million in the road and street improvements and $2.1 million for the resurfacing of 31st Avenue from Rock Island-Milan Parkway to 11th Street. Thoms also highlighted the city's partnership with the Development Association of Rock Island, known as DARI, and how there were 89 new expansion and business-attraction projects, 509 business engagements and 18 ribbon-cuttings. Sixth Ward Alderman Mark Poulos said he was eager to see the progress continue. "I've been out talking to businesses, trying to get them to bring more restaurants into Rock Island and at least connect the people to our downtown advisers," Poulos said. Other highlights included the purchase of eight snowplows and two ambulances, the partnership with Augustana College to provide services related to the development of Lead Service Line inventory, housing rehabilitation projects and others that currently are under construction. SPRINGFIELD Two months after an affirming reelection victory, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was sworn in for his second term Monday afternoon, offering a reflection on governing through unprecedented times the past four years while promising an ambitious and bold agenda in the next four. Pritzker in broad strokes outlined a second-term vision that includes universal preschool, tuition-free college for working class people and support for an amendment to the state constitution that would protect abortion rights. So today, as Illinois continues its progress overcoming our historical fiscal challenges and a deadly global pandemic, I come to you with an agenda as ambitious and bold as our people are, thinking not only about the next four years, but about the next 40, Pritzker said. Pritzker and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton were inaugurated along with Treasurer Mike Frerichs, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Comptroller Susana Mendoza and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, all Democrats. Members of the Illinois General Assembly will be sworn in for their new terms in two separate ceremonies on Wednesday. But Monday was Pritzkers day. The billionaire incumbent, joined by his wife MK and their two children, was sworn in by Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis just after 12 p.m. on a stage adorned with blue and yellow lights the color scheme of his campaign at the Bank of Springfield Center in Illinois capital city. Pritzker, who oversaw a remarkably active period of legislating in his first term that included a minimum wage increase, recreational marijuana legalization and landmark clean energy legislation, offered a glimpse at his second term policy goals in his 30-minute address. Though he only spoke briefly on the topic, Pritzker called for Illinois to enact "a constitutional protection for reproductive rights" in the state. Pritzker and Democrats in the legislature have been aggressive in protecting and expanding Illinois' status as a haven for abortion rights in in the Midwest. Much like the amendment approved by Illinois voters in 2022 enshrining the right to unionize and collectively bargain, a constitutional amendment for abortion would likely not change existing policy, but would prevent future governors and legislators from enacting restrictions. It would take a supermajority in the legislature to place on the 2024 ballot. It would then need either 60% of those who voted on the question or 50% of all ballots cast to be approved. Illinois Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, denounced Pritzker's call in a statement issued Monday afternoon. "His pro-abortion legacy is, in practice, harming women and depriving unborn children of an opportunity at life," said Mary Kate Zander, the group's executive director. "This may be politically expedient for Governor Pritzker today, but it wont age well. Lawmakers are currently considering an omnibus reproductive health bill that would, among other provisions, allow advanced practice clinicians such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants to perform in-clinic abortions and prevent doctors from losing their licenses to practice in Illinois if it is revoked in another state for performing healthcare services that are legal in Illinois. More broadly, Pritzker then focused on education. Saying its time for Illinois to lead, Pritzker proposed that the state go all in for our children and make preschool available to every family throughout the state. He also called for the elimination of child care deserts and expanding options throughout the state. He did not offer specifics. The governor also called for making college tuition-free for every working-class family, the need to keep making healthcare more affordable and his desire to work towards more permanent tax relief. In perhaps an implicit defense of signing a capital construction program into law that doubled the states gas tax in 2019, Pritzker said that improving our roads has saved hundreds of dollars a year for drivers. While not getting into the granular detail on these long-term ambitions, Pritzker was far more specific about an immediate priority: making Illinois the ninth state to enact an assault weapons ban. Im a firm believer that government functions best when we look for compromise, Pritzker said. "But Im done with the NRA having its way when it comes to mass shootings. With the governor present in the chamber, a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines passed the House late last week. But it has temporarily stalled amid a dispute between House and Senate Democrats. A Senate proposal that dropped Sunday afternoon was dismissed by Pritzker as legislation that falls short of meeting the moment because it did not include language that would require gun owners who have weapons that are grandfathered in to register their serial numbers with the Illinois State Police. A second Senate proposal that emerged Monday appeared to include the serial number language after pressure from Pritzker, House Speaker Chris Welch, D-Hillside, and gun safety advocates. It passed 34-20, with the governor and Democratic legislative leaders heralding it as "one of the strongest assault weapons bans in the country." It will likely be considered in the House on Tuesday. Pritzker at times channeled history, comparing the world weariness that Illinois Gov. Dwight Green, a Republican, must have felt while giving his second inaugural address in January 1945 the waning days of WWII to the feeling of loss he has experienced leading through the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 18,601 Illinoisans were killed in WWII while 35,814 have died from COVID-19. As governor, its your job to plan for the future, even as you continue to grapple with the past, Pritzker said. Thats a lesson tucked into Gov. Greens second inaugural speech, which, while filled with somber remembrance, also set a second-term agenda for post-war Illinois even before the war ended. Unlike his fiery victory speech on election night, Pritzker did not mention former President Donald Trump's name once during his inaugural address, but said there has been "a rise in intolerance and fascism throughout the United States." Pritzker closed by addressing "a rising tide of hate" in the country. "Ive realized that for my entire lifetime, progress has been made against bigotry and intolerance," Pritzker said. "But not anymore. None of us should ignore that our nation has slid noticeably backward, and dangerously so." Pritzker said that "old evils must be faced head on yet again by a new generation." Also sworn in Wednesday was Giannoulias, the former state treasurer who succeeds former Secretary of State Jesse White, who retired after holding the office for 24 years. Frerichs enters his third term as state treasurer; Mendoza, who won a special election in 2016, begins her second full term; and Raoul begins his second term. NOTEBOOK Apart from the larger goals and accomplishments, here are some other moments from Gov. J.B. Pritzker's second inaugural address. DUAL MEANINGS: The governor opened his inauguration speech with a lighthearted nod to his critics. He said he felt "concerned" by the "Fire Pritzker" yard signs he saw while campaigning, until his kids said that young people use the phrase "thats fire" to describe things they think are cool. "So I want to take this moment to thank everyone who put up those very encouraging signs," he said. DUBIOUS ROLE MODELS: Pritzker said he had taken to learning from the words and actions of past governors, though "lets be honest, in Illinois, choosing which ones to learn from can be a challenge." TAYLORVILLE: Speaking of the resilience of Illinoisans, Pritzker referred to the tornado that struck Taylorville on Dec. 1, 2018. The families of Taylorville didnt give up when a tornado wiped out 100 homes and 22 people were injured, he said. They helped each other out and the community came together to rebuild. ILLINOIS VS. HATE: "Hate needs two things to thrive: the sense of helplessness that fertilizes hopelessness and the willingness of powerful people to cower in front of a lie," Pritzker said in the closing moments of his speech. "Illinois, we have power and we have hope and a genuine goodness that is rooted in being the place in this country to which all people can come and live free." Photos: Pritzker sworn in for second term With enough money to begin construction in the spring, the long-planned Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Davenport is becoming a reality. The nonprofit Friends of MLK raised $1.1 million from state and local grants and private donors to complete the park, including a state tourism grant that sealed the deal. Friends Board Chair and CEO Ryan Saddler expects construction to begin this spring and wrap up this summer. "With the $1.1 million we will have the park as a usable space for history of our area, not just Black history, but ethnic and cultural history," Saddler said. The concept for the park includes standing displays for exhibits that provide historical context and education and can be changed for specific programming and events. The plaza area will also feature a stage and lawn for community events and classes. "We'll look at the Davenport civil rights movement and how African Americans moved through slavery will be two key features of the park," Saddler said. The Friends of MLK was originally started as a task force in 2014 by then-Mayor Bill Gluba and Pastor Rogers Kirk. The pair wanted to find a way to honor King, who spoke in Davenport in April 1965 when he received the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award from the Diocese of Davenports Catholic Interracial Council. In 2021, Davenport pledged a $500,000 grant, using federal American Rescue Plan Act funds and signed a long-term lease with Friends of MLK for the plaza. In spring 2022, the Friends group secured grants from the county, the Regional Development Authority, and the Scott County Regional Authority. The group finalized construction documents and requested bids from construction companies. Support came from other ways, too. Ascentra Credit Union donated fees to cover the architectural design for the park. But the Friends group was a few hundred thousand dollars short of being able to begin building later that year. Saddler went to the Board of Supervisors, who pledged to match $20,000 to apply for a state tourism grant. In December, the state awarded a $219,840 Enhance Iowa Grant through its Community Attraction and Tourism program, closing the gap to start construction. "This is a great thing for the city," Mayor Mike Matson said Wednesday. The group still is accepting donations to cover elements of the park that Saddler said had to be taken out to meet the budget. "I'm just ecstatic," he said of the progress, thanking donors to the park. Learn more about the Friends of MLK here and donate to the park's building fund here. Former U.S. Congresswoman Cheri Bustos worked hard for residents in District 17 and addressed the needs of the area well. A strong communicator, she was accessible to her constituents. The former journalist at the Quad-City Times served five terms in Congress and stepped down this year after deciding not to run for re-election in 2022. Bustos spent much of her time here in Illinois listening to and working for constituents. One of the ways she connected with her district was through Cheri-on-Shift, where she met with business owners and employees throughout the 17th District and got a sense of what it was like to work those jobs. Among the jobs, she spot-welded, drove a forklift and processed carp from the Mississippi River during 120 Cheri-on-Shift visits. Bustos was proud to be named the top Democrat office in the House and Senate in delivering constituent services. That designation came from the Congressional Leadership Foundation. That honor tracks with what we've seen during her tenure in Congress. Bustos, who served on the appropriations committee, lists as her top accomplishment bringing home funding for needed projects. Among her list of accomplishments was returning $55.7 million to the district during the 117th Congress for community project funding. Some notable projects during her tenure include: $829 million to update locks and dams, delivering $172 million for programming at the Rock Island Arsenal and a $24 million grant for East Moline's downtown revitalization project. One of her proudest moments was on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress returned to certify the results of the election after the attack on the Capitol. As the mob breached the Capitol and moved toward the House floor that day, Bustos and her colleagues, wearing gas masks, were evacuated. "They were trying to kill us," Bustos recalled. After the rioters were cleared out, the House members returned through the mess and vandalism to session and voted to certify the 2020 election results. One of the aspects we appreciated about Bustos was that she was seldom partisan and nearly always practical. Bustos considers herself a moderate and a part of the new Democratic coalition. Illinois residents deserve a representative who will serve them rather than a political party. Toward that end, she sponsored a bill to end forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Now, forced arbitration agreements in any contract are voided if a claim is brought. This bill, signed into law by President Joe Biden, was supported by 113 Republicans. We thank Cheri Bustos for her service and wish her well in future endeavors. Flash There's a dearth of foreign visitors at Jim Thompson Farm, a reopening getaway tourist spot three hours' drive away from Bangkok, despite the weather cooling and festive bells tolling. Open for only six weeks of the year, the farm attracts visitors with its stunning flower fields and cultural experiences. However, the farm remains a hidden gem for foreign visitors though the country has been fully open to international travelers since last July. "Visitors are fewer than before. It's inspiring to hear about Chinese tourists returning in the near future. Just bring your friends here to experience a farm tour," says Nui, a vendor selling coffee at the farm who has been so excited since hearing someone speak in Chinese after three years' absence of Chinese tourists. Chinese tourists accounted for almost one-third of Thailand's nearly 40 million foreign visitors in 2019. The country's tourism sector applauded the announcement from the Chinese government that it will scrap quarantine for travelers on Sunday. A festive mood boosted by the news of Chinese tourists' return has hit the tourism-reliant country. Most of the country's tourism spots have been equipped with Chinese signs. In a historical park about 270 kilometers northeast of Bangkok, signs written in English and Chinese and QR codes for audio introductions are seen at every corner. "Phimai Historical Park features some of the best preserved Khmer temples in Thailand. Although it's a less-traveled destination for Chinese tourists, we believe that there must be a niche group who may be delighted in the rich culture and long for less touristy encounters here. All we have to do is to be well-prepared for their return," says Phon, a guide at the park. Thailand's tourism body expects about 300,000 tourists from China to visit Thailand in the first quarter of the year after China reopens its border. "The first batch of Chinese tourists will probably arrive in mid-January. We will have to figure out the labor shortage, including hotel staff, drivers and Chinese-speaking tour guides. Moreover, a negative PCR test result is required within 48 hours before departure for Chinese tourists when they return to China. So we need to help arrange testing points and facilitate hospitals to work on this," says Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. "The tourism sector is gearing up for the return of Chinese tourists." He says the first visitors are mostly individuals who have booked flights and hotels online and made their itineraries using travel apps. "Beaches and dining remain their favorite activities. In this new chapter, we would like to promote exclusive tour packages in the northeast region, the less-trampled corner of Thailand filled with natural beauty and authentic Thainess," says the TAT governor, adding that the authority will propose to related bodies not to introduce restrictions on Chinese tourists. The authority governor's quote is echoed by Mak, a tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok who has been struggling to earn his living since the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic. After parking his tuk-tuk on an empty road in front of the grand palace on New Year's Eve, the bored driver kicked his heels waiting for passengers. "There seems to be a glimmer of hope when Thailand opened to foreign tourists in July, yet the full recovery still has a long way to go. It costs about 500 baht (about $14) a day for me to rent the car and pay for the gas, but sometimes I only get one or two rides a day," Mak says. "We are looking forward to the return of Chinese tourists. They bring hope for an economic boom. We miss the once-bustling Bangkok, with an influx of cheerful tourists." A good sit is what its all about. Whether for entertaining, lounging or yes, even couch surfing at a friends, comfort and fit add up to what u-fab interiors owner Travis Hamilton calls a good sit. And Younger Furniture brand provides just that. u-fab carries this North Carolina brand, which is known for high-quality craftsmanship made by hand that lasts for decades. Especially after the last few years of spending more pandemic days in our homes than out, people are looking for that extra bit of comfort and coziness in their furniture, Hamilton says. And add to that a greater emphasis on quality at a good price point, people are realizing that buying a good piece of furniture makes a huge difference when you are actually using it a lot. Hamilton says each staple, nail and stitch of every Younger Furniture sofa, chair and ottoman is made by a craftsman using materials sourced within 85 miles of its Thomasville factory, from the wood for the frames to the springs, foam and legs. The wood even comes from forests certified by the Sustainable Forest Initiative, and all foam is CertiPUR certified. The individual craftsman working on each piece adds their signature to the tag on the finished product. Its that personal, Hamilton says. People can come into our u-fab showroom, touch, sit and swivel in our sofas and chairs everything we have on the floor. And its an individual, personal experience, because every Younger piece of furniture we offer can be tweaked to fit the needs of the shopper. No two pieces ordered are ever the same. The Younger family refers to it as a one-to-one ratio. You design it, a craftsman builds it. Its that simple. Various sizes and shapes of the pieces can be designed with fluctuations in rails, cushion styles, leg finishes, detailing, sectional configurations, tailoring and fabric. Four different types of arms named after the four seasons are also an option. These include the spring slope up, summer small track, fall flair arm and winter wide track. Each piece even has a unique name such as Lucy, Mellow, Muse, Slim and Poppy, among many others. Younger, a family-owned furniture company, responds quickly to feedback from u-fab shoppers in terms of new trends, fabrics and colors. Hamilton says one of these includes the switch to more down alternative options for those customers who want the feel of down but not the maintenance or deterioration that comes with the down feathers. Customers today are gravitating toward comfy sectionals and swivel chairs, Hamilton says. People want movement in their chairs. And Younger does both comfort and movement really well. They also offer a lot of different depths in that they offer cozy and grand size selections that make sense in whatever space you are trying to fill. Add a unique fabric to that and you have an entirely different look and feel. Beiges, whites and grays are being replaced with blues, greens, eggplant, even a bit of brown, according to Hamilton. Carolina light blue is even making a comeback. Well see how this trend plays out, but it certainly is a lot of fun to watch, he says. Hamilton recommends shoppers pick their furniture before their paint. Start with the larger items, ground them and build off that. Its always easier to find paint to match your fabric than to paint first and then try to find a fabric after. So, for a good sit, visit u-fab.com or come see us at one of our showrooms in Charlottesville or Richmond. The rapidly expanding consumer security and tech company SimpliSafe is delivering on the promise it made to add hundreds of jobs in Henrico County when it announced plans to establish a Richmond-area footprint in early 2020. The Boston-based provider of DIY home security products has had a busy year, making hundreds of hires and opening a home-monitoring center for its security systems. SimpliSafes new Virginia operations serve as a focal point for its interactions with customers. SimpliSafe has added about 400 people to its Virginia workforce between its two Henrico facilities. First, it opened a $5.5 million customer support center on the upper two floors of the former Miller & Rhoads building at 1601 Willow Lawn Drive in 2020. That facility fields questions about the companys products and services and is expected to be filled by 572 workers within its first five years. SimpliSafe then opened a $3 million monitoring facility at the Innsbrook Corporate Center in October 2022. The company has so far hired 100 of 250 expected positions at the space at 4840 Cox Road. Most jobs added at the site are monitoring specialists and monitoring supervisors. SimpliSafe pioneered the self-installed home security system with its founding in 2006. It sells what the company calls home professional-grade security systems with 24-hour monitoring and devices such as door sensors, motion detectors and smoke alarms. The recent Innsbrook expansion serves as a central hub for SimpliSafes real-time response system. Alerts pinged from a subscribers home systems are sent to staff at the facility for events such as burglaries, home fires or a health crisis. Specialists can then gather information from cameras or sensors and send information to 911 operators for a prioritized response from police, fire or emergency services. SimpliSafe CEO Christian Cerda said that the real-time capability for video verification and connection with 911 operators is something that hasnt existed before in the residential market; it was exclusive to commercial alarms. Another key differentiator for the company is that it designs and manufactures all of its equipment, the software that runs it and it has its own cloud system to connect them. Whats unique about SimpliSafe is that we manufacture the systems based off of what subscribers have told us they need, and makes them feel secure, said Jon Adams, senior director of monitoring operations. We make it, develop it to meet those specs and sell it. We are in full control of the entire customer experience. The new Innsbrook monitoring center is the last mile of that customer experience pipeline. SimpliSafe was previously farming out monitoring services to third parties. By bringing that under its umbrella in Henrico, the company can better control the training and processes that monitoring specialists are following. We want to make sure customers are getting the full experience, so it was only natural that we expand to the monitoring piece to help us achieve our goal, which is securing every home in America, Adams said. The Richmond-area monitoring center is also expected to be used to continue innovations for technologies that can respond even faster to a security event. Those new technologies will be co-developed and piloted out of Henrico. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Henrico County Economic Development Authority and the Greater Richmond Partnership to secure the project for Virginia with an eye on hiring from the local talent pool, which has a lot of call center experience. The experience that we can provide is better because we can screen high-caliber talent right here in the Richmond area, Cerda said. We have been so pleasantly surprised by the caliber of the people. Henrico competed with North Carolina for the initial capture of SimpliSafes expansion efforts in 2020. The county was also approved for a $200,000 grant from Virginias Development Opportunity Fund to assist with the project in 2020. Cerda previously told The Times-Dispatch that Henrico was chosen because of the the countys infrastructure as well as the areas pool of talent. SimpliSafe is continuing to hire for the remainder of its openings at the call center and monitoring facility. The company said it has received over 5,000 applications for its positions. Dr. Arturo P. Saavedra has been named dean of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs. Saavedra comes to VCU from the University of Virginia, where he is chair of the department of dermatology and interim CEO of the University of Virginia Physicians Group. Previously, he was UVas chief of population health and in charge of ambulatory strategy and operations. His expertise is in HIV dermatology, severe drug reactions with complications to the skin, and care for cancer and transplant patients. He has degrees from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. He replaces David Chelmow, who became interim dean last year after Dr. Peter Buckley left for the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. In November, VCU named Dr. Marlon Levy the interim CEO of the health system. Saavedra begins April 15. American detained in Cancun for death of girlfriend Cancun, Q.R. An American man from the state of Maryland has been detained in Cancun in the death of his girlfriend. Police took 21-year-old Robert A from Prince Frederick, Maryland, into custody Friday morning from a four-story Cancun apartment building after the young woman was found dead on the sidewalk below. Area residents made authorities aware of the situation after she was allegedly tossed from a balcony of the building. Neighbors made the 911 report shortly after 7:00 a.m. Responding officers arrived to find her laying on the pavement below the building in SM 3. Paramedics pronounced her on scene. Robert A was detained after his girlfriend was found dead in Cancun. Her boyfriend was taken into custody after allegedly telling police that the pair were fighting when she went over the balcony. Maya Train from Cancun to Tulum will have cable-stayed bridges Riviera Maya, Q.R. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says the section of Maya Train from Cancun to Tulum will have cable-stayed bridges. During his weekend tour of the area, he reported from Cancun the latest change in the Maya Train project. Lopez Obrador, along with Diego Prieto, the General Director of the National Institute of Anthropology and History, announced the latest adjustment Sunday. It is modern communication, of course, taking care of the environment, our natural resources and archaeological sites, Lopez Obrador said during the announcement. Using a model, Diego Prieto explained that the viaduct will help preserve the Garra de Jaguar cave which includes an underground river, flooded caves and a cenote. It will have a length close to 290 meters. He said that INAH underwater archeology staff worked in coordination with the INDI consortium to prevent contamination of the aquifer. The head of the Institute explained that elements from the Pleistocene have been found, such as the remains of saber-toothed tigers and giant pangolins, as well as cultural elements that made up the sacred sites of the Yucatan Peninsula. He said they plan to create a cultural route starting at Puerto Aventuras which will include four archaeological sites. The sites, he said, will be Paamul II, the Garra del Jaguar cave, Cueva de las Manitas and the Ocho Balas cave, which will be made publicly available in a non-invasive way. Quintana Roo Governor Mara Lezama Espinosa, who also attended the Maya Train update announcement, maintained that the project will be the platform that will show the world the archaeological and natural wealth of the country. One dead and 22 stable in hospital after two-train metro crash in Mexico City Mexico City, Mexico At least 22 people remain stable in Mexico City hospitals after a two-train crash on line 3 of the citys metro system. The crash happened Saturday morning. According to the Victim Care Commissioner, Ernesto Alvarado, 57 people from the two trains were transferred to hospitals, while another 49 went by their own means. Of the more than 100 who suffered injuries, 22 remain stable in hospital. One woman, Yaretzi N, was killed. During a press conference by Claudia Sheinbaum, the head of Mexico City Government, she reported that Alberto Garcia Lucio, who served as Deputy Director of Metro Operations, has since been separated from his position. During the press conference, Sheinbaum detailed that at 9:16 a.m. Saturday there was a collision between two trains on Line 3 of the Metro in which one person was killed. The crash happened between the La Raza and Potrero stations that initially left four people trapped in the twisted metal. One of the train operators remains in hospital in serious condition. Metro engineers and technicians worked Sunday on the reopening of Line 3 after Guillermo Calderon, the General Director of the Metro, instructed personnel to begin work to restart Line 3 operations. Authorities have not provided details on how the two trains ended up colliding. US presidential plane lands at AIFA as Biden arrives for Summit Mexico City, Mexico President Joe Biden has arrived in Mexico City. The American President landed at the Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA) Sunday night. Biden is in Mexico to participate in the X Summit of North American Leaders which begins on January 10. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met Biden at the airport and accompanied him as they departed the airport for the city. Both President Biden and Lopez Obrador will meet Monday for a bilateral meeting at the National Palace. They will be accompanied by delegations from the two countries. On Monday evening, the presidents and their wives will meet at a private trilateral dinner that will include the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, with his wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. The Canadian Prime Minister and his wife are expected to land at the Felipe Angeles International Airport around 2:00 p.m. Monday. They too, will be received by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. RADFORD It is almost a year since Catlyn Marea Wilhelm said that she was abducted from a Radford grocery store parking lot and sexually assaulted for hours in Henry County. Five people were accused of having some part in her ordeal and charges are still pending against three defendants. But those cases are continuing without the central witness. Wilhelm, 20, died last year of what the medical examiners office found to be an overdose of fentanyl and hydrocodone. With trials and a plea hearing scheduled for February and March, attorneys are waiting for a Radford judge to rule if Wilhelms description of what happened to her, recorded early in one of the cases, can still play a part. An ongoing court dispute over Wilhelms testimony centers on one of the charges filed against Deshawn Kiree Tucker, a 30-year-old Pulaski County man who was an ex-boyfriend of Wilhelms. Tucker was arrested last January on a charge of abduction with the intent to defile. At Tuckers preliminary hearing in April, Wilhelm, of Christiansburg, gave her version of happened to her: that Tucker surprised her in the parking lot of the Food City in Radford and took her to his residence in Dublin, then to Floyd County where she was transferred to another vehicle that carried her to Henry County. Wilhelm said that she owed Tucker $2,000 that he had loaned her to buy a car and that she had been avoiding him. She said that when Tucker suddenly appeared in the parking lot on Jan. 10, 2022, he said that he needed his money. After taking her to Dublin, Wilhelm said, Tucker told her she could work off the debt or get f- up. Radford Commonwealths Attorney Chris Rehak has argued that Tucker owed his own debt to men in Henry County, and that he turned Wilhelm over to them to settle that debt. In court, Wilhelm wept as she said that she was sexually assaulted during the night and next morning, and eventually was able to text the Henry County Sheriffs Office to summon help. Defense attorneys at hearings in Radford and Henry County have said that Wilhelm had chances to get away if she wanted to and pointed to inconsistencies between her account of drugs she took that night and the results of a blood test. Attorney Michael McPheeters of Martinsville, who at a February hearing in Henry County represented a man charged with attacking Wilhelm, said then that Wilhelm went to Henry County to use drugs and was not forced into any of the acts that she described. It was McPheeters client, Bobby Ronnell Helms Sr., 44, of Fieldale, along with Tucker, who had involved histories of drug convictions. Helms has pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine multiple times over the past two decades. Tucker was found guilty of possessing cocaine in 2015 and distributing oxycodone the year before. Other convictions included weapons violations, forgery and theft for Helms, and breaking and entering for Tucker. Wilhelms record, which had consisted of driving infractions, included drug and gun charges, too. But these didnt come until after the incidents in Radford and Henry County. In Henry County, Helms is charged with rape and forcible sodomy and is scheduled next month for a two-day jury trial. Charges were dropped last year against two more Henry County defendants, Waylon Cox, 37, also of Fieldale, and Patricia Beth Inman. Also facing charges in Radford is Tabatha Suzette Stephenson of Christiansburg, Wilhelms former best friend. She was described initially as another victim in the case, but Wilhelm said Stephenson set her up to meet Tucker that on Jan. 10, 2022, she and Stephenson had driven from the New River Valley to Roanoke together and when they returned, Stephenson said that she needed to go to Radford Food City to meet someone. Wilhelm said that she did not know that person would be Tucker. She said that Stephenson ended up driving Tuckers SUV as it carried all three to Dublin, then accompanied her to Henry County. In June, a Radford grand jury indicted Stephenson on a charge of conspiring to commit abduction with the intent to defile. Tucker was indicted on the same conspiracy charge. The new charge remained unresolved as did Tuckers original abduction charge when Wilhelm died on Aug. 6. It turned out that defense attorney Robert Canard of Christiansburg, who represents Tucker, had the only recording of Wilhelms testimony at the Radford preliminary hearing for Tucker. Canard recorded her on his phone to refer to for future proceedings. Soon after Wilhelms death, Rehak asked Radford Circuit Court Judge Joey Showalter to order Canard to preserve the recording and to give the prosecution a copy. Canard asked that Wilhelms recorded testimony be excluded from any consideration of the conspiracy charge. He argued that when Wilhelm spoke, Tucker only faced a count of abduction, so nothing she said should pertain to a charge that was filed later. Rehak disagreed. In a court filing, he wrote that Wilhelm was traded like property, that Wilhelm she was forced to take a pill that made her sleepy, then was sexually assaulted. But as Wilhelm was drugged and attacked, Stephenson was left free to move around, Rehak wrote. That suggested that Stephenson was appointed to monitor and guard Catlyn to prevent escape, Rehak wrote. A conspiracy is inherent, Rehak wrote elsewhere in the filing. It is difficult to envision this sordid chain of events without the required planning and assistance of others. Rehak said that he would have other witnesses, but that he thought Wilhelms own words should be heard. That is all that is left of her, Rehak wrote. Tuckers attorney, Canard, did not respond to messages seeking comment. Stephensons attorney, Dave Rhodes of Christiansburg, declined to speak about her case. Two months after Wilhelm reported being assaulted, she was charged in Franklin County with possessing a Schedule I or II drug, and with possessing a gun while possessing drugs. Those charges had not been resolved when she died and were formally dismissed on Aug. 17. In Radford, Showalter has not yet decided how, or if, Wilhelms recorded account will be used. Tucker is scheduled for a two-day jury trial starting March 2. Stephenson is scheduled for a plea hearing on March 10. Flash Cooperation and common development are the proper relationship between Japan and China, former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has said. The year of 2023 marks the 45th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. At the end of 2022, the Japanese government approved three updated documents on its security and defense policies including the new National Security Strategy, vowing to largely increase its military expenditure for the next five years. In this regard, Fukuda said in an interview with Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that if this continues, the relationship between Japan and China will become an arms race. "Can the two countries really be happy in this way?" Fukuda said, adding that cooperation and common development should be the relationship between the two countries. Fukuda noted that China's military strength had obviously grown in the past nearly 10 years. However, he said, China does not want to go to war with Japan. "Without today's China, even the United States cannot develop its own economy well. The basic consensus should be that Japan, the U.S. and China, along with the rest of the world, are a community of shared interests." Fukuda noted that last year saw the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, and the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed in 1978 had led to better relations between the two countries. Since then, although the development of Japan-China relations has not always been smooth, friendship and mutual assistance are the prerequisites for the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Fukuda said, expressing hope that Japan will not forget its original aspiration 50 years ago. Noticing the shape of the federal death penalty circa 2023 | Main | En banc Third Circuit to reconsider constitutionality of 922(g)(1)'s felon-in-possession gun prohibition after Bruen January 9, 2023 Wondering about the impact of AG Garland's new charging and sentencing memos Remarkably, it has already been almost a month since Attorney General Merrick Garland issued new charging and sentencing policy guidance for Justice Department prosecutors through two memoranda (basics here). These memos received some press attention (and some blog commentary) when first issued in mid December. But, somewhat surprisingly, I have not since seen all that much continued commentary or further echoes concerning AG Garland's instructions to federal prosecutors to "promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses" and other notable aspects of these notable memos. Of course, with the holidays and all, it is surely too early to be expecting to see the full impact or fall out from these DOJ memos. Still, given that the instructions in these memos impact every federal criminal case in some way, I am continuing to expect these memos to generate notable cases and controversies before too long. And, while waiting, I have now had the honor and pleasure of working with former ENDY US Attorney Alan Vinegrad to write up a short overview of the memos for coming publication in the February 2023 issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The draft of that overview is available for download below, and it starts this way: On December 16, 2022, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland issued long-awaited guidance setting forth the Department of Justice's latest charging, plea and sentencing policies. He did so in the form of two memos: one providing general policies for all criminal cases (the "General Memo"), and a second providing additional policies for drug cases (the "Drug Memo"). These latest DOJ policies are generally consistent in many respects with past policies issued by Attorney General Garland's predecessors, but they break new ground (or revive previously-rescinded policies) in several areas: mandatory minimum statutes, statutory sentencing enhancements, the crack/cocaine sentencing disparity, and pre-trial diversion. All of these new policies tack in the same direction: ameliorating the harshness of the modern-era federal sentencing regime. Download Vinegrad and Berman for FSR on new DOJ policies January 9, 2023 at 02:17 PM | Permalink Comments Get invited into the Capitol and walk around and leave--get them. Bend over backwards to give an axe back to the guy who busted up a GOP Senator's office. Let's ignore actual violence against clinics while sending SWAT teams for weak FACE Act cases ... . Garland is a thug. He's gonna hook up thug drug dealers. Posted by: federalist | Jan 9, 2023 3:36:47 PM Maybe Merrick oughta be looking at this: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/01/09/freedom-denied-part-1-how-the-culture-of-detention-created-a-federal-jailing-crisis/#more-8218076 Posted by: federalist | Jan 9, 2023 4:24:38 PM If AG Garland made a habit of checking out this blog, he'd have seen about the Chicago bail report last month: https://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2022/12/freedom-denied-how-the-culture-of-detention-created-a-federal-jailing-crisis.html Posted by: Doug B. | Jan 9, 2023 4:32:40 PM Feels like the authors have a point. The other thing I don't like--semi-home detention--if that doesn't count towards sentence. If people's movements are greatly constrained, then it's like serving time. If they don't commit crime while out on bail, ain't that win-win? Posted by: federalist | Jan 9, 2023 4:55:45 PM A related issue we are seeing more of here in Kentucky is the use of electronic ankle monitors (GPS) for people released on bond (even on misdemeanor assault cases) and for home incarceration (with work release) while people serve sentences of up to 60 days. These monitors cost the defendant $8 per day or $240 per month. Those on pre-trial release (out on bail) can wear such ankle monitors for more than 6 months before their cases reach trial or plea, generating tabs of more than $1,500 each. If these bills are not paid, people can be sent back to jail for failure to comply with conditions of pre-trial release, or, after the ankle monitor is removed, sent to collections if not paid in full within 30 days. In part, the growth of the use of ankle monitors on those with pre-trial release is because the local jail, the Fayette County Detention Center, is 118 officers short of the number needed to properly operate the jail. Many of the remaining officers are working 3 double shifts per week, and getting burned out. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government spends more than $40 million per year operating the jail (14% of the government's total budget), but even with recent wage increases, they cannot get it properly staffed. One way to keep down the head count is to reduce the bonds of inmates and put them on electronic ankle monitors. It is common for defendants with relatively short sentences (such as 4 to 10 days for DUI) to get home incarceration with electronic monitoring. But recently, because of a unique set of circumstances, we got a client sentenced to 60 days of home incarceration (with work release) for possession of heroin. The defendant had been regularly employed and participating in a methadone treatment program for more than 2 years. Sending him to jail for 6 months would have destroyed his life and cost him is job, his apartment and his medicallly-assisted treatment program. Posted by: Jim Gormley | Jan 12, 2023 6:43:45 AM Post a comment By Katie Paul (Reuters) - Meta's Oversight Board on Monday overturned the company's decision to remove a Facebook post that used the slogan "death to Khamenei" to criticize the Iranian leader, saying it did not violate a rule barring violent threats. The board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said in a ruling that the phrase is often used to mean "down with Khamenei" in referring to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been leading a violent crackdown on nationwide protests in recent months. It also urged the company to develop better ways of factoring such context into its content policies and outline clearly when rhetorical threats against heads of state were permitted. "In the context of the post, and the broader social, political and linguistic situation in Iran, 'marg bar Khamenei' should be understood as 'down with.' It is a rhetorical, political slogan, not a credible threat," the board wrote. Iran has been gripped by demonstrations since mid-September, following the death in detention of a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for wearing "inappropriate attire" under the country's strict dress code for women. The protests, in which demonstrators from all walks of life have called for the fall of Iran's ruling theocracy, have posed one of the biggest challenges to the government of the Shi'ite Muslim-ruled Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. The unrest created a now-familiar conundrum for Meta, which has wavered repeatedly in its treatment of violent political rhetoric on its platforms. The company bans language that incites "serious violence" but aims to avoid overreach by limiting enforcement to credible threats, leaving ambiguity around when and how the rule applies. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, for example, Meta introduced a temporary exemption to allow calls for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming to give users in the region space to express their anger over the war. Story continues However, days later it reversed the exemption after Reuters reported its existence. Meta also has faced scrutiny over how its platforms were used to organize in the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Phrases like "kill them all" appeared in thousands of U.S.-based Facebook Groups before the attack, including calls for violence against specific U.S. political leaders. The Oversight Board said in its ruling that "death to Khamenei" statements differed from threats posted around Jan. 6, as politicians were then "clearly at risk" in the U.S. context and "death to" was not a rhetorical statement in English. (Reporting by Katie Paul in Palo Alto, California; Editing by Sandra Maler) SENEY, Iowa -- A malfunctioning ceiling fan was the likely cause of a Monday morning fire at a home, north of Seney, in rural Plymouth County. At around 2:50 a.m. Monday, Le Mars Fire-Rescue was called to a house fire on 120th St. on Highway 60. Upon arrival, family members and pets were safely outside. Firefighters discovered the fire above the ceiling in an upstairs bedroom in the attic space. Firefighters removed the ceiling and put out the fire. They were on the scene for an hour and a half. The fire was determined to be accidental and damage was contained to the accident space just above the upstairs bedroom. There was very little damage to the rest of the house. Le Mars Fire - Rescue was assisted at the scene by the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office, the Oyens and Orange City Fire Departments and Campbell's Electric. 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. SOUTH SIOUX CITY A Sioux City man has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a teenage girl at her fathers home on Christmas. Michael R. Brown, 33, was arrested Saturday and booked into the Dakota County Jail on charges of first-degree sexual assault of a child and child abuse. His bond has yet to be set. According to court documents, Brown had sex with the girl in her room in the South Sioux City home on Dec. 25. The teen told a South Sioux City police officer Brown had tried to touch her in the past, and she and her cousin went to her room when he arrived. When interviewed by police, the girls father said Brown had been texting him and asking him when the girl was going to be home. SIOUX CITY -- Goodwill of the Great Plains is asking the Sioux City Council to approve a rezoning request so that it can build a new adult day habilitation center and a maintenance building across the street from its campus, 3100 West Fourth St. The 3.4-acre tract of land is currently zoned Neighborhood Conservation. Goodwill is requesting that the property be rezoned to General Commercial, which is intended for commercial, retail, service and office uses arranged on individual sites or in multi-tenant centers. Briget Solomon, Goodwill of the Great Plains' CEO, said Friday that the existing adult day habilitation program has been in operation for more than 20 years and has continued to grow. "Right now, we're utilizing as much space in our existing building as we can, kind of expanding into our cafeteria and other areas," she said. "This building is envisioned as an opportunity to create a more modern facility for our adult day and stay habilitation programs and also allow us to expand our mission." Solomon said the multi-use community center would include a gym, gaming room and spaces for programming, such as an arts and culture room. She said meeting rooms and office space for staff are also planned. "We're hoping to be able to do our Goodwill-sponsored events, such as our career fairs that we host through our job center. Our Christmas shoe and mitten party will be hosted in that location," she said. "We just need more space to do all of those things and continue to carry out our mission." Solomon said building the adult day habilitation center is the focus of the project's first phase. The maintenance building would be constructed during the second phase. That building would allow Goodwill of the Great Plains to expand job training opportunities and provide enclosed storage for its fleet vehicles. The Sioux City Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously voted to approve the rezoning request at it's Dec. 13 meeting, which advanced the item on to the council. City documents state that expansion of Goodwill's campus is not expected to disrupt existing residential uses in the area. The site has been the subject of prior zoning requests for truck parking, which has not been supported at the site because of the proximity to residences and conflicts with the city's comprehensive plan. "City staff feels the current proposed use better suits the area," the documents state. Solomon said she hopes to open the new adult day habilitation center by the end of 2024 or early 2025. Since the project is still in its early stages, she said plans haven't been finalized and the total cost is still being calculated. She expects those things to be finalized in the next couple of months. "There's a lot of pieces that have to fall in place to make that happen, but that's our hope and our goal," she said. "This year, 2023, is our 100th anniversary as a Goodwill and part of the Goodwill movement. It's kind of neat to be launching something that's going to be really significant for us to grow our mission programs." Based on preliminary data, Solomon said Goodwill of the Great Plains served more than 28,000 people in the region in 2022. "We're really proud of that growth. This is just going to help us catapult into future growth and opportunities to serve the community in a broader way, aligned with our mission, of course," she said of the project. "It's really exciting." SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) The entire community of Montecito, California and surrounding canyons were ordered to evacuate Monday amid a deluge of rain that has flooded roads and swollen waterways. The evacuation order affecting about 10,000 people came on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes in the coastal enclave. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the decision to evacuate came based on the continuing high rate of rainfall with no indication that that is going to change before nightfall. Montecito Fire Chief Kevin Taylor said at least 8 inches of rain had fallen in 12 hours, with several more inches expected. The canyon communities under evacuation orders are under hillsides burned bare in recent years by wildfires. Upscale Montecito is squeezed between mountains and the Pacific coast and home to celebrities such as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Up the coast, evacuation orders were issued for about 32,000 people in Santa Cruz County because of swollen rivers and creeks. Much of the state was being walloped by a major winter storm that inundated roads, toppled trees and knocked out power to tens of thousands. This is an update. APs earlier story follows below. Photos: Powerful storms wallop California Flash Top Iranian and Pakistani military commanders on Sunday called for establishing a joint military working group, the official IRNA news agency reported. The remarks were made in a phone conversation between the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Bagheri and the newly-appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Pakistan Army Sahir Shamshad Mirza. Noting the good relations between the armed forces of the two countries and the development of defense and security cooperation especially on the common borders, Bagheri announced full readiness of the Iranian armed forces to speed up the establishment of a joint military task force with Pakistan. The Iranian commander considered the establishment of border markets as an effective step in enhancing the security of common borders, urging an increase in the border guards forces of the Pakistani army. Shamshad Mirza also considered accelerating the establishment of a joint military task force as one of the priorities of the Pakistani army, saying the common border of the two countries is the border of peace and friendship. OMAHA A Council Bluffs, Iowa, school bus driver will spend time in jail for his role in a deadly crash near Omahas Eppley Airfield last year. Kevin Downing, 44, was found guilty in October of misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide after pleading no contest to the charge. He was sentenced Thursday to 60 days in jail and two years' probation, according to the Douglas County Attorneys Office. On March 28, Downing was driving a school bus for First Student of Council Bluffs when the bus collided with a vehicle driven by 59-year-old James McCoy of Council Bluffs. McCoy was pronounced dead at the scene. The investigation found that Downing was westbound on Locust Street when he drove through a red light at the Abbott Drive intersection just before 7 a.m. McCoy was heading north on Abbott Drive in a 2005 Acura when his car was hit by the bus. The bus was not carrying students at the time. Downing faced a maximum sentence of one year in jail. Counties with the shortest life expectancy in Nebraska Counties with the shortest life expectancy in Nebraska #42. Saline County #41. Saunders County #40. Thayer County #39. Douglas County #38. Dawes County #36. Dawson County #36. Clay County #34. Madison County #34. Jefferson County #29. Furnas County #29. Merrick County #29. Howard County #29. Red Willow County #29. Butler County #27. Hall County #27. Adams County #25. Gage County #25. Lincoln County #23. Dundy County #23. Box Butte County #19. Dakota County #19. Nuckolls County #19. Johnson County #19. Boyd County #16. Cheyenne County #16. Richardson County #16. Polk County #14. Webster County #14. Nemaha County #12. Morrill County #12. Pawnee County #10. Dodge County #10. Gosper County #9. Sheridan County #8. Nance County #5. Scotts Bluff County #5. Franklin County #5. Garden County #3. Burt County #3. Hitchcock County #2. Kimball County #1. Thurston County The Virginia teacher who authorities say was shot by a 6-year-old student is known as a hard-working educator who's devoted to her students and enthusiastic about the profession that runs in her family. House Speaker Kevin McCarthys agreement to cut $75 billion from the defense budgetpart of his deal with the hard-right Freedom Caucus to win the chambers top slot after falling short 14 timesis less drastic than its critics on both sides of the aisle are claiming. First, its not a cut. Rather, its part of a wider budget freeze and, in that sense, an agreement not to go through with an enormous defense increase that Congress approved just last month. Advertisement Second, even a defense-budget freeze probably wont happen, as too many lawmakersRepublicans and Democrats, in the House and the Senatewant, and will demand, a huge spending hike. But the deal between McCarthy and his partys far-right wing does foretell a messy floor fight on foreign and military policy, along with the slew of impending fights on a dozen other issues. In particular, the deal raises genuinely serious concerns about how much economic and military aid the Biden administration will be able to continue sending Ukraine in the coming year. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Lets take a look at the basics. In December, by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, Congress passed a military spending bill for fiscal year 2023 totaling $847 billion. This constituted a $45 billion increase over Bidens budget requestwhich itself was $30 billion more than the budget approved for fiscal year 2022. All told then, Decembers spending bill amounted to a $75 billion increase over last years bill. Advertisement [Read: There Is No Good Reason for a Defense Budget This Large.] In other words, McCarthys deal to reduce the military budget by $75 billion isnt really a cutits a freeze at 2022 levels. It would be easy, in theory, to remove the $45 billion that Congress tacked on last month. The House and Senate conferees simply, and for no good reason, tacked on $45 billion worth of programs that the top generals and admirals had requested but that the civilian leaders of the Pentagon and the White House rejected as lesser priorities. All the new Congress would have to do is reverse the overly extravagant gesture by the old Congress. But most members of the new Congress were also in the old Congress, and theres no sign that theyve changed their minds. Nor would the new Republican House leaders be inclined to pay fealty to Bidens original budget request. Advertisement Advertisement The $30 billion increase in Bidens original budget proposal could also be trimmed without much effort. For instance, that budget included $51 billion for nuclear weaponsa $9 billion increase, which could be eliminated plus some. But nobody is going to cut these sums. Bidens $30 billion increase, much less Congress $40 billion tack-on, attracted almost no opposition. The fact is, huge (in fact, historically gargantuan) defense budgets are very popular now, due mainly to Russias invasion of Ukraine, Chinas aggressiveness around Taiwan, and the dearth of serious budget analysts in the White House or the Congress. Even stipulating the need for vigorous defense spending, no one has even attempted to justify the need for many particulars in this budgetin part because so few have tried to challenge it. Advertisement Advertisement This is why, when asked about the deal that McCarthy struck with the Freedom Caucus on defense spending, Rep. Mike Rogers, the new Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told Politico, I didnt make that deal. I cant talk about it right now, but Im not worried about it. As he and others well know, any motion to cut the defense bill struck in December is likely to be overturned by Rogers committee and by the House Appropriations Committee, whose members tend toward the hawkish. If the full House somehow reimposes the cut, the Senate will put up a fierce fight to restore it in the conference committee. Advertisement Advertisement However, McCarthys deal does raise concerns about the future of aid to Ukraine. Back in October, before the midterms, McCarthy said that if Republicans retook the House, they wouldnt continue to sign a blank check to Ukraine. Many of those who blocked his ascension to speaker have voted against aid to Ukraine; some openly demanded a brake on further aid as a condition to their support for his bid as House leader. Advertisement At the moment, support for Ukraine still seems solid, but various dynamics could change that. Back in May, just three months after Russias invasion, the House voted 36857 to send Kyiv $40 billion in assistance. Since then, Biden has supplied another $60 billion. No end to the waror to U.S. aidis in sight; impatience is growing (though not as much as many had predicted); and votes over Ukraine are likely to become more entangled with partisan politics broadly. The thunderous acclaim for Volodymyr Zelenskys prime-time speech before Congress in December reenergized the partisans for Ukraine and dampened some momentum among his skeptics. Still, some members of the Democratic left could conceivably team up with the Republican far right to vote against resolutions on aid to Ukraine and on military spending. With three Republicans set to gain seats on the House Rules Committee and with McCarthy perpetually fearful of even one member raising a motion to expel him as speaker (both results of the deals he struck to win on the 15th ballot), they might even get their wayor might stifle the efforts of more mainstream Republicans and Democrats to block them. In other words, the shitshow is far from over. At around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, a time when most members of Congress would rather be asleep or enjoying a glass of 18-year-old scotch that was paid for by a defense contractor, Republican California Rep. Kevin McCarthy was finally elected speaker of the House. It was the 15th vote on the speakership that had been held since Tuesday. In order to win over the last Republican holdouts against him, McCarthy reportedly had to agree to conditions that will give the far-right Freedom Caucus even more power than it had under previous GOP House regimes. The caucus is expected to use this power to force government shutdowns and to investigate claims about Democrats that originated on QAnon message boards with names like Camouflage Daryls Patriot Zone. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement McCarthy also had to survive what appeared to be a surprise move by Florida Rep. and holdout MAGA troll Matt Gaetz on the 14th ballot to vote presentbasically a vote not to voteinstead of finally switching his support to McCarthy. The caucus leader quickly walked toward Gaetz and had a brief, animated conversation with him. After that, Gaetzs row in the House chamber was approached by Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, a long-serving 64-year-old who is in line to become chair of the Armed Services Committee: Advertisement Rogers, who the Washington Post says may have been upset by Gaetzs apparent bid to skip over more senior members in line for an armed services subcommittee chairmanship, then moved toward Gaetz while shouting something to the effect of I wont forget this! At that point, North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudsonan ally of Rogers and McCarthywent to pull Rogers away from Gaetz, but in the heat of the moment, amid the crowd of other members, he ended up doing this by grabbing Rogers around the mouth. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Yoink! Heres Gaetz a few moments later: Advertisement McCarthy won the next vote, though, when Gaetz and five other remaining Republican dissenters all agreed to vote present in order to allow McCarthy to be elected at a lower vote threshold. This is the kind of compromise that would have allowed everyone involved to save face had it not been preceded by a near altercation and four days of failure. On Sunday, Rogers issued a statement apologizing for his behavior, while Gaetz issued a statement accepting the apology. Everybodys friendly again? Advertisement Probably not: Monday, the House will take up its so-called rules package, in which some of the compromises McCarthy agreed to about how the chamber operates will be made explicit. One relatively moderate Republican has already said hell vote against it and, just as McCarthy could only afford not to win a handful of hard-liners in the speaker vote, hell have to win almost all of his partys extremism-averse representatives of swing districts in order to pass the rules. In other words, everyone who plans to be on Capitol Hill this week should remember to protect their face. Its been eight long months since the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion in the landmark abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health. When it happened last May, Chief Justice John Roberts described it as a a singular and egregious breach of that trust that is an affront to the Court. As the nominal head of that court, it was up to Roberts to investigate the leak, and then presumably do something about it, but in the intervening months, the internal investigation of the leakas ordered by Robertshas plodded on without any disclosures to the public about what Harriet the Spy and Inspector Gadget, or whichever crack detective tasked with solving the crime, has turned up. Advertisement This shocking leak, for which Sen. Ted Cruz once insisted that someone be fired instantly and also prosecuted and also serve real jail time, has already gone the way of the great uncrackable mysteries of our time. Justice Clarence Thomas may have once characterized it as an infidelity that had profoundly shattered trust among the justices, but apparently the court opted to continue operating without the restoration of that trust. So much so that it need never be discussed again. The 2022 term may have opened with Justice Neil Gorsuch stating he was optimistic the mystery of the Dobbs leak would be publicly released soon, but soon has now come and gone with nary a word from the Marble Palace. Weird. In a building populated by about 500 employees, almost none of whom would have had access to a near-final draft opinion, the identity of the Dobbs leaker is going the way of the Bermuda Triangle and Amelia Earhart. Though the leak supposedly traumatized the institution and its members, the agreement seems to be that we need never speak of it again. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement So perhaps nobody should be surprised that this great Supreme Court mysterya breach of trust in an order of magnitude previously unheard ofappeared nowhere in the pages of the chief justices annual year-end report on the federal judiciary. That report, which dropped, as it does, on New Years Eve, was widely covered for its lack of references to several important issues that faced the court this year. These included: the Dobbs leak, the Supreme Court Historical Societys perplexing role as secret pipeline for SCOTUS access-seekers and their fat wallets, and any references to Justice Clarence Thomas continued insistence on ruling on cases that directly affect his own wife (this would seem to violate the ethics rules that bind the Supreme Court, but as we now know, they do not bind the Supreme Court). None of these crises were mentioned in the report. Why? because these controversies all make the court look hinky AF, and Roberts doesnt want that. Advertisement The real mystery, then, isnt merely how Roberts year-end report ended up centering threats to American judges as the most urgent concern of the past calendar year. The real mystery isnt even how the report suggested that comparisons between an Arkansas desegregation case from 1957 that brushed back lawless state interpolation and brought threats to a jurist fighting to defend precedent is somehow analogous to what happened in Dobbs. No, the real whodunit following Roberts report has to be this: Who killed the last vestige of shame down on One First Street? Because Benoit Blanc, call your office. I want to report a murder. Advertisement Its not that any of us really expected the chief justice, who was once favorably compared to John Marshall and even to his own mentor, William Rehnquist, to come forward willingly to put the interests of the Supreme Court before his own parochial desires. He will use his votes and opinions to do that, to be sure, but not his statements as chief. To take on that actual responsibility would demand accepting a leadership role that includes speaking truth to uncheckable power, even if that uncheckable power belongs to the court. The chief justice knows well what crises have beset the high court and its reputation this past term. But all he wanted to talk about was how that manifests as threats to judges. Advertisement Advertisement Possibly, the time for institutional self-criticism and introspection passed just around the time Amy Coney Barrett flew out for a gig at the Mitch McConnell center and then blamed the press for public mistrust in the institution. Or if not then, perhaps the moment came when the court overturned Roe v. Wade in a few sentences on the shadow docket at the beginning of the 2021 term. But certainly the expectations of a court reflecting on its own complicity in publics distrust of it were at zero by the time Samuel Alito was giving triumphal insult-comic speeches about Dobbs in Rome this past summer, and when Ginni Thomas was still insisting that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden in September, as her husband rules on Jan. 6 cases. Indeed, it has become fairly obvious that if you cant beat the ethical challenges at the court, you can just join them. Or at least cover for them. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement And that, it seems, is the play. The chief justice continues to doggedly reframe public anger at the court as one of two things: the publics problem, and also a security risk to the justices. Nobody is here to defend violent threats against the safety of judges and their familiesthats why Roberts did not need to devote his year-end review to defending the need for judicial protection from violent threats. But the public is struggling to understand how it can possibly have faith in a court with no braking mechanism on its effort to remake the Constitution in two years. In response to that anger, the court put up security fencing. Now imagine if the chief justice had spoken candidly about that. Advertisement Consider what Roberts spent time on instead. Roberts offered an historical account of the threats faced by a brave judge in Arkansas after he ruled in favor of integrated schools in 1957. After Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to step in to prevent the Little Rock School Board from allowing Black children to attend school, U.S. District Judge Ronald N. Davies heard the case and decided in favor of the Little Rock Nine. He did this in the face of horrific threats to himself and his family. There are photos! The Supreme Court is preserving and displaying the artifacts! Its is a moving tribute to judicial courage. Its also making either an explicit or implicit comparison between Dobbs and Brown v. Board. Which is absurd. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement While Roberts can pretend that the chaotic political and legal landscape that followed Brown is comparable to the self-created havoc the court has wrought on the political and legal landscape today, the public does not seem to agree. Instead, public mistrust of the court is the courts own fault in a dozen ways the chief justice persistently refuses to acknowledge publicly: Theres the unethical conduct, inappropriate speeches, dark-money influence, icky Christmas party companions, and judicial refusal to recuse in matters where a family member has a stake in the outcome. And dont forget about the abuse of the emergency docket, disregard of precedent, promotion of falsehoods in opinions, and reaching out to take cases not properly before the court. This isnt about national civil rights turmoil comparable to Brown v. Board. Its about the continued pretense that this moment is analogous to Brown v. Board. Advertisement This year, Chief Justice John Roberts may have used his own votes and opinions to register his unease with the shadow docket, and to caution mildly that the reversal of binding abortion precedent was a jolt to the system. But he declines to use his speeches, his stewardship role, or his end of the year report to publicly acknowledge that plummeting public trust in the court is a two-way street, and that whats rolling out of the court and down One First Street in recent years aint pretty. Advertisement Advertisement One is left with the dispiriting sense of John Roberts as doubly cursed: Unlike some of his conservative colleagues, he is well aware of the multiple ways in which the justices themselves are doing violence to the courts reputation as unbiased and above the fray. However, because theres nothing he thinks he can do about it, hes refusing to acknowledge it. Hes taking all the evidence of the shoddy and unethical behavior and sweeping it under the carpet, then pointing at the mound of carpet crap and blaming it on the American public. Advertisement Advertisement Honestly, I feel a little bit sorry for the chief justice. He will likely be remembered by historians as the most principled chief justice ever to thoroughly lose control over his court in real time and in plain view, just as he insisted that everything was awesome. Given that he had a chance to use his year-end report to say anything at all about the ways in which judicial legitimacy is earned, rather than demanded, from the public, or about the ways in which the most destabilizing term in modern history had forced the court to recalibrate its own ethical and judicial standards, his decision to say nothing about any of this is instead yet another failure to meet the historical moment. As pregnant Americans attempt to reimagine dealing with their pregnancy losses, their thwarted birth control needs, their new economic realities, and their lifesaving medical needs thanks to Dobbs, the chief justices choice to center himself and his colleaguesensconced in the protections of lifetime tenurewas a choice to blind himself to suffering of which he is well aware. Judges are suffering after the 2022 term. So are millions of others. Refusing to see the connection is the problem, not the solution. The Supreme Court confronted an astounding violation of due process on Monday in a case that never should have reached it in the first place. With no dissents, the justices vacated a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that upheld Areli Escobars death sentenceeven though prosecutors admitted that Escobars conviction relied on false and unreliable DNA evidence. Prosecutors requested a new trial, yet the Texas court refused to grant one. So SCOTUS had to step in to demand a do-over. Advertisement Its really no surprise that the all-Republican justices of the Texas court thought they could get away with this abdication of their most basic duties. After all, SCOTUS conservative supermajority has consistently upheld capital sentences in the face of shocking, unrefuted evidence that they violated the Constitution. So long as this bloc takes a rigidly hostile position toward defendants in every capital case, lower courts will continue to push the limits, greenlighting executions that are both unconstitutional and unconscionable. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The facts of Escobars case offer a disturbing glimpse into how prosecutors relentless drive for a conviction overrides the search for truth. It began with the gruesome, tragic sexual assault and murder of a 17-year-old in 2009. The victim was found alone, stabbed to death and covered in blood, with no signs of forced entry; there were no eyewitnesses. Police identified Escobar as a person of interest after his ex-girlfriend claimed that she had called him repeatedly around the time of the crime and heard sexual noises followed by screaming. The morning of the murder, Escobar arrived at his mothers house injured, with blood on his clothes, saying he had gotten into a fight. Advertisement Prosecutors indicted Escobar and sent evidence to the Austin Police Departments DNA laboratory. The lawyers later told the jury that this evidence strongly implicated Escobar. The suspect could not be excluded as a match to DNA found on the victims doorknob lock, the state attorneys declared. Moreover, the victim could not be excluded as a match to DNA found on Escobars shoes, jeans, and shirt. Finally, a forensic examiner testified that a low-quality print on a lotion bottle next to the victims body was identical to Escobars left ring-finger joint. This evidence had a powerful effect; one juror later admitted that he was on the fence about the defendants guilt until prosecutors introduced the DNA samples. The jury found Escobar guilty, and the judge sentenced him to death. Advertisement Advertisement Then the states case fell apart. In 2016 the Texas Forensic Science Commission found that APDs DNA lab had engaged in egregious, systemic misconduct. Inadequate training and oversight of analysts led to continual cross-contamination of evidence and misinterpretation of results. The analysts constantly violated scientific best practices and twisted their work to implicate a particular suspect. A court found that no DNA evidence connected to the lab was reliable, and Texas soon shuttered it. Advertisement These errors infected every aspect of Escobars case. The analyst who tested his shoes and shirt was involved in at least nine cross-contamination incidents that affected more than 30 cases; she routinely forgot to wear gloves during testing. The analyst who swabbed the victims doorknob lock and studied blood at the crime scene had a similar record of contamination, as well as a history of using unscientific methods to interpret results. These analysts also failed to seal evidence (causing it to spill out of bags in transit) and intermingled crime scene samples with Escobars belongings. These mistakes exponentially heightened the risk of DNA cross-contamination. Advertisement Other lab employees who collected evidence from the crime scene had a record of malfeasance too. One consistently mislabeled, lost, or intentionally damaged evidence and consumed alcohol on call. Another failed to properly package crime scene evidence, causing it to spill out and become contaminated with other DNA. This employee later resigned after the lab discovered that she had falsified her job application and committed perjury. The jury knew none of this; rather, it was told that the lab was rigorous and reliable. Advertisement Advertisement That wasnt all. The fingerprint specialist who testified that Escobars print was identical to one found by the victim? She had initially found that Escobar was not a match. She changed her conclusion midtrial, after a prosecutor sent her a message expressing his belief that the prints were a match, without explaining what had changed her analysis. Advertisement And Escobars ex-girlfriend? She initially attested that she had merely heard sounds of consensual sex when she called Escobar the morning of the murder. That day, she told at least four different people that she thought she heard him cheating with another woman over the phone. As the investigation zeroed in on Escobar, her story evolved to become more incriminating. By the time she testified at trial two years later, she said shed heard screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming on the other end of the phone. Advertisement Following revelations about the crime lab, Escobar argued that his conviction was unconstitutional. A Texas district court agreed, finding that it would be shocking to the conscience to uphold the sentence because it was fundamentally unfair in violation of due process. The district court also concluded that false DNA evidence likely affected the judgment of the jury. Then the case reached the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest court for criminal cases in the state. By this point, Jose Garza had been elected Travis County district attorney. Garza had run as a progressive prosecutor eager to reform law enforcement and pursue justice rather than a conviction at all costs. After reviewing the case, Garza told the court that his office supported a new trial for Escobar. Advertisement Advertisement The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals didnt care. In a short, unsigned opinion, the courtmade up of nine Republican justicesspurned the district courts factual findings. It instead conducted its own review and decided that the conviction should stand without acknowledging prosecutors belief that Escobar deserved a new trial. Garza was so flummoxed that he decided that the court must have misunderstood his position. He filed a petition clarifying his endorsement of a new trial and requesting further briefing plus a new opinion. The court denied it without comment. This intransigence forced Escobar to ask the Supreme Court for relief. In a rare move, Garza encouraged the justices to clear away the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decision. And on Monday they did just that, directing the lower court to reconsider its decision for further consideration in light of the confession of error by Texas. The order sends a strong signal that the Constitution requires the state to conduct a new trial. Advertisement As obvious as this move may seem, it was no guarantee. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals defied SCOTUS in 2019 and got away with it just last year. Its not alone. Since Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett have been confirmed, lower courts have rubber-stamped convictions, especially in capital cases, that shock the conscience just as much as Escobars. Consider, for instance, Andre Lee Thomas and Kristopher Love, two Black men convicted by openly racist and virulently bigoted jurors. Or Terence Andrus, another Black man, whose wildly incompetent lawyer failed to present mitigating evidence that probably would have saved his life. Or Barry Lee Jones, who was denied the opportunity to prove that he is almost certainly innocent. The Supreme Court authorized all these men to be killed. Lower courts see these decisions and decide to take them a step further. Until SCOTUS reins in this pro-death activism, it will continue to facilitate these grievous injustices. And the vast majority of victims will not have the benefit of a progressive prosecutor like Garza to help them make their case. Escobars victory is heartening, no doubt. But it is remarkable chiefly because this Supreme Court so rarely respects the rights of equally deserving defendants. This article is part of the Free Speech Project , a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech. In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is widely expected to announce that it will consider the constitutionality of controversial Florida and Texas social media laws. Thus far, the debate about these laws has focused mainly on the laws provisions restricting how social media companies can moderate speech on their platforms. These provisions have drawn strong criticism, and rightly so: They are plainly unconstitutional. But how the court deals with the laws transparency mandates may be just as consequential. If the court strikes those mandates down categoricallyas some First Amendment advocates are asking it tothen the digital public sphere will be poorer for it. The First Amendment shouldnt preclude carefully drafted transparency regulations that would help the public better understand how platforms are shaping discourse online. Advertisement Both the Florida and the Texas laws include transparency provisions requiring platforms to inform users of the standards used to moderate content, notify users when their content is removed, and provide reasons for removals. Each law adds additional transparency requirements as well; the Texas law, for instance, mandates that the companies publish aggregate statistics related to their content moderation decisions and actions, while the Florida law compels them to tell users how many people have viewed their posts. Many of these transparency provisions force the companies to disclose information they have been withholding, and some no doubt require additional data gathering and reporting, all at some cost to the companies. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement There is a strong argument that some of these requirements are drafted too broadly, and that they would impose too heavy a tax on the platforms editorial decision making, which generally enjoys First Amendment protection. But it is one thing to say that particular transparency mandates are unconstitutional and should be struck down, and another to say that the First Amendment forecloses transparency mandates entirely, as the companies and some of their supporters seem to be arguing. The mere fact that platforms exercise editorial judgment through their content moderation decisions does not mean that any law requiring platform transparency is necessarily unconstitutional. Advertisement It is not, after all, only the platforms that have an interest in speaking here. The Florida and Texas laws were born largely out of frustrations over bans and suspensions of individual speakers, and though it is mistaken to say that social media users have First Amendment rights against private platforms, a central purpose of the First Amendment is to foster public discourse that enables democratic decision making. A system in which users dont understand the rules governing speech on the platforms is fundamentally at odds with this purpose. If we dont know the rules, how are we to follow them? How are we to know if the companies themselves are following them? Advertisement There is a larger democratic interest at stake too. The platforms are where many of us get our news, debate the issues of the day, and connect with friends and family. Its critical that we understand the effect theyre having on what we know, which is at the heart of our ability to govern ourselves. What role, for example, did the platforms play in stoking the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6? Did vaccine misinformation on the platforms hamper the public health response to COVID? Are the platforms professed efforts to crack down on misinformation about voting and elections working? The platforms policies and algorithmic decisions have profound implications for the integrity and vitality of the digital public sphereand thus far, platforms have been frustratingly opaque about their processes. If lawmakers knew what was happening on the platforms, theyd be better able to address the problems the platforms are contributing to. Advertisement Advertisement The idea that transparency mandates can promote free speech isnt new. The Supreme Court has long recognized that transparency regulation plays an important role in protecting a healthy marketplace of ideas. As the court has explained, disclosure requirements can serve First Amendment values by giving the public access to information important to democratic decision making. They dont ban any speech outright. And while they might chill speech, this chilling effect can be outweighed if the free speech interests favoring disclosure are strong enough. Advertisement Advertisement The courts have consequently allowed disclosure requirements in a variety of contexts. For example, the Supreme Court has blessed campaign finance disclosures to help voters make more informed decisions at the ballot box, lobbying disclosures to protect Congress from capture by special interests, and the public disclosure of referenda signatories to ensure the integrity of the referendum process. In all these cases, the court recognized that the First Amendment interests favoring disclosure significantly outweighed the First Amendment interests against it. Advertisement So why have the transparency provisions in the Florida and Texas laws split First Amendment advocates? One reason is a fear that regulators will use disclosure mandates to punish content moderation policies they dont like. As law professor Eric Goldman explained in a recent paper, transparency mandates can tell companies what types of editorial practices regulators expect to see. Wishing to remain on the right side of regulators, companies might respond by chang[ing] their editorial decisions. Indeed, transparency mandates can become tools for government officials and regulators to intimidate platforms and influence their editorial decisions. In January 2021, for example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued civil investigative demands to some of the largest platforms, asking for details about their content moderation practices, a move Twitter and others interpreted as retaliation for the platforms banning of former President Donald Trump. Its easy to imagine similar abuses of social media transparency laws. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement But lots of laws can be used to stifle speech; that doesnt mean we should view those laws as unconstitutional. The Paxton episode is a case in point. The attorney generals investigation was launched under a consumer protection statutenot a social media transparency law. But no one seriously argues that every consumer protection law is unconstitutional. Nor do they say that about privacy laws, tax laws, employment discrimination laws, and SEC disclosure laws. All these laws could be abused to retaliate against companies for editorial decisions government officials dont like, and they sometimes are. That doesnt render them categorically unconstitutional. Whats needed is a First Amendment framework that can account both for the value of platform disclosure and for its potential harms and costs. The Supreme Court has done some of this work already in Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, a case that upheld a requirement that lawyers inform their contingent-fee clients that they may have to pay court costs if they lose their case. The First Amendment disfavors laws that compel speech in certain contexts, but Zauderer established that requiring businesses to disclose factual and uncontroversial information relating to the terms on which they provide their services should be assessed less stringently than compelled disclosures of other forms of protected speech. The reason is that the disclosure of factual information in the commercial context enables consumers to make better purchasing decisions, while a business constitutionally protected interest in not providing this information is minimal. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Some advocates argue that Zauderer is a poor fit for platform transparency mandates because so far the Supreme Court has applied it only to laws intended to address deception in commercial advertising. But lower courts have repeatedly recognized that the cases reasoning applies more broadly. Whats more, applying Zauderer here could help courts strike an appropriate balance between the companies free speech rights and the First Amendment interests of users and the broader public in greater transparency. Advertisement Heres how Zauderer review would work. To be constitutional, a disclosure requirement would have to be reasonably related to a legitimate government interest and, critically, not unjustified and unduly burdensome. In other constitutional contexts, the undue burden test has been applied on a sliding scale: The more substantial the burden, the more work the government has to do to justify it. In cases involving platform transparency mandates, courts should apply a similar principle, with an eye toward protecting both the public interest and the platforms core First Amendment right to make editorial decisions. Some disclosures will be seen to further public understanding of the platforms services while implicating editorial decisions only at the margins, if at all. But the more that a disclosure could chill platforms editorial decision making, the more clearly the government would need to show that it furthered an important interest. Advertisement Of course, even mandates that satisfied this standard could be abused, and courts would need to carefully watch how transparency measures are used in practice. In some cases, it would be important for courts to quash or limit demands for informationfor example, when it appeared that information was being sought for partisan or political reasons. There is precedent for this: In its landmark 1964 NAACP v. Alabama civil rights decision, the Supreme Court held that Alabama could not compel the NAACP to disclose its list of members, even though the state said this information was necessary to investigate the organizations compliance with a corporate registration law. The court correctly understood that, in the context of the Jim Crow South, requiring the NAACP to surrender this list would subject members to economic reprisals, physical threats, and other serious forms of public hostility, imposing a substantial burden on their First Amendment freedom of association. Courts addressing First Amendment challenges to platform transparency requirements can and should be vigilant against potential chilling effects. But they shouldnt adopt a theory of the First Amendment that forecloses such regulation entirely. To do so would threaten other vital free speech and democratic values the First Amendment is meant to promote and serve. Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Changes promise simplification of permits, higher penalties for unauthorised construction. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled In April 2022, parliament passed new laws which Deputy Prime Minister Stefan Holy (Sme Rodina), the main author of the legislation, has described as not a correction, not an amendment, not some overcooked chewed-up thing[but] a completely new law, a modern one that reflects the needs of ordinary people. Investment Advisory Guide Well-arranged information about the economy, labour market, investor support, legislation, and real estate as well as investment opportunities in Slovakia. For more details visit our online shop. The Construction (Building) Law and the Urban Planning Law will come into force on April 1, 2024, and should lead to a simplification and acceleration of the granting of construction permits, a reduction in the administrative burden around construction, among other things, but also stricter sanctions for unauthorised building, according to Milina Schifferdeckerova of consultancy firm KPMG. Outlined below are the most important changes expected with the introduction of the new construction legislation, as selected by KPMG. The Construction (Building) Law Transfer of competencies One of the main changes in the new legislation is the transfer of competencies performed within construction proceedings by municipalities within the transferred performance of state administration back to the state. Part of this change is the establishment of a central state administration body, namely the Office for Urban Planning and Construction, which will act through subordinate authorities with limited territorial competence. The competence of the existing authorities, i.e. municipalities, will therefore be transferred to the regional offices of the newly established office. The aim of the changes is to professionalise building authorities. Simplification of construction permitting The intention of the new legislation is to significantly speed up the entire process of granting construction permits. Currently, this process takes an average of up to 300 days in simple cases and even longer in complex and more difficult projects. Under the new legislation the issuance of a construction permit for a simple building should be possible within 40 working days. The multi-stage construction procedure should be simplified and shorten by abolishing separate zoning and construction procedure. The new legislation also introduces precise statutory deadlines for delivery of binding opinions of the relevant authorities and decision-making process of the building authorities within each particular phase of the construction process. The possibility of notification, and thus gaining a simplified construction permit, for certain categories of construction works remains. Subject to notification will be minor construction or minor construction work. Electronisation of the proceedings and digitisation of data: The process of gaining construction permits should also be significantly simplified and accelerated thanks to electronisation of the process. With some exception, the whole communication and decision-making process will be performed only via a new electronic platform so called Urbion. Urbion shall serve as a new communication and information platform where all communication will be carried out and all communication and decisions will be recorded. Urbion as an information platform shall also contain information on urban planning documentation, technical and road infrastructure, register of buildings and it should be connected to other public information portals. The so-called once and for all benefit will be introduced, which means that if the state already has some information about a particular citizen, it will not need to be resubmitted. Unauthorised buildings: The new law introduces no tolerance principle towards unauthorised or illegal buildings and with some exception they could be no longer legalized as it is under current legislation. According to the authors of the law, currently there are several reasons for the existence of numerous unauthorised buildings. As one of the reasons is long-lasting and complicated processes of permitting constructions, where the law itself stipulates the process how an unauthorised building can be legalized, and if the statutory conditions are met theres almost no risk of rejecting the application for an additional permit. The current sanctions for breaches of construction legislation also appear to be insufficient. The new legislation therefore contains a significant tightening of the processes of permitting unauthorised buildings, when it will no longer be possible to apply for an additional construction permit and the building authority will order the removal of the construction at question. The unauthorized buildings could no longer be connected to the utilities network. These rules will apply to unauthorised buildings in the future. With respect to the unauthorized buildings built before the new legislation will come into force, there will be a transition period within which they can be legalised. The Urban Planning Law Transfer of competencies: The law also regulates the competencies for the newly established Office for Spatial Planning and Construction in the area of urban planning. Its main task will be to procure the Concept of Urban Development of Slovak Republic and to act as a coordinator of a unified procedure and processes of urban planning through methodological guidelines. The existing levels of individual urban planning documentation are preserved, and a new type of urban planning documentation is added - the master plan of the micro-region. Electronisation: The new legislation is intended to bring new electronic urban planning processes in a unified methodology and in a unified Urbion urban planning and construction information system, which will store and publish relevant data and information. The public part of the information system should contain urban planning documentation, information on the territory provided by urban planning authorities for publication, decisions and binding opinions of urban planning authorities and selected data about decisions and measures of construction offices. The urban planning process is to be significantly simplified, for example by harmonising the proceedings with environmental impact assessment processes. Master plans: Urban planning should become a basic procedure, where with the help of a uniform methodology and uniform principles of urban planning, the competence is given to municipalities and cities to plan development in their own territory. The aim is to create a unified structure of master plans throughout Slovakia. The new law also responds to practical problems by introducing a conceptual approach, while it pursues the goal of making the valid urban planning documentation a relatively stable binding document. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled After the Czecho-Slovak breakup 30 years ago, the Czech Republic became a benchmark for Slovaks to compare against in every walk of life. Yet, if Slovakia wants to be competitive, it has to compare itself with more developed countries, not only with the Czechs, says Pavol Sajgalik, chairman of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), in an interview with the Slovak Spectator. How has science in Slovakia developed since 1993? What is Slovakia doing and can do better in order to become more competitive? Find out in the interview. Related article Related article An American Philosopher in Slovakia: I have done my best work here Read more Many people tend to remember socialism with optimism and say things were better back then. Have you encountered something similar in connection to Slovak science? Certainly not when it comes to people close to me. Those of us with experience of scientific work under socialism and after the revolution can attest that there are striking differences. First, during socialism, science was still undernourished when it came to money, but there were programmes called the State Basic Research Plan, which funded science. I would say that it was funded stress-free. While today individual scientists need to apply for projects, back then the money arrived automatically, though the sums involved were not very high. We were also forced to be much more creative when it came to devices. I come from the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry and we made many of the devices in our workshops. This is because they were only available to the Western European market and we did not have the means to buy them, so we developed many in-house. A small dose of creativity was involved, but as well as a large dose of amateurism. I dont think it was better then. To stay up to date with what scientists in Slovakia or Slovak scientists around the world are doing, subscribe to the Slovak Science newsletter, which will be sent to readers free of charge four times a year. What has changed? The paradigm. Although institutional money flows kind of automatically, the amount is less and does not cover the potential research that individual workplaces have to perform. Scientists attend work not only to get paid, they also have to bring money to work. We have to apply for grant schemes in order to solve the scientific problems we find interesting or important for society. This has changed. Also, the quality of science is certainly different. Now all workplaces at the Slovak Academy of Sciences are open to the world; they publish in journals available everywhere in the world, whereas in the past we were significantly focused on domestic production or the production of socialist countries. Only in some cases did we also publish in developed countries. Can we talk about Slovak science in and of itself in the period before Slovakia and the Czech Republic separated? Political parties are subsumed by the possibility of a snap election, while President Zuzana Caputova prepares to announce if she will run for re-election. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Slovakias interim prime minister, Eduard Heger, maintains that snap elections have no place in a democracy a view that Slovakia is very likely to test this year after parliament brought his government down in December. Were against snap elections, Heger stated his partys position at the time. Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO), the largest coalition party that Heger is a member of, argues that a democratic government should end its term after four years, not before. Our constitution reads that a parliamentary election shall be held every four years, Heger responded to a question about why his party opposes snap elections. OLaNO rode to power in 2020 on a popular anti-corruption platform, ending the eight-year rule of a succession of Smer-led governments that had been tarnished by wide-scale corruption, links to organised crime, and the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova. Despite initial hopes, OLaNO was forced to replace its conflict-seeking and stubborn leader Igor Matovic as prime minister after only a year in power a difficult period marked by the coronavirus pandemic and internal wrangling between various coalition partners. That move was not enough, however, to save the OLaNO-led government from losing its constitutional majority and, subsequently, a majority in the 150-seat house when on December 15 most lawmakers (78) backed a no-confidence motion against Hegers government. To replace the current OLaNO-led interim government with limited powers, appointed by President Zuzana Caputova in mid-December, the countrys political leaders would have to garner the necessary 90 votes in parliament to change the constitution and, then, pass another bill with the same quorum to actually make a snap election happen. Yet, they do not possess the votes at present. Still, a snap election seems to be a preferred solution to Caputovas caretaker government or a Heger 2.0 government among most political parties except for OLaNO of course. The ruling party fears the return of ex-prime minister Robert Ficos Smer party to power and what they reckon will be an attempt to halt the numerous investigations into high-profile corruption and prosecutions of former high-ranking public servants and oligarchs. Despite its current opposition, OLaNO has not always been against snap elections a tool used three times prior to a 2021 Constitutional Court decision that established the requirement for parliament to pass an amendment about shortening a parliament before any future snap election could be held. In 2018, several weeks after the journalists murder, Matovic announced in front of the cameras that most people wanted a snap election while waving a sheet of paper around that showed a public poll demanding such a thing. We stand by the people demanding a snap election, a celebration of democracy, Matovic claimed. Heger, an MP at the time, stood next to OLaNOs leader in silence. While many experts do not question the legitimacy of a snap election, and even see it as a way out of the current chaotic governance and uncertainty, they warn at the same time that its outcome could steer Slovakia, which marks 30 years of its independence in 2023, away from the EUs core. Interim PM Eduard Heger (OLaNO) with his wife Lucia on the plane during the flight to the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, which took place in St. Peters Square in Vatican City on January 5. (Source: TASR Jaroslav Novak) Three times a premier To avert a snap election, Heger is trying to find 76 lawmakers who would be willing to support his new government until early 2024, when the next parliamentary election is scheduled to be held. When asked by the Sme newspaper if his efforts are likely to bear fruit, Heger was brief: Well see. By 2024, Heger believes he will have been able to show people the first results of his cabinets reforms financed by the 6.3 billion from the EUs mammoth post-coronavirus recovery fund, and deliver financial aid worth 3.5 billion to people and businesses struggling from the energy crisis. In this way, he is hoping to prevent Fico, whose political party is now the countrys second most-popular party in opinion polls, from taking power. Fico, a three-times ex-prime minister after winning snap elections in 2006 and 2012, is today under investigation for his alleged involvement in and establishment of an organised crime group, and for the alleged use of sensitive tax information against his opponents, including Matovic. Criminal charges, however, were dropped following a surprising decision by the prosecutor general in November. Grigorij Meseznikov, a political scientist for the Slovak Institute for Public Affairs, is sceptical about Hegers chances. Its beyond all human endeavour given the fall of his government, he told the SITA news agency. Heger might not be in this invidious position had he actually sacked his party leader Matovic as finance minister last summer a condition laid down by the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party for it to remain in the coalition. SaS got its wish on Matovic after it had left the coalition, when its proposal for a no-confidence vote against Hegers cabinet was ultimately successful. Heger, as interim prime minister, eventually agreed in late December to remove Matovic from his cabinet in exchange for SaSs support for the 2023 state budget. Without it, Hegers government would not have been able to increase salaries or roll out its 1.2 billion pro-family package, among other things. Moreover, it was SaS leader Richard Sulik who initially advised Heger to try to find 76 lawmakers to support a potential third government, hinting that SaS might even back it. Ultimately, though, Sulik changed his mind after some of his MPs expressed disapproval with the idea. I then said to Heger to forget about it for now, Sulik said. Even with its two coalition partners, Za Ludi and Sme Rodina, OLaNO does not have the necessary 76 lawmakers to back up Hegers plans. In addition, Sme Rodinas leader Boris Kollar has said he sees a snap election as a better solution to the current political stalemate in Slovakia. Well provide votes for [Hegers] new government under the condition that a snap election will take place by September at the latest, Kollar said. Sme Rodina, which has threatened to leave OLaNO-led governments on several occasions over the past three years, submitted a constitutional bill last summer that would shorten a parliament, but the political parties have taken a time-out until late January from talks about supporting the bill and snap election. If the bill that changes the constitution fails to win 90 votes in parliament in January, lawmakers could only debate the same bill in six months time at the earliest. Robert Fico (Smer-SD), Member of the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic, during the 78th session of the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic on December, 15, 2022 in Bratislava. (Source: TASR Jakub Kotian) Smers referendum, Caputovas decision Yet the Smer-led opposition has up its sleeve another possible way to get the constitutional change in question adopted. A 9-million-euro opposition-initiated referendum on shortening a parliament is set to take place on January 21, just three days before the first parliamentary session of the year. The electorate will, therefore, be the first to have its say on the constitutional change, even if the referendum is not expected to be valid due to a low turnout. Only 37 per cent of people said they will definitely cast a vote, according to an AKO poll from early December. President Caputova who agreed to, then called the referendum and coalition politicians said weeks ago they would ignore it. The president claims Smer is misusing the referendum for its own political ends, while others see it as merely a waste of money. In Slovak history only one referendum has exceeded the necessary 50-per cent threshold. That concerned joining the EU in 2004. Yet if Smers referendum were to succeed, its outcome would be legally binding, meaning that any future Slovak parliament could be dismissed anytime via a referendum or a resolution adopted by just 76, not 90, lawmakers in the 150-seat parliament, which is different from the proposal waiting to be voted on by parliament. Conversely, if the referendum becomes invalid or political parties fail to agree by the end of January (the deadline set by the president) on holding a snap election, or Heger has not got together a list of 76 lawmakers to support his next cabinet by then, President Caputova could appoint her own caretaker government. In early December, Caputova said she would like to avoid this scenario. In addition to your own responsibility, you are also responsible for the executive, so I can reassure everyone who is afraid of this model from the point of view that I covet it, I really am not, the president asserted. In her New Years Address, she said an early election, apparently, awaits Slovakia. Unlike SaS, other political parties said they would not back an interim, caretaker government. The Slovak public does not seem much in favour of it either. A Focus poll in December shows only 22 per cent would support a caretaker government, a concept Slovakia has no experience with. Caputova, who is expected to announce in the spring her decision on whether she will run for re-election in 2024, would probably not want to risk a misstep in the form of appointing a government of technocrats unsupported by either parliament or the people. If Caputova the countrys most trusted politician decides on another presidential run, she would be setting out on the campaign trail round about the same time as political parties ahead of any snap election at some point this year. Mikulas Dzurinda (L) talks to PM Heger (R) during the meeting of the Together Civic Democracy party to review the municipal and regional elections, in Senec, on December 10, 2022. (Source: TASR Jaroslav Novak) The Dzurinda project In fact, up to 59 per cent of people would prefer to see any snap election take place before the summer of 2023, with only 19 per cent preferring an election in spring of 2024, according to the above-cited Focus poll. Even Sulik now says his party does not rule out supporting a snap election, which the party considers a last-resort. My personal assumption is that all parties in parliament will agree on a snap election in September, he told Sme, Everyone will be equally slightly dissatisfied. A snap election would force small centrist and centre-right parties to create coalitions to have any chance of entering parliament, according to Meseznikov. Meseznikov also points to ex-prime minister Mikulas Dzurindas political project that has been talked about in the media since the autumn of 2021. At the beginning of December, Dzurinda spoke at a congress of Spolu, a small non-parliamentary party, where he mentioned that he wants to create a political alternative to Smer, the far-right parties and populists, and that the project would aim to deal with the countrys problems by bringing together conservatives and liberals. Today it is about not allowing ourselves to be pushed out of the developed world by our stupidity, cowardice and weakness, said Dzurinda, a man who introduced key reforms in the early 2000s but whose time in office was also tarnished by political corruption. Political scientists agree it is not clear what Dzurindas ambitions are and how far advanced his plans are. There is talk of Dzurindas project, but we see nothing happening, political scientist Jozef Lenc said in a podcast. Based on his statements about bringing all true democrats, conservative and liberal, together, Heger appears to have a similar ambition to Dzurinda. Its unclear how Heger thinks he can achieve this when his party boss, Matovic, has repeatedly attacked liberals, the president, and the LGBT community in recent days. MPs Richard Rasi (L) and Peter Pellegrini (R) before the vote on the motion of no confidence in the government during the 78th session of the parliament in Bratislava on December 15, 2022. (Source: TASR Jaroslav Novak) Little Hungary Like Dzurinda and some in power, experts also express fear that any snap election could shift Slovak foreign policy and push the country back to the peripheries of the EU. A similar situation occurred in 1994 when Vladimir Meciars HZDS party won the first snap election held in Slovakia, whose semi-authoritarian rule earned Slovakia the name of black hole of Europe. Today, sociologist Michal Vasecka claims a government choosing the Hungarian path could possibly end the current period of instability in Slovakia, hinting at Ficos Smer being part of such a government. Since the start of Russias invasion of Ukraine, Fico has rejected military aid for Ukraine and criticised the sanctions against Russia. Last summer, Ukraine put Fico on a list of high-profile Westerners spreading Russian propaganda. Milan Nic of the German Council on Foreign Affairs told the Pravda daily that Fico is so out of touch with mainstream EU politics that he would be seen as extreme in any government. There are fears that Slovakia could become a little Hungary after the next election, he said. It is the Hlas party, led by ex-prime minister Peter Pellegrini, who is likely to win the next election. His party, which split from Ficos Smer in summer 2020, has topped public opinion polls for a long time. Holding a different position on the war in Ukraine from Fico, Pellegrini claims he cannot imagine cooperation with the Smer leader if he were part of his government. Difficult to read, it is yet to be seen what position Pellegrini would actually take post-election. Meanwhile, former prime minister Iveta Radicova, whose government collapse in 2011 was followed by a snap election, said in a pre-Christmas radio interview that the next government has to deal with a very serious problem on top of all the other problems the continuing decline in peoples living standards. Experts stress that the Tatra Tiger, Slovakias nickname in the noughties due to its high GDP at the time, cannot start growing economically strong again without further reforms, a halt to the brain drain and support for higher immigration. While there is a struggle for survival of power in the parliament, there is a struggle for survival in our lives, Radicova said. This story was produced in partnership with Reporting Democracy, a cross-border journalism platform run by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Flash The rescue team has recovered three miners from under the debris after 61 hours in Afghanistan's northern Badakhshan province, the provincial director of information and culture Qari Maazudin said Sunday. "The remaining two miners were recovered from under debris at 09:20 p.m. Saturday while another was rescued on Friday and thus the rescue operation is over after 61 hours," Ahmadi told reporters here. Several miners were working in a tunnel of a gold mine in Yawan district on Thursday when the tunnel caved in, trapping the three people, the official said, adding that the trio had been recovered and shifted to a hospital for medical treatment. The Ister Tower project is slated to start construction next year. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled The Czech development company DRFG is readying itself to enter the Bratislava real estate market. They want to carry out the Ister Tower project, originally presented before the 2008 real estate crisis. DRFG has reached an agreement with the owner of the land, The Galata Group, which has been preparing this project for several years. The Ister Tower is to be built at the busy intersection of Kosicka Pristavna Landererova streets in the new Bratislava downtown. The developer is considering building five hundred housing units and will not target only the rich. Related article Related article Bratislava as a capital city: Changed skyline, but iconic buildings lost Read more Long-term lager beer Doctors have been waiting months to have their diplomas recognised. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Dozens of Ukrainian doctors are waiting to have their diplomas recognised before they can start working in Slovakia. The Health Ministry continues to require that the doctors return to Ukraine a potentially dangerous journey in order to obtain documentation confirming that their certificates to practise are legitimate. Some say they have been waiting for recognition of their diplomas for months, despite an acute shortage of some specialists paediatricians in particular within the Slovak health-care system. The accreditation process also involves significant fees, the Sme daily reports, citing the SITA newswire. "In addition to the fact that many Ukrainian doctors have limited opportunities to get their documents validated at home, it also costs them a lot of money. Ukrainian documents still need to be translated into Slovak, for which a sworn translation costing 50 to 100 is required," explained Alona Kurotova of the International Association of Doctors and Medical Professionals in Slovakia. Abolishing such fees temporarily and getting rid of bureaucracy would help the foreign doctors, the association says. Ongoing health-care personnel shortage Slovak hospitals struggled to recruit foreign doctors even during the Covid-19 crisis. When the countrys health-care system buckled under record numbers of pandemic cases, the government moved to make it easier for foreigner workers to take jobs in Slovakia. But those measures are deemed insignificant by the association. Foreign doctors are being denied the opportunity to work despite the ongoing health-care personnel shortage that is still prevalent in Slovakia, especially in childrens care. As recently as December the Health Ministry appealed to parents via a Facebook post not to take their children to a paediatrician unless it is absolutely necessary. Insufficient changes Ukrainian pediatricians seem to be the most affected by the measures. The qualifications recognised in Ukraine vary compared to those in Slovakia, which complicates the process. The situation has improved slightly: paediatricians with Ukrainian diplomas were once disqualified out of hand; their applications are now being considered, albeit subject to the current delays. As a result, many Ukrainians with a medical degree are working as medical interns instead of fully-fledged doctors for now. Operator Slovalco blames high energy costs and government inaction. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Slovakia's only aluminium producer is shutting down its smelters after 70 years of production. Slovalco, which is based in the central Slovak town of Ziar nad Hronom, says that after decades of production it can no longer afford to run its last ten remaining furnaces. Without the producer, Slovakia will be forced to buy aluminium from foreign sources, Slovalco writes. The aluminium producer had been steadily restricting production in response to rising energy prices. According to the producer, Slovalco originally operated 226 furnaces. The number of furnaces in operation was decreased by 40 percent just over a year ago, citing high energy costs. Alumnium smelting is among the most energy intensive of all industrial processes. The company Slovalco operates based on a long-term contract concerning supplies of electrical energy, said managing director of Slovalco Milan Vesely when the firm began restricting its operations. With this type of business, which needs stability and predictability to adopt long-term solutions, we conclude long-term contracts. Slovalco points fingers at ministry The situation around the current, complete shutdown could have been avoided, the company suggests. The shutdown of production is the result of the inaction of the government the inaction of Environment and the former Finance Minister Igor Matovic (chair OLaNO). During the last years, they blocked the adoption of an amendment which would have adjusted the amount of compensation for energy-intensive enterprises to the level of other industrialised EU countries, Slovalco wrote. Vesely says he warned about the current scenario, but that the government took an interest in the company only when it was too late. No firm decision was made, despite Slovalco being of strategic importance for Slovakia, as aluminium mainly goes to car companies and with the arrival of Volvo in Kosice, demand is expected to increase. In July 2022, 133 out of 226 electric furnaces - electrolysers - were running, making Slovalco the largest consumer of electricity in Slovakia. At full capacity, it consumes eight percent of the country's entire electricity production. Although the price of aluminium on the stock exchange has been high, the cost of electricity was and is at such a level that, according to the company's management, Slovalco would have been producing at a deep loss during 2023. Shareholders would probably have accepted the losses for a while, but they saw no light at the end of the tunnel. Despite the complete shutdown and the absence of financial support from the government, the producer does not plan to withdraw from the market for good. Slovalco will attempt to maintain the equipment within the factory at stable levels in order to allow for production to restart. For this, however, the producer would still need financial support from the government, writes Vesely. First furnaces, then employers The shutdown of the furnaces is not the only measure that has been taken to save the producer from bankruptcy. About 300 of the company's employees, out of 450, lost their jobs last summer. A further 2,500 jobs tied to aluminium manufacturing were thereby put at risk. Slovalco now plans to gradually lay off its remaining employers, who have kept the production and operation of its furnaces running. In the meantime, Slovalco will operate a remelting centre to process aluminium waste, which the company put into operation in June last year after the closure of primary aluminium production. The rising cost of energy has affected other major employers and producers in Slovakia. About a week after Slovalco announced cuts to its production last year, ferro-alloy manufacturer OFZ, based in Oravsky Podzamok (Zilina Region), decided on a similar step. Police warn against a mobilisation hoax, Ukrainian doctors tired of fighting bureaucracy, and more retail parks will emerge in 2023. Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Good evening. Here is the Monday, January 9 edition of Today in Slovakia - the main news of the day in less than five minutes. So far, Heger's fight to avoid election seems in vain Eduard Heger in parliament during the debate on the no-confidence vote. (Source: Sme - Marko Erd) Interim Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OLaNO) has not, so far, secured a majority of lawmakers to support his new cabinet, nearly a month after the collapse of his previous administration and despite reports of protracted negotiations. "By no means will we give up," he stated on TV on Sunday. OLaNO, the largest party in the previous coalition, is trying to avert a snap election despite the fact that most people are in favour of one, according to opinion polls. Heger, nonetheless, has portrayed an early election as a nonsense, and even a big risk. His party says it wants to prevent ex-prime minister Robert Fico (Smer), who was charged last year with serious criminal offences (the charges were later dropped on the orders of the general prosecutor), from taking power for a fourth time. On Monday, Heger announced he was collecting signatures in support of his proposed new government. "My ambition is to lead the country until proper parliamentary elections in 2024," he stated via a post on Facebook. He has until the end of January to obtain the 76 signatures he needs. Analysis: Slovakia is on the brink of a snap election. Commentary: Heger is relying on his self-confidence, despite previously exuding less of it at home than abroad. More stories from The Slovak Spectator website Shopping: Yet more new new retail parks may pop up around Slovakia in 2023. Yet more new new retail parks may pop up around Slovakia in 2023. Real estate: A Czech developer wants to build a new tower in Bratislava's "new downtown". A Czech developer wants to build a new tower in Bratislava's "new downtown". Migration: Many Ukrainian doctors continue to wait months for the recognition of their diplomas in Slovakia, despite an acute shortage of some specialists in the country's health-care system. Many Ukrainian doctors continue to wait months for the recognition of their diplomas in Slovakia, despite an acute shortage of some specialists in the country's health-care system. Industry: Slovalco, Slovakia's only aluminium producer, can no longer afford to run its last ten remaining furnaces and has decided to shut them down. If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription. Thank you. FEATURE STORY FOR MONDAY Slovaks help trace a meteor to its (unexpected) point of origin The fireball captured by the Global Fireball Observatory camera at Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Alberta. (Source: University of Alberta) An unusual meteor burned across the sky over the Canadian province of Alberta two years ago, and Slovak astronomers played a key role in discovering where it came from. IN OTHER NEWS: Another group of 38 Slovak police officers left for Hungary on Monday to protect the EU's external border with Serbia. The first group operated in Hungary from October to December 2022. Unknown perpetrators are misusing the name of Slovenska Posta , the national postal services provider, to send out fraudulent e-mails to customers from customerservice@slposta.sk, an e-mail address actually used by the firm's customer service department. The provider stresses it never asks people for payments or their payment details via e-mail, social media or text message. The opposition SaS party has said nobody has approached it to negotiate support for interim Prime Minister Eduard Heger's new cabinet. SaS added that its next party conference, at which delegates will elect a new leader, will take place in April. Richard Sulik, who has led the party since it was founded in 2009, will run for re-election. (TASR) Ski slopes in the Jahodna resort, Kosice Region, are closed due to unsuitable conditions; only its ski school remains open. (Source: TASR Frantisek Ivan) No military mobilisation is being prepared in Slovakia , the police have said, in an attempt to dispel a hoax that has been spreading around the country. Planned military exercises do take place twice a year, but have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. Professional soldiers and selected district offices take part in them, not civilians. , the police have said, in an attempt to dispel a hoax that has been spreading around the country. Planned military exercises do take place twice a year, but have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine. Professional soldiers and selected district offices take part in them, not civilians. The Economy Ministry continues to register a decline in natural gas consumption during the ongoing heating season. The drop in November was 15.12 per cent compared to the five-year average, 25.78 per cent in October, 25.86 per cent in September, and 23.14 per cent in August. Thank you for reading The Slovak Spectator. P.S. If you have suggestions on how this news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk. This article originally appeared on Outside A sickness some are referring to as zombie deer disease is being flagged by wildlife departments across the country. A recent case discovered in Wisconsin brings up several important questions: Could this spread to humans and what can be done to stop it? Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a 100-percent fatal neurological infection found in deer, elk and moose that causes degeneration of the brain. An animal with CWD may become emancipated and exhibit abnormal behaviors that mimic dementia symptoms. People who have seen infected deer firsthand report the deer being in zombie-like states, hence the nickname. CWD was first documented in a deer in a Colorado research facility in the 1960s, then in several wild deer in 1981. Since then, CWD has been detected across 30 U.S. states. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) says that once the infection is established in an area, the risk can remain in the environment for a long time and affected areas are likely to expand. That's why deer hunters in Buffalo County, Wisconsin were startled Dec. 23, 2022, when a deer tested positive for the disease. Wisconsin is third in most cases of CWD (37) in the U.S., only behind Nebraska (43) and Kansas (49). This comes shortly after the November incident when The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) also identified an infected deer. Because Minnesota is one of the states with only few cases, the MDNR is taking the report of a new infection very seriously. "While disappointing, this find is not completely unexpected," Kelly Straka, wildlife section manager for the MDNR, said in a statement. "We're announcing this preliminary CWD positive result to encourage hunters in the Bemidji area to have their deer tested." Can Humans Get CWD? Scientists believe that CWD is likely to spread between animals through saliva, feces, blood urine or direct contact. A study conducted on monkeys showed CWD was transmitted to primates that were fed infected meat or brain tissue from a CWD-infected deer. Story continues However, you can breathe a sigh of relief, because to date there have been no reported cases of CWD infection in people. Still, the Center for Disease Control advises against eating meat from infected animals. What Can Hunters Do About CWD? Statewide, parks and wildlife departments are calling for hunters to follow guidelines and regulations to stop CWD spread. Hunters can unknowingly transmit CWD by transporting an infected carcass across counties, which is why all states which have detected CWD cases have enacted transport restrictions in counties where diseased animals have been reported. Other than following the proper guidelines each state has enacted, there are a few other ways hunters can take action. Because CWD can be transmitted through animals through the common ground like feed and baiting stations, eliminating those areas may help slow the spread. Hunters can also check wildlife and public recommendations on testing of meat before transporting, selling or consuming it. A Wolfy Solution In 2020, researchers at Penn State University began an ongoing study on how deer's natural predators, wolves and mountain lions, might assist in cleansing the population of the infected animals. The Sierra Club reports that often predators are capable of sensing animals that are sickly and therefore easier to pick off. Plus, there is no evidence that CWD can infect predators. The Penn State study is not yet published and researchers continue to work on providing an answer to whether or not predators can be a useful method of tampering down the CWD-infected population. For exclusive access to all of our fitness, gear, adventure, and travel stories, plus discounts on trips, events, and gear, sign up for Outside+ today. Phil Baroni, UFC 125 Weigh-in Former UFC and Pride FC fighter Phil Baroni has been moved to a state prison in Mexico after allegedly murdering his girlfriend in a hotel room. Mexican news outlet Tribuna De La Bahia broke the news of Baroni's arrest for the alleged crime on Jan. 3. Baroni, 46, flagged down law enforcement in the neighborhood of the hotel and told them that his girlfriend was unconscious and needed help. When police arrived at the scene, they discovered a nude woman on a bed covered in a sheet with no vital signs. After examining the female, they noticed injuries, including bruises to her face and body. Baroni was questioned, detained, and charged. Carlos Contreras Legaspi of ESPN Deportes provided an update to Baroni's situation on Saturday. "UPDATE on the Phil Baroni case. The former Pride/SF/UFC fighter has been transported to Tepic, capital of Nayarit, where he is now in a State Prison (CERESO). His hearing will be on Monday where a judge will determine hes legal status. If guilty, sentence goes from 30-50 years," Legaspi wrote on Twitter. UPDATE on the Phil Baroni case. The former Pride/SF/UFC fighter has been transported to Tepic, capital of Nayarit,where he is now in a State Prison (CERESO). His hearing will be on Monday where a judge will determine hes legal status. If guilty, sentence goes from 30-50 years. Carlos Contreras Legaspi (@CCLegaspi) January 7, 2023 Baroni (16-19) last fought in 2019 in China for the Rebel FC Middleweight Championship. He was defeated by Sai Wang. The New York Badass fought in the UFC from 2001 until 2005. He was released after losing four consecutive bouts. After competing in PRIDE, Strikeforce and Elite XC, Baroni returned to the UFC for two more fights. He lost both of them. Khamzat Chimaev looks massive in new photo Another veteran quarterback is returning to college. Utahs Cameron Rising announced Monday that he will be back in Salt Lake City next fall as a sixth-year senior. Rising has been Utahs starting quarterback for the past two seasons and has led the Utes to back-to-back Pac-12 titles and Rose Bowl appearances. Over the past two seasons, Rising has thrown for 5,527 yards and 46 touchdowns while rushing for 964 yards and 12 scores. Now with his return official, Rising will get the chance to add to those totals in 2023. Rising began his career at Texas before transferring to Utah in 2020. Rising opened 2020 as the Utes starter but was injured in Week 1. He began the 2021 season as the backup before taking over for Charlie Brewer in Week 3. He has started every game hes played since, amassing a 19-6 record as a starter. Utah went 10-4 this season, falling to Penn State in the Rose Bowl after beating USC in the Pac-12 title game. Rising was injured in the Rose Bowl and its unclear what his timetable to return to the field will be. After the Rose Bowl, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said Risings injury doesnt look good and could be something that it takes a while to recover from. Cameron Rising has thrown for 5,527 yards and 46 touchdowns the past two seasons as Utah's starting QB. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) In addition to Rising, Utah tight end Brant Kuithe and wide receiver Devaughn Vele also announced a return for next season on Monday. Kuithe, who suffered a season-ending injury in September, has 148 career receptions. Vele caught 55 passes for 695 yards and five touchdowns this season. Another Utah tight end, Thomas Yassmin, will also be back, he announced Sunday. With so many of the teams top upperclassmen returning, Utah will be among the favorites to win the Pac-12 yet again in 2023. And the return of Rising adds to the depth of quarterback talent in the Pac-12 with USCs Caleb Williams, Oregons Bo Nix and Washingtons Michael Penix among the signal callers who will return to school next fall. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230108/biden-makes-first-public-comment-about-pro-bolsonaro-rioters-150-arrested-so-far-1106147550.html Biden Makes First Public Comment About Pro-Bolsonaro Protesters, as 400 Reportedly Arrested So Far Biden Makes First Public Comment About Pro-Bolsonaro Protesters, as 400 Reportedly Arrested So Far On Sunday supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the National Congress building in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. 2023-01-08T23:34+0000 2023-01-08T23:34+0000 2023-01-10T11:03+0000 joe biden biden administration brazil brazil protest jair bolsonaro lula da silva americas /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/08/1106146393_1:0:1366:768_1920x0_80_0_0_a33007b3b2971891c0c3736797aa20bb.png US President Joe Biden called the pro-Bolsonaro attack on government buildings "outrageous". It was Biden's first comment about the unrestin Brasilia, during which supporters of Brazil's former president broke into the country's congressional building, Supreme Court, and presidential palace. Across social media some have called the protest an "attack on democracy". The clashes took place about a week following the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a veteran leftist and former president of Brazil who defeated Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician, in late October during Brazil's presidential election. The attack comes after about two months of protesting from Bolsonaro supporters who set vehicles on fire, blocked roads and camped outside of military buildings. The attack, which comes just two days after the second anniversary of the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, is undoubtedly a reminder of when supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. in an attempt to prevent a joint session of Congress from formalizing the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Since the attack Brazil's Congress, supreme court and presidential palace have all been secured by officials, and thus far at least 400 demonstrators who took part in storming Brazil's government buildings have been arrested, said the governor of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, on Twitter. One Twitter user was quick to point out the government of Brazil's short response time to the attack, writing: "At least 400 Bolsonaro supporters arrested already. The response to this has put the U.S. response to 1/6 to shame," referring to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Lula condemned the attack calling it "barbarism" while promising to "find and punish" those involved. He also was quick to criticize the police shortly after the incident, saying: "The police didn't do anything at all. They just let the protestors in," during a televised address. The president also labeled the protestors as "fanatic fascists" who represent "everything that's abominable" in politics. Bolsonaro, a polarizing figure with right-wing policies was first elected in 2018. During the election he questioned the security of Brazil's electronic voting system without any credible evidence and railed against mainstream media as dishonest. The former president---an acolyte of Trump's who is believed to be in Miami, Florida---has condemned the actions of his supporters but has denied responsibility for Sunday's attack. Political leaders across the globe have publicly condemned the attack on Brazil's government buildings, including: Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the European Union, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the far-right leader of Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. brazil americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.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://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg bolsonaro supporters storm congress building https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/at-least-5-journalists-attacked-while-covering-sunday-protests-in-brazils-capital-1106154712.html At Least 5 Journalists Attacked While Covering Sunday Protests in Brazil's Capital At Least 5 Journalists Attacked While Covering Sunday Protests in Brazil's Capital At least five journalists were attacked or had their equipment broken while covering the Sunday protests in Brazil, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) said on Monday. 2023-01-09T08:46+0000 2023-01-09T08:46+0000 2023-01-09T16:00+0000 riots brazil jair bolsonaro lula da silva americas bolsonaro supporters riot in brazil's capital latin america /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106154262_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_bb530cdb45b7149a5c0127b656075f8a.jpg The organization condemned attacks on journalists who "were only doing their job of monitoring and reporting on events that threatened Brazil's democracy." Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, protesting the results of the presidential election since late 2022, stormed the National Congress building, as well as Palacio do Planalto, one of the official palaces of the Presidency, and the Supreme Court building in the Brazilian capital on Sunday. Police managed to regain control of the buildings at around 4 p.m. local time on Sunday (19:00 GMT), according to Brazilian media reports. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in and started his third term as president of Brazil on January 1, has called the attacks on government buildings in Brasilia barbaric and ordered the use of federal forces to restore order in the capital. The European Union, the United States, a number of Latin American leaders and Bolsonaro himself have all condemned the storming of government buildings in Brasilia. brazil americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 riots in brazil, jair bolsonaro supporters, lula da silva https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/bank-of-switzerland-expects-143bln-loss-in-2022-1106160133.html Bank of Switzerland Expects $143Bln Loss in 2022 Bank of Switzerland Expects $143Bln Loss in 2022 The Swiss National Bank stated on Monday its losses in 2022 would reach 132 billion Swiss francs ($143 billion) mainly due to foreign currency fluctuations. 2023-01-09T10:33+0000 2023-01-09T10:33+0000 2023-01-09T10:37+0000 economy swiss national bank losses swiss franc /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106159764_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_56cccf9b715cb2b011c954b1331035a8.jpg "According to provisional calculations, the Swiss National Bank will report a loss in the order of CHF 132 billion for the 2022 financial year. The loss on foreign currency positions amounted to around CHF 131 billion and the loss on Swiss franc positions was around CHF 1 billion," the statement read.The regulator said that the distribution reserve of 102.5 billion Swiss francs would allow a decrease of the net loss to about 39 billion francs. The detailed report for 2022 with final calculations will be published on March 6, the bank said. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 bank of switzerland losses, currency fluctuations, swiss national bank, swiss national bank loss report, Flash Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Monday said the United States should share domestic COVID-19 information and data in a timely, open and transparent manner, considering the rapid spread of the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5. Wang made the remarks at a regular press briefing when asked if the United States has shared relevant information and data with China. According to the open-source COVID-19 data from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, almost all COVID-19 variants and their branches were prevalent in the United States within three years of the initial outbreak, Wang said, noting that the United States is one of the countries with the highest numbers of COVID-19 variants. Wang said that XBB.1.5 has become the fastest-growing variant in the United States and is estimated to account for more than 40 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country. "The U.S. side should share domestic COVID-19 information and data with the World Health Organization and the international community in a timely, open and transparent manner, and take effective measures to prevent the further spread of the virus," Wang said. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/biden-in-call-with-lula-conveys-us-unwavering-support-for-brazils-democracy---white-house-1106181955.html Biden in Call With Lula Conveys US Unwavering Support for Brazils Democracy - White House Biden in Call With Lula Conveys US Unwavering Support for Brazils Democracy - White House WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Joe Biden spoke by telephone with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to convey Washington's unwavering... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T23:03+0000 2023-01-09T23:03+0000 2023-01-09T22:57+0000 bolsonaro supporters riot in brazil's capital jair bolsonaro brazil lula da silva joe biden us support /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/08/1106146393_1:0:1366:768_1920x0_80_0_0_a33007b3b2971891c0c3736797aa20bb.png "President Biden and President Lula spoke by telephone this afternoon. President Biden conveyed the unwavering support of the United States for Brazils democracy and for the free will of the Brazilian people as expressed in Brazils recent presidential election, which President Lula won. President Biden condemned the violence and the attack on democratic institutions and on the peaceful transfer of power," the statement said on Monday. During the call, President Lula accepted Bidens invitation to visit Washington in early February for "in-depth consultations on a wide-ranging shared agenda," the statement said. Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, protesting the results of the presidential election in 2022, stormed the National Congress building as well as Palacio do Planalto, one of the official palaces of the Presidency and the Supreme Court building in the Brazilian capital on Sunday. Police regained control of the buildings on Sunday evening. Lula, who was sworn in and started his third term as president of Brazil on January 1, called the attacks on government buildings in Brasilia "barbaric" and ordered the use of federal forces to restore order in the capital. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/brazils-security-forces-cordon-off-military-headquarters-near-protesters-camp-1106171459.html brazil Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 bolsonaro supporters riot in brazil's capital, jair bolsonaro, brazil, lula da silva, joe biden, us, support https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/biden-in-mexico-for-north-american-summit-talk-will-focus-on-immigration-and-drug-trafficking-1106147961.html Biden in Mexico for North American Summit, Talk Will Focus on Immigration and Drug Trafficking Biden in Mexico for North American Summit, Talk Will Focus on Immigration and Drug Trafficking The summit, which is being referred to as the "three amigos" summit, started off with a politically charged bang when Biden made his first trip to the... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T04:01+0000 2023-01-09T04:01+0000 2023-01-09T04:01+0000 mexico city americas mexico andres manuel lopez obrador /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/0b/13/1090843999_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_1b3bb23b28ebec2cf1a3162daf92d438.jpg US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will gather in Mexico City this week to meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) for their first summit since late 2021. It also marks the first time a US leader has visited Mexico in nearly a decade. The "three amigos" will have to discuss more than immigration, though, as an array of other difficult issues will also be on the table, including the heavy flow of fentanyl across the US border which killed more than 100,000 people in 2021 alone. Climate change, drug trafficking, and immigration issues will "dominate" the North American Leader's Summit, said John Kirby, the White House National Security Council spokesman. He added in Friday's press briefing that "economic security, prosperity, democratic stability, and of course, migration management" depends on strong relationships with Canada and Mexico."A meeting like this is so that we keep moving forward on economic integration," AMLO said this week.However, the US and Mexico remain in a tight energy dispute as the two struggle for control of the market. Both the US and Canada believe AMLO's actions have breached a trade deal made by the three countries. Their dispute with Mexico on energy will likely overshadow any discussion of jobs. Just before the visit, Biden announced a major policy change for the US-Mexico border to address dissatisfaction from both Democrats and Republicans regarding his border policy. With permission from Mexico, the US will begin to admit up to 30,000 migrants a month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela under a humanitarian parole program, while those outside of the program will subject to expulsion. From the viewpoint of activists Biden's policy change is seen as a rebuff of his campaign promise to protect asylum seekers, but may cool the Republican backlash he has been faced with for months. mexico city americas mexico Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.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://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg mexico city, mexico, andres manuel lopez obrador https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/blast-off-virgin-orbit-marks-first-ever-space-launch-from-uk-soil-1106181724.html Virgin Orbit Marks First-Ever Launch From UK Soil But 'Anomaly' Prevents Payload From Reaching Orbit Virgin Orbit Marks First-Ever Launch From UK Soil But 'Anomaly' Prevents Payload From Reaching Orbit The Virgin Orbit launch was initially scheduled to take place in December 2022; however, officials were forced to postpone the flight after the vessel failed... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T22:32+0000 2023-01-09T22:32+0000 2023-01-09T23:54+0000 science & tech virgin orbit richard branson low earth orbit /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/05/0d/1095479245_0:286:3133:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_ebe7574818e2e11d0795bfffe1f35bd6.jpg Spaceflight firm Virgin Orbit officially conducted the first-ever space launch from the United Kingdom on Monday but fell short of completing its orbit goals after encountering an "anomaly," authorities have detailed.A brief statement issued by Virgin Orbit states that officials are "evaluating the information" at present. No details have surfaced on what prompted the "anomaly."The modified Boeing 747 aircraft, nicknamed Cosmic Girl, took off from Spaceport Cornwall in England just after 10 p.m. local time. However, once the airplane reaches an altitude of 35,000 feet, the converted plane will deploy its LauncherOne rocket into space. The rocket will then travel between 310 and 745 miles above Earth's surfaces before releasing its cargo.Officials have explained that the nighttime launch, while disappointing for viewers, was chosen as a result of the orbital requirements for the satellites.Aboard the modified jumbo jet are a total of nine satellites that will be deployed into lower Earth orbit. The satellites, some of which were made in the UK, will be used for a variety of experiments, as well as maritime research, national security matters and climate change observation.The joint mission between Virgin Orbit, the UK Space Agency, UK Royal Air Force and local Cornwall government also marks the first commercial satellite launch from Western Europe, and the first international launch for Virgin Orbit. Dan Hart, the chief executive of Virgin Orbit, noted in a Friday release that the launch itself "represents the opening of a new era in the British space industry and new partnerships across industry, government, and allies."Spaceport Cornwall was one of seven UK locations given funding in 2017 by the UK Space Agency to develop platforms fit for launch small satellites into low Earth orbit. According to Spaceport Cornwall CEO Mellisa Thorpe, the development of the launch site cost a whopping $24 million. low earth orbit Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 virgin orbit, richard branson, low earth orbit https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/canada-purchases-88-f-35-fighter-jets-in-142bln-deal-with-lockheed-martin-1106172882.html Canada Purchases 88 F-35 Fighter Jets in $14.2Bln Deal With Lockheed Martin Canada Purchases 88 F-35 Fighter Jets in $14.2Bln Deal With Lockheed Martin WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Canadian government has inked a C$19 billion (US$14.2 billion) deal with Lockheed Martin to acquire a fleet of 88 F-35 fighter jets... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T16:47+0000 2023-01-09T16:47+0000 2023-01-09T16:47+0000 military canada f-35 lockheed martin /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/04/0f/1082639533_0:46:1920:1126_1920x0_80_0_0_9274ff26fe6ebaf4de646c3714db0df8.jpg "Today, I am announcing that Canada is acquiring a new fleet of 88 state of the art F 35 fighter jets through an agreement that we have finalized with the United States government and Lockheed Martin with Pratt and Whitney. This investment is estimated at $19 billion, making it the largest investment in our Royal Canadian Air Force in 30 years," Anand said during a news conference. Canada will acquire the aircraft in tranches and the first tranche will include 16 jets, the second in 2026 will include four jets, the third in 2027 will include six jets and the fourth in 2028 will also include six jets. The rest of the fleet should be delivered by the end of 2032 just in time for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) phase out of its fleet of CF-18 jets, Anand added. The defense minister noted that there is no clause in the agreement holding Lockheed Martin accountable for failing in the delivery schedule. Canada has also acquired more CF-18 units from Australia to supplement RCAFs fleet in the interim period, Anand said, adding that those are also being upgraded under the so-called Hornet extension project. "These two initiatives will help extend the life of our CF-18 fleet to 2032 and will allow for a gradual transition from the CF-18 to the F 35," Anand added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20221213/from-neck-breaking-ejection-seats-to-frightening-lightning-f-35s-top-ten-problems-1105426616.html canada Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 canada buys f35, canada purchases f35, f 35 fighter jets, royal canadian air force, lockheed martin https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/europe-nato-pumped-tens-of-billions-of-dollars-of-arms-supplies-into-ukraine---kremlin-1106161472.html Europe, NATO 'Pumped Tens of Billions of Dollars' of Arms Supplies Into Ukraine: Kremlin Europe, NATO 'Pumped Tens of Billions of Dollars' of Arms Supplies Into Ukraine: Kremlin The EU and NATO have supplied "tens of billions of dollars" worth of arms to Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. 2023-01-09T11:14+0000 2023-01-09T11:14+0000 2023-01-09T11:18+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine joe biden olaf scholz emmanuel macron dmitry peskov /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/09/06/1100418475_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_1745690c872bb76468b1f225dcd8717f.jpg Last week, US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz released a joint statement announcing commitments of infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron, in turn, promised his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to supply Kiev with an unspecified number of AMX-10 RC armored combat vehicles. "It hardly makes sense to speak only of France's decision. We know that collective Europe, the North Atlantic Alliance, and the United States have pumped tens of billions of dollars into Ukraine through the supply of arms," Peskov told reporters.These deliveries cannot fundamentally change anything, the official added. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230107/report-western-military-aid-to-kiev-reflects-lack-of-desire-for-peace-1106095487.html Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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's special military operation in ukraine, western funding of ukraine, ukrainian crisis, russian military operation in ukraine, russian special operation in ukraine, ukrainian crisis, conflict in ukraine, war in ukraine, west fuelling conflict in ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/ex-brazilian-president-bolsonaro-reportedly-hospitalized-in-us-with-abdominal-pain-1106178171.html Ex-Brazilian President Bolsonaro Reportedly Hospitalized in US With Abdominal Pain Ex-Brazilian President Bolsonaro Reportedly Hospitalized in US With Abdominal Pain BUENOS AIRES (Sputnik) - Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been admitted to AdventHealth Celebration hospital in the US state of Florida with... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T18:19+0000 2023-01-09T18:19+0000 2023-01-09T21:38+0000 americas brazil brasilia jair bolsonaro /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106178022_0:0:2915:1640_1920x0_80_0_0_94324887865d3c6baea815fae2225841.jpg In late December, Bolsonaro went to the US to spend New Year's Eve at former US President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Bolsonaro neither participated in the inauguration of his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on January 1 nor intended to hand over the presidential sash. Ned Price, spokesperson for the US State Department, noted on Monday that the agency was aware of the reports but that the department would not comment on them."I am aware of the reports that he has been hospitalized," Price told a briefing. "Of course, he is a private citizen, so we wouldnt comment on that from here."Bolsonaro has had health problems since an assassination attempt in 2018, when he was stabbed during a campaign rally in the town of Juiz de Fora, about 125 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, nearly a month before the election. The knife damaged the mesenteric artery, which provides blood supply to the intestines. He underwent several surgeries afterward. americas brazil brasilia Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 brazil, brasilia, jair bolsonaro https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/facebook-to-remove-content-supporting-riots-in-brazil-1106155409.html Facebook to Remove Content Supporting Riots in Brazil Facebook to Remove Content Supporting Riots in Brazil Facebook will remove all content that supports or endorses riots in Brazil for violating the company's policy 2023-01-09T09:18+0000 2023-01-09T09:18+0000 2023-01-09T16:01+0000 brazil riots jair bolsonaro lula da silva americas latin america bolsonaro supporters riot in brazil's capital /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106155037_0:173:3025:1875_1920x0_80_0_0_1346295e2f0c3d6b8835a5ccd5548aab.jpg Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the National Congress building, as well as Palacio do Planalto, one of the official palaces of the Presidency, and the Supreme Court building in the Brazilian capital on Sunday. Police managed to regain control of the buildings at around 4 p.m. local time on Sunday (19:00 GMT). Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has called the attacks on government buildings in Brasilia barbaric and ordered the use of federal forces to restore order in the capital. The federal intervention will last until January 31, according to Lulas decree that was read out by him on Sunday from Sao Paulo. Governor of the Federal District Ibaneis Rocha said that over 400 people had been detained. The European Union, the United States, a number of Latin American leaders and Bolsonaro himself have all condemned the storming of government buildings in Brasilia.*Banned in Russia over extremist activities**Banned in Russia over extremist activities brazil americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 facebook, riots in brazil. jair bolsonaro https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/icrc-offices-in-kiev-moscow-boost-cooperation-to-give-aid-in-impartial-manner---spokesman-1106151383.html ICRC Offices in Kiev, Moscow Boost Cooperation to Give Aid in Impartial Manner - Spokesman ICRC Offices in Kiev, Moscow Boost Cooperation to Give Aid in Impartial Manner - Spokesman The offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Kiev and Moscow have increased cooperation in order to better provide much needed humanitarian assistance in an impartial manner. 2023-01-09T06:29+0000 2023-01-09T06:29+0000 2023-01-09T06:29+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine international committee of the red cross (icrc) humanitarian aid ukraine maria zakharova /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105739/87/1057398746_0:167:3049:1882_1920x0_80_0_0_d98fad40fbcda4c995bc12be4e6ce5d1.jpg The ICRC is the only humanitarian organization based in both Ukraine and Russia, and this is why its functioning is critical to providing assistance, Despres said. In the beginning of January, ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric announced her intention to visit Russia and meet with the country's authorities. During the previous month, Spoljaric arrived in Ukraine on a four-day visit to meet with civilians from the Nilkolaev and Kherson regions. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow demanded that international organizations condemn the execution of Russian prisoners of war by the Ukrainian forces and conduct a thorough investigation. All those involved in the execution of Russian prisoners in Ukraine would be identified and no one will escape retribution, she added. The ICRC has been working in Ukraine since 2014 and has provided humanitarian assistance, including food, water and other essential items, to the civilian population. The organization has significantly intensified its activities after Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 international committee of the red cross, humanitarian aid, ukrainian war crimes https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/new-zealand-to-vaccinate-people-against-mpox-with-unapproved-vaccine---reports-1106161787.html New Zealand to Vaccinate People Against Mpox With Unapproved Vaccine, Report Says New Zealand to Vaccinate People Against Mpox With Unapproved Vaccine, Report Says New Zealand authorities are preparing to vaccinate the population against mpox, also known as monkeypox, with a vaccine that has not yet been approved. 2023-01-09T11:28+0000 2023-01-09T11:28+0000 2023-01-09T11:33+0000 world vaccinations healthcare monkeypox /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/07/19/1097781625_0:192:2048:1344_1920x0_80_0_0_dabdea4d985b07238a9bdc7f44bdfb46.jpg The authorities want to get a vaccine out as soon as possible, but Medsafe, New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority has asked for necessary documentation from the manufacturer, which means that the vaccine will be rolled out unapproved, New Zealand's TV channel reported. Since it is against law to advertise unapproved medicines, there will be no big marketing campaign and the vaccine's proprietary name will not be used, media reported. In August 2022, media reports said the country's authorities are considering the use of the Jynneos mpox vaccine recommended in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The report said only about 5,000 vials of the vaccine that is enough for immunization of nearly 20,000 people were so far obtained. The vaccine will be available from January 16. Mpox is a rare viral disease that is usually transmitted to people from wild animals and is endemic in some African countries. The disease usually results in fever, rash and swollen lymph nodes. Since May 2022, mpox cases have been reported from countries where the disease is not endemic. The decease affected over 83,000 people in 110 countries, including 66 fatalities, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization. New Zealand has registered 41 confirmed cases. https://sputnikglobe.com/20220525/what-is-monkeypox-and-how-is-it-transmitted-1095774197.html Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 mpox in new zealand, mpox fatality rate, how mpox is spread, monkepox, vaccination against monkeypox, is there vaccine against monkepox https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/nigerian-army-colonel-reportedly-abducted-by-terrorists-freed-from-captivity-after-gunfight-1106153372.html Nigerian Army Colonel Reportedly Abducted by Terrorists, Freed From Captivity After Gunfight Nigerian Army Colonel Reportedly Abducted by Terrorists, Freed From Captivity After Gunfight Unknown gunmen, suspected to be terrorists, have abducted a Lieutenant Colonel of the Nigerian Army, N.B. Ahmed, after setting up an ambush on a military convoy, local media reported. 2023-01-09T08:16+0000 2023-01-09T08:16+0000 2023-01-09T08:16+0000 africa west africa nigeria nigerian army terrorist terrorist groups bandits ambush kidnapping /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106153226_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_41da03b22076812d570bd2661abf8201.jpg Unknown gunmen, suspected to be terrorists, have abducted a Lieutenant Colonel of the Nigerian Army, N.B. Ahmed, after setting up an ambush on a military convoy, local media reported. The incident took place on Friday, January 6, as the senior military officer was abducted along Tsafe-Kano road in the northwestern state of Zamfara. Lt. Col Ahmed was on his way to assume the command as the new commanding officer of the 8th division of the Nigerian Army in Sokoto, located in extreme northwestern Nigeria, when he was ambushed by terrorists. According to the media, the bandits, dressed in camouflage uniforms, established a roadblock along the road and abducted the officer. However, there was information about other soldiers who were travelling with him. However, on Sunday the officer was reportedly rescued following a search and rescue operation conducted by the Nigerian troops on the route between Yankara and Mai-Lafiya in Katsina State. He was said to be injured during the operation as the troops and bandits were engaged in a gunfight. After being rescued, the senior officer was evacuated to a military hospital in Kaduna. His condition supposedly was stable. Cases of kidnapping, banditry and cattle rustling are commonplace not only in the north of the West African country, but in the south as well. More that 30 people were recently kidnapped at a railroad station by an armed gang in the southern state of Edo. Last week, over 50 people were reported to have been killed and many more injured in the town of Owo, south-west of Nigeria, in an armed attack by unidentified gunmen on a local church. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/over-30-people-kidnapped-at-railroad-station-in-nigeria-1106150367.html africa west africa nigeria Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Maria Konokhova Maria Konokhova 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 Maria Konokhova west africa, nigeria, nigerian army, military, terrorists, bandits, kidnapping https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/over-60-of-germans-want-lambrecht-to-step-down-as-defense-minister-poll-shows-1106149027.html Over 60% of Germans Want Lambrecht to Step Down as Defense Minister, Poll Shows Over 60% of Germans Want Lambrecht to Step Down as Defense Minister, Poll Shows MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Nearly two-thirds of Germans want Christine Lambrecht 's resignation as German Defense Minister, according to a new study conducted by the... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T05:06+0000 2023-01-09T05:06+0000 2023-01-09T05:06+0000 world germany defense poll /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106148881_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_ded4bfd222a2c40512a1bbe07a475ca8.jpg The INSA poll showed that 64% of respondents think Lambrecht should step down. Only 15% said they wanted the defense minister to remain in her post and only 9% assessed her performance as positive. The study showed that 59% of Germans disapprove of Lambrechts performance. A total of 1,001 respondents participated in the poll. The defense minister has been under fire for her handling of the countrys defense policy and more recently for speaking lightly of the conflict in Ukraine during her New Year address. Friedrich Merz and Markus Soeder, the leaders of the German conservatives, took aim at Lambrecht in an interview with the Muenchner Merkur daily last week, arguing that Scholzs cabinet was losing authority with every hour that she lingered around. Wolfgang Buechner, a spokesperson for the German chancellor, said last week that Olaf Scholz had confidence in Christine Lambrecht despite calls for her to go. germany Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 germany, defense, poll https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/poland-declares-sputnik-correspondent-bezeka-unwanted-1106166738.html Poland Declares Sputnik Correspondent Bezeka Unwanted Poland Declares Sputnik Correspondent Bezeka Unwanted Poland has declared Sputnik correspondent Viktor Bezeka unwanted in the country over his journalistic activities, allegedly directed against Warsaw and the European Union 2023-01-09T14:07+0000 2023-01-09T14:07+0000 2023-01-09T14:18+0000 world freedom of speech mass media poland infowar leonid sviridov /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/05/16/1095703989_0:0:2797:1574_1920x0_80_0_0_8ffe48543ae0d6810a91752e8a6861af.jpg "Russian citizen Bezeka has been included in the list of unwanted foreigners on the territory of Poland at the request of the head of the Internal Security Agency," a statement read.Bezeka's journalistic activities allegedly represent an "element of the information war carried out by the Kremlin against Poland and the European Union," the office said, adding that the journalist "has been disseminating Russian propaganda directed against Poland's interests and its image in the international arena for many years." This is not the first time Poland has targeted Russian journalists working in the country. In 2014, Leonid Sviridov, journalist of the Rossiya Segodnya international media group, was stripped of the right to long-term residency in Poland. In 2016, the Schengen countries also declared him persona non grata and banned Sviridov from entering the area until December 2020 at Poland's initiative. In 2021, the ban was extended for five years. At that time, a similar decision was taken against Evgeny Reshetnev, correspondent of the Russian state-owned broadcaster VGTRK. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that Warsaw is violating freedom of the media and the Schengen legislation by persecuting Russian journalists. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230106/sputnik-editor-kasem-detained-in-latvia-felt-politically-persecuted-rossiya-segodnya-head-1106086499.html poland Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 violates freedom of speech, freedom of speech violations, persecution of russian journalists, viktor bezeka unwanted, sputnik journalist https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/russian-forces-take-village-of-bakhmutskoe-under-control-1106154135.html Russian Forces Take Village of Bakhmutskoe Under Control Russian Forces Take Village of Bakhmutskoe Under Control he Defense Staff of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) said on Monday that the Russian forces had taken control of the village of Bakhmutskoe near the town of Soledar and northeast of Bakhmut 2023-01-09T08:26+0000 2023-01-09T08:26+0000 2023-01-09T08:26+0000 russia's special operation in ukraine russia ukraine donetsk people's republic /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106153931_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_db7530db80358f8e98aea2f631ee4a45.jpg The Ukrainian-held town of Bakhmut, which is an important transport hub for supplying Ukrainian troops in Donbass, is located on the territory considered by DPR to be its part. Several highways and railroads go through the town. Both the Russian and Ukrainian forces have been fighting fiercely to capture the area over past few months. russia ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 russian special military operation, russia, ukraine https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/russian-human-rights-commissioner-to-meet-ukrainian-counterpart-in-turkey-on-jan-12-14-1106170323.html Russian Human Rights Commissioner to Meet Ukrainian Counterpart in Turkey on Jan 12-14 Russian Human Rights Commissioner to Meet Ukrainian Counterpart in Turkey on Jan 12-14 Russia's Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova announced on Monday the plans to meet with Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, in Turkey on January 12-14 2023-01-09T15:24+0000 2023-01-09T15:24+0000 2023-01-09T15:53+0000 tatiana moskalkova ombudsman ukraine ombudswoman world /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/105383/22/1053832212_0:265:2703:1785_1920x0_80_0_0_ef7a017d801e736b616c379287492081.jpg Last week, Lubinets said that he plans to meet Moskalkova in the near future. "I confirm that I am planning such a meeting. A large forum will be held in Turkey, organized by the Turkish Ombudsman, many ombudsmen from various states will be there, we have preliminary discussed the possibility of a meeting and the agenda of our negotiations ... From January 12 to 14," Moskalkova said. ukraine Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 human rights, moskalkova, russia's commissioner for human rights, russian ombudswoman https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/south-africa-to-advance-african-agenda-in-brics-ramaphosa-says--1106167858.html South Africa to Advance African Agenda in BRICS, Ramaphosa Says South Africa to Advance African Agenda in BRICS, Ramaphosa Says South Africa is set to use its role as chair of the BRICS grouping this year to advance common interests of African nations, said the countrys President Cyril Ramaphosa. 2023-01-09T14:53+0000 2023-01-09T14:53+0000 2023-02-01T15:02+0000 africa southern africa south africa brics summit brics ramaphosa cyril ramaphosa cooperation /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106167668_0:86:2935:1737_1920x0_80_0_0_965d7acb01d1b920328bd54cfe61df73.jpg South Africa is set to use its role as chair of the BRICS grouping this year to advance common interests of African nations, said the countrys President Cyril Ramaphosa during a press event in Johannesburg.Talking about the upcoming BRICS summit, he expressed his intention to invite other African countries, without specifying which nations exactly are expected to participate. The president underlined that BRICS plays an important role in the state's "foreign policy architecture." According to him, the group of the world's major developing countries accounts for approximately 17% of global trade and one-third of GDP, and therefore is of significant importance for the world in terms of setting a global development agenda. As a country that shares the ideas of pan-Africanism, South Africa wants the grouping to focus on helping to enhance the development of the continent, he elaborated. He recalled that Africa was "pillaged, ravaged and exploited by other continents." Therefore, he highlighted that South Africa wants to create "solidarity" within BRICS to encourage member states to pay more attention to their relations with the continent. He stated that South Africas main goal as chair of the grouping is to strengthen cooperation between Africa and BRICS. "This is Africas century," he stressed saying that BRICS, as well as other international forums "like G20 and G7" must embrace that.The country's ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), has recently stated that in its role chairing BRICS that South Africa should promote the expansion of the group by "admitting additional members on the basis of formally agreed criteria, principles, and values." In December, South Africa's Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor during a briefing to the media highlighted that the country will further promote concrete cooperation within BRICS that contributes "to the priorities of a better South Africa, a better Africa, and a better world."BRICS is an informal group of the world's leading emerging economies, which was formed to enhance cooperation between these countries and develop common approaches to global economic challenges. The organization comprises five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It has a rotating chair, and since South Africa joined the group in 2010, the country has filled that position twice, in 2013 and 2018. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230106/south-africas-ruling-party-advocates-brics-expansion--media-1106076176.html africa southern africa south africa Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 Maria Konokhova Maria Konokhova 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 Maria Konokhova southern africa, south africa, president cyril ramaphosa, brics, cooperation https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/swedish-pm-on-stalled-nato-bid-turkey-wants-things-stockholm-cannot-give-1106149180.html Swedish PM on Stalled NATO Bid: Turkey Wants Things Stockholm Cannot Give Swedish PM on Stalled NATO Bid: Turkey Wants Things Stockholm Cannot Give Despite the considerable lengths Stockholm has gone to in its attempts to please Turkey, Ankara has repeatedly stressed that more was needed to win its full backing for Swedens NATO bid. 2023-01-09T05:41+0000 2023-01-09T05:41+0000 2023-01-09T05:46+0000 sweden ulf kristersson news scandinavia turkiye nato nato membership world /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/07/03/1096913658_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_9d4b2918d90cff3a843246f5ea3e47f5.jpg Despite the considerable lengths Stockholm has gone to in its attempts to please Turkey, Ankara has time and again stressed that more was needed to win its full backing for Swedens NATO bid. Turkey has made some demands that Sweden cannot meet, the Nordic nations Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said.We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don't know when, Kristersson said, adding that the outcome of Swedens bid will depend on Turkeys internal politics as well as Sweden's capacity to show its seriousness.When asked if he thought that Ankara would ratify the Swedish application before the election in Turkey, Kristersson replied that this was impossible to know.NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg said he expects both countries will be able to join the military alliance as early as this year, while admitting the decision hinges on the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments. Among the 30 NATO members, only Hungary and Turkey have yet to welcome the two Nordic applications. However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has pledged that his parliament will soon approve both Finland and Sweden's accession bids, leaving Turkey the main holdout.Finlands foreign minister said that the country would wait to join NATO at the same time as its neighbor.Finland is not in such a rush to join NATO that we can't wait until Sweden gets the green light, Pekka Haavisto was quoted as saying.In May 2022, Sweden and neighboring Finland broke with decades of military non-alignment and applied to join the US-led alliance, citing a change in their security landscape following Russia's special operation in Ukraine.However, Turkey has refused to approve their bids unless the two nations take some steps, including taking a tougher stance against Kurdish organizations Ankara accuses of terrorism. Therefore, most of Turkey's demands of Stockholm have involved Sweden because of its lively ties with the Kurdish diaspora. Stockholm and Helsinki were even provided with a list of people Ankara wants extradited which is a sensitive issue for Sweden, which takes pride in its image as a champion of human rights.Until now, however, Stockholm has shown an apparent readiness to satisfy Ankara, having lifted the ban on arms exports to Turkey it itself introduced following Ankaras military operation in northern Syria, distanced itself from the Kurdish organizations it previously supported and even extradited some of the people from Ankaras wishlist despite criticism from the opposition and numerous human rights groups for what they see as abandoning the nations historic principles.In late December, Turkey praised Sweden for responding to its security concerns but stressed that more was needed to win Ankara's full backing for Stockholm's stalled NATO membership bid. https://sputnikglobe.com/20221219/swedens-nato-bid-in-limbo-as-top-court-slaps-down-turkish-extradition-request-for-gulenist-journo-1105619156.html sweden scandinavia turkiye Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 nato membership, sweden and finland's nato bid, swedish pm ulf kristersson, turkey's demands on sweden and finland, nato expansion https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/switzerland-to-deploy-5000-troops-to-provide-security-at-davos-forum-1106174249.html Switzerland to Deploy 5,000 Troops to Provide Security at Davos Forum Switzerland to Deploy 5,000 Troops to Provide Security at Davos Forum ZURICH (Sputnik) - Up to 5,000 Swiss military personnel will be deployed to provide logistics and security for participants at the World Economic Forum (WEF)... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T18:01+0000 2023-01-09T18:01+0000 2023-01-15T09:21+0000 world davos world economic forum 2023 world economic forum in davos /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/01/09/1106174103_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_17bf7982d9c2f3507ba85a833bb33ea3.jpg "The Federal Parliament has set a ceiling of 5,000 troops who will serve in support during the WEF, which will run from January 10 to 26. Some of them will be stationed directly in Davos, where the annual meeting will be held from January 16 to 20," the statement read. Other servicemen will guard infrastructure and provide services related to logistics and air force operations throughout Switzerland, according to the statement. Soldiers will be authorized to "use coercive police measures to carry out their respective tasks," the government said. There is currently no definite number of participants in the forum. According to the latest information, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso and Colombian President Gustavo Petro intend to personally attend the Davos forum. davos Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 switzerland, world economic forum (wef), world economic forum (wef) in davos, davos, wef security, davos security https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/us-lawmakers-say-no-refuge-for-bolsonaro-in-us-after-supporters-storm-brazil-congress-1106169971.html US Lawmakers Say No Refuge for Bolsonaro in US After Supporters Storm Brazil Congress US Lawmakers Say No Refuge for Bolsonaro in US After Supporters Storm Brazil Congress WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States should no longer provide refuge to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been in Florida since late... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T15:08+0000 2023-01-09T15:08+0000 2023-01-09T16:01+0000 americas us brazil jair bolsonaro latin america bolsonaro supporters riot in brazil's capital /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/0a/0b/1089822343_171:431:3046:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_8710a92434801e559263a1102e5e9c49.jpg "He basically used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists to try to take over the government. Hes actually very close to Donald Trump. He should be extradited to Brazil. In fact, it was reported that he was under investigation for corruption and fled Brazil to the United States," Rep. Joaquin Castro told US broadcaster on Sunday. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed the call for the US to "cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida." On Sunday, supporters of Bolsonaro stormed the National Congress building, Palacio do Planalto, one of the official palaces of the Presidency, and the Supreme Court building in the Brazilian capital in protest of the 2022 presidential election results. Police regained control of the buildings in the evening of the same day. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in on January 1, called the attack on the government buildings barbaric and ordered the use of federal forces to restore order in the capital. Many countries and international organizations in the Americas have come out in support of the Brazilian president, calling the protesters' actions an anti-democratic coup attempt. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/brazils-federal-district-governor-ibaneis-rocha-removed-from-post---reports-1106148481.html americas brazil Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 protests in brazil, jair bolsonaro, bolsonaro supporters storm presidential palace, bolsonaro supporter storm congress https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/venezuela-issues-arrest-warrants-for-leaders-of-opposition-parliament---attorney-general-1106180450.html Venezuela Issues Arrest Warrants for Leaders of Opposition Parliament - Attorney General Venezuela Issues Arrest Warrants for Leaders of Opposition Parliament - Attorney General CARACAS (Sputnik) - The Venezuelan Prosecutor General's Office issued arrest warrants for former lawmakers, members of the presidium of the 2015 National... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T20:26+0000 2023-01-09T20:26+0000 2023-01-09T20:21+0000 americas venezuela arrest warrants opposition parliament /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e4/07/1c/1079999189_0:120:1280:840_1920x0_80_0_0_45501afea359792359a26f8b49c26f80.jpg "We have issued arrest warrants for former lawmakers Dinorah Figuera, Marianela Fernandez and Auristela Vasquez, who claim to be in the leadership of the National Assembly, whose term expired in 2020 ... In addition, arrest warrants were issued today for the alleged secretary of this illegal assembly, Jose Figueredo Marquez and his so-called deputy, Luis Alberto Bustos," Saab said at a news conference in Caracas. The three former lawmakers, whose arrest is being sought by the prosecutor's office, live in Spain and the United States, the official said, adding that due to this fact they were put on the international wanted list. Last week, Venezuela's opposition-controlled National Assembly replaced Juan Guaido as its head, a week after ousting the nation's US-backed "interim president" and dissolving his government. The legislature, which was elected in 2015 and stayed on after a new chamber was created, announced the appointment of Figuera as president and Fernandez and Vasquez as vice-presidents for the 2023-2024 legislative period. Washington and its allies recognized Guaido as the de-facto leader of Venezuela in 2019, handing him control over the oil-rich South American country's foreign assets. According to Saab, since Guaido became the self-proclaimed president in 2019, state prosecutors initiated 22 investigations into money laundering, terrorism, arms trafficking and treason, as well as five criminal cases of violations against the Colombian-based petrochemical company Monomeros, which also came under the control of the Venezuelan opposition. https://sputnikglobe.com/20230106/venezuelan-embassy-in-us-ceases-operations-after-guaidos-interim-government-dissolved-1106092998.html americas venezuela Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 venezuela, arrest warrants, opposition, parliament https://sputnikglobe.com/20230109/watchdog-group-alleges-us-rep-george-santos-committed-campaign-finance-violations-1106181493.html Watchdog Group Alleges US Rep. George Santos Committed Campaign Finance Violations Watchdog Group Alleges US Rep. George Santos Committed Campaign Finance Violations George Santos was elected in November 2022; however, the first openly-gay Republican congressman was immediately hit with multiple scandals, including that he... 09.01.2023, Sputnik International 2023-01-09T22:55+0000 2023-01-09T22:55+0000 2023-01-09T22:49+0000 americas george santos federal elections commission campaign legal center /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0c/1c/1105851975_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_f8bee7bba6571513638821037a8ff8f0.jpg The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed an ethics complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Monday against newly elected Rep. George Santos (R - NY) for alleged campaign finance violations.The complaint alleges Santos took part in a straw donor campaign to hide the source of campaign contributions, falsified his disclosure reports to avoid scrutiny, and used campaign funds for personal reasons including rent, among other violations.The CLC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog group that advocates for strict enforcement of campaign regulations and open elections. It was founded by Trevor Potter, a Republican and former commissioner of the FEC. The CLC complaint almost mentions Santo's previous campaign falsehoods as additional motivation for the FEC to look into the young congressman.The complaint mentions a previously reported $705,000 loan Santos gave to his campaign, despite only listing $55,000 in earned income in his May 2020 disclosure.Additionally, the CLC complaint zeroes in on 40 disbursements by the Santos campaign for $199 and $200, including 37 which were exactly $199.99. As the complaint notes, campaigns are required to keep proof of purchase such as a receipt, invoice, or canceled check, for purchases of $200 or more.The Santos campaign disclosed it spent exactly $199.99 on seven occasions at a restaurant in Little Neck, NY, five times with Uber, four times with Delta airlines, and three times at Best Buy.Some of the $199.99 purchases dont just seem implausible, but impossible. The Santos campaign claimed a disbursement of $199.99 at a South Beach hotel in October 2021 for a hotel stay, even though according to the complaint the cheapest room available at the hotel in October costs more than $700.Other seemingly impossible $199.99 claims by the Santos campaign include a purchase from CLEAR for travel, even though the service cost $189 at its non-discounted rate, and $199.99 for parking at JFK International Airport, though no combination of parking fees at that airport can result in the fee ending in $.99.According to the complaint, the 37 disbursements of $199.99 by the Santos campaign approximately equaled the amount of $199.99 by all other political committees combined for that period.The Santos campaign also stated in its filings that it paid a total of $13,300 for Rent Apartment Rental for Staff or Rent and Rent Deposit. Despite the claim that the residence was an apartment for staff, the listed address was a house in Long Island, NY, where the New York Times reported the then-candidate Santos was residing.Under FEC regulations, candidates are prohibited from using campaign funds for expenses they would typically have if they were not campaigning, including rent or mortgages.An email by Sputnik to Santos' campaign treasurer Nancy Marks, who was also named in the complaint, did not immediately receive a response. No email address for the Santos campaign is listed on its website and a spokesperson for the Santos congressional office declined to answer questions or provide alternative contact information, citing ethics rules about office staff collaborating with campaigns.The complaint is the latest in a series of headaches for the freshman representative. It was previously revealed that Santos lied about his resume during the campaign, including about his education and job history. Santos later admitted to embellishing his resume. It then surfaced that in 2008, he had been charged with fraud in Brazil. Allegedly, Santos wrote checks with a stolen checkbook. Court records show that Santos confessed to the crime, but was never convicted because prosecutors in the country could not locate him. Last week, a spokesperson from the Rio de Janeiro prosecutor's office said it was seeking to renew the charges. Santos denied any legal wrongdoing in an interview with the New York Post in December 2022. https://sputnikglobe.com/20221227/new-york-representative-elect-george-santos-admits-he-lied-about-his-resume-1105805999.html americas Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2023 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 george santos, federal elections commission, campaign legal center With a following that was carryover crazy, total handle on Saturday night (Jan. 7) at The Meadowlands reached $3,673,861, giving the track a weekend total of over $7 million, reaching that lofty plateau for the first time since Hambletonian Weekend five months ago. A double carryover in the 20-cent Pick 6 of $22,812 led to $88,864 in new money being poured into the pot for a grand total of $111,677. After a sequence that saw winners' odds of 6-1, 1-2, 2-1, 4-1, 32-1 and 9-2, those with winning tickets collected $7,565.06. The Big Ms most popular multi-leg wager took in huge action as well. First of all, the Early 50-cent Pick 4 did not have a carryover, yet $147,691 was bet. The Late Pick-4, which had a carryover of $57,648, saw $304,713 in new money for a grand total of $362,361, which was $22,000 more than the last time there was a carryover in the popular puzzle on Nov. 19. Those who had all four correct cashed in for $1,267.75. The key horse for the big payouts was Levine, who scored in the 12th race and paid $66.20 to win with Scott Zeron driving. Zeron played a big part in creating the carryovers in the first place, as in Fridays 13th race, he guided 50-1 chance Regal Escape to victory lane. Adding Fridays total handle of $3,384,066 to Saturdays play and you get a weekend that saw $7,057,927 pushed through the windows. During all of 2022, that barrier was busted only twice, the first on Meadowlands Pace weekend ($7.3 million) and the second during Hambletonian weekend ($10.4 million). BELMONT ROYALE N TAKES FEATURE: It wasnt easy, but Belmont Royale N stayed perfect in three Meadowlands outings since his arrival from Australia when he took the featured $23,000 high-end conditioned pace. After picking up third-over cover down the backside, driver Dave Miller tipped the six-year-old gelded son of Betterthancheddar-Royal Spin for the stretch drive and outsprinted The Ideal Dancer A to the wire to record a neck win in a lifetime-best 1:50.4. He really doesnt have much gate speed, said Miller, and I was thinking I might have been a hair too far back at the top of the stretch, but he fought awful hard. Andys [McCarthy] horse was coming, but my horse dug in. As the 2-1 favourite, Belmont Royale N returned $6.40 to win. The Nifty Norman trainee has now won 12 of 37 lifetime outings, good for earnings of $87,876. A LITTLE MORE: Jordan Stratton is one of the top pilots at Yonkers Raceway's half-mile track, but with The Hilltop dark until Jan. 16, he showed he can win races on the mile oval as well, leading the driver colony with four victories on the night. Zeron, Miller, Yannick Gingras and Jason Bartlett all had driving doubles. Gary Levine and Ron Burke each trained a pair to victory lane. Racing resumes Friday at 6:20 p.m. (The Meadowlands) U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger, D-7th, called for her colleagues in Washington, D.C. to find new areas of agreement in a statement Saturday after being sworn into the 118th Congress for a third term. A divided government should not automatically mean a dysfunctional government and it is the responsibility of every lawmaker to recognize how the combination of gridlock, hyper-partisanship, and grandstanding is only a recipe for slowing down the pace of meaningful progress for the people we serve. Spanberger said she has worked to build wide coalitions across the political spectrum to get things done and deliver long-lasting reforms. Going forward, my colleagues must be focused on finding new areas of agreement, even on issues where agreement has been hard to find and sustain such as passing bipartisan immigration reform and reducing conflicts of interest, the congresswoman said in the statement. Spanberger advocated to maintain strong bipartisan support for the people of Ukraine, find new opportunities to lower drug costs for seniors and families, invest in workforce training programs, and for both parties to be alert to threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party. She said it was a bittersweet moment being sworn in as she no longer represents several counties she previously did due to redistricting, including her home base in Richmond. It remains the privilege of my life to be in this position of public trust and I will keep working to serve in a transparent, accountable, and productive manner consistent with the values of the Virginians I represent, she said. In a district update earlier last week, Spanberger said the long process for Republicans to elect a Speaker of the House carried serious oversight, constituent service, and national security implications. The American people deserve a U.S. House that is functioning. As a resident of the Seventh District, please continue to reach out to our office amid these delays. We are here to help you, the congresswoman said. My office is here to help get everyone who lives in Virginias Seventh District the fair treatment and timely responses you deserve. If you believe we may be able to assist you with an issue you are having with a federal agency, program, or benefit, please contact our team. Since taking office January 2019, Spanbergers office has closed 5,873 constituent cases and returned $27 million in backlogged benefits to Virginians involving Social Security checks, Veterans benefits, tax returns, Medicare appeals, and more, according to the release.To open a case with her office, fill out the form at spanberger.house.gov/ or call at 804/401-4110. On Friday, Spanberger paused with other members of Congress to recognize the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As the day unfolded, U.S. Capitol Police, D.C. Metropolitan Police, Virginia State Police, Virginia National Guard and law enforcement officers from across the region saved American democracy, she said, adding she is forever grateful to them. To mark two years since that day, she and others observed a 140-second moment of silence on the U.S. Capitol steps for the more than 140 law enforcement officers who were injured. Spanberger represents all or portions of the counties of Albemarle, Caroline, Culpeper, Greene, King George, Madison, Orange, Prince William, Spotsylvania and Stafford and the city of Fredericksburg. The congresswoman is a former CIA case officer and federal law enforcement officer. Public officials in Mitchell have declined to comment on the termination of the citys police chief last week. The Star-Herald learned last week of reports that Police Chief Kevin Krzyzanowski had reportedly been fired Wednesday. However, Krzyzanowski, Mayor Paul Murrell and City Administrator Perry Mader have declined to comment. Murrell told the Star-Herald that processes were in place and he would be unable to make comment for at least a week or two. The agenda for the Mitchell City Council meeting to be held on Tuesday was released on Friday. However, there are no action items related to Krzyzanowski or any appointments. Krzyzanowski became police chief following the January 2021 appointment of an interim-police chief by then-Mayor Dave Curtis to replace then-police chief Mike Cotant. Cotant left the department formally in February. Krzyzanowski, a former Nebraska State Patrol lieutenant who retired in 2018 after 32 years with the patrol, stepped into the post after being appointed by Curtis in February 2021. Just last month, when Murrell was sworn in as the citys newest mayor after winning the seat during the November 2022 election, Krzyzanowski and all other city officials were re-appointed to their positions. According to Nebraska statute 17-107, the mayor of a second-class city, as Mitchell is, may appoint officers, including the police chief, with the consent of the council. The mayor can also remove all police officers. However, the statute further says that the city council shall by ordinance adopt rules and regulations governing the removal, demotion and suspension with or without pay of any police officer, including the police chief. The statute further says that provisions include steps such as providing accusations against the officer must be made in writing and a process for appeal, including a hearing process. According to Mitchells ordinances, the police chief may be removed, demoted or suspended at any time by the mayor. Written notice must be provided to the officer within five days of the mayors action. That decision can be appealed to the city council, which can uphold, reverse or modify the action after a hearing. That hearing shall be conducted informally, and according to the ordinance, would take place at the city councils next regularly scheduled meeting or a special meeting called for that purpose. The city council is required to act within 30 days of the hearing to uphold, reverse or modify the action taken by the mayor. During his time as chief, Krzyzanowski worked to modernize equipment, bring on new recruits and improve the pay scale and training of the departments officers, he told the Star-Herald during an interview in March 2022. Publicly, citizens have also praised the departments expansion of patrols and officers on shift. The Iredell Arts Council is hosting a film night and music contest this week. The first film of Full Bloom Film Festivals new film night, Encanto, will be screened Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Iredell Arts Council. The Madrigals are an extraordinary family who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia in a charmed place called the Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift every child except Mirabel. However, she soon may be the Madrigals last hope when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is now in danger. Adult tickets $10, children younger than 10 with a paying adult are $5. Ticket link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/encanto-tickets-491807859547 And on Thursday, The Insomniacs and local hit makers will battle it out with fresh beats in the Old Jail. Guest judges will score original beats 120 seconds or less in three categories. Open to all local artists, bring your laptop and have a minimum of six beats prepared, MP3s for quick playback, must include producers tag. Artists arrive at 7:30 p.m. for sound check. Top prize is $150. There will be a social after the crowning of the champion. The Iredell Arts Council is in the Old Jail, 203 S. Meeting St. In conjunction with the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration, MSI Malaysia is offering consumers in our country up to RM2,000 rebate when purchasing selected MSI laptops. Available nationwide, be it online or in physical stores, the promotion is available from now until 29 January 2023. In a statement, MSI Malaysia asserted that the promotion this time around has entailed Raider GE67Hx which has the worlds first OLED display with a 240Hz refresh rate. Besides that, theres also a slew of laptops to choose from, ranging from gaming, business and productivity to content creation. Through the CNY promotion, MSI gaming laptops are available for purchase from RM3,599, business and productivity laptops from RM2,099 and content creation laptops from RM5,799. You can check out the full list of promotions via MSI Malaysias official website here. Moreover, you can also check out MSI Malaysias official Facebook and Instagram pages for more information. As always, do make sure to stay tuned to TechNave too for the latest tech news and promotions such as this. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: An optical microscopy image of the complete Bayesian machine. Credit: Damien Querlioz (CNRS/Univ. Paris-Saclay) Over the past few decades, the performance of machine learning models on various real-world tasks has improved significantly. Training and implementing most of these models, however, still requires vast amounts of energy and computational power. Engineers worldwide have thus been trying to develop alternative hardware solutions that can run artificial intelligence models more efficiently, as this could promote their widespread use and increase their sustainability. Some of these solutions are based on memristors, memory devices that can store information without consuming energy. Researchers at Universite Paris-Saclay- CNRS, Universite Grenoble-Alpes-CEA-LETI, HawAI.tech, Sorbonne Universite, and Aix-Marseille Universite-CNRS have recently created a so-called Bayesian machine (i.e., an AI approach that performs computations based on Bayes' theorem), using memristors. Their proposed system, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, was found to be significantly more energy-efficient than currently employed hardware solutions. "Artificial intelligence is making major progress today but faces a challenge: its considerable energy consumption," Damien Querlioz, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. "It is now well understood that this consumption comes from the separation, in computers, between computation and memory functions. As artificial intelligence uses a lot of data, it requires a lot of memory, which is costly to access in terms of energy. Our brains are much more energy efficient because the memory functions are integrated as close as possible to the computation functions, and we wanted to reproduce this strategy." Memristors are essentially electrical components based on nanodevices that limit or regulate the flow of electrical current in a circuit, while also recording how much energy passed in it beforehand. As they perform both computations and information storage, these devices can better reproduce the human brain's information processing strategies. A zoomed-in optical microscopy image of the Bayesian machine on one of its 16 memristor arrays. Credit: Damien Querlioz (CNRS/Univ. Paris-Saclay) "Until recently, memristors were an emerging technology, and we could not realize complete systems with them," Querlioz explained. "Now, our team built a 'Bayesian machine,' a small artificial intelligence with memristors. The prototype comprises 2,048 hafnium oxide memristors and 30,080 silicon transistors (MOSFETs)." The Bayesian machine created by Querlioz and his colleagues integrates memristors with conventional complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The researchers created a prototype of the machine and assessed its performance on a gesture recognition task. Remarkably, they found that it could recognize specific human gestures using thousands of times less energy than a traditional hardware solution based on a microcontroller. "Most of the research on memristor-based machine learning aims at implementing deep learning," Querlioz said. "This is, of course, an extremely important goal, as deep learning is so successful today. However, deep learning has some limitations: its results are not explainable, and it does not perform well when little data is available. Here, we chose to implement Bayesian reasoning, an alternative AI approach that does not do well in big data applications where deep learning works so well, but excels in small data situations, and provides fully explainable results." In the future, the memristor-based Bayesian machine created by this team of researchers could help to increase the energy-efficiency of AI models, while also potentially inspiring the development of other similar solutions. It could be particularly useful for safety-critical applications, such as medical sensors or circuits to monitor the safety of industrial facilities. Hawai.tech, a start-up that contributed to the development of the team's Bayesian algorithm, is now using the machine to create these sensors. "We have designed a considerably scaled-up version of the Bayesian machine, which is currently being fabricated, and we have applied the principles behind the machine to other machine learning approaches as well," Querlioz added. "As we are scaling our designs in complexity, we are starting to hit the limits of what is possible for an academic group. So, we are simultaneously working on new technologies, the next memristors." 2023 Science X Network This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Belgium has relied on a stable of seven nuclear reactors operated by Engie for about half of its electricity needs. Belgium has agreed a deal with French energy firm Engie on extending the life of two nuclear reactors for a decade, the two sides said on Monday. Brussels in March had announced it was delaying its long-planned exit from nuclear energy in 2025 for 10 years as Russia's war on Ukraine sent power prices soaring. The accord with Engie comes after months of fierce negotiation with the Belgian authorities over key questions such as how to set up the joint venture running the reactors and capping costs for the disposing of nuclear waste. Engie said the "agreement in principle constitutes an important step, and paves the way for the conclusion of full agreements in the upcoming months". "It also provides for the immediate start of environmental and technical studies prior to obtaining the authorisations related to this extension," it said. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told a press conference that meant "work can start tomorrow for the extension of the two most recent reactors". Wedged between nuclear-powered France and gas-and-coal-dependent Germany, Belgium has relied on an ageing stable of seven nuclear reactors operated by Engie for about half of its electricity needs. The promise of a gradual phase-out of nuclear power has been enshrined in Belgian law since 2003 and the decision to delay the moratorium was fiercely resisted by the Greens party. The plan outlined last year saw Belgium's fragile coalition government agree to extend the operating lives of the Doel 4 reactor near the port city of Antwerp and Tihange 3 near Liege until 2035. The move came after years of squabbling over the wisdom of the country's nuclear exit. Belgium's Greens had made an exit from nuclear power in 2025 a condition to join a seven-party coalition that was painfully cobbled together in 2020, more than a year after inconclusive elections. But after Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine and the surge in energy prices, the party agreed to consider an alternative scenario. Nonetheless, the country has stuck to a plan to shut down two older reactors. 2023 AFP China enters new phase of COVID response Xinhua) 08:17, January 09, 2023 * Considering factors including the development of the epidemic, the increase in vaccination levels, and extensive epidemic prevention experience, China has entered a new phase of COVID response. * The focus of China's new phase of COVID-19 response is on protecting people's health and preventing severe cases. * Through optimizing prevention and control measures, China has been injecting vitality into its economy. BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- From Sunday, China starts managing COVID-19 with measures designed for combating Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases. In recent months, the country has made an array of active adjustments in its COVID response, ranging from 20 measures in November, 10 new measures in December, changing the Chinese term for COVID-19 from "novel coronavirus pneumonia" to "novel coronavirus infection," and downgrading COVID-19 management measures. Confronted with epidemic uncertainties, China has always been putting people's lives and health first, adapting its COVID response in light of the evolving situation. These efforts have bought precious time for a smooth transition in its COVID response. Pharmacists prepare traditional Chinese medicine at Affiliated Hospital of Gansu University of Chinese Medicine in Lanzhou, northwest China's Gansu Province, Dec. 23, 2022. (Xinhua/Ma Xiping) SCIENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING The year 2022 saw the rapid spread of the highly-contagious Omicron variant. The fast-changing features of the virus and the complicated evolution of epidemic response posed serious challenges for China's decision-makers, who have been closely following the epidemic situation and putting the people's lives and health first. Twenty adjusted measures were announced as early as November 2022. They included the measure to adjust the categories of COVID-19 risk areas from high, medium, and low, to only high and low, in order to minimize the number of people under quarantine or requiring health monitoring. The circuit breaker mechanism for inbound flights was also canceled. The adjustment was made based on a scientific evaluation of the Omicron variant which showed that the virus had become less deadly, and the social cost of sustaining the prevailing epidemic control which had rapidly increased. Meanwhile, task forces were dispatched nationwide to supervise epidemic response and assess local situations, and meetings were held to solicit suggestions from leading medical experts and community epidemic control workers. On Dec. 7, China released a circular on further optimizing its COVID-19 response, announcing 10 new prevention and control measures to ease restrictions on visits to public venues and travel, and to reduce the scope and frequency of mass nucleic acid testing. The annual Central Economic Work Conference, held in Beijing in mid-December, demanded efforts to optimize epidemic response based on the prevailing situation and with focus on the elderly and those with underlying diseases. Under such guiding principles, various sectors of the country, from hospitals to factories, have been mobilized to support continuous adjustment of epidemic control. Considering factors including the development of the epidemic, the increase in vaccination levels, and extensive epidemic prevention experience, the country entered a new phase of COVID response. Against such a backdrop, in late December, the National Health Commission (NHC) made the announcement to downgrade the management of COVID-19 and remove it from infectious disease management requiring quarantine as of Jan. 8, 2023. "When an infectious disease poses less harm to people's health and leaves a lighter impact on the economy and the society, it is a science-based decision to adjust the intensity of prevention and control measures," said Liang Wannian, head of the COVID-19 response expert panel under the NHC. An elderly woman receives a dose of COVID-19 vaccine in Hohhot, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, March 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Lei) SCIENCE-BASED, TIMELY AND NECESSARY ADJUSTMENTS After fighting Omicron for nearly a whole year, China has gained a profound understanding of this variant. The treatment and control experience of the variant in multiple Chinese cities and foreign countries revealed that the great majority of patients infected with the Omicron variant had showed either no symptoms or mild symptoms -- with a very small proportion developing into severe cases. Compared with the original strain and other variants, the Omicron strains are becoming milder in terms of pathogenicity, and the impact of the virus is changing into something more like a seasonal infectious disease. The continued study of the development of the virus has been an important precondition for China's optimization of its control protocols, but it is not the only reason. To safeguard people's lives and health to the greatest extent, China has been closely monitoring the threat of the virus, the immune level of the general public and the capacity of the health care system, as well as the public health intervention measures. Efforts have been made on all fronts. By early November 2022, more than 90 percent of the population had been fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, the country had facilitated the development of drugs via various approaches, with many drugs and therapies introduced into the diagnosis and treatment protocols. The unique strengths of Traditional Chinese Medicine are also being leveraged to prevent severe cases. In addition, several other drugs targeting COVID infection are being developed, covering all three technical approaches, including blocking virus entry into cells, inhibiting virus replication, and modulating the body's immune system. Employees pack medicines at a pharmaceutical company in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Jan. 4, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Xiao) FOCUS OF COVID-19 RESPONSE The focus of China's new phase of COVID-19 response is on protecting people's health and preventing severe cases. The elderly, pregnant women, children, and patients with chronic, underlying diseases are vulnerable groups in the face of COVID-19. Efforts have been intensified to facilitate the vaccination of the elderly against the virus. Services have been improved. In some regions, the elderly can have medics visit their homes to administer vaccine doses. Amid China's efforts to improve its preparedness, authorities have urged hospitals of various levels to ensure that fever clinics are available to patients in need. As of Dec. 25, 2022, there were more than 16,000 fever clinics in hospitals at or above the level of grade two across the country, and more than 41,000 fever clinics or consulting rooms in community-based health institutions. In central Beijing's Xicheng District, a makeshift fever clinic was formally opened at the Guang'an Gymnasium on Dec. 14, 2022. Starting from Dec. 22, 2022, many sidewalk facilities, originally used as part of the nucleic acid testing process, were converted into temporary fever consulting rooms in Xiaodian District of northern China's Taiyuan City. These fever rooms provide consultation services and distribute fever reducers free of charge. From coordinating medical resources to increasing the capacity of hospitals to receive severe cases, hospitals across the country have been operating in full swing and devoting more resources to the treatment of severe cases. Official data showed that as of Dec. 25, 2022, there were a total of 181,000 intensive care beds in China, up by 31,000 or 20.67 percent compared with Dec. 13. A multi-pronged approach has been adopted to meet people's needs for drugs. Speeding up the review of much-needed medical products, the National Medical Products Administration had, as of Dec. 20, 2022, granted marketing authorization to 11 drugs for COVID-19 treatment. At the same time, community-based voluntary actions were taken by residents in many cities to help each other by sharing medical products, including temperature measurement kits and antipyretics. Tourists visit Great Tang All Day Mall in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Dec. 30, 2022. (Photo by Zou Jingyi/Xinhua) SHORING UP CONFIDENCE Managing COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases is a complicated task for the country. The 40-day Spring Festival travel rush began on Jan. 7. It poses a serious test for the country's rural areas, as millions of people will return home for the holiday. Guidelines have been set to ensure the supply of medicines, the treatment of patients with serious diseases, and the protection of the elderly and children in rural areas. For instance, 245 small teams have been formed in Anping County of northern China's Hebei Province for medical visits to families, covering all 230 villages and 15 communities within the county. On Saturday, China released its 10th edition of COVID-19 control protocols -- highlighting vaccination and personal protection. Through optimizing prevention and control measures, China has been injecting vitality into its economy. The GDP for 2022 is estimated to exceed 120 trillion yuan (about 17.52 trillion U.S. dollars). The fundamentals for economic resilience, potential, vitality, and long-term growth have not changed. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has weathered waves of mass infections and managed to hold its own during the periods when the novel coronavirus was most rampant. Even when the global Human Development Index dropped for two years straight, China went up six places on this index. During the early days of 2023, with sounder COVID-19 response measures in effect, domestic demand increased, consumption was boosted, and production resumed rapidly, as consumer service industries recovered and the hustle and bustle of people's lives returned to full swing. Just as President Xi Jinping said in his 2023 New Year Address: "We have now entered a new phase of COVID response where tough challenges remain. Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us." (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The Tramontina Guru cook system is on display at the Tramontina booth booth during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP Photo/John Locher From an AI oven that promises to warn you when your food is about to burn to a mixing bowl designed to take the hassle out of tracking calories, food tech was a key theme at this year's CES tech show in Las Vegas. Brad Jashinsky, a director analyst at research firm Gartner, said big companies often use CES to make attention-seeking announcements about products that are currently out of reach for most consumers, but may become more widespread and affordable in the coming years. Samsung's bespoke AI oven comes with a camera inside that it says can warn you when your food is about to burn. It's available in Europe but not yet North America, where a price has not been announced. Also on display was tech aimed at the food industry. Yo-Kai Express, creator of an autonomous restaurant that can quickly make ramen 24-7, offered a scaled-down version for small retailers and co-working spaces. Several startups showed tech that could help restaurants and others reduce food waste and improve supply chains, which Jashinsky said could have a huge impact on their bottom lines. For those who want to become better home cooks, there was plenty of tech aimed at mostly affluent consumers. Here are some products that caught our eye: EASIER NUTRITION TRACKING VersaWare is designed for people frustrated by trying to track their nutrition in traditional apps. An exhibitor demonstrates the OneThird avocado ripeness checker during CES Unveiled before the start of the CES tech show, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, in Las Vegas. The device is designed for use by grocery store shoppers to scan an avocado and get information about when it is ready to eat. Credit: AP Photo/John Locher It provides a cutting board and a mixing bowl, each attached to a phone-sized device that will display recipes and other information. As you cook, you note what ingredient you're adding and it weighs it and calculates the nutritional information. At the end, you have the statistics for whatever you're making without having to do the math yourself. The appliances will sync to the company's app, which will include recipes automatically tailored to your nutritional goalsyou'll need to decide how comfortable you are sharing that information. For example, if your nutrition plan means a recipe should have 25% less calories, VersaWare says its AI can figure out how to get it there. "We're trying to shoulder the burden of nutrition tracking," said CEO Jacob Lindberg. The company is still raising money and hopes to launch in the third quarter of 2023. They haven't determined pricing. The cutting board and mixing bowl will be sold separately. REDUCING FOOD WASTE Knowing exactly when an avocado is perfectly ripe may sound a bit niche, but Dutch startup OneThird thinks it's a key to helping reduce food waste. The company unveiled an avocado scanner designed for supermarkets that's currently being tested in Canada and can tell you whether an avocado is still firm or ready to eat. OneThird already works with growers, distributors and others along the supply chain to predict the shelf life of avocados, tomatoes, strawberries and blueberries and is working to add more produce. Exhibitor Chris Switzer shows off the app for the Guru cook system at the Tramontina booth booth during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP Photo/John Locher According to the United Nations, nearly a third of food of all food globally is thrown away. Reducing that would mean less food waste being tossed into methane-producing landfills. Another Dutch startup, Orbisk, helps restaurants reduce food waste by tracking where and when it's happening. INTERACTIVE COOKING CLASSES Blok wants to be the Peloton of cooking classes. It's a large cutting board with a docking station and a digital display where subscribers will be able to watch live cooking classes taught by professional chefs and chat with other participants. Creators Alissa and Tony Frick envision groups of family members and friends doing classes together virtually four or five times a month. The classes will all be 30 minutes or less. The idea was born during the pandemic, when the Fricks couldn't get together to cook meals with their family. "We missed that so much," Tony Frick said. The Blok smart cutting board is on display at the Blok booth during the CES tech show Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP Photo/John Locher The Fricks have sold 100 units that will be delivered this summer and are hoping to scale up production after that. They anticipate selling the cutting board for $299 or $399, with an app subscription expected to cost $9.99 a month. UNCERTAINTY-FREE COOKING Some people love to experiment in the kitchen. If you're not one of them, there's the Tramontina Guru. The Brazilian company's smart induction cooktop promises to help you make perfect risotto, steak au poivre and caramel toffee, among 200 other recipes. An app guides you through every step of the cooking process. You can even choose whether you'd like to your meat to be rare, medium or well-done. You weigh your ingredients in the pot on the cooktop. When you're ready, you press a button and the cooktop heats to the right temperature for the right amount of time. "This takes out the guesswork," said Tramontina, head chef Flavia Gois. The basic set including an induction cooktop and pot will be available in the U.S. this spring for $299. The GE Profile Smart Mixer with Auto Sense smart mixer is on display during CES Unveiled, before the start of the CES tech show, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP Photo/John Locher A VERY SMART MIXER GE Profile unveiled a smart mixer that lets you weigh your ingredients in the bowl while you're working. The mixer also has an auto sensor that can monitor changes in texture and viscosity and adjust speed accordingly. It shuts itself off automatically to avoid overmixing. And it has voice control so you don't have to stop what you're doing and wash your hands off to operate it. All that precision doesn't come cheapthe mixer costs $999.95 and is only available at Crate & Barrel. 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The schematic overview illustrates the LIPSS fabrication method on Ni foam using femtosecond laser treatment and the enhancement of hydrogen and oxygen generation via field localization (left side). The surface morphology of the LIPSS patterned Ni foam electrodes (right side). Credit: Opto-Electronic Advances (2022). DOI: 10.29026/oea.2022.210105 A new publication in Opto-Electronic Advances from researchers including Wei Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences discusses pathways toward a more sustainable electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen technology. When fossil fuels are burned, massive amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, are released into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases, which trap heat in Earth's atmosphere, are to blame for global warming. Sea level rise, harsh weather, biodiversity loss, species extinction, food scarcity, worsening health, and increased poverty are all risks associated with global average warming of above 1.5 degrees Celsius. Slowing global warming is one of the most pressing challenges confronting humanity today. A critical part of addressing such climate changes is reducing the use of fossil fuels and shifting toward renewable energy sources with zero or negative carbon emissions. The good news is that numerous nations are already making efforts to address this issue. For example, many countries have established challenging goals for reducing their reliance on fossil fuels and converting to renewable energy. Solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind and biomass are examples of renewable energy sources that can produce energy without accelerating global warming. With the world in search of a suitable substitute for fossil fuels, researchers realized that hydrogen may be an effective energy carrier and could be a good substitute for fossil fuels. But there was an issue: finding hydrogen in a free state is impossible. As it is a highly reactive non-metal, it never exists freely in nature and is only produced from other sources of energy. Then it was discovered that a method called electrochemical oxidation/reduction of radicals at electrodes, which is environmentally friendly and sustainable, could assist with the production of hydrogen, ammonia, hydrocarbons, and other fuels. Electrochemical fuel generation for hydrogen and oxygen is mostly carried out through hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), respectively. But this hydrogen technology requires highly active and stable catalysts for the HER, and platinum (Pt), a rare element, is used in water-splitting devices. The platinum catalyst, makes this technology much more expensive, and platinum production involves toxic chemicals that affect our ecosystem. Moreover, the non-local concentration of radicals around the platinum electrocatalyst greatly slows the speed of reaction. Speeding up this reaction is possible by bringing up the radical concentration via large electrode, potentially with the help of electricity, this solution is still expensive. The authors of the study have developed a physical and versatile design approach to boost the electrocatalytic fuel generation performance to a wide range through their high-performance electrodes (LIPSS). They say, "The hierarchical LIPSSs on electrodes with periodic ridges and grooves of 100-300 nm width must be covered with spherical nanoparticles (NPs) sized 3-94 nm diameters and then the localized electric field-induced enhancement in the reagent concentration effect at these periodic ridges and NPs could considerably enhance the performance of electrochemical fuel generation of HER and OER." In experiments to test the performance of this catalyst, the authors discovered that by using this optimized morphology of the LIPSS pattern, the current electrode achieves the highest hydrogen generation rate of about 31016 molecules cm-2s-1 at a current density of 10 mA/cm2. This value is achieved with ~45% less electrode potential than that of the Ni foam electrode without any LIPSS pattern. The precise and controlled fabrication of LIPSS on electrodes could significantly improve their performance as a sustainable electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen generation. On the LIPSS patterned Ni foam substrate, the HER model electrocatalyst demonstrated 130 mV (40%) of lower 10 overpotentials in the HER and high stability. Furthermore, the OER model electrocatalyst on the LIPSS patterned NF substrate required 100 mV (25%) more 10 overpotentials in the OER with improved stability. Additionally, when two LIPSS patterned electrodes were assembled simultaneously as anode and cathode in a cell, a low electric potential of 330 mV was enough to drive 10 mA/cm2 in the overall water splitting figure, compared to a similar cell made of pristine Ni foam electrodes. The patterned LIPSS electrocatalysts operate at significantly lower electrical potentials, demonstrating that the femtosecond laser patterning approach has a high likelihood of producing green catalysts. Based on the above process, it is believed that the new insights presented in this study would pave the way for the demonstration of a single-step, fast, and better physical approach to electrode surface patterning that can be applied to any metal and semiconductor catalysts to reduce the required electrical power in various electrochemical reactions. According to recent findings from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Li and his research group are getting closer to achieving this objective. Their technique is still in the research stage but appears to be a promising source of power. Creating a so-called hydrogen-extracting catalyst that is reliable and sustainable for Earth is their ultimate ambition. The authors of the article look forward to seeing their method on the market in the next few years, and to see its impact grow around the world. More information: Chaudry Sajed Saraj et al, Laser-induced periodic surface structured electrodes with 45% energy saving in electrochemical fuel generation through field localization, Opto-Electronic Advances (2022). DOI: 10.29026/oea.2022.210105 Provided by Compuscript Ltd This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The new sprayers developed by agricultural giant John Deere, and displayed at the 2023 CES technology show in Las Vegas, Nevada, apply pesticides only where their cameras have detected weeds. Armed with a smartphone in today's ever more connected world, farmers can remotely monitor the health of their fields, the level of feed in their silos or even the aging of wine in barrels. Both start-ups and agro-industry giants are exhibiting such cutting-edge toolstools to help farmers collect and analyze data and improve decision-makingat the huge CES electronics show in Las Vegas, which closes Sunday. Thus, Olivier Lepine, who heads the French start-up Brad, has developed a sensor that can provide real-time information on temperature, moisture and light falling in a farm field. With such data in hand, farmers can make more accurate decisions on when to irrigate, how to reduce pesticide use, and how to treat their soilwhile saving time normally spent traveling from field to field. Farmers, and especially younger ones, "want to have an impact, but they also want to have a quality of life," Lepine said. South Korean start-up AimbeLab meantime is offering a way to monitor the contents of the huge silos where grains and feed are stored. Farmers often "simply use a hammer to bang onto the silos to check the soundwhich is still very inaccurateto see how much they have left," said Sein Kwon. AimbeLab's probe not only assesses the amount of grain in a silo but also its condition, allowing both the farmer and his suppliers to better anticipate deliveries and thus reduce trips. Saving on herbicides Simple Labs, an American start-up, has developed a sensor capable of measuring the temperature, humidity, pH value and phenolic contentwhich affects both taste and colorof wine in a barrel or vat, allowing more precise control over aging. And Meropy, a French company, is exhibiting a sort of alien-looking wheelwith long spokes extending on either sidethat can roll through a field and use its cameras to photograph crops from all angles, detecting the presence of weeds, pests or disease. The "two main drivers to adoption of new technologies," said Amit Dhingra, a horticulture professor at Texas A&M University, are "the need, like when a disease appears, and the quest for the most cost-efficient ways." The SentiV robot, designed by French start-up Meropy, can detect weeds, pests or disease on the tops or bottoms of plants. David Friedberg, who heads The Production Board, a California investment firm specializing in agricultural technology, put it simply: Farmers need to produce "more calories per acre with less inputs"like pesticidesthrough genomics, digitization and data analysis. John Deere, the giant farm-equipment maker famous for its green tractors, is also working on this. The huge, 120-foot (36-meter) booms on its newest sprayer-tractors have cameras every few feet and very fast processors that, even as the vehicle rumbles along at 12 miles per hour (20 kph), can detect weeds and spray only where needed. "Instead of having to spray 100 percent of the field, we spray only about a third of the field and we save on chemicals," said Jorge Heraud, Deere's head of automation. Drowning in data The group has also developed an "Operations Center" available on computer or smartphone that allows farmers, thanks to data collected by multiple sensors on tractors, to monitor real-time information on their location, engine performance and so on. They can also review how seed trials are progressing or find where weeds are proliferating. "The farmer can look at the map and understand what part of the field he needs to manage differently," said Lane Arthur, the product's designer. "He's going to save some money but he's also going to help the environment." As in other industries, said Vonnie Estes, head of innovation for the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), "farmers are starting to digitize their work." Combined with increasing automation, data analysis can help solve problems of labor shortagesby knowing where workers are on a farmof food waste in the supply chain or of greenhouse gas emissions. "It's not seamless," said Estes, noting that broadband connections are not always available, or reliable, in the countryside. Another challenge, she said, is that a flood of technical data can be overwhelming. "Everyone is talking about 5G," Estes said, but "a lot of farmers would be happy with 3G." 2023 AFP While the return of Brittney Griner to the United States was a reason for celebration for many, it was also met with plenty of backlash from some who were upset that the United States and President Joe Biden traded a convicted Russian arms dealer for Griner while leaving former Marine Paul Whelan imprisoned in Russia. And now, some of those have made their outrage public. According to a report from Julie ODonoghue of The Louisiana Illuminator, the Louisiana Republican Party has issued a resolution publicly condemning the prisoner exchange that freed Brittney Griner. Members of the GOP committee attending their quarterly meeting in Lafayette supported a resolution condemning the Griner exchange through a voice vote. No members raised objections to the matter, once a reference to Griner being a woke gay woman was removed from the statement, ODonoghue wrote in The Louisiana Illuminator. The Republican Party did not provide a written copy of the resolution to a reporter who requested one. Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Louis Gurvich said resolutions approved during the meeting wouldnt be available for at least two weeks. Meanwhile, Griner is adjusting to life back in the United States and even wants to help support other Americans imprisoned overseas, like Paul Whelan. [Louisiana Illuminator] As the House Jan. 6 committee wrapped up its final report, Sidney Powell, onetime lawyer for former President Donald Trump, doubled down on her claims of election fraud in court documents filed in the State Bar of Texas sanctions case against her. Despite the committees findings that Trump led a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election a conspiracy she helped fuel Powell is asking a local judge to toss out the State Bars suit, which alleges that the Dallas lawyer knowingly filed frivolous election fraud suits against the states of Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. Collin County state District Judge Andrea Bouressa is expected to decide in mid-January whether to grant Powells motion to dismiss the case based on her claim that the State Bar has absolutely no evidence to seek sanctions, including possible disbarment, against her. In reality, there is a mountain of evidence that Judge Bouressa should not dismiss the State Bars case, and allow it to proceed to trial as planned in a public courtroom in April without further delays. The bar sued Powell in March on the basis of 10 complaints it received about her. In addition to filing frivolous suits, the bar claims that Powell knowingly made false statements in the election fraud litigation. In a document filed Dec. 12, Powell again defended her decision to sue the states, saying it was based in part on the documentary Kill Chain, which features a hacker named CyberZeist, who claimed to have influenced the 2016 election. Court documents also show that among Powells planned witnesses is a Dallas technology consultant named Joshua Merritt, Powells once-secret source who goes by a codename Spyder and whose baseless claims of internationally planned voter fraud were a reason for her lawsuits. The Jan. 6 Committees report noted that Powell publicly made such claims just before filing her suits. Recalling a Nov. 19, 2020, press conference, the report noted her claims of massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China in the interference with our election here in the United States. Former Trump adviser Hope Hicks later told the committee under oath that even her boss laughed off the claims. On a call with Powell the next day, during which the attorney restated her conspiracy theory, Trump placed her on mute and smirked with others in the room, saying, This does sound crazy, doesnt it? While the state bars case is narrowly focused on whether Powell should be sanctioned for her actions, the court documents filed so far indicate the April trial is shaping up to be a mini re-do of the Jan. 6 committees investigation. The public deserves to see this case play out in a courtroom, and so we hope Judge Bouressa will not grant Powells motion for summary judgment and will conduct the trial where real evidence, not made-up stories and bizarre conspiracies, can be put in plain view. The Dallas Morning News If youre an honest, experienced, visionary education leader, the Nebraska State Board of Education may have a job for you. Board members Friday reached a consensus on some attributes they want in the next Nebraska commissioner of education. It appears that applicants may not need to be a former superintendent, though having that on ones resume might help convince some board members that youre the right one for the job. Being energetic, charismatic, a critical thinker and a good negotiator also are on the want list. Consultants with a search firm led the members in a brainstorming session to determine the boards wants. The attributes identified by the board will be fine-tuned in the coming days and form the basis of the job description for the position. The board is paying a search firm, McPherson and Jacobson, to help it find a replacement for Matt Blomstedt. He resigned Tuesday and joined a Washington, D.C., firm. Among the top character traits board members seek are honesty, trustworthiness and fairness. We need to be able to trust our new commissioner to fulfill the vision that we have on a day-to-day basis, said Elizabeth Tegtmeier, a member from North Platte. And if we as a board cant trust him or her, the public wont be able to trust us either. And as for professional experience, board members said they want a visionary educational leader whos a creative problem-solver and a good communicator. The candidate, they said, should have experience with complex organizations and varied school districts and setting. Board President Patti Gubbels said applicants should have experience managing a large organization like the Nebraska Department of Education with its multiple responsibilities. Board members Deborah Neary of Omaha and Kirk Penner of Aurora indicated during the meeting they wanted someone with superintendent experience. Penner narrowed that further, saying he wanted someone with experience as a Nebraska superintendent and someone with backbone. Last week, Melissa Poloncic, president of the Nebraska Council of School Administrators, said many superintendents and educators across the state would like the next commissioner to have superintendent experience. One of the consultants, Steve Joel, a former superintendent for Lincoln Public Schools, cautioned the board against making superintendent experience a requirement. Joel said that could exclude potentially good candidates, such as assistant or deputy commissioners in other states who are ready to be commissioners but dont have superintendent experience. Penner said he still would like a person from the superintendent ranks. I understand you dont want to be too specific, Penner said. But this is one that Im personally looking for and hoping we find a qualified Nebraska superintendent. Board member Sherry Jones said she wants someone with fear of the Lord who understands and appreciates Midwestern values. Jones said that God's word says "a fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" and that a person who fears will lack nothing. Thats what I want for our commissioner, to be wise and to lack nothing, Jones said. Jones, interviewed after the meeting, said her faith is foundational in her life. She said the nation has drifted from the biblical principles on which it was founded. Joel said he would like to begin advertising the position in the next five to 10 days. The public will have a chance to weigh in via an online survey. The timetable calls for naming finalists in late March. In a time when Nebraska's partisan divide seems wider than ever, Democrats and Republicans alike set aside their political differences to celebrate the introduction of a new governor. Roughly 3,500 people filled the CHI Health Center in downtown Omaha for Gov. Jim Pillen's inaugural ball Saturday night. The guest count was more than a thousand higher than Pillen's predecessor Pete Ricketts had at his last inaugural ball, which was held at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln in 2019. "Tonight is an extraordinary celebration of Nebraska," Pillen said. Ricketts was in attendance at the ball Saturday night, and called the increased capacity an improvement from his previous celebrations. He described inaugural balls as "a wedding on steroids," recalling that at his first ball in 2015, he spent about two hours in a line taking pictures with people. "It is a blur," Ricketts said. Several other prominent state Republicans were in attendance, including U.S. Reps. Don Bacon and Mike Flood, Sen. Deb Fischer, new Attorney General Mike Hilgers, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert and a swath of state senators. Multiple Nebraska Democrats were also on the guest list, including former governor and U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, along with roughly a dozen state senators. Among them was State Sen. Tony Vargas of Omaha, who said he was happy to attend an inaugural ball in his home turf in Legislative District 7. Though the Nebraska Legislature got off to what he called "a rocky start," with lawmakers still stuck debating whether committee assignments are overly partisan, he said inaugural balls are typically events where politicians can dance together regardless of party affiliations. The dancing did not happen until later in the evening kicked off by Pillen and first lady Suzanne Pillen dancing to "What a Wonderful World." The Jordan Kahn Orchestra performed through the rest of the night. Before that, guests crowded into a large ballroom for dinner, where the main entree was a Frenched bone-in center cut loin chop a nod to Pillen's background as a hog producer. Suzanne Pillen promised to put "pork on the plate" back in November when announcing the event. Over an hour after dinner was served, Pillen had yet to have a chance to sample the meal himself. He spent much of the night shaking hands with attendees. He said meeting up with old friends one of whom traveled over 6,000 miles from Hawaii to attend was one of his favorite parts about the night. "You can feel the energy, can't you," Pillen said. Pillen took the stage just after 8 p.m. for his remarks, first praising Suzanne Pillen for her role in organizing Saturday's event. While on the campaign trail, Pillen said he would often hear voters say they weren't sure about him, but they knew Suzanne Pillen would make a great first lady. He fought back tears recalling his late father, who died 24 years ago. Before his death, Pillen said his father saw things changing in the state, but he would be shocked at how far Nebraska has come since then. "There's never been a better time to be a Nebraskan than now," Pillen said. Pillen ended his speech with familiar rhetoric used during his campaign he called on Nebraskans to work together to make progress. He has long advocated for an "attitudinal change" in state government, to focus more on the greater good for the whole state rather than specific regions. "I'm just Jim Pillen," he said. "None of us can achieve great things alone, but together we can." JACKSON, Neb. When looking for improvements to his family's farming operation, Taylor Nelson seeks solutions that will lead to greater efficiency. In that search, he's embraced technology and how it can help get work done faster, better and with fewer workers. "It's about having a mindset that embraces change. Not every problem will be solved with technology, but a lot of them will. It's got to be a willingness to learn and adapt to change," said Nelson, a fifth-generation farmer who operates Nelson Farms with his father, Doug. That willingness to seek improvement is one reason Nelson was recently named one of America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers, an honor given annually to five farmers nationwide by DTN/Progressive Farmer magazine. The award recognizes the next generation of ag producers who demonstrate business innovation, betterment of agriculture and community improvement. Nebraska farmer awarded one of America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers Taylor Nelson stands amidst the tractors in the Nelson Farms machine shed in rural Jackson, Neb. Nelson, 32, was recently recognized by DTN/Pr "You work hard and do the best you can. To be recognized nationwide is an honor," the 32-year-old Nelson said. "It's not just a credit to me, but also a credit to the generations before." Nelson Farms grows corn and soybeans on 9,000 acres in Dakota, Dixon and Thurston counties. Look inside the farm's machine shed in rural Jackson, and you'll see John Deere tractors and farm equipment similar to what others use. Nelson is helping John Deere take the next step forward, serving as a spokesman for the manufacturer's autonomous tractor technology. John Deere engineers have spent hours at Nelson Farms testing one of the tractors, which through GPS and other technology, operates remotely without a driver and performs fall tillage while Nelson is in the combine harvesting crops in other fields. Autonomous tractors ultimately will be programmed to perform other jobs, allowing farmers to do two or more tasks at once, saving them time and the need to find as many capable hired hands in a tight labor market. Nelson foresees a day when autonomous grain carts will aid harvest. "We're always looking for what's a better way to do something, a more efficient way," he said. Nebraska farmer awarded one of America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers Taylor Nelson uses a model to explain John Deere's autonomous tractor technology being tested at Nelson Farms, a 9,000 operation he runs with Nelson met the Progressive Farmer editor a year ago at a John Deere symposium and was interviewed about his relationship with the tractor manufacturer. That interview led Nelson to apply for the Young Farmer award, something he'd seen featured in the magazine over the years. He submitted his application, highlighting his farm's quest for efficiency and also his community involvement. He was notified in May or June that he'd been named one of the award recipients, and magazine staffers came to the farm for an interview, photos and video. They returned for another round of interviews and photos at harvest time before announcing the recipients in November. Nelson and the other four honorees were recognized at an awards program in Nashville. Nelson wanted to farm since he was a boy. The cost of getting into agriculture after he graduated from college was steep, so he started Jackson Express, a convenience store and fuel center, in 2012. Before selling the business in 2020, he'd learned how to build and manage a business and employees, helpful skills for full-time farming. He's relied upon his familiarity with technology to implement changes he hopes will make Nelson Farms more efficient and increase production. Along the way, he and other farmers his age helped re-establish the Northeast Nebraska Corn Growers Association, through which they launched the Growing Potential Ag Youth Festival, an annual event in which up to 300 fifth-graders in a six-county area spend a day in hands-on, interactive activities that teach them about agriculture and introduce them to career opportunities. Nebraska farmer awarded one of America's Best Young Farmers and Ranchers Taylor Nelson climbs into a tractor at the Nelson Farms machine shed in rural Jackson, Neb. Nelson, 32, was named by DTN/Progressive Farmer ma "I've taken the position of wanting to embrace the future of farming and future of agriculture," Nelson said. A young farmer hoping to plant the seeds of agricultural possibilities in the minds of the next generation. Clemson researcher Sachin Rustgi believes the future of agriculture is in the hands of todays youth and he is using his knowledge to help train tomorrows workforce. Rustgi, an associate professor of molecular breeding in Clemsons Advanced Plant Technology Program at the Pee Dee Research and Education Center (REC) near Florence, mentored three students from Germany as part of the South Carolina Governors School for Science and Mathematics Research Experience Scholars Program (RESP). The program allows high school students to join and study under South Carolina research groups between their junior and senior years. Rustgi said teaching young students about agriculture is important for sustaining the planet. I see working with high school students as an investment in the future, Rustgi said. I wish to educate students about their options at an early or decisive age when they make decisions about their careers. Many students I have worked with see agriculture as working in the dirt. They do not see it as a career. Some of the students found information technology more appealing. But when we hosted them as interns, interacted with them and showed them the breadth of research done under the broad umbrella of agricultural sciences, some of them changed their minds and decided to go for college degrees in agriculture. Rustgi is encouraged by working with and teaching young people. High school students are more soft-shelled than the graduate students and absorb things quickly, including concepts, rules and regulations, lab cultures and so on, he said. These students have published abstracts and papers, as well as have presented posters or have given oral presentations at conferences, which helped them build their resumes and confidence. Visiting scholars, Mina Oezisletici, Johanna Staudacher and Tina Ederle are from southwest Germany near Stuttgart. Back home, they attend the Johanna-Wittum-Schule school that has a well-established biotechnology program. They believe they will benefit from their 6-week study with Rustgi. Much of their work was conducted in Rustgis lab. We are interested in learning more about science, Oezisletici said. This (internship) was a great opportunity for us to see research in action. It also gave us an opportunity to see how research is conducted in other parts of the world. Although he has worked with other students from the Governors School, as well as local high school students and students participating in the Clemson Summer Program for Research Interns, this was the first time Rustgi participated as a mentor for RESP scholars. I definitely would like to participate in the program in the future and do my share in building the future workforce and educating students about different carrier options in agricultural sciences, Rustgi said. Randy La Cross, senior vice president for outreach and research at the S.C. Governors School in Hartsville, said collaborations such as this between the Governors School and Clemsons Pee Dee REC are important. Dr. Rustgi deserves all the accolades and recognitions he can receive, La Cross said. It takes a gifted and special researcher who can engage young high school scholars in the process of real-world scientific research. We hope many of our students become future researchers. In addition to high school students and students from abroad, Rustgi also mentors Clemson students as an associate professor in the Clemson College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences (CAFLS) Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. CAFLS students are afforded several opportunities to become tomorrows researchers. One such opportunity comes from a program known as CAFLS Advantage. In this program students engage in experiential learning opportunities to help build skills needed to succeed in the workforce. CAFLS students participate in domestic and foreign travel, as well as work with researchers to help develop these skills. For more information, visit the Bookhart Student Services Center at https://bit.ly/BookhartStudentServicesCntr. Two Orangeburg County residents have been charged with trafficking, according to S.C. Law Enforcement Division warrants. John Richard Williams, 61, of 6317 Kips Lane, Orangeburg, and Alana Ann Westbury, 32, of 3920 Homestead Road, Bowman, are each charged with first-offense trafficking in a person under 18 years of age. Williams is also facing the charge of first-offense, first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor under age 11. Westbury is facing three counts of unlawful conduct toward a child. The pair were taken into custody on Friday. Warrants accuse the pair of being involved in trafficking from May 2022 until December 2022. SLED accuses Williams of soliciting his accuser, who is under the age of 11, for commercial sex acts. It also claims that he engaged in commercial sex acts with the victim and the victim received money for the sex acts from the defendant, either directly or indirectly. SLED also accuses Westbury of knowingly facilitating the solicitation of the alleged victim for commercial sex acts and that she forced the alleged victim to engage in commercial sex acts with Williams. Shes accused of receiving money for the sex acts from Williams, either directly or indirectly. Warrants claim the sex acts took place where two other minors were present. On Saturday, Orangeburg County Magistrate James Rickenbacker set Westburys bond at $20,000 or $5,000 per charge and released her on her own recognizance. He also stipulated that she not have any contact with Williams or the alleged victims. Shes not allowed to be around minor children, according to the South Carolina court systems public index. Rickenbacker deferred setting Williams bond to a circuit judge on the criminal sexual conduct charge, but set bond on his trafficking charge at $5,000. If convicted, Westbury and Williams each face up to 30 years in prison. If anyone has additional information related to this investigation, call SLED at 803-896-5591. Calhoun County government officials have received a legal opinion from the county's lawyer about role of the county administrator in light of concerns raised about the position's existence, duties and obligations. County attorney J. Michael Montgomery said Calhoun County had the authority to establish the office of county administrator based on a county ordinance passed in 1979. Montgomery sent the opinion to Calhoun County resident Amy Hill in November after Hill questioned if the county could legally establish the position of county administrator under the council form of government, which is the countys form of government. Hill, who runs Sandy Run News, has asked council to address the issue of the administrators duties and responsibilities after county Administrator John McLauchlin took some actions without receiving an official vote from council. Calhoun County Council may need to consider defining clear limitations for the office of the administrator of the county council regarding the duties so that liberties are not taken by anyone holding the position now or in the future, Hill said in an email sent to some county residents. Hill did not disclose the number of citizens reached in her email list. McLauchlin has defended his actions as within the scope of his delegated duties. There is nothing new or different, McLauchlin said, noting the duties have been in place for 43 years and have not been questioned until recently. Certainly no administrator is taking advantage of any of it, he said. The specific actions Hill questioned include: The tearing down of the county fire commission's burn training facility without a council vote. The county at one time had a burn facility where firefighters could train. McLauchlin said he received verbal approval to tear the building down after receiving complaints from neighbors about the smoke from the building. We got council approval to do it, McLauchlin said. We didn't have to get council approval under our ordinance. We don't abuse it. We are never going to get out on that limb. Even at a couple thousand dollars, I went in front of council. Transferring funds without a council vote. Hill would not attest that this is being done, but said it is an issue that needs to be monitored. The county's current policy allows the county administrator to transfer up to $20,000 without council approval, though there is no monetary limit currently spelled out in law. It is not codified, County Deputy Administrator Richard Hall said. That is not in an ordinance. It is not anywhere. It may have been at one time, but it is not currently. Both Hall and McLauchlin say the policy has always been followed, but agreed there is a need to codify the matter. There has got to be a number established, McLauchlin said. We have always used $20,000. There is no situation here which has been abused or misused, McLauchlin said. Hall said the county is working toward codifying a monetary transfer cap on what an administrator can transfer. It is honestly scary that a rogue administrator can commit the county to any number of amount of money with no repercussions, Hall said. Possibly signing contractual agreements committing taxpayer or grant resources without a council vote. Hill claims the 50-year lease the county signed with the Heyward Community Alliance should have gone before council for a vote because the transaction committed public funds, received grant funds and spent capital project sales tax funds. County Council acknowledged a mistake was made and committed itself to officially approving the contract. Council did approve the contract at its Dec. 12 meeting. Under the Calhoun County Code of Ordinances approved in March 1979, the following powers and duties are delegated to a county administrator: To serve as the chief administrative officer of the county government. To execute the policies, directives and legislative actions of the council. To direct and coordinate operational agencies and administrative activities of the county government. To prepare annual operating and capital improvement budgets for submission to the council and, in the exercise of that authority, be empowered to require such reports, estimates and statistics on an annual or periodic basis as he deems necessary from all county departments and agencies for the performance of his duties in budget preparation. To supervise the expenditure of appropriated funds. To prepare annual, monthly and other reports for council on finances and administrative activities of the county. To be responsible for the administration of county personnel policies, including salary and classification plans approved by council. To be responsible for employment and discharge of personnel subject to the provisions of state law, the appropriation of funds by the council for that purpose and approval of the council. To perform such other duties as may be required by the council. The administrators authority became an issue during the November general election when Calhoun County voters were asked if they wanted to keep the present council form of government or to replace it with a council-administrator form of government. Voters decided by a total of 3,270 votes to 2,120 votes to keep the current council form of government. County officials have said the change would have allowed the county to operate more efficiently, taken the burden off of elected officials to have to answer questions about day-to-day county administrative operations and better delineated duties of the county administrator. County officials also note that Calhoun County is not the only county in the state that has sought a change to the council-administrator form of government. This is the modern-day way of running a county, McLauchlin said. Opponents of the change said it would distance citizens from their elected representatives and lessen government of the people, by the people for the people. The county, which operates under a council form of government, has functioned with a paid county administrator under the county-approved ordinance since 1979. Montgomery says state law gives counties the authority to enact regulations, resolutions and ordinances, not inconsistent with the Constitution and general law of this state, including the exercise of these powers in relation to health and order in counties or respecting any subject as appears to them necessary and proper for the security, general welfare, and convenience of counties or for preserving health, peace, order and good government in them. The powers of a county must be liberally construed in favor of the county and the specific mention of particular powers may not be construed as limiting in any manner the general powers of counties, Montgomery said, citing the law. The law goes on to state, that in those counties adopting the council form of government ... the responsibility for policy making and administration of county government shall be vested in the county council. Montgomery said in his letter, The question then becomes whether Calhoun County Council would have been prevented from delegating its administrative authority through the duties and responsibilities bestowed upon the county administrator in the 1979 Ordinance. In my opinion, the delegation of administrative authority is not prohibited by the provisions of the Home Rule Act pertaining to county government, he said. Montgomery goes on to cite a 2004 South Carolina Attorney General opinion which states that it is well-recognized that duties which are purely ministerial and executive and do not involve the exercise of discretion may be delegated by the board to a committee or to an agent, an employee, or a servant. The AG's opinion, Montgomery notes, goes on to hold that while legislative functions could not be delegated by a public body, that body .... could confer discretion to the County Director in the application of ordinances and the exercise of administrative functions. Accordingly, it is evident that County Council possesses the authority to delegate certain administrative powers and duties to third parties, which would in all likelihood include the County Director, Montgomery writes. So long as Council does not delegate legislative or policy making powers to others but confines its delegation of authority to administrative and ministerial powers, a court would probably conclude such delegation is not an unlawful delegation of power. Montgomery said he agrees with the AG's opinion, noting that the delegation of administrative duties by County Council to the county administrator is not prohibited by state law. Montgomery goes on to answer a concern raised by Hill about the current county administrator's contract in light of state law in 1976 prior to the Home Rule Act. Montgomery says the state law and the Calhoun County-approved ordinance read nearly the same, with one variation related to hiring and termination of county employees, which does not substantively change the administrative authority provided to the county administrator by the 1979 Ordinance. I would also note that I have reviewed the last three county administrator contracts prior to the current administrators contract, and they all contain this identical sentence, Montgomery said. Thus, I do not find any merit to the contention that County Council attempted to change the form of government by virtue of the current administrators contract. In answer to Montgomery's legal opinion, Hill, in an emailed response sent to county residents, did acknowledge that the county ordinance in 1979 did not diminish the authority of the council, nor did it give the office of administrator of the county council any authority over council. This seems to be a reasonable action considering that our county council is part-time, Hill wrote. However, there is a discussion to be had as to whether or not the contracted county administrator has the authority to execute some very controversial duties without a county council vote. Glen Murrell, executive director of the Wyoming Energy Authority will step down March 1, the agency announced Monday. Murrell has headed the states energy program since 2020, when the Wyoming Legislature merged the former Infrastructure and Pipeline authorities. During his tenure, he oversaw the development of Wyomings all-of-the-above energy strategy, which was finalized in August 2021, and subsequent, more specific plans to foster emerging industries, like advanced nuclear, rare earth elements and clean hydrogen, in the state. We have a rich abundance of hydrocarbon resources and renewable resources, Murrell told the Star-Tribune at the time. And were going to embrace all of it. Were not going to pick winners or try to silo off parts of the economy at all. Were embracing everything we have. The agency revealed in late December that its proposal for a federally funded hydrogen hub, which its pursuing jointly with leaders in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, had advanced from preliminary assessment to full review. Murrell said previously that the application and supporting documents could number well over 1,000 pages. On Monday, Murrell expressed confidence that the agency and the energy strategy it has championed will continue to see success in the coming years. Its been an honor and a pleasure working alongside my team for the last two and a half years at the Wyoming Energy Authority, Murrell said in a statement. I couldnt be more proud of the incredible start we have had as an organization in securing a strong and innovative future for Wyoming energy. Gov. Mark Gordon and Paul Ulrich, chairman of the Energy Authoritys board of directors, publicly thanked Murrell for his leadership as the agencys inaugural director in a joint statement. Gordon called the agency a powerhouse that gives Wyoming the tools to lead the nation into a bright future. Ulrich said Murrell has helped position Wyoming to meet our energy challenges now and into the future. The challenge now, Ulrich added, is replacing him. The opening is currently posted on the Energy Authoritys website. A Casper man faces second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder charges in connection with a killing reported early Sunday morning, police said. George Kevin Dickerson, 61, made his initial appearance in Natrona County Circuit Court on Monday afternoon. He faces no less than 20 years in prison on each charge if he is found guilty. The Casper Police Department responded to a report Sunday of two dead people at an address on the 1600 block of Begonia Street in Paradise Valley. Officers found two victims, one of whom was dead and the other sustained critical injuries, police said. The man who was killed has been identified as Andy William Martin Jr., 76, of Casper, Natrona County Coroner James Whipps said. Martins family was notified, and an autopsy is scheduled. The surviving victim was transported to the Banner Wyoming Medical Center. As of Monday morning, the victim was alive and considered stable but remained in critical condition. There will be a continued law enforcement presence around Begonia and Navarre streets while the investigation is ongoing. We would like to reiterate that this is an isolated incident and there is no ongoing threat to the public, the department said. Dickerson has some prior offenses. He was found guilty of a DUI in 2006 and of violence against a household member in 2011. Natrona County Circuit Court Judge Nichole Collier set the bond at $600,000 cash-only, as he was deemed a significant flight risk due to extended periods of unemployment and severely damaged family ties in Natrona County. There is no way I, or anyone I know, could come up with that amount, and I certainly understand why they would do that, Dickerson said during his court appearance. No further details were available Monday. GILLETTE AnDee Steiners vase at first looked like a potato. And Carol Pahlke, 79, called her bowl an improvised candy dish. The dish that graced the display table looked similar to a clam shell found along the shoreline. It was supposed to be round, she said with a laugh. I said, Okay, abstract art. But over the course of eight weeks, the two developed their skills, ultimately fashioning a teapot complete with a spout and lid that could truly hold and pour water. It was incredible to see how far I came, Pahlke said. We all kind of started building off of one another, Steiner added. The two were joined by eight other students in a creative aging ceramics class that met at the AVA Community Art Center. The class was free to the 10 students thanks to a joint initiative between the state library, state arts council and Lifetime Arts in an effort to give those ages 55 years and older a way to branch out creatively and meet new people, while at the same time learning skills they may not have tried in their learned lifetime so far. The course gave artists a way to meet people in their community and others a way to cope with loss, while surrounded by art and new friends. Pahlke and Valerie Randall used the course to find friends in a new community. Pahlke moved to Gillette earlier this year from Washington, while Randall and her husband made their move from California in September. Both have found a new home in Gillette where more of their family has lived for years. The two women enjoyed the course that tested their creativity and mindset. And by the end, they also had two bowls, a vase and one teapot to show for themselves as well. Pahlke was so surprised by how her teapot turned out, she didnt even recognize it. I came in (to AVA) one day to see if, you know, I had to grab them and take them home if they were too bad, Pahlke said. They told me where it was and I thought, Oh, I love that one, I didnt even know it was mine. All of the pieces had been transformed from the last time the artists had seen them due to the firing process that heated the glaze and gave them all a glossy appearance. The pieces were then admired by community members and peers at the artists reception Dec. 8, giving the classmates a time to catch up with one another too. Randall was at first hesitant to join in the class because shed only moved to town a few weeks before the class began but she found the company comfortable to work with. It was men and women and it was really great to be with people my age. There were a few older than me and I thought, If they can do this, I can, she said with a chuckle. They were all very warm and welcoming. The company was something that Sue Ullrich also appreciated. Ullrich joined in her first creative aging program at the beginning of the year, shortly after the death of her husband. The class in January 2022 met at Gillette College Area 59 where the students created their own wood and metalwork. Since then, shes been a frequent flyer at the maker space where shes made many more projects for friends and family. Before the class, shed never even been in the space. I remember thinking, what an awesome opportunity, she said of her first course. I was intimidated thinking that I hadnt used those tools but the teachers were very helpful. Ullrichs discovery of more places to work and the creative liberties she had access to were another focus of the creative aging program. Krisene Watson, who wrote the grants for each program, said its all about providing the older community with ways to get outside of their homes and keep their active minds flowing. Throughout her time working with the adults, shed seen locals come back to life. (Sue) signed up for the program at Area 59 where she met Pat Brose, Watson recalled. (Brose) lost her husband many years ago but its still devastating because its your best friend. Its important that people have someone to connect with during that time. It was really neat to see those two connect. Ullrich noted that the classes brought her back into the community sooner than she otherwise would have. I wouldve been much slower at getting back out and involved in things if the class hadnt come up. I was hesitant at first because I didnt know if I was really ready, she said. The class not only brought her solace at the beginning of the year, but also in the fall, because the class fell at the same time as the first anniversary of his death. It was nice to have something to do, Ullrich said. The two hour class periods every Tuesday and Thursday allowed for time between for everyone to talk and mingle as they put their hands to good use. It was nice because you could kind of just sit there and visit with everyone as you worked, Steiner said. And for Debra Garcia, it opened the door to an entirely new workspace that she plans to make her home. Garcia signed up for a sculpting class at the center, along with buying about 20 pounds of clay, a medium shed never worked with before the class. My friend, shes the one who saw the class and really wanted to sign up for it but shes younger. I told her, Hey now, youve got to pay your dues first, she said laughing as she spoke with her peers. Just like the clay that was molded into unique shapes and sculpted art, the class also shaped a community of strangers into a group of friends. And now everyone also knows that even if something looks like a potato at first, with trained hands and a good instructor, a beautiful piece can come of it. Krisene Watson, extension services manager at the public library, worked to prepare the creative aging grants that would be used for four events within the county. The ceramics course was the last program that can be covered through the grant. Before the ceramics course at AVA Community Art Center, Watson said the grants also paid for those 55 years and older to participate in an oral history class that preserved the attendees stories in a video format, a wood and metal work course at Gillette College Area 59 and an art class at the Wright Silver Sage Senior Center. Watson said that at first, libraries throughout the state were only to receive two grants. But she kept at it because she could see how much the program was helping those in Campbell County. To get the third and fourth grant here, it was really a lot of work but the classes are a lot of fun and it was so worth it to see the lives that (the programs) have changed, she said. The classes became so popular that the ceramics course even had a wait list. And Watson hopes that somehow there will be more. About $2,000 of grant money was all it took to cover costs for the courses and materials, with attendance varying from about 10-15 people in each course. Watson said she also likes working with different businesses within Gillette because it was a win-win for all involved. When you have partnerships where you help the community and they help the people doing the classes, it makes it more fun, she said. To keep the program going, Watson said people can donate to the Friends of the Library with a note saying theyd like the money to go toward creative aging classes. Im hoping we can continue to do this because its amazing to see lives change and show everyone what resources they have, Watson said. JACKSON (WNE) Three anti-abortion advocates have appealed the decision of a Teton County judge not to let them assist in defending Wyomings law criminalizing abortions. The seven-page appeal, which was filed last Thursday in Teton County District Court, seeks to overturn District Court Judge Melissa Owens Nov. 30 order denying the parties motion to intervene. The proposed intervenors are state Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody; state Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett; and Right to Life of Wyoming. Rodriguez-Williams and Neiman sponsored the bill, signed into law in March, that triggered a ban on most abortions when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June. The law allows narrow exceptions for rape, incest or physical risk to the mothers life. In their request filed Aug. 16, the parties provided three reasons why they should be allowed to intervene: The legislators have a protectable interest in enacting legislation that regulates the medical profession; they were themselves involved in sponsoring the bill; and they personally support enactment of their legislation. In her November order, Owens weighed whether the interests of the three abortion opponents rose to the level of a significantly protectable interest. She found that they did not. The notice of appeal does not automatically halt the larger case from continuing in Teton County District Court. Follow-up filings are expected to determine whether the case will be paused, pending the appeal ruling. Abortions up until viability, between 22 and 24 weeks, remain legal in Wyoming for now, while the case continues to play out in Teton County District Court. Any annual review of Yellowstones activity has to start with seismicity. Yellowstone is an active place in terms of earthquakes. Typically, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, which are responsible for the operation of the Yellowstone Seismic Network, locates 1,5002,500 earthquakes every year in the region. Over the last several years, annual seismicity in and around Yellowstone National Park has varied about this average, including: 2017: 3,427 earthquakes located 2018: 2,007 earthquakes located 2019:1,218 earthquakes located 2020: 1,722 earthquakes located 2021: 2,773 earthquakes located In 2022, there were almost 2,500 earthquakes located in the Yellowstone region. The largest event of the year was an M4.2 earthquake that occurred in the eastern part of the park on May 11 coincidentally, the first day of an in-person coordination meeting of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory in Mammoth Hot Springs. The quake was broadly felt, including by YVO scientists, and was the strongest seismic event in the region since a M4.4 event in 2017. As is common, there were also several earthquake swarms in the region. A swarm is a sequence of earthquakes that occur in roughly the same place in rapid succession, and on average about 50% of all earthquakes in Yellowstone occur as part of swarms. These swarms are mostly driven by interactions between groundwater and existing faults. In 2022, there were 26 earthquake swarms, and these accounted for about 67% of located earthquakes during the year. The most significant swarm by far was in the area of Grizzly Lake, between Norris Geyser Basin and Mammoth Hot Springs. That sequence began during the summer and continued intermittently through the end of the year, contributing more than 1,000 earthquakes to the annual total an impressive number, but still just a third to a half of what has been recorded during the longest/largest swarms, like 2017s Maple Creek swarm (more than 2,400 located earthquakes in a three-month span). GPS data did not detect any significant changes in surface deformation over the course of the year. Data from the caldera showed that the region continues to subside, as it has since 2015. Each summer, that subsidence pauses and may even turn to a slight amount of uplift as runoff from spring snowmelt percolates into the ground, which soaks up the water like a sponge. Deformation is also recorded by interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) a satellite technique that uses radar images from different dates to see the deformation that occurred over the time spanned. In 2021, there were indications that there might be a small amount of uplift along the north rim of the caldera (1 centimeter, or less than half an inch). That area is a site of historic uplift, which last occurred during the late 1990s. Comparison of satellite radar data collected in September 2021 and October 2022, however, reveals slight subsidence of that region, suggesting that the 2021 uplift signal was short lived and has since reversed itself. Noteworthy geyser activity was mild in 2021 compared to previous years. Steamboat Geyser, the worlds tallest active geyser, remained active, with 11 major water eruptions during the year a far cry from previous years (20 in 2021, 48 each in 2020 and 2019, and 32 in 2018). The decrease in the frequency of Steamboat Geyser eruptions may be a sign that the current episode of activity is coming to an end. Speaking of water, no discussion of 2022 in Yellowstone would be complete without mention of the historic flooding that occurred in June. Heavy rains falling on late-season snowpack led to catastrophic flooding, especially in the northern area of Yellowstone National Park. The flooding was so intense that it was recorded by seismometers in the region. Although little monitoring equipment was impacted only one river-monitoring site needed maintenance major roads and other infrastructure were heavily damaged, and full recovery will take years. Yellowstone Volcano Observatory scientists conducted experiments, analyzed data, deployed new instruments and mapped geologic deposits throughout the year. Field work included sampling gas emissions, investigating hydrothermal explosion craters and installing a new continuous gas monitoring system near Mud Volcano one that will provide updates of thermal, H2O and CO2 emissions year round. YVO scientists also gathered in Mammoth Hot Springs in May for their first in-person meeting since 2018. In addition to discussing science and monitoring results, a full-day tabletop exercise was held to simulate a volcanic event, providing a way to practice YVOs response plan for geologic unrest. Insights from the exercise will be used to draft a new response plan, scheduled for release in 2023. Also in 2022, YVO published its monitoring plan for the coming decade, laying out the strategy for upgrading existing systems and better tracking activity in Yellowstone National Parks thermal basins. While the year was noteworthy for the many improvements to monitoring infrastructure and overall knowledge of Yellowstones tectonic, hydrothermal and magmatic systems, 2022 also saw the passing of an icon. Robert Bob Christiansen, the founding scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, passed away in September. Bob led geologic mapping of the Yellowstone region and made major contributions to a greater understanding of volcanism in the western United States across a career that spanned nearly 60 years. He will be sorely missed by his innumerable colleagues and friends. We hope that you all had a relaxing and pleasant holiday season. From all the members of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory consortium, take care, be safe and best wishes for 2023. A relative of one of the two men killed along the Churchill-Roosevelt Highway in Piarco, on Monday night, heard the gunshots that ended their lives and saw the vehicle they were in pull to the side of the road. The dead men are Shamba Chandler, a resident of Maracas/St Joseph and Mt DOr Road, Champs Fleurs, and Carlsbury Lewis, also known as Berry, of Mohammed Street, St Augustine. A woman, well known on Tucsons northwest side as The Umbrella Lady, has died after being struck by a vehicle last week, and an arrest was made in an alleged hit-and-run. Lydia Reis, 63, was in the roadway when she was struck by an eastbound vehicle on Ina Road, near Giaconda Way, on Jan. 5 around 6:30 a.m. The driver did not remain at the scene. Reis was taken to a hospital in extremely critical condition, and she died on Jan. 8 from her injuries, the Pima County Sheriffs Department said on Monday. The Oro Valley Police Department, which responded to the area to assist, found the driver, 53-year-old Guadalupe Solis. She was booked into the Pima County Jail on a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious physical injury or death, the sheriffs department said. The Catalina Foothills School District is inviting the public to attend its CFSD Teacher Job Fair on Saturday, Feb. 11. The job fair will take place inside the Professional Learning Center of Valley View Early Learning Center, 3435 E. Sunrise Drive, from 9 a.m. to noon. Candidates are encouraged to visit the districts webpage, www.cfsd16.org, to schedule a time slot for an interview that day. In a news release, the district noted that its teachers starting salary was more than $46,500 in 2022 and its average teachers salary was more than $58,500 in the same year. The news release also noted that the district has a nationally-recognized reputation of academic excellence and leadership. STEM competition finalist STAR Academic High School of the Sunnyside Unified School District was among seven Arizona schools selected as state finalists in the 13th Annual Samsung Solve for Tomorrow STEM Competition. Solve for Tomorrow challenges U.S. public middle and high school students to explore the role that STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) can play in solving some of the biggest issues in their local communities. The competition brings students to engage in active, hands-on learning that can be applied to real-world problems relating to geopolitical matters, climate change, school safety, mental health and school bus commuting. The state finalists are now asked to submit lesson plans detailing how their proposed STEM projects will address identified issues in their communities. One winner will then be selected for the state and will receive $20,000 to continue developing their projects and document their work in a video to be considered for the national title. For more information about the competition, visit www.samsung.com/us/solvefortomorrow. Emily Gray open house Emily Gray Jr. High School of the Tanque Verde Unified School District will be hosting an open house for families looking to enroll future Bobcats at the school. Interested parties are invited to visit the school, 11150 E. Tanque Verde Road, on Jan. 18 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. Attendees will get the chance to meet teachers, tour the campus, and learn about the curriculum and student activities. Community members interested in attending the open house are encouraged to RSVP by Jan. 13 by visiting the link, bit.ly/3vGQAyO. Tucson Assistant City Manager Tim Thomure joined a unanimous vote last month by a state water board that will allow for state-run discussions with an Israeli firm over its proposal for a $5.5 billion desalination plant in Puerto Penasco on the Gulf of California. The Water Infrastructure Authority of Arizona voted 9-0 on Dec. 20, following a fierce, afternoon-long debate, to authorize its staff to prepare an analysis of the project. If the analysis finds the proposal meets state requirements, the board chairman can negotiate an agreement with the company to deliver desalted water to Arizona at agreed upon terms including costs. During the discussion of the plant at that meeting Thomure, a member of the water authority board, raised a number of questions and concerns about the project. They included its costs impacts on local water ratepayers and its environmental effects. But after the vote, Thomure told the Star he supported the resolution to enable authority staff to evaluate IDEs proposal and then relay its analysis to the authoritys Long-term Water Augmentation Committee and, ultimately, to the board. Appointed last year by since-departed House Minority Leader Reginald Bolding, Thomure votes as an independent board member not representing the City of Tucson, he and Mayor Regina Romero told the Star. But Tucson Vice Mayor Steve Kozachik and Councilman Kevin Dahl blasted the desalination plant proposal in interviews, following the water boards vote, as fiscally and environmentally unsound. The mayor said she had many questions, including environmental concerns, adding she hasnt seen the formal IDE proposal. I am outraged. This is the wrong way to go for water policy in Arizona. The cost in energy, the environmental damage, the financial costs are all outrageous, Dahl said. Speaking of the energy needed to desalinate the water and to pump the water uphill from Puerto Penasco to the CAP canal north of Gila Bend, Dahl said, It sounds like a pipe dream. Kozachik called the plant proposal, One of the dumbest ideas Ive seen, from a standpoint of costs and environmental impacts. We need to be talking about conservation. The money it will take to purchase the land and construct it; the costs are astronomical, he said, although much of the pipelines U.S. section will run through land already owned by the government. But Thomure said, in explaining his vote, The board does not have sufficient information to evaluate the proposal at this time the information is solely provided by the applicant and a staff report is the prudent next step. Since board members have not yet established policies and procedures for processing desalination proposals, authority staff would have been precluded from engaging with IDE to evaluate the proposal and transmit that analysis to the board without a resolution authorizing that, he said. By passing the resolution, we have assured that a transparent, public process will be conducted to evaluate and discuss this proposal, Thomure said. Drought-proof water supply The Israeli proposal calls for building a plant large enough to desalinate up to 1 million acre-feet of water per year. Thats about as much as the Central Arizona Project canal system delivers to Arizona annually from the Colorado River. The water would then be shipped via a 200-mile-long pipeline to the Hassayampa River Basin west of Phoenix. There, it would be placed into the 336-mile-long, CAP canal for delivery to Phoenix, Pinal County, Tucson and ultimately to Nogales via a proposed extension of the canal. But at the Dec. 20, water board meeting, and at a subsequent legislative hearing, some legislators and several environmentalists and other critics of the plant proposal complained it was being rammed through the approval process much too fast. Supporters of the plant said its time to get going on it now, because it will take many years for its proponents to obtain all the government permits needed to build it. With both groundwater and Colorado River supplies now being depleted, plant supporters see seawater as the only drought-proof, reliable water supply available. Many critics noted that a state law, passed last spring, that gave the board authority to approve and finance desalination projects using a new, $1 billion appropriation, contained provisions requiring that the approval process for such projects be transparent. Because IDE officials and their partners in the project had met with officials of numerous state and federal agencies and some local water officials in the past, critics said the entire process smacked of a backroom deal. But the authority boards Dec. 20 resolution exactly addresses the public concerns that until the previous week, the project was only known to some (not including myself), Thomure said in reply to such criticism. The resolution outlines the public and transparent process to evaluate the proposal so that there is adequate public scrutiny, he said. Need for conservation ignored Thomures questioning of a top IDE official about the plants impact on water rates produced one of the more noteworthy exchanges of the five-hour board meeting Dec. 20. The plants estimated cost of $2,200 to $3,300 per acre-foot of water far more than whats charged by CAP or by city water utilities would only add a few dollars a month to a typical water bill of $38 a month for 10,000 gallons, Erez Hoter-Ishay, the IDE projects team leader, told the board. It goes up to $43-$44-$45. This is for the security of the water, he said. Thomure, however, got Hoter-Ishay to acknowledge that if a water utility had no other source of water besides desalinated seawater, its customers monthly water bills would double. The people of Phoenix get water from different resources, whether its groundwater or CAP or others. But yes, if you have no source of any other water, no groundwater, no water from CAP, for example, that will be your price, Hoter-Ishay said. That and other concerns remain, and the next steps of evaluation need to consider those concerns, and the concerns expressed by other members of the board and the public, Thomure told the Star afterward. The boards resolution did not approve the project in any manner. The resolution created an open, public process for staff, the committee, the board, and the public to evaluate and discuss the project, Thomure said. Kozachik called the proposal a fools errand. The focus has got to be on significant conservation efforts. Were just ignoring the fact that at some point, whether its your generation and mine or the next one; someone is going to have to face the fact that you cant continue to grow uncontrollably and ship water in from out of state. Thats absurd, the midtown councilman told the Star. Dahl denounced the idea of having a private, foreign country building a multi-billion-dollar plant whose financing would be backstopped by state tax dollars. The company wants Arizona to guarantee that it will use already appropriated state funds to pay some of the water costs charged to customers, if cities and other entities dont buy enough of the water to pay back the construction tab. Despite losing 74-61 to Washington State and squeaking by Washington 70-67 last week, Arizona stayed in the Top 10 of the Associated Press Top 25 poll. The Wildcats (14-2 overall, 3-2 Pac-12) dropped from No. 5 to No. 9 in the AP rankings, while UCLA (No. 7), Tennessee (No. 5), Alabama (No. 6) and Gonzaga (No. 8) leapfrogged them. Among other teams of possible interest to Arizona, Xavier moved up from No. 18 to No. 12, San Diego State moved back in the poll at No. 23 while Indiana dropped out all the way from No. 15. In other national metrics, the Wildcats now are rated No. 9 in the NET, No. 11 in Sagarin and No. 11 in Kenpom. Arizona is scheduled to travel this week, facing Oregon State (7-9, 1-4) on Thursday and Oregon (9-7, 3-2) on Saturday. The Oregon schools are coming off a mountain swing in which Oregon State was swept while the Ducks lost to Colorado but beat Utah 70-60. FWIW, here was my ballot for the AP poll. Colorado's Tristan da Silva was named the Pac-12 Player of the Week, beating out WSU's Mouhamed Gueye and UA's Azuolas Tubelis, among others. Da Silva averaged 23.5 points and 6.0 rebounds in Colorado's sweep over the Oregon schools last weekend, while dropping 30 points on Oregon. There were no worries about a quorum Friday morning, but for a couple of hours, the YellowHouse Event Co. downtown bore something of a resemblance to the state Capitol. Four state lawmakers representing pieces of the 74063 ZIP code attended a Sand Springs Chamber of Commerce-sponsored reception in advance of the Feb. 6 beginning of the 2023 legislative session. On hand were state Reps. Clay Staires, R-Skiatook, and Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow; and state Sens. Cody Rogers, R-Tulsa, and Todd Gollihare, R-Kellyville. But besides any quorum concerns, something else was absent a political agenda. The meet-and greet-event was purely about getting acquainted. I think its important to have this legislative advocacy meet and greet just to really put Sand Springs back on the map and show that we care about our legislators and we want to be involved politically, said Amanda Wion, president of the Sand Springs Chamber. Also, I think its important for our businesses. Being the chamber, thats one of the legs of our mission to have advocacy for our members and our businesses. Wion, who just marked her first anniversary with the chamber, said she has heard from members over the past year that they want to be involved politically in advocacy work and want to know who our legislators are. Wion, who has created a legislative task force within the chamber, said the lawmakers all were very open to the idea of such an informal event, which gave them a chance to get to know Sand Springs and some business and city officials in a very laid-back environment. For the past 12 years, Sand Springs was largely represented at the state Capitol by Rep. Jadine Nollan, a Republican Sand Springs native who left the Legislature last year because of term limits. But redistricting has dramatically changed the landscape of her House District 66. Wion said that could actually work to the citys advantage because now there are more lawmakers the four present Friday plus Republican Sen. Bill Coleman of Ponca City, who represents the northern part of the city thats in Osage County to carry the citys concerns to the Capitol. Were not only getting our voice heard maybe one or two times, Wion said. Thats five people that we can pull on their ear and try to get them to listen to Sand Springs. Shelly Shoemaker, the human resources manager for Webco Industries, is a chamber member and a member of its new legislative task force. I feel like theres so many people in the community that dont realize that their representatives (and) the City Council members all those people are a part of the community. Theyre their neighbors, she said. So this is a great opportunity for those representatives to meet people in the businesses, Shoemaker said. I feel like were all growing together, and the more that we become a team, that sets us all up. City Manager Mike Carter echoed Shoemakers teamwork perspective. The great thing thats going on in Sand Springs is were all working together the chamber, the city, the schools, the (Sand Springs) Home, our businesses, our churches and just having contact with our elected officials from Oklahoma City just makes that even better, he said. We appreciate them, and you can see by them all being here the level of interest they have in serving the citizens of Sand Springs, and were appreciative of that. Tulsa County District 2 Commissioner Karen Keith said getting to know one another and in particular our legislators who can help with issues locally its super important. If you dont have those relationships, you cant pick up the phone and say, Hey, did you know this is going on? And I think theres something the Legislature can do to help, she said. To me, its not being a Republican or a Democrat; its getting attention for the issues that matter to make things better for all of us. Thats it. Rogers, who has represented much of the Sand Springs area in the state Senate for the past two years, attended Fridays event despite having lost a substantial number of local constituents in the recent round of redistricting. His District 37 has shifted south and east, covering more of Tulsa and its southern suburbs. But he said the gathering is still valuable for him. I think its a good thing, Rogers said. I think theyre just trying to get the state delegation involved in the city of Sand Springs. Staires, the lawmaker representing the largest swath of Sand Springs, is one of the new guys at the Capitol, having just been elected to the House District 66 seat in November. I wouldnt say Im nervous about the start of the upcoming session, he said. Im very excited, but I dont really know what Im excited about, because I dont really know what the future looks like. So far Im just very energized, he said. From what I can see of the future, I feel like Im in the right spot and very excited about being in a place to help direct the state of Oklahoma in a direction that so many Oklahomans that Ive been talking to want us to go. Staires said he was grateful for the opportunity to meet a large number of constituents but equally grateful that they had the chance to meet him because he knows how it feels not to even know who ones representative is. And then feeling like theyre untouchable you cant get to them, he said. But more and more and more, things like this break down that barrier. Staires has plans to hold his own regular, informal gatherings for constituents to meet with him about issues. Come and talk. Your voice matters, he said. I am your representative, but I cant represent you if youre not communicating with me. A Tulsa man has pleaded guilty in a 2020 homicide case, according to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Bradley Bales, 36, was arrested June 15, 2020, by U.S. Marshals Task Force and OSBI agents in connection with the murder of 55-year-old Burt Kutt, the release reads. Officers discovered Kutt's body during a welfare check June 8, 2020; the release states Kutt was found in the garage of his home in the 18000 block of East Archer Street in Catoosa. The remains were reportedly burned beyond recognition, but authorities state Kutt was eventually identified through dental records. Bales will be sentenced on charges including second-degree murder and desecration of a human corpse, the release states. Madison Broyles, 20, and Kayla Harche, 25, have also been arrested and charged in relation to Hutt's murder. EDGE talk: Tulsa Public Schools is hosting information sessions Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for families of eighth grade students interested earning a free associates degree through Tulsa Community Colleges Earn a Degree, Graduate Early program. TPS has EDGE cohorts at Memorial and McLain high schools. Tuesdays session is at 6:30 p.m. at 5151 E. 51st St. Also scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Thursdays session is at the Parent Resource Center, 525 E. 46th St. North. Saturdays session at Monroe Demonstration Academy, 2010 E. 48th St. North, starts at 11 a.m. P-EBT update: Efforts are underway to distribute 2021-22 Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer funds, with all benefits slated to be disbursed by Jan. 20, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Department of Human Services confirmed Thursday. To qualify for the program, students must have been eligible for free or reduced-price school meals either based on their household income or through their attendance at a school that exercised the National School Lunch Programs Community Eligibility Provision in 2021-22. That includes all of TPS elementary schools. The program was launched in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to offset the financial impact on families whose children missed free or reduced-price school meals due to COVID-19. Principal on the move: Pending approval at Monday nights Tulsa school board meeting, Principal Nikki Dennis is leaving Rogers College Middle and High School after eight years to take a position with TPS talent management team. She will be replaced on an interim basis by Cindy Largent. Nomination season: The Oklahoma Council for Indian Education is accepting nominations for the Oklahoma Indian Student Honor Society through 5 p.m. Feb. 17. To be eligible for consideration, Indigenous high school and college students must have at least a 3.9 cumulative grade point average, be able to demonstrate substantial participation in cultural activities, and have a documented history of community service or leadership roles. Nomination forms are available online at Oklahoma-ocie.org/oishs. COVID-19 by the numbers: With classes back in session, four districts had published updated COVID-19 case counts by the close of business Friday. Bartlesville Public Schools reported two cases among staff and one among students. Both Berryhill Public Schools and Skiatook Public Schools had no reported cases among students and staff. Tulsa Public Schools had three reported cases among staff and none among students. Bixby, Broken Arrow, Catoosa, Claremore, Collinsville, Coweta, Glenpool, Jenks, Kiefer, Liberty, Mounds, Owasso, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Sperry, Union, Verdigris and Wagoner are not publishing updated case counts at this time. School board schedule: The boards of education for Allen Bowden, Berryhill, Broken Arrow, Claremore, Collinsville, Coweta, Glenpool, Jenks, Liberty, Mannford, Mounds, Owasso, Sand Springs, Sperry, Tulsa and Verdigris are scheduled to meet Monday. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Oklahoma City. The board for Lone Star School is also scheduled to meet Tuesday. The board for Epic Charter Schools is scheduled to meet Wednesday in Oklahoma City. The Bixby school board is scheduled to meet Thursday. The population in Oklahoma has eclipsed the 4 million mark for the first time, thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population in Oklahoma, as of July 1, to be 4,019,800. The agency estimates the state topped the 4 million mark sometime during the one-year period between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022, when it grew by 28,575 residents. Data behind the overall state population increase since the 2020 Census reflects a fundamental change in the source of new residents. Of the nearly 65,000 net increase in state population attributed to migration since April 2020, nearly 88% of the additional residents moved here from other states. For the second year in a row Oklahoma has seen a huge surge in domestic in-migration compared to really any year since 2010, said researcher William Frey, senior fellow at Brookings Metro. For the past two years, Oklahoma has been ranked 10th in the country in domestic in-migration, Frey said. Over the past five years, the greatest net in-migration to Oklahoma is from California, he said. I would say there is a surge to the state of domestic migration since the pandemic, Frey said. I dont know to what extent the pandemic has anything to do with it other than, my guess is, there is more migration from California, which has shown that the pandemic, plus high housing costs, has pushed people out. Tulsa Regional Chamber President and CEO Mike Neal lauded the latest population data. Population growth within the Tulsa metro and across Oklahoma is helpful to current employers because it expands the available workforce pool, Neal said. Surpassing significant population milestones also puts our state on the radar of new employers who might not previously have considered us for expansion or relocation opportunities. Meanwhile, migration to Oklahoma from outside the country was attributed with adding 8,100 residents to the state during the same time period. The growth in migration to Oklahoma from other states since 2020 is a change from prior years when migration from outside the country to Oklahoma outpaced so-called domestic, or intrastate migration. For instance, from April 1, 2010, to July 1, 2019, migrants to Oklahoma contributed to a net gain in population of 84,467 people, with 56,503 of them coming from outside the U.S. Migration is just one of two elements that contribute to overall population change. Oklahoma was one of 24 states that since April 2020 that has experienced a net decline in population from what the Census Bureau describes as natural change, or the difference between the number of deaths and births. Since April 2020, Oklahoma has experienced a net decline in population attributed to natural change, meaning there have been more deaths than births. Breaking it down, since April 2020 there have been 107,055 births in the state versus 112,490 deaths for an overall natural change in population of -5,435, according to the Census Bureaus population estimates program. Prior to the pandemic, few states typically saw more deaths than births during any given period, said Frey at Brookings Metro. For instance, from April 2010 to July 2019, Oklahoma saw its population increase by 120,719 due to natural change, a result of there being 480,618 births compared to 359,899 deaths. Nationwide, both immigration and natural change in population shifted downward in most parts of the U.S. during the pandemic, according to Frey. Freys research found that major metropolitan areas collectively saw a large decline in population due to out-migration during the pandemic. This is the first time the nations major metro areas registered an annual negative growth rate since at least 1990, according to Frey. During the same period, the growth rate of smaller metropolitan areas ticked upward, while non-metropolitan counties as a whole saw their highest annual growth rate in over a decade. Oklahoma is still the 28th most populous state, but the latest population figures narrows the gap between it and Oregon, the next most populous state. The population in Oregon declined by 16,164 to 4,240,137 from July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022, according to the Census Bureaus population estimates program. State population change Select state population and change since April 1 2020 1. California, 39,029,342, -508,903 2. Texas, 30,029,572, +884,144 27. Oregon, 4,240,137, +2,846 28. Oklahoma, 4,019,800, +60,454 Video: Census 2020 shows Oklahoma population shifting from rural counties since 1990 Staff Writer Curtis Killmans most memorable stories of 2022 Left out of the labor force: Oklahoma working on obstacles to employment Feds decline more than 5,800 criminal cases since McGirt ruling Number of poor-condition rural bridges drags down Oklahoma's ranking overall Teen's case goes dark in federal court system after crash that killed two in east Tulsa Bizarre dog killing exposes limits to cross-deputization agreements in wake of McGirt ruling Check out our latest digital-only offer and subscribe now OKLAHOMA CITY A new COVID-19 Omicron subvariant is taking hold across the country, threatening another wave of infections. The highly contagious subvariant XBB.1.5 has arrived in the United States and is quickly making up a large share of new cases across the country. In Oklahoma, the states Public Health Laboratory has identified two cases of XBB.1.5, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health. Cases and hospitalizations have begun to tick up again in Oklahoma, though theyre still at levels well below the heights they reached during the omicron surge in early 2022. The state added 5,660 COVID-19 cases to its count this week and that number represents only people whose tests were reported to the state. At-home tests arent included in official counts. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 climbed to more than 400 statewide this week. Heres what to know about XBB.1.5 and other COVID-19 variants circulating in Oklahoma. 1. New subvariant has jumped significantly in just a few weeks XBB.1.5 is getting attention because of how quickly its taken up a sizable share of the nations COVID-19 cases. Estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that its making up about 28% of cases nationwide. Thats up from about 18% the week before and about 2% in early December. (Previous estimates showed a higher percentage of XBB.1.5 cases, but new forecasts showed a less dramatic increase.) In Oklahomas region, which also includes Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico, XBB.1.5 makes up about 17% of current cases, according to the CDCs estimates. 2. COVID-Omicron XBB is particularly evasive Part of whats allowed XBB.1.5 to spread so quickly is that it doesnt seem to be affected much by antibodies developed through a recent infection or vaccination. People whove previously been infected with COVID or who have received the vaccine, even the most recent bivalent booster, this particular subvariant doesnt seem to be as susceptible to the antibodies that you developed when you were either infected or got vaccinated, said Dr. Dale Bratzler, the University of Oklahomas chief COVID officer. So its spreading quite rapidly. Vaccination for COVID-19 is still effective at preventing severe disease or death from the virus, though you can still be infected even if you were vaccinated. 3. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 still dominate in Oklahoma For now, two other omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 remain dominant in Oklahoma. Combined, they make up about 63% of cases in the region. 4. Some therapies are no longer effective against new variants Some treatments used for COVID-19 in the past wont work against newer variants. Bebtelovimab, which was the only monoclonal antibody therapy providers had to treat patients with COVID-19, is no longer authorized for use because it isnt expected to work against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants, according to the Food and Drug Administration. And Evusheld, a monoclonal antibody therapy used for pre-exposure protection against COVID-19 for immunocompromised and high-risk people, is also unlikely to work against newer variants. At OU Health, because now more than 80% of the strains that are circulating would not be expected to be prevented with Evusheld, weve elected to stop offering it to our patients, Bratzler said. 5. Antivirals are still available to treat and prevent severe disease But there are still treatment options to help prevent severe disease and death from COVID-19. Antiviral drugs Paxlovid and remdesivir are still available and arent affected by the virus mutations. Bratzler said hes seen some troubling cases of high-risk COVID-19 patients being treated with all sorts of stuff, including antibiotics and steroids, instead of antivirals that are proven to work against COVID-19. Im trying to get the message out to providers that antiviral drugs are the agents of choice when a high-risk individual tests positive for COVID, he said. I continue to see providers giving things that have not been shown to be useful and could even be harmful. OKLAHOMA CITY A death-row inmate and his spiritual adviser have sued the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for refusing to allow the minister into the execution chamber. The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Creek County killer Scott Eizember and his spiritual adviser, Jeffrey K. Hood, are the plaintiffs. Steven Harpe, Oklahoma Department of Corrections director; Jim Farris, Oklahoma State Penitentiary warden; and Justin Farris, ODOC chief of operations, are named defendants. Eizember is set to die for the 2003 beating death of A.J. Cantrell in Depew. He also was sentenced to 150 years for the slaying of Patsy Cantrell, A.J.s wife. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 last month to deny recommending clemency for Eizember, who is to be executed Thursday by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Gregory W. Gardner, a Colorado attorney representing Eizember, said an opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court allows a spiritual adviser not only to be present in the chamber during the execution but also to touch the offender and to pray out loud. Hood said Eizember was told last week by prison officials that his request to have Hood in the chamber with him had been denied. Hood said prison officials deemed him to be an activist, but he said the only reason he could be denied is if he were deemed to be a security threat. I have a long history of activism and social advocacy, Hood said. Well, according to the standard the DOC has set and Director Harpe, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be allowed in the (execution) chamber in Oklahoma. Hood was arrested for civil disobedience in Huntsville, Texas, in 2016 after trying to cross a police line outside the prison during an execution, the Dallas Morning News reported. He said that for months he has been able to visit and interact with inmates on death row. He said he signed a document saying he would follow the agencys rules. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections is tasked with professionally carrying out the orders of the court in accordance with state statute, ensuring the dignity of all involved, said Josh Ward, a DOC spokesman. Out of respect for the families of victims, ODOC will not allow the outbursts of activists to interfere, regardless of that activists declared role in this process. Ward said Hood has been arrested for similar outbursts in other states, demonstrating a blatant disregard for the experiences of victims families and the solemnity of the process. He cited DOC policy in offering Eizember access in the time leading up to his execution to Hood, who would be invited to witness the execution via a closed-circuit video feed. Hood, who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, said he has been arrested three times in his life for protesting. They are making this sound like I have been convicted of murders, he said, adding that they were peaceful protests by a national activist. The suit seeks a declaration that Hood must be allowed to participate or for the issuance of an injunction prohibiting the execution until he is allowed in. Eizember was subject to one of the largest manhunts in Oklahoma history following the slayings. He was apprehended after kidnapping another couple and beating them. He was pursing his ex-girlfriend, Kathy Biggs, who now goes by Smith. Biggs had a protective order against Eizember at the time. He shot Biggs son and beat her mother, both of whom survived. Featured video: New settlements in Oklahomas opioid epidemic fight Death row in Oklahoma: Pace of executions in 2023 slows on AG's request Richard Glossip Jemaine Cannon Anthony Sanchez Phillip Hancock James Ryder Michael D. Smith Wade Lay John Fitzgerald Hanson Oklahoma corrections director on execution: 'Not pleasant to watch, but ... not inhumane' Alfred Mitchell Marlon Harmon Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez Clarence Goode Jr. Emmanuel Littlejohn James Pavatt Kendrick Simpson Kevin Underwood Raymond E. Johnson Richard Rojem Ricky Malone Ronson Bush Termane Wood Wendell Grissom Check out our latest digital-only offer and subscribe now People in Ho Chi Minh City have been rushing to local lenders and seeking online services to exchange for new banknotes, which will be used as li xi, or lucky money, given to children during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday. The State Bank of Vietnam's branch in Ho Chi Minh City began allocating new banknotes of all denominations to local banks last week. However, many residents have been unable to exchange for these new banknotes due to the limited amount. Most lenders informed that they would offer the exchange service free of charge, but only to long-term and corporate customers. This forced many residents to seek the exchange services online, which require them to pay a fee. Loan, who lives in Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City recently posted on social media that she needed about VND20 million (US$852) worth of new banknotes and instantly met a lot of service providers. A man offered me the exchange service at VND1.2 million [$51], about five to six percent of the exchange amount, Loan said. For smaller denominations such as VND1,000 and VND2,000, the rate is up to 10 percent. A Facebook page offers gilded U.S. dollar banknotes as lucky money. Another service provider advertised the fee of about six to eight percent of the exchange amount depending on the denominations. It is quite easy to look for such services online, while many service providers are also running advertisements and offering discounts to attract customers. Aside from Vietnamese currency, the $1 and $2 banknotes are also in high demand, with each $1 banknote costing VND30,000 and $2 banknote costing VND55,000. The current official exchange rate is $1 = VND23,470. Some Facebook pages are also selling $2 banknotes gilded with the 12 zodiac animals, which can be used as lucky money. A set including one of such banknote, a certificate, a blue or red leather case, and a lucky money envelope costs about VND105,000 ($4.47). Nguyen Duc Lenh, deputy director of the State Bank of Vietnam branch in Ho Chi Minh City, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that it is illegal to offer new banknote exchange service for a fee. We will review the reports and work with relevant authorities to handle such a violation, Lenh stated. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! People in Ho Chi Minh City have been rushing to local lenders and seeking online services to exchange for new banknotes, which will be used as li xi, or lucky money, given to children during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday. The State Bank of Vietnam's branch in Ho Chi Minh City began allocating new banknotes of all denominations to local banks last week. However, many residents have been unable to exchange for these new banknotes due to the limited amount. Most lenders informed that they would offer the exchange service free of charge, but only to long-term and corporate customers. This forced many residents to seek the exchange services online, which require them to pay a fee. Loan, who lives in Go Vap District, Ho Chi Minh City recently posted on social media that she needed about VND20 million (US$852) worth of new banknotes and instantly met a lot of service providers. A man offered me the exchange service at VND1.2 million [$51], about five to six percent of the exchange amount, Loan said. For smaller denominations such as VND1,000 and VND2,000, the rate is up to 10 percent. A Facebook page offers gilded U.S. dollar banknotes as lucky money. Another service provider advertised the fee of about six to eight percent of the exchange amount depending on the denominations. It is quite easy to look for such services online, while many service providers are also running advertisements and offering discounts to attract customers. Aside from Vietnamese currency, the $1 and $2 banknotes are also in high demand, with each $1 banknote costing VND30,000 and $2 banknote costing VND55,000. The current official exchange rate is $1 = VND23,470. Some Facebook pages are also selling $2 banknotes gilded with the 12 zodiac animals, which can be used as lucky money. A set including one of such banknote, a certificate, a blue or red leather case, and a lucky money envelope costs about VND105,000 ($4.47). Nguyen Duc Lenh, deputy director of the State Bank of Vietnam branch in Ho Chi Minh City, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that it is illegal to offer new banknote exchange service for a fee. We will review the reports and work with relevant authorities to handle such a violation, Lenh stated. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California on Sunday braced for more severe weather after a week of torrential downpours and damaging winds killed at least 12 people in the past 10 days and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. Forecasters with the National Weather Service warned that northern and central California were still in the path of a "relentless parade of cyclones," promising little relief for the region until the middle of the week. Residents look at a tree that fell in high winds during a winter storm in Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves Two overlapping phenomena - an immense airborne stream of dense moisture from the ocean called an atmospheric river and a sprawling, hurricane-force low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone - have caused devastating flooding and record snowfall over the past week. A tree blocks a roadway after it fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves The latest storms vividly illustrated the consequences of warmer sea and air temperatures caused by climate change. Residents looks at a tree that fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves "These storms are supercharged by climate change," California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot told a news conference. A drone view of a tree that fell during a winter storm with high winds in Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves Joe Costa, a friend of a homeless woman who was killed by a falling tree branch during the storm, speaks with county outreach workers at the site of the accident, at the bank of the Sacramento River, in Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California on Sunday braced for more severe weather after a week of torrential downpours and damaging winds killed at least 12 people in the past 10 days and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. Forecasters with the National Weather Service warned that northern and central California were still in the path of a "relentless parade of cyclones," promising little relief for the region until the middle of the week. Residents look at a tree that fell in high winds during a winter storm in Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves Two overlapping phenomena - an immense airborne stream of dense moisture from the ocean called an atmospheric river and a sprawling, hurricane-force low-pressure system known as a bomb cyclone - have caused devastating flooding and record snowfall over the past week. A tree blocks a roadway after it fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves The latest storms vividly illustrated the consequences of warmer sea and air temperatures caused by climate change. Residents looks at a tree that fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves "These storms are supercharged by climate change," California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot told a news conference. A drone view of a tree that fell during a winter storm with high winds in Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023. REUTERS/Fred Greaves In a Japanese city once famous for forging samurai swords, craftsmen sharpen and polish kitchen knives, but even at full tilt their small factory can't keep up with global demand. The export value of knives and other bladed tools like scissors hit a record high in Japan last year, partly thanks to a home-cooking boom sparked by the pandemic. Japanese knives are also winning more converts among aspiring and professional chefs, who prize their delicate precision, sleek finish and long lifespan. Katsumi Sumikama, head of Sumikama Cutlery in the central city of Seki, puts the popularity down to a "combination of technology and traditional craftsmanship". To achieve the formidably sharp edge needed to make perfect sushi or cut precise slices of Wagyu beef, the company uses machines that guarantee accuracy to one-thousandth of a millimetre, then artisans finish the job by hand. But even at full capacity, "we can't keep up", Sumikama told AFP. "We're seeing demand stronger than pre-pandemic levels in all countries." Seki's renowned blade expertise dates back to the 14th century, when the city became a major producer of swords thanks to its rich natural environment. "The clean water, charcoal and raw materials were ideal for sword-making," Sumikama said. High-quality iron made from ironsand was forged into a tough sword by folding red-hot metal multiple times, and moulded into a curved shape by plunging it into cool water. When samurai were ordered to abandon their swords in 1876, the industry faltered, but after World War II the city began producing pocket knives for export. Business boomed at first, with the fixed yen-to-dollar rate a boon for mass exports to the United States. But when that policy ended in the 1970s and China began making cheaper products, Japan could no longer compete. 'Truly worldwide' "There were difficult times," Sumikama said. "Seki's blade-makers decided they needed a new direction." At the time, German products, including knives by Zwilling, dominated the market for high-end knifeware, and luxury Japanese offerings were few and far between. In the 1990s, Sumikama went all in -- launching a full line-up of top-of-the-range kitchen knives that cost up to several hundred dollars each. To emphasise their made-in-Japan pedigree, his company adds a wavy two-tone finish to the metal that evokes the traditional appearance of samurai blades, and a kanji-character logo. Despite their elegant appearance, Sumikara said he faced scepticism from both within and outside the company that his expensive knives would sell. "We were trapped in the idea that Japanese products... would not be accepted by consumers unless they were cheaper than German products," he said. But the line was a success and the company now sells their luxury knives in more than 50 countries. The export value of kitchen bladed tools hit a record 12 billion yen ($90 million) in 2021, a 30 percent jump from around nine billion yen the previous year, according to Japan Customs. French chef Olivier Oddos, whose Tokyo restaurant boasted a Michelin star between 2014 and 2021, has been a devotee for more than two decades. Japanese kitchen knives now have a "truly worldwide" reputation, he told AFP in his restaurant's small kitchen. "I know a lot of French chefs who have come to Japan, and every time they buy Japanese knives. Sometimes they even buy them for their whole team," he said. 'Essence of the knife' Oddos says the formidable sharpness of the Japanese blades makes all the difference. "It cuts perfectly. It cuts straight. It's regular," he said, adding it "changes the quality of the cooking". Japanese knives have to be maintained regularly with sharpening stones, but "if you take good care of them, they have a pretty exceptional lifespan", Oddos said. Daisuke Kumazawa owns Kama-Asa, a shop that has operated on Tokyo's famous Kappabashi kitchenware street for over a century. He says Japanese knives have exploded in popularity overseas in the last decade along with a growing interest in Japanese food. Chefs want quality blades to do "delicate work", he said. The products are so popular that he opened a Paris branch four years ago. But he has also noted a pandemic rise in interest. "Probably because they were at home more often, more people wanted to take time to cook, and cook better," he said. At Kama-Asa, assistants explain dozens of different knives to a steady stream of Japanese and foreign customers. Kumazawa wants buyers to think about Japanese knives as more than a simple kitchen tool. "We want them to know why they are good -- the essence of the knife, the thoughts of the craftspeople behind the knife." In a Japanese city once famous for forging samurai swords, craftsmen sharpen and polish kitchen knives, but even at full tilt their small factory can't keep up with global demand. The export value of knives and other bladed tools like scissors hit a record high in Japan last year, partly thanks to a home-cooking boom sparked by the pandemic. Japanese knives are also winning more converts among aspiring and professional chefs, who prize their delicate precision, sleek finish and long lifespan. Katsumi Sumikama, head of Sumikama Cutlery in the central city of Seki, puts the popularity down to a "combination of technology and traditional craftsmanship". To achieve the formidably sharp edge needed to make perfect sushi or cut precise slices of Wagyu beef, the company uses machines that guarantee accuracy to one-thousandth of a millimetre, then artisans finish the job by hand. But even at full capacity, "we can't keep up", Sumikama told AFP. "We're seeing demand stronger than pre-pandemic levels in all countries." Seki's renowned blade expertise dates back to the 14th century, when the city became a major producer of swords thanks to its rich natural environment. "The clean water, charcoal and raw materials were ideal for sword-making," Sumikama said. High-quality iron made from ironsand was forged into a tough sword by folding red-hot metal multiple times, and moulded into a curved shape by plunging it into cool water. When samurai were ordered to abandon their swords in 1876, the industry faltered, but after World War II the city began producing pocket knives for export. Business boomed at first, with the fixed yen-to-dollar rate a boon for mass exports to the United States. But when that policy ended in the 1970s and China began making cheaper products, Japan could no longer compete. 'Truly worldwide' "There were difficult times," Sumikama said. "Seki's blade-makers decided they needed a new direction." At the time, German products, including knives by Zwilling, dominated the market for high-end knifeware, and luxury Japanese offerings were few and far between. In the 1990s, Sumikama went all in -- launching a full line-up of top-of-the-range kitchen knives that cost up to several hundred dollars each. To emphasise their made-in-Japan pedigree, his company adds a wavy two-tone finish to the metal that evokes the traditional appearance of samurai blades, and a kanji-character logo. Despite their elegant appearance, Sumikara said he faced scepticism from both within and outside the company that his expensive knives would sell. "We were trapped in the idea that Japanese products... would not be accepted by consumers unless they were cheaper than German products," he said. But the line was a success and the company now sells their luxury knives in more than 50 countries. The export value of kitchen bladed tools hit a record 12 billion yen ($90 million) in 2021, a 30 percent jump from around nine billion yen the previous year, according to Japan Customs. French chef Olivier Oddos, whose Tokyo restaurant boasted a Michelin star between 2014 and 2021, has been a devotee for more than two decades. Japanese kitchen knives now have a "truly worldwide" reputation, he told AFP in his restaurant's small kitchen. "I know a lot of French chefs who have come to Japan, and every time they buy Japanese knives. Sometimes they even buy them for their whole team," he said. 'Essence of the knife' Oddos says the formidable sharpness of the Japanese blades makes all the difference. "It cuts perfectly. It cuts straight. It's regular," he said, adding it "changes the quality of the cooking". Japanese knives have to be maintained regularly with sharpening stones, but "if you take good care of them, they have a pretty exceptional lifespan", Oddos said. Daisuke Kumazawa owns Kama-Asa, a shop that has operated on Tokyo's famous Kappabashi kitchenware street for over a century. He says Japanese knives have exploded in popularity overseas in the last decade along with a growing interest in Japanese food. Chefs want quality blades to do "delicate work", he said. The products are so popular that he opened a Paris branch four years ago. But he has also noted a pandemic rise in interest. "Probably because they were at home more often, more people wanted to take time to cook, and cook better," he said. At Kama-Asa, assistants explain dozens of different knives to a steady stream of Japanese and foreign customers. Kumazawa wants buyers to think about Japanese knives as more than a simple kitchen tool. "We want them to know why they are good -- the essence of the knife, the thoughts of the craftspeople behind the knife." Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has issued a document on strengthening COVID-19 prevention and control during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday to reduce the risks posed by the XBB.1.5 sub-variant. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far been controlled, creating a premise for socio-economic and tourism recovery and development, PM Chinh stated in the document. However, the pandemic is still unpredictable, especially when the variants and sub-variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are constantly developing. The XBB.1.5 sub-variant has recently caused new outbreaks in many countries around the world. To strengthen pandemic prevention and control, especially during the coming Tet holiday, the premier requested ministries, sectors, and local authorities to continue implementing the previous instructions of the Secretariat and the Prime Minister. This years Lunar New Year will start on January 22. The Ministry of Health and localities should continue to monitor and assess pandemic situations, and make timely and appropriate adjustments in prevention and control measures to minimize the risks brought about by COVID-19 and other common infectious diseases in the winter-spring season. Focus should be directed on early detection, timely handling of outbreaks, preventing the spread of outbreaks, limiting severe cases and deaths, and promoting vaccination against COVID-19. Competent authorities should continue raising awareness of the pandemic situation among residents and encouraging them to wear face masks in public, wash hands regularly, and follow the instructions of the health authorities on COVID-19 vaccination. Disease control measures at border gates must be tightened, especially among people who arrive from areas with serious outbreaks. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the XBB.1.5 sub-variant now dominates other Omicron sub-strains and has spread to about 70 countries as well as caused waves of infections in several parts of Asia. XBB.1.5 is the most contagious sub-variant of Omicron to date. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has issued a document on strengthening COVID-19 prevention and control during the upcoming Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday to reduce the risks posed by the XBB.1.5 sub-variant. The COVID-19 pandemic has so far been controlled, creating a premise for socio-economic and tourism recovery and development, PM Chinh stated in the document. However, the pandemic is still unpredictable, especially when the variants and sub-variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are constantly developing. The XBB.1.5 sub-variant has recently caused new outbreaks in many countries around the world. To strengthen pandemic prevention and control, especially during the coming Tet holiday, the premier requested ministries, sectors, and local authorities to continue implementing the previous instructions of the Secretariat and the Prime Minister. This years Lunar New Year will start on January 22. The Ministry of Health and localities should continue to monitor and assess pandemic situations, and make timely and appropriate adjustments in prevention and control measures to minimize the risks brought about by COVID-19 and other common infectious diseases in the winter-spring season. Focus should be directed on early detection, timely handling of outbreaks, preventing the spread of outbreaks, limiting severe cases and deaths, and promoting vaccination against COVID-19. Competent authorities should continue raising awareness of the pandemic situation among residents and encouraging them to wear face masks in public, wash hands regularly, and follow the instructions of the health authorities on COVID-19 vaccination. Disease control measures at border gates must be tightened, especially among people who arrive from areas with serious outbreaks. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the XBB.1.5 sub-variant now dominates other Omicron sub-strains and has spread to about 70 countries as well as caused waves of infections in several parts of Asia. XBB.1.5 is the most contagious sub-variant of Omicron to date. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Company Logo Spain Company Pharma Rankings Spain Company Pharma Rankings Dublin, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "The Corporate Reputation of Pharma in 2021 - The Patient Perspective - Spain Edition: The Views of 154 Spanish Patient Groups" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The 'Corporate Reputation of Pharma' survey - the 2021 Spain edition is now in its 8th year, and two years into the Covid-19 pandemic. Between November 2021-February 2022, the survey collected the opinions of 154 Spain-based patient groups on the performance of the pharmaceutical industry during 2021. Patient groups possess a unique understanding of the needs of the patients and represent their collated views. Patient-group perspectives have become increasingly important to regulators that demand patient input into trial design and conduct, as well as into the evaluation of clinical outcomes. At the same time, many patient groups are also familiar with the complexities of pharma's business. From their vantage point, therefore, patient groups are both able to assess pharma, and recommend ways in which companies can improve - all from a patient perspective. 2021's 154 respondent Spanish patient groups had, collectively, been in communication with nearly 850,000 Spanish patients during the year. 79% of the Spanish patient groups responding to the 2021 'Corporate Reputation of Pharma' survey worked or partnered with at least one pharma company that year. The report provides details on: How the analyst measures pharma's corporate reputation from a patient perspective; The headline results of the 2021 Spain element of the 'Corporate Reputation' survey; The companies included in the 2021 Spain analysis; and The profiles of 2021's respondent Spanish patient groups. COMPANY RANKINGS IN SPAIN IN 2021 The top-three pharma companies in Spain in 2021, out of 20 companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company): ViiV Healthcare, 1st - Janssen, 2nd - Gilead Sciences, 3rd. The top-three pharma companies in Spain in 2021, out of 12 companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the company): Gilead Sciences, 1st - ViiV Healthcare, 2nd - Janssen, 3rd. The top-three 'big-pharma' companies in Spain in 2021, out of 12 'big-pharma' companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company): Janssen, 1st - AbbVie, 2nd - Pfizer, 3rd. The top-three 'big-pharma' companies in Spain in 2021, out of 10 'big-pharma' companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the company): Janssen, 1st - AbbVie, 2nd - Novartis, 3rd. Story continues Each company is profiled by the following measures: The number of respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021. The profile of the respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company (the number of patients reached; specialties; and geographic remit), 2021. The types of relationships that the company had with its respondent Spanish patient group partners, 2021. Company performance in Spain at the individual indicators of corporate reputation in 2021-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company. Competitors' relationships in 2021 with the company's respondent Spanish patient group partners. Overall rankings in Spain for the company-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021 v. 2020. Company rankings in Spain for each of the indicators-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021 v. 2020. Snapshot view: where the company sits in the corporate tiers in Spain for each of the indicators (in the higher, the middle, or the lower tier)-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021. Overall rankings of the company in Spain, 2015-2021-expressed on the Patient Corporate Reputation Index (PCRI), a measure designed to standardise the analyst's ranking data (preventing results being skewed by the differing numbers of companies included in Spain's historic analyses over the various years). PCRI ranking is from 0 to 1, with 1 being the best (the highest rank)-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company. Profiles of the 20 companies, 2021 AbbVie Almirall AstraZeneca Bayer Biogen Boehringer Ingelheim Bristol Myers Squibb Eli Lilly Gilead Sciences Grifols GSK Janssen MSD Novartis Pfizer Roche Sandoz Sanofi Takeda ViiV Healthcare Key Topics Covered: Executive summary Relationships that Spanish patient groups have with pharma, 2021 Industry-wide findings in Spain, 2021 Rankings of 20 pharma companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of 12 pharma companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the companies Rankings of 12 'big-pharma' companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of 10 'big-pharma' companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the companies Profiles of the 20 companies, 2021 (v. 2020) Appendices I. Profiles of respondent Spanish patient groups, 2021 II. List of respondent Spanish patient groups that wished to be attributed, 2021 III. Commentaries and feedback from respondent Spanish patient groups on how pharma can improve, 2021-2022 For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/f13cuc About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. 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 (via REUTERS) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ousted a former foreign minister who was posted to London, South Korean lawmakers have said, amid reports that he was executed. Ri Yong Ho was a diplomat and ambassador to Britain from 2003 to 2007, and also played an instrumental role in his summits with former US President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019. But he has remained out of the public eye since denuclerisation talks with Washington stalled following a failed summit in early 2019 in Vietnam between Kim and Trump. Japans Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported on Wednesday that he was executed last year, citing unnamed sources. South Koreas National Intelligence Service told lawmakers on Thursday that Ri has been ousted but it was unclear whether he was executed, said Yoo Sang-bum, a member of the parliamentary intelligence committee. They confirmed Ris purge but not his execution, Yoo told reporters after a briefing by the spy agency. Yoo said the agency did not explain why Ri was purged, and the lawmakers could not confirm the Japanese report, that also claimed a few other diplomats who had worked at the North Korean Embassy in Britain were also executed. Ri was last mentioned in North Korean state media in April 2020, when he was removed from the State Affairs Commission, a top decision-making body chaired by Kim. He was sacked from the top diplomat job months earlier. A career diplomat with years of experience in nuclear negotiations, Ri accompanied Kim to both Singapore and Hanoi for summits with Trump in 2018 and 2019. Ri held a news conference shortly after the Hanoi summit fell apart, saying Kim had made realistic proposals but Trump demanded more concessions. There have been media reports about the execution of several Pyongyang officials involved in the failed summit, but some eventually reappeared in state media after a while. Yoo also said the spy agency attributed the recent sacking of Pak Jong Chon, once the second most powerful military official after Kim, to inadequate readiness during training and a lack of leadership. Kim has replaced the military leadership altogether, and thats ultimately aimed at tightening his grip over the military, Yoo said. The University of North Georgia (UNG) on Jan. 6 hosted a community celebration of the 150-year anniversary of the school's first day of classes. It was the latest special event in UNG's Sesquicentennial Celebration, which serves as an opportunity to honor the university's heritage, celebrate its present achievements, and focus on where it will lead next. UNG President Bonita Jacobs thanked alumni, faculty and staff for their contributions to UNG's legacy in the celebration in the Library Technology Center at UNG's Dahlonega Campus. "Our history is a rich and colorful tapestry woven by talented and creative scholars, teachers and mentors; bright and successful students; and graduates who have distinguished themselves personally and professionally as leaders with character," Jacobs said. "Together, we will continue to build upon our proudest traditions and our legacies of scholarship, leadership and service that are the hallmarks of the University of North Georgia and there is no telling what we will accomplish in the next 150 years." Interpretive historian Ken Johnston portrayed David Lewis, the university's first president when it was known as North Georgia Agricultural College, based on entries from Lewis' journals and correspondence. Allison Galloup, an associate professor and special collections and digital initiatives librarian, also shared information about Sesquicentennial exhibits on display in the Dahlonega library. Galloup has led development of exhibits featuring UNG's historical artifacts for the yearlong Sesquicentennial Celebration. "I learned about President Lewis' sense of humor from his journal when he seemed so stoic and steadfast in photos and meeting notes. I had a front-row seat to young love through a cadet's letters to his girlfriend," Galloup said. "I was able to look back on the building and evolution of an institution that has stood for 150 years." Ngoc Huong Ha Noi's Old Quarter these days is bustling with various activities featuring the traditional customs and rituals of lunar new year of the country's three regions. Tet Viet Tet Pho 2023 (Vietnamese Tet Street Tet) will be showcased at venues including Kim Ngan Communal House at 42-44 Hang Bac Street, Heritage House at 87 Ma May Street and Old Quarter Culture Exchange Centre at 50 ao Duy Tu. Visitors can see traditional decorations, art performances, calligraphy, painting and drawing, and important rituals during Tet. Our club has co-operated with the Old Quarter Management Board to host Tet activities for four years so far, Nguyen uc Binh, Head of inh Lang Viet Club, told Viet Nam News. We have mobilised our members to join in various activities such as worship ceremonies, processions, erecting cay neu (lucky tree) and perform arts. The task of popularising traditional culture can be implemented easily during Tet as peoples minds at that time are focused on their roots, ancestors and tradition, they said. Binh said Tet is when people reunite with their families and the club members also gather in Ha Noi from various regions to join in Tet activities. This year, the activities are organised earlier than in previous years, when Tet took place after the 23rd day of the 12th lunar month. At that time, people from afar couldn't come to Ha Noi. This year, many more people from afar can join in, he said. The pandemic has been controlled, so this year, the organisers want to introduce the Tet customs of the three regions. People from the southernmost province of Bac Lieu, the northwestern region and the central region flock here for Tet, he said. Le Viet Dung, who leads an art troupe from But Village in the central province of Thanh Hoa, could not hide his pride to perform at the event. We perform folk songs and dances of the Thai ethnic minority group, which bears significant features of the Thai group in the western region, he said. This is the first time we have been invited to perform at a Tet event in downtown Ha Noi. I feel very happy to join in at Tet, where the traditional cultural features of all regions are reflected including those of the Thai ethnic group. At the same time, I feel proud as among many localities and ethnic groups, the Ha Noi Old Quarter Management Board invited the art troupe from But Village. Besides folk singing and dancing, visitors can see artisans draw calligraphy and make traditional paintings, too. Today, I display my paintings of the Kim Hoang and Hang Trong genres and the worship paintings of ethnic groups, said folk painting artisan Nam Chi. Chi said each genre has special features. Hang Trong painting has special colours. In Kim Hoang genre, the background of the paper is treated in red before printing the painting. Thats why it is also called the red painting genre. Worship paintings of ethnic minority groups are often drawn in long strips of paper of some 50cm by 100cm. The youth now know less about folk paintings. Having a space for traditional paintings in Tet is a good way to let more people know about folk art, he said. Calligrapher Le Thanh Liem said he draws lucky characters for people at this event. Vietnamese people like calligraphy work to hang at home as decorations during Tet, he said. Popular characters are An (Peace), Phuc (Happiness), Loc (Wealth), Tho (Longevity), Tai (Talent), ang Khoa (Success). People want the calligraphy works to bring them luck and remind them to overcome difficulties, to encourage them to study harder. The works are like reminder for people, not anything magical. Liem said the characters are of Han, Nom and Vietnamese Romanised letters drawn in paper with Chinese ink. Ten-year-old Hoang Thi Minh An from Hai Phong City accompanied her dad to the event. Normally, I also perform ca tru like my dad, she said. I feel happy and excited to join in Tet Viet activities as I can make a small contribution to preserve cultural heritage. An said she wanted to share her passion and encourage her friends to learn ca tru melodies. I teach my friends simple songs that I know, she said. Luciano Ammazzini, a tourist from Italy, said he was impressed with the decorations and activities here. This is my last day here, he said. Next time, I will return in Tet time to experience a lunar new year in Viet Nam. People can see traditional food as offerings to ancestors in Heritage House on Ma May Street, where artisans also trim narcissus bulbs. The flowers will come into full bloom during Tet. Visitors can also make banh chung (square sticky rice cake) at the house. At the Culture & Arts Centre at 22 Hang Buom Street, a photo exhibition themed From Heritage to Contemporary Time and traditional music performances will take place everyday. The Ho Guom Information Culture Centre at No. 2 Le Thai To Street will host a contest for children with the theme of the cat and display ceramic works of cats by artist Nguyen Van Toan and a virtual 3D technology space featuring art works. Phung Hung Graffiti Street will gather artisans of traditional handicrafts such as folk painting, calligraphy, ceramics, rattan wares, clay figurines, goods and food for Tet. Art shows will be performed there on the weekend. The Tet Viet Tet Pho 2023 will take place until January 28, while the activities on Phung Hung Street will end on January 20. VNS HA NOI Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has suggested Japans former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide support the implementation of agreements between the two countries including strategic infrastructure development, green transition cooperation and climate change adaptation. He made the statement during the latters visit to Viet Nam on Monday. He said he hoped Japanese companies will consider Viet Nam an important base for production and investment, especially in areas such as high technology, green economy, energy transition, and human resources training. On this occasion, the PM also suggested the former leader raise his voice so Viet Nam and Japan join the negotiation and handle the issues related to Nghi Son oil refinery plant on the basis of interest harmony and risk sharing. PM Chinh said the two sides should also strengthen people-to-people exchange, and tourism activities while thanking the Japanese side for continuing to create favourable conditions for nearly 500,000 Vietnamese people living, studying and working in Japan. PM Chinh highly valued Sugas selection of Viet Nam as the destination for his first trip abroad in October 2020 right after he took office as the PM of Japan, as well as his role as the advisor to the Japan-Viet Nam Parliamentary Friendship Alliance. He thanked the Government, people, businesses and organisations of Japan for their cooperation and assistance as well as engagement in Viet Nams development. The leader affirmed that Viet Nam always supports Japans role and positive contributions to peace and development in the region and the world, expressing his hope that Japan will continue such contributions. PM Chinh took this occasion to thank the former Japanese PM, the Government and people of Japan for providing Viet Nam with more than 7.4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines, contributing to helping Viet Nam overcome the most difficult time in the fight against the pandemic and achieve positive results in socio-economic development in 2022. Both sides agreed that the Viet Nam-Japan relationship is in its prime with high political efficiency and regular delegation exchanges even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, Vietnamese and Japanese PMs had four meetings, while progress was seen in many agreements. The two countries will celebrate the 50th anniversary of their diplomatic relations in 2023, which is an important milestone marking a new development period of their intensive strategic partnership, they said. PM Chinh said he hopes former PM Suga will continue his support and contributions to the growth of Viet Nam-Japan ties. He said that the two sides should increase the exchange of delegations this year, while strengthening defence-security cooperation and promoting partnership in all fields. He said he hopes Japan will assist Viet Nam in industrialisation and modernisation as well as building an independent and self-reliant economy and international integration. For his part, Suga affirmed his special sentiments towards the nation and people of Viet Nam, and hailed the role of PM Chinh in promoting ties between the two countries. He highlighted that Japan considers Viet Nam a key partner in its free and open Indo-Pacific strategy, and pledged that he will continue to contribute to lifting the bilateral extensive strategic partnership to a new height. He said he hopes the two sides will continue to bolster cooperation in ODA, holding that Japanese businesses are interested in the promising Vietnamese market. He suggested the two sides continue to promote collaboration in trade and investment, climate change response, renewable energy, and the development of the Japan-Vietnam University, as well as in the trade of farm produce, along with security-defence. At the meeting, the two sides also discussed regional and global issues of mutual concern, and underlined the necessity of upholding the law and multilateralism in international relations for peace, stability and cooperation in the region and the world, as well as the ensuring of peace, security, maritime and aviation safety and freedom in the sea, as well as the settlement of disputes through peaceful measures in line with international law. VNS HA NOI Ha Noi residents were warned of dangerous air quality on Monday, with private provider PAM Air declaring the conditions "very unhealthy" and potentially affecting the entire population. Health warnings have been issued in light of the emergency conditions. People should wear face masks that can help protect users from fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Most of the air monitoring stations in the capital showed the Air Quality Index (AQI) at purple (AQI 201-300, "very unhealthy") on Monday morning. The index recorded in some stations in Ha Noi, and the northern provinces of Thai Nguyen and Hung Yen even surpassed 300, which means that everyone may experience more serious health effects. The air quality in dozens of stations across the country reached very unhealthy levels. The northern region has the largest number with 19 stations, followed by the central region with three. Vietnam Environment Administration under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment suggested people frequently update the air quality information. According to experts, air pollution during this time is mainly caused by the weather. Ha Noi and other localities in the northern region have experienced cold and dry weather. This type of weather means pollutants cannot disperse and are concentrated near the ground, leading to serious pollution. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is responsible for approximately 60,000 deaths in Viet Nam. VNS With Tet just around the corner, you can see bonsai trees and flowers popping up all over Hanoi. In a small village in Nhat Tan Commune, local farmers are busy tending their plants to get them ready for the Lunar New Year. Come to visit and buy one to welcome a wonderful 2023. A new framework for electricity prices of transitional solar and wind power projects has been set Accordingly, the ceiling price (the highest price) of the electricity generation price bracket (excluding value-added tax) applied to ground solar power plant is VND1,184.90/kWh, and floating solar power plant is VND1,508.27/kWh. The ceiling price applied for the inland wind power plant is VND1,587.12/kWh, sea wind power plant is VND1,815.95/kWh. Based on this electricity price framework, EVN and the transitional solar and wind power generators specified in Circular No.15/2022/TT-BCT that they will discuss the official electricity prices. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), there are still many projects/parts of wind and solar power projects that are being constructed. However, these projects missed the chance to enjoy the feed-in tariff (FIT) mechanism, which expired on November 1, 2021. Notably, 62 wind power projects with a total capacity of 3,479 MW signed a power purchase agreement with EVN, but they have yet to have an electricity-selling price due to the expiry of FIT. In addition, 452MW has been built and installed, but the selling price has not been determined. On October 3, 2022, the MoIT issued Circular No.15 stipulating the method of building a price frame for transitional solar and wind power projects, effective from November 25, 2022. In late November, EVN sent a document to the MoIT and the Electricity Regulatory Authority on establishing a framework for electricity prices of transitional solar and wind power projects. In the document, EVN reported that up to November 16, 2022, EVN received feedback from 208 renewable energy power projects, including 99 solar power projects with four floating and 95 land solar power projects and 109 wind power projects (WPPs). Among them, 147 solar power projects and 146 wind power projects have Power Purchase Agreements with EVN. Vietnam to cut gas power capacity in electricity development plan The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has been told to finalise the National Power Development Plan VIII (PDP VIII) for 2021-2030 with a vision to 2045, focusing on reducing coal power plants. Investors wait for wind power administration system Offshore wind offers a route to diversify the energy system in a cost-effective way, given the technologys unmatched track record in driving down costs in the context of the major energy crisis facing the world today. The female CEO's pioneering journey to promote the development of green buildings has reached a new milestone after she was honoured as the only Vietnamese representative to win at the 2022 Asia Pacific Leadership in Green Building Awards with the 'Women in Green Building Leadership Award', a prestigious distinction bestowed by the World Green Building Council (WGBC). CEO Luu Thi Thanh Mau (middle) with leaders of the WGBC at the awards ceremony Mau's green-building journey officially started when she established Phuc Khang Corporation in 2009. Defining the mission of the corporation as pioneering and promoting the creation of a better lifestyle for public health and a sustainable human and ecological environment according to global green standards, Mau aspired to create fresh, happy and sustainable green living spaces for subsequent generations. In 2015, carrying a desire to elevate Vietnamese real estate and promote green building as standard in Vietnam, Mau went to Japan on a journey of self-improvement and learning, and to seek investment promotion opportunities. Through perseverance and serious-mindedness, Mau fostered a cooperative relationship with the leading corporation specialising in global multi-industry business in Japan the prestigious Mitsubishi Corporation. In 2017, Phuc Khang Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation held a ceremony to announce their strategic cooperation, establishing Phuc Khang Mitsubishi Corporation Holding (PKMC). Of this, Mitsubishi Corporation holds 49 and Phuc Khang Corporation holds 51 per cent. This million-dollar handshake developed the Diamond Lotus product line, the first high-rise apartment project in Vietnam which was built, managed, and operated according to LEED standards. "The journey of more than 13 years of development of Phuc Khang Corporation is considered a journey of "greening". And on that journey, I, along with my associates, seek to maintain the pioneering spirit and strive to build cultural values in the establishment of green buildings and towards building a green community and city, and towards a green future," Mau emphasised. From that time, a range of green buildings have seen investment from Phuc Khang, such as Diamond Lotus Riverside high-rise apartments and the Lang Sen Vietnam Culture, Commerce, and Tourism Urban Area. Diamond Lotus Riverside is the first green building invested and built according to the Gold level in two standards: LEED of the American Green Building Council and LOTUS of the Vietnam Green Building Council (VGBC). By strictly following the principles of ensuring health and comfort according to green building standards, Diamond Lotus Riverside has recorded positive results in the conservation of electricity and water. Specifically, the electric energy consumption index decreased by over 50 per cent and the water use index decreased by around 40 per cent compared to the base level. In October 2021, Diamond Lotus Riverside was awarded certification from LOTUS Provisional by the VGBC and is on the way to reaching the Gold level at full certification stage. It was also voted one of the top five best smart Green Building projects in 2021 in March last year. The project was selected as one of two exemplary projects for more than 60 guests representing ministries, agencies, businesses, and others for Vietnam Green Building Week 2022 last October. Most recently, on December 15, the Diamond Lotus Riverside was honoured by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry as "A worthy project to live in", and "The developer of worthy living project" for 2022. Diamond Lotus Riverside a green building project developed by Phuc Khang Corporation The Lang Sen Vietnam Culture, Commerce, and Tourism Urban Area was designed as a second home next to Ho Chi Minh City with the highlight being the Tre Viet Convention Centre, the largest bamboo house in Vietnam, and the recently recipient of the LOTUS SB-level Gold certification from the VGBC. The project is a green city inspired by a number of core cultural values through connecting the generations. Appearing in many forums and seminars, Mau always inspires as she spreads and promotes the green lifestyle and environmental awareness to the community through positive images of diverse ecosystems and the fulfilling life on offer available to her residents. Mau has repeatedly commented that green buildings will continue to be the means for Phuc Khang Corporation to make quality products in line with global trends as it aims to spread the green-living spirit to everyone, and contribute to sustainable development throughout the country. Pioneering and promoting Not only a business operator, Mau also pays attention to preserving national cultural values, contributing to the development of the community. Mau expressed her burning desire to not only make green buildings but also create green communities and urban areas, thereby developing a sustainable green future. "Building a green district, a green city, then many green cities, we will have a green Vietnam, she said. In addition to the main role as general director of Phuc Khang Corporation, Mau also holds a number of positions at other associations such as vice president of the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association and vice president of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, among others. In each role, Mau makes an active and dedicated contribution to the promotion of green architecture nationally and internationally, and towards addressing global environmental issues to achieving sustainable development goals. In November, Mau was honoured to meet with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association. At the meeting, Mau had enthusiastic and practical recommendations concerning green buildings and green finance in line with the national sustainability strategy. Mau delivers a speech at the Vietnam Young Entrepreneurs Association Meanwhile, according to Mau, responsibility for the community is one of the core aims of the company's sustainable development strategy. During more than 13 years of development, Phuc Khang Corporation has implemented corporate social responsibility (CSR) for its short and long-term programmes. Specifically, Mau initiated and promptly launched the "Volunteer Green Heart" campaign during the recent pandemic. Upholding the message of "Giving with love" and "Giving responsibly", Mau led her staff to deploy a series of activities to accompany the government, frontline forces, and people to get through the difficult times. Within a few months, the corporation had donated medical equipment packages worth VND20 billion ($850,000) to frontline hospitals, sponsored more than 11,000 gifts for disadvantaged people, and provided over 20,000 meals. In addition, together with the Women's Union and Ho Chi Minh City Youth Union, the company distributed much-needed medication and hundreds of scholarships to students affected by COVID-19. Throughout 2022, Phuc Khang Corporation continued to implement several strategies to accompany social enterprises and prestigious universities. Methodical and comprehensive CSR programmes have helped it further improve in this area as it aspires to promote the humane values of equality and the effective use of social resources, along with creating the sustainable developments of the future. With contributions to the field of green buildings and developing sustainable business strategies that promote social responsibility, Phuc Khang Corporation was honoured as a Top 10 sustainable enterprise for 2022 in the trade and services sector in December. It was the second consecutive year that Phuc Khang Corporation has been honoured as one of the top 10 enterprises that meet the 130 rigorous criteria in the Corporate Sustainability Index. "I am delighted to see my 'green seeds' have now grown and spread their value," Mau said. "Together, we promote green messages to ensure good value. Together, we create humane values and contribute better things for the community." Joy Esther Gai Head, Asia-Pacific Programmes WGBC Singapore For the 2022 award, we feel proud of all three candidates. Each person represents a unique and outstanding quality. Each one is truly a leader in this field. They all do an outstanding job, pioneering and contributing to the future of green buildings. Among those, Luu Thi Thanh Mau is an inspirational woman. There are many special things about Mau such as her fast and constant learning, richness of knowledge, creativity, and her application of best practices to her projects. We are proud of Mau for her efforts and her contributions to the greening of Vietnam. Victoria Kate Burrows Director, Advancing Net Zero WGBC France I am very pleased to have selected Luu Thi Thanh Mau, a pioneering Vietnamese businesswoman and promoter of green building developments. This award emphasises the role of women in the green building sector. I congratulate Mau for her great efforts, in particular, renovating older buildings that were designed and built in the past and now need to meet new standards on emission reduction, energy conservation, and environmental protection. I am delighted to see the push to develop green buildings in Vietnam and note it is now much more progressive than it used to be. Moving forward, there are different thoughts on the process of designing and constructing buildings such as using sustainable materials and creating healthier, and more energy-efficient buildings for the future. Phuc Khang Corporation CEO proposes update to green building rules It is necessary to strengthen the development of green finance and credit, and enhance legal documents on green building standards, according to Luu Thi Thanh Mau, CEO of Phuc Khang Corporation. Vietnamese CEO earns Women in Green Building Leadership accolade Vietnamese businesswoman Luu Thi Thanh Mau won a 'Women in Green Building Leadership' award in Bali on November 23. Illustrative Image (Photo: AFP/VNA) Bangkok According to Thai Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Varawut Silpacha, Thailand and Japan have agreed to establish a marine litter monitoring centre as part of their bilateral climate change cooperation. Varawut made the announcement after a meeting with Hiroshi Ono, Japans Deputy Minister of Environment, in Tokyo on January 6 at which they discussed strategies to protect natural resources and tackle climate change. The two sides shared experiences in tackling environmental problems, notably coastal erosion, wastewater treatment, and marine litter. The environment ministries of both countries agreed to establish a jointly operated marine litter monitoring centre to serve as a model for the future. The Thai minister said the two countries also agreed to exchange experience, technology and financial support in climate change operations under the framework of Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement. The framework allows countries to trade emission reductions and removals with one another through bilateral or multilateral agreements. These traded credits are called Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes. Varawut highlighted with strengthened cooperation with Japan, Thailand is moving closer to the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Green finance and technology solutions for net-zero emissions As climate change has become a serious international issue, many countries have taken action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. In Vietnam, the government has made a tremendous effort to combat climate change by ratifying the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, pursuing the National Green Growth Strategy for 2021-2030, and implementing the Law on Environmental Protection which came into effect at the beginning of 2022. The sustainable rise of viable investment across Asia With the steady rise in the number of climate-related companies and in their climate-related revenues, climate change has become more and more significant as a mainstream investment theme. Looking further into the data, we can see that the universe of climate solutions is getting bigger and greener with the growing Asia pivot. While still waiting for the results of the financial statement audit, it is likely that Vietnam Maritime Corporation (VIMC) profit will exceed $130 million for the second year in a row. In 2022, the corporations total shipping volume was estimated at 21.8 million tonnes, reaching 113 per cent of the plan in 2022. Cargo throughput via seaports is estimated at 124 million tonnes, reaching 93 per cent of the plan in 2022; container volume is estimated at 5.8 million TEUs, 97 per cent of the plan. In 2022, VIMC consolidated revenue was estimated at $653.9 million, 105 per cent of the same period in 2021 and 120 per cent of the plan in 2022. Consolidated profit was estimated at $136 million, 124 per cent of the plan. VIMC's total profit in sea shipping is estimated at $81.2 million, 171 per cent of the same period in 2021 and 144 per cent of the plan in 2022. In 2022, some companies of VIMC in sea shipping have achieved good results in financial restructuring, such as Bisco, and Vitranschart. With the increasing growth rate of import and export goods volume, developing Vietnam's international shipping fleet has much potential. However, about 90 per cent of Vietnamese imports and exports are handled by foreign shipping lines, especially in long-distance sea routes such as Vietnam to the Americas and Vietnam to Europe. The local fleet mainly transports domestic and operates short international routes in Asia. Vietnamese fleets are at a disadvantage in their competition with foreign shipping firms because Vietnams fleets mainly have unreasonable structures and small tonnage. Meanwhile, the global trend is for large tonnage ships to optimise transport costs, especially container and specialised ships. VIMC manages a fleet of 59 ships, including four oil product tankers (accounting for 5 per cent of VIMC's total tonnage), 10 container ships (7 per cent of total tonnage), 45 dry cargo ships (88 per cent of total tonnage). Most ships VIMC buys are used or built before 2010, with an average age of 20 years. "Many shipping companies have suffered losses in recent years due to the impact of the economic slowdown and the recession of the shipping sector. Additionally, obstacles in investment procedures also caused difficulties faced by VIMC in developing the ships fleet, which most of them are old and asynchronous," said VIMC's leader. On the other hand, VIMC's business in seaports in 2022 continues to be under fierce competitive pressure. The continuous development of new ports has led to oversupply, especially in declining consumer demand. Some new ports such as Lach Huyen international port (HICT), Nghi Son Port, Chan May Port, Chu Lai Port, Vinh Tan Port, Nam Van Phong, Bac Van Phong, Tan Cang - Petro Cam Ranh, Dung Quat Port - Hoa Phat in Central region, Gemalink Port in Ba Ria - Vung Tau, and so on. Meanwhile, the system of means, equipment, and infrastructure at many ports of VIMC are still limited, with the access channel not dredged on time, which affects competitiveness. However, VIMC's business in seaports still basically fulfilled the targets in 2022. VIMC's seaport volume in 2022 is estimated at 124 million tonnes, equaling 93 per cent of the plan. The profit of VIMC's seaport business is estimated at $67.3 million, 93 per cent of the plan. In 2023, VIMC forecasts that the world economic situation will have many unfavourable fluctuations, significantly affecting the global maritime industry. Therefore, VIMC set the goals to achieve a shipping volume of about 17.7 million tonnes; a seaport volume of 134.7 million tonnes; consolidated revenue of $580.6 million; and pre-tax profit of $101.3 million in 2023. Seminar seeks to address supply chain bottlenecks On March 31, nearly 300 representatives of Vietnam's seaport, logistics, and shipping businesses attended a supply chain seminar organised by the Singapore Business Group (SBG) in tandem with ZIM Logistics at Le Meridien Saigon Hotel in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. More room to develop Vietnam's international shipping fleet The potential is great, but the development and operation of Vietnamese cargo shipping has not been commensurate with the role and position of the country. Vietnamese shipping lines grapple with Chinese regulations Vietnamese shippers are attempting to continue trade at Chinese ports despite the uphill struggle in unloading and keeping crew members and ships safe. Shipping upgrades targeted for 2030 Developing a local shipping fleet to serve international routes could widen business prospects for carriers and relieve logistics burdens for exporters. Bryan College announces graduatesLINCOLN Bryan College of Health Sciences conferred 70 degrees during commencement exercises held at the on Dec. 16. Area graduates include Alyson Bartels of Weston, Bachelor of Science in Health Professions and Kara Swartz of Valparaiso Bachelor of Science in Health Professions. Northwest announces fall 2022 honor rollsMARYVILLE, Missouri The Office of the Registrar at Northwest Missouri State University announced students named to the Academic or Presidents honor rolls at the end of the 2022 fall semester. To be included on the Academic Honor Roll a student must carry a minimum of 12 credit hours and attain a grade-point average of 3.50 or above on a 4.00 scale. Students named to the Presidents Honor Roll have attained a perfect 4.00 GPA for the semester. Area student include Kaitlynn A. Borchers of Wahoo, Presidents Honor Roll. Hannan receives degree at UNMC December commencementOMAHA Commencement ceremonies were held at Baxter arena on Dec. 16 for UNMC graduates. UNMC College of Nursing area graduates include Taylor Hannan of Mead, with Highest Distinction, Omaha division, Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Polacek receives degree from UNOOMAHA The University of Nebraska at Omaha honored its Fall 2022 graduates across two ceremonies held at Baxter Arena on Friday, Dec. 16. Area graduates included Noah Polacek of Wahoo, Summa Cum Laude, Bachelor of Arts and Summa Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science. Nebraska grants 1,288 degrees during December ceremoniesLINCOLN The University of Nebraska-Lincoln conferred 1,288 degrees during commencement exercises Dec. 16 and 17 at Pinnacle Bank Arena. Ashland: Patricia Gossin Crisler, Graduate Studies, Doctor of Education; Zoe Marzouk, College of Engineering, Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering; Joshua Rotert, College of Education and Human Sciences, Bachelor of Science in Education and Human Sciences; Devin Welker, College of Arts and Sciences, Bachelor of Arts. Cedar Bluffs: Carson Shanahan, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness. Ceresco: MaryAlice Braun, Graduate Studies, Master of Business Administration and Shawna Clement, Graduate Studies, Doctor of Philosophy. Mead: Nathan Thorson, Graduate Studies, Master of Science. Morse Bluff: Bret Walker, College of Engineering, Bachelor of Science in Construction Management. Valparaiso: Thomas Benes, College of Business, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration; Elizabeth Potter, Graduate Studies, Master of Engineering Management; Allissa Turnwall, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Bachelor of Science in Animal Science. Wahoo: Kylee Jones, College of Education and Human Sciences, Bachelor of Science in Education and Human Sciences; Arianna Prochaska, College of Arts and Sciences, Bachelor of Arts and Isaac Woita, College of Business, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. Yutan: Tatum Devish, College of Business, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration; Noelle Josoff, College of Education and Human Sciences, Bachelor of Science in Education and Human Sciences; Hayden Lassek, College of Business, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Miranda Mueller, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Bachelor of Science in Animal Science, Bachelor of Science in Grazing Livestock Systems. UNK announces deans list for 2022 fall semesterKEARNEY The University of Nebraska at Kearney announced students who earned a place on the deans list for the fall 2022 semester. Area students include Kelsey Hudson of Ceresco; Danielle Fortik, Alora Ferguson and Calleigh Osmera, all of Raymond; Kolten Cada, Olivia Scott, Alyssa Walla, Cadie Mattson, Mary Chvatal, Megan Spicka and Tessa Gatewood, all of Wahoo and Isaiah Daniell of Yutan. CEDAR FALLS John Luzaich is on the hot seat. On Saturday, Luzaich will be subjected to a comedy roast as friends, families and well-wishers gather to deliver jokes and share funny stories and comments about him as he officially enters retirement. The event is at 7 p.m. at the Oster Regent Theatre, 103 Main St. General admission tickets are $10. Luzaich, who has retired as general manager for the Oster Regent and Cedar Falls Community Theatre, said he expects the roasting will be good, old-fashioned, family-friendly fun. I expect there will be lots of laughs and all at my expense. But its a good way, a fun way, to go out. Luzaich announced his retirement in July, but has remained through January as the theater transitioned to its new executive director, Greg Holt. CFCT veteran performer Kristin Teig Torres will act as the emcee roastmaster, introducing participants and leading the roast. Seated on the dais poking fun at Luzaich will be his friends and colleagues, Gary Baumgartner, Brad Braley, Jim Coloff, Blake Conover, Gary Kroeger, Pat Lyons, Bob Westerman and Steve Carignan. Carignan will be in New York, so his comments will be read by Teig Torres. Holt will wander the first two rows on the theaters main floor with a wireless, hand-held mic, on the prowl for audience members who want to pick on Luzaich, too. Holt has carte blanche on comments. It promises to be a fine and funny farewell, Luzaich said, but he has a few surprises up his sleeve for the roasters. And Ill get the last word, he added. Luzaich has been general manager since April 1998. He studied acting with Lee Strasberg and graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. A veteran actor, he also managed the off-Broadway Entermedia Theatre where shows like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat started prior to Broadway, and played softball in the Broadway Show League for The Improv. Tickets are on sale Monday through Friday from 1 to 4 p.m. and one hour before the show. Call (319) 277-5283 for information to reserve or purchase tickets. There is an optional reception with the roasters, Teig Torres, Holt and Luzaich one hour prior to the event in the Deery Reception Room on the third floor of the theatre. The Luzaich Lounge will start at 6 p.m. for a $20 contribution. Funds raised at the roast will be donated to CFCT for theater scholarships in Luzaichs name. The event will be recorded by Cedar Falls Cable TV for broadcast at a later date. Cedar Falls Community Theatre: Through the years Fantasticks CFCT 1 Mamma Mia Tanya Donna Rosie_IFP6085.jpg driving miss daisy 1.jpg God of Carnage rehearsal.jpg Amadeus5 full cast_IFP8303.jpg 073119ho-school-of-rock-2 drowsy-chaperone-2.jpg 020718ho-odd-couple-1 christmas-carol-joe-frenna.jpg NNK Marnell Liane - 1.jpg 13-musical-cast-group.jpg john-loves-mary-1 winter-wonderettes-3 fox-fairway-2 cfct-20th01 guys-dolls-1 081616tsr-cfct-some-enchanted-evening-04 dolly-image-1 021716mp-vanya-sonia-masha-spike-play-photos-1 112216mp-CFCT-I-Love-a-Piano-2 092616tsr-cfct-calendar-girls-04 060115tsr-cfct-young-frankenstein-01 'Mary Poppins' coming to Cedar Falls 092315bp-cfct-dearly-departed-4 020415bp-cfct-boeing-boeing-2-new 092214tsr-cfct-squabbles-01 071714tsr-cfct-6RMS-07 112414mp-Storybook-Christmas-CFCT-1 060214tsr-cfct-sound-of-music-01 021014bp-cfct-clue-1 092413tsr-cfct-good-doctor-03 060513tsr-cfct-oklahoma-05 071713tsr-cfct-social-security-05 dracula 2 murder at howard johnson 4.jpg murder at howard johnson 3.jpg miracle 34th cfct 1 miracle on 34th street 2 CEDAR FALLS Dennis Downs has passed the baton. After more than 40 years directing the Cedar Falls Municipal Band, Downs has officially stepped down from the podium. It was a bittersweet decision, Downs said. Im so proud of the band. Weve accomplished a lot. But Im 75. Retiring is difficult, but the mind and body are telling me its time, all the things that go along with aging. Its especially difficult because Ive known the people, the players professionally and personally for so many years, he explained. Several conductors are expected to share duties through the bands concert season, which begins in June. The weekly concert series runs through July in Overman Park. Meanwhile, the bands board will be looking at options for a new conductor. Dennis has shared his talents, enthusiasm and dedication with us along with the entire Cedar Valley. Dennis love for and generosity with the band will be felt for many years to come, said Judy Larkin, president of the Cedar Falls Municipal Band. Downs is one of only six conductors in the municipal bands 131-year history. Organized in 1891, it is Iowas oldest municipal band. Downs joined in 1980, playing trombone, and took over from Tony Lund as conductor in 1984. A native of Omaha, Neb., Downs earned his undergraduate degree in 1969 at Wayne State College in Wayne, Neb., and his masters degree from the University of Northern Colorado. He taught orchestra and band in Nebraska and Kansas, primarily focusing on orchestra and strings. Downs moved to Cedar Falls in 1979 and taught orchestra in the Cedar Falls Community School District for 29 years, serving as music department chair from 1981 to 1991. In addition, Downs played cello for 14 years in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, as well as back-up bass and guitar for more than 20 years with the Don Wendt Trio. He continues to play trombone with the Sugar Daddys Jazz Band. Larkin said Downs is leaving a tremendous legacy for the Cedar Valley. He served as project director for the band shell in Overman Park, including the design, construction and fundraising, a three-year project that began in 1993 and culminated with its opening in 1996. The band shell is home to numerous open air performances in the summer and fall months and is prized for its classical design and good acoustics. The band shell was built on community donations. He was touched and felt so fortunate to have the communitys support. Dennis took great pride in the fact that no city or county tax money went to build the band shell, Larkin explained. Later Downs guided the bands re-location in 2002 to a new, more accessible location at 211 Washington St. Previously, the band had rehearsed since 1911 on the top floor of an historic building on Main Street. In 2020, Downs received the Melendy Spirit Award as recognition for his outstanding contribution to Cedar Falls, positively affecting its overall quality of life through philanthropic or other means, according to the Cedar Falls Community Foundation. A Florida winter snowbird these days, Downs plays with the Suncoast Concert Band in Sarasota, Fla., during the months he is there. Ive done that for the past seven seasons. Its a 50-member band that performs every two weeks. That keeps my chops in shape, the retiree said. Larkin said Downs is still expected to be active with the Cedar Falls Municipal Band. He did so much with the band, not just conducting, so well be dividing up all the things he did among a number of people, Larkin explained. Downs left a wealth of information which will allow the band to carry on its traditions, preserve its rich history and continue its reputation for musicianship and high-quality performances. Ill be around this summer. Ill play a role as an advisor for the municipal band, but Ill be a consumer and not a producer, Downs said. Ill be cheering on the band sitting out in Overman Park, instead of the band shell. Waterloo and Cedar Falls municipal bands through the years 061616tsr-waterloo-municipal-band-01 061618mp-John-Deere-100th-Anniversary-Celebration-23 061616tsr-waterloo-municipal-band-05 061616tsr-waterloo-municipal-band-04 Cedar Falls Municipal Band 062417mp-Sturgis-Falls-parade-11 050716mp-CF-Beach-House-Opening-2 090715tsr-cf-municipal-band-01 CEDAR FALLS Maribel Islas and family are bringing authentic Mexican street food to Cedar Falls. Shes following a household tradition by opening an eatery of her own, Tacoz California, at 200 W. First St., in the space formerly occupied by Davids Taphouse and Dumplings. Her family began running the Los Reyes food truck in Waterloo at Six Corners the intersection of West Fourth Street and Kimball, Campbell, and Williston avenues in 2017. Her mother, Maria Islas, and brother, Antonio Islas, initially sold burritos at the Tyson Foods facility while working there. Later, they ran the food truck with the help of Maribel and her children. They then opened up a restaurant called Taqueria Los Reyes on Franklin Street in Waterloo. Maribel Islas followed in her family members footsteps by running a Tacoz California food truck in the same spot they did back in 2020. Now, though, she has taken the step of opening a brick-and-mortar space that began offering similar cuisine right before the start of 2023. People we know will like the street food and tacos with fresh homemade corn tortillas, Islas said. Theres not a lot of places like this, and its different from a typical Mexican restaurant. Weve gotten a lot of good feedback. Any negative feedback, I always tell people, well learn from it. We love food, but decided to do our own thing, she added in explaining why they decided not to team up with her brother and mother. Wed be working close with family and didnt want to mess up what we have as a family because family is a very important thing. Islas, of Evansdale, gave a lot of credit to her mother for teaching her family how to make delicious authentic Mexican food. ... She taught us how to make the real stuff. Its not packaged. Its fresh rice, fresh salsa, and were cutting everything fresh ranging from the onions to the limes, radishes, lettuce and everything in between. Its homemade. The meats are cut fresh too. The family offers carne asada, al pastor, chicken and chorizo for the tacos as well as other meats like cheek and tongue. While admittedly not authentic, they have given in a bit and offer ground beef too. Their roots are in Salinas, California, a central coast town close to San Francisco, where taco vendors dot the streets. Their mother immigrated there from Jerez, a town in the state of Zacatecas, about 50 years ago. They followed Islas sister, Joanna, who moved to Iowa because of her husband. Islas been living in the Cedar Valley the last 13 years. The most popular item on the menu has been the birria taco. She encourages people to try it, but recognizes its different and not for everybody. Its got a strong beef flavor and comes with a broth and spices, she said. Islas has a behind-the-scenes role, while daughters Joanna and Vanessa Romero and brother Jose Islas have taken on management and kitchen responsibilities. If it wasnt for them, I wouldnt be here, she said about why she finally was able to decide Im going to do this and open up the physical location. Our mother had a vision and executed it, said Jose Islas. Just look at all the decorations. Her ideas were something fresh, new and colorful. I wanted to help make her dream come true, added Joanna Romero, who is depicted as a caricature in the official logo. Shes always wanted to own her own restaurant. Romero noted shes enjoyed seeing her mother smile in the days since opening. The facility is decorated like the bright colors and graffiti seen in Salinas, California. One of the portraits behind the bar area they are still working on obtaining a liquor license features sunglasses with the reflections of the low rider vehicles commonly driven on the citys streets. Also among the decor are dolls with a Dia De Los Muertos theme, the Day of the Dead celebration. It brings that feeling of a whole culture of chicanos not from United States or Mexico, but sort of a hybrid American of Mexican origin. Chicanos are not from Chicago, she quipped, as shell sometimes hear in the Midwest. Tacoz California is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. More about the restaurant as well as the complete menu can be found online at its Facebook page. In addition to tacos, it offers burritos, quesadillas, ramen noodles and other sides. Thats the latest were open because I dont want to overwork my staff. Theyre already here 12 hours for the day, she said. Its hard work. Im here at 6 a.m. and am leaving at 9 p.m. Its tough, but I love what Im doing, she added. In the future, she plans to offer alcoholic beverages and open an elevated private party area in the facility. As with many businesses, the opening days have been hectic, but its seen early success even without an official sign immediately put out front. Its not been easy. Weve been short-staffed, said Islas. Its been really crazy in the kitchen. But people have been understanding and supportive. The restaurant is seeking to add more cooks. It has a sit-down area feeding about 75 people, but orders are placed at the counter and no waiters have been hired. NEW YORK It was small, as Washington celebrations go two senior Biden administration advisers gathered with program participants near the White House on a Thursday afternoon in December to mark the end of a little-known initiative with a budget of less than $8 million. The impact of The Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC), though, may yet be larger, both in the fight to slow the growth of gun violence and in the way philanthropy and government work together. The Biden administration used CVIC to get public funding to fight gun violence to 50 grassroots organizations that would normally be too small to get federal funding directly, as well as training and other support for 18 months to prepare them to receive even more funding. It's an effort some participants applauded, while others argued the president could have backed it more forcefully. There was a feeling of momentum at the CVIC celebration, said Nancy Fishman, director at the Schusterman Family Philanthropies, toward what she and other advocates hope is the beginning of a shift in governmental approaches public safety. And it went beyond the attendance of nonprofit leaders, whose workers often go without recognition or pay, in a rarefied space with others being celebrated, she said. Daamin X Durden, executive director of the Newark Community Street Team, called it surreal to be with one another, to hear the testimony and the journey experience and just to share that camaraderie and fidelity for one another. On top of that, each of the 50 community violence interruption organizations at the celebration in the office building across from the White House also received $20,000, as a final mini-grant, which Durden said was much appreciated because it came with few strings attached. A nonprofit, Hyphen, coordinated the initiative, which included peer exchanges, training and mentorship, provided by five national nonprofits. Aqeela Sherrills, the adviser for the initiative at Hyphen, thinks many more officials and communities now understand violence interruption is a compliment to policing, not a strategy that is anti-police. Were not expecting our cops will be everything, to be teachers, lawyers, therapists and counselors, he said. President Joe Biden announced the initiative in June 2021 shortly after the one year anniversary of George Floyds killing by Minneapolis police. During the second summer of the pandemic, hundreds were being shot daily, as the jump in gun homicides that started in 2020 across the country continued. As one piece of the administration's response, Biden urged local governments to use coronavirus relief funds to strengthen public safety through investments in police as well as community-based programs. CVIC was another part of this public safety plan aimed to prepare grassroots groups to be accept more public funding by strengthening their infrastructure and sharing best practices to design programs. The theory of change for this collaborative was to focus on community groups that were the hardest to reach, that were doing incredible work locally and had very little support, said Fatimah Loren Dreier, who leads the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, one of the organizations providing training. Decades of research has documented that small groups of people drive a disproportionate amount of gun violence and homicides in any given community. Violence interruption programs seek to identify those people, with some working out of hospitals, others offering a carrot-and-stick approach along with the police, while others provide cognitive behavior therapy and mentoring. If people agree to participate, the programs often also provide economic aid like paying for food or rent and connecting them to job trainings or other skills development interventions that reveal the close connection between poverty and violence. Measured in terms of funds delivered to the grassroots organizations, the collaboratives record is mixed. Six of the cities participating have so far not reported that they plan to spend coronavirus relief funds on violence interruption as of June, according to an academic analysis of Treasury Department data. Community violence interruption programs could be funded by about $350 billion included in the American Rescue Plan available for states, cities and municipalities to use for a broad range of programs, as well as another $120 billion in aid for schools. Alex Johnson, of the California Wellness Foundation, which funded early models of violence interruption in the 1990s, said many officials who control local budgets still do not understand the value of the approach. Four cities, including Newark, along with several of the grassroots organizations, recently won grants from the Department of Justice. Amanda Kass, of DePaul University, and Philip Rocco, of Marquette University, have been studying the use of coronavirus relief funds with support from The Joyce Foundation. They warn that numerous factors make it difficult to track spending, especially since municipalities have until 2026 to finalize their plans. So far, Kass and Rocco found participating cities allocated $71.7 million toward violence interruption programs less than 1% of the $7.8 billion in coronavirus relief funds available. Their study excluded participating counties, Washington, D.C., and Rapid City, South Dakota. Some CVIC participants said they expected more money to come to them through the initiative. Dujuan Kennedy, who leads the violence interruption work for FORCE Detroit, felt Biden wasn't sincere in his support. It may be a talking point for him. It may be a campaign, but for us, its our little brothers, our sons, our daughters, our babies," he said. "People are really dying out here. 25 terms you should know to understand the gun control debate 25 terms you should know to understand the gun control debate Gun Control Act of 1968 Firearm Owners Protection Act Title II, NFA weapons Assault weapons ban Second Amendment National Rifle Association March for Our Lives Gunowners of America Assault weapon Automatic weapon Semiautomatic weapon Caliber International gun control Brady Law National Instant Criminal Background Check System Gun show loophole Strawman purchase Mass shootings Bump stocks Binary trigger Pistol grip Flash suppressor High-capacity magazine Open carry Background checks Open carry We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Several inches of snow is possible along our foothills, with 2 to 4 feet of snow in the mountains. Under a new support system, it is no longer possible to make excess profits from Belgian offshore wind. The support mechanism for Belgiums five most recently built offshore wind farms is to be revised by the federal government. According to the government, the energy crisis has hit offshore wind hard, prompting talks between industry and government on how an improved support mechanism can help stabilise the investment climate and avoid "irresponsible" excess profits from volatile energy prices. These projects Rentel , Norther , Seamade (SeaStar) , Seamade (Mermaid) , and Northwester 2 have received support to date, but each will now enter a two-sided contract for difference. This means that the government will support wind farms when energy prices are too low to make them profitable, but if prices are high enough to create excess profit, these excesses go back to the government. The projects have previously enjoyed a one-sided variable support mechanism based on the market price of electricity, but this has been complicated by increased energy prices resulting from the war in Ukraine. The new scheme is described as both a crisis measure and evolving towards a more balanced system for the long term future. The change does not affect older wind farms, which do not make excess profits, according to CREG, the energy regulator. The four oldest wind farms in the first zone received fixed support not linked to market prices, and have all concluded long-term contracts, selling electricity at very low prices. The government reached an agreement in principle to implement these changes in December. This story was first reported exclusively for 4C Offshore subscribers. For more information, SANTA FE New Mexicos congressional delegation says the U.S. government should make changes to rules proposed for processing damage claims stemming from a historic wildfire sparked by forest managers. The delegation sent a letter to FEMA on Thursday as the federal agency prepares to wrap up public comment on the rules. The delegation noted that unlike a more affluent part of New Mexico that was devastated by a government-sparked wildfire in 2000, this part of northern New Mexico is more rural, has higher poverty rates and a high percentage of Spanish speakers. The delegation also said many residents are still reeling from the emotional, financial and physical tolls of the Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak Fire and that post-fire flooding has been a big concern for the mountainous areas. By providing thorough guidance and adding claims navigators early in the process, FEMA can ensure that claimants have the necessary resources in place to help them quickly and accurately assess the damages and repairs needed to move forward and receive the compensation as authorized by Congress, the delegation wrote. Congress has approved nearly $4 billion for victims of the 2022 fire so far, and state officials have acknowledged that the recovery process will be long and challenging. The New Mexico Attorney Generals Office also has sought changes to the proposed rules. Then-Attorney General Hector Balderas, whose term ended in December, had outlined concerns over limitations on damages, the lack of a clear appeals process and leadership of the team that will oversee the claims process. In their letter, U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Lujan and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernandez, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez pointed to language that caps compensation for the replacement of destroyed trees and other landscaping at 25% of the pre-fire value. They said this does not take into account the degree of damage or the effort required to remediate the damage. It is important that adequate resources are devoted to restoring the environment and the livelihoods of those affected, their letter reads. The 25% cap also requires FEMA to inspect property and prove whether a tree was used for landscaping, business, or subsistence and calculating entire property value on lands where it otherwise might not be necessary. The lawmakers say this contradicts the intent of the relief act to provide a simple, expedited process. A final public meeting is scheduled for Monday in Angel Fire. The online comment period will close Jan. 13. Numerous missteps by the U.S. Forest Service resulted in prescribed fires erupting last spring into what became the largest wildfire in New Mexicos recorded history. The blaze forced the evacuation of thousands of residents from villages throughout the Sangre de Cristo mountain range as it burned through more than 530 square miles of the Rocky Mountain foothills. The fire forced the Forest Service to review its prescribed fire polices before resuming operations last fall, and experts have said the environmental consequences will span generations. During a public forum FEMA hosted on its proposed claims process in November, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported many people affected by the fire and flooding asked officials to provide some leeway on the very points outlined by the congressional delegation. Residents and elected officials also have asked FEMA to hire as many New Mexicans as possible to staff claims offices in Santa Fe, Las Vegas and Mora. FEMA has held job fairs to fill the positions, with a third planned for Tuesday in Mora. China strives for vitality after COVID management downgrade Xinhua) 08:19, January 09, 2023 Inbound passengers arrive at Shanghai Pudong International Airport in east China's Shanghai, Jan. 8, 2023. From Sunday, China starts managing COVID-19 with measures designed for combating Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases. (Xinhua/Ding Ting) BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- At around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, flight NZ289 from New Zealand landed at the Pudong International Airport. It was the first international inbound flight to arrive in Shanghai after China downgraded its management of COVID-19, meaning those on board would not be subject to quarantine. Shaly Rauss, a German passenger on the flight who lives in Shanghai, went to New Zealand for a holiday three weeks ago. "I felt so lucky. We booked tickets one year ago. I did not know then that this would happen. We were expecting quarantine but now we don't have to quarantine. I feel very happy," she said. China now manages COVID-19 with measures against Class B infectious diseases, instead of Class A infectious diseases, in a major shift of its epidemic response policy. This downgrade in management policy will facilitate the smooth and orderly cross-border travel of Chinese and foreign nationals, enhance international exchanges and cooperation, and also help boost the global economy. On Jan. 9, Shandong Airlines will fly its first inbound flight under the new measures, from Seoul to Jinan, Shandong Province. "This shift brings convenience for cross-border travel. We are now fully promoting the resumption and opening of international and regional routes," said Wu Wanyuan, director of the media center of Shandong Airlines. According to a recent survey conducted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, 91 percent of foreign enterprises and business associations surveyed strongly supported China's optimization of epidemic policies, while 99.4 percent of the foreign companies surveyed were bullish about the prospects of China's economic development in 2023. "China's adjustment and optimization of epidemic prevention measures and orderly resumption of international flights provide favorable conditions for the recovery of the international air transport market," said a spokesperson for the China Air Transport Association. China's relevant air transport enterprises are making careful preparations to increase international capacity in an orderly manner, actively and steadily promote the resumption of operation of international passenger flights, and meet the needs of international personnel exchanges and economic and trade cooperation, the spokesperson added. The country is also witnessing a tourism recovery. According to the latest data from China's online travel service provider Tuniu, inter-provincial travel is expected to return to its dominant role in tourism consumption during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday this year, with inter-provincial travel orders accounting for nearly 70 percent of the total. Sun Qian, a tourist from Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province, is on vacation with her daughter in Sanya, a resort city in Hainan Province. "There are obviously a lot more visitors in Sanya than in the previous two years, and people are having a great time and are feeling safe here," she said. A report from Trip.com Group showed a 45 percent year-on-year increase in travel product bookings for the Spring Festival holiday period and a 53 percent increase in per capita travel spending as of Thursday. "With the new measure officially implemented, we are full of confidence in a tourism recovery," said Zhang Lei, deputy general manager of a tourism service company in the city of Qufu, Shandong Province. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) DENVER (AP) Javier Guillen just wanted to get to the United States as he endured a three-month trek from Venezuela, hiking through Central American jungles and spending four days clinging to the roof of a Mexican train known as the beast to avoid police and kidnappers. But when he finally arrived in El Paso, Texas, last week, the 32-year-old settled on a new destination, only one relatively cheap bus ride away Denver, an additional 680 miles (1,094 kilometers) north from the border. Its the easiest place, closest to Texas, and there are people wholl help immigrants here, Guillen said before making his way to one of a network of shelters the city has scrambled to set up. Over the past month, nearly 4,000 immigrants, almost all Venezuelans, have arrived unannounced in icy Denver, with nowhere to stay and sometimes dressed in nothing more than T-shirts and flip-flops. The influx took city officials by surprise as they grappled with a spate of winter storms that plunged temperatures to record lows and disrupted transit out of the area. When they appealed to the state to open new shelters, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who had allocated $4 million to help care for the migrants, arranged for those who wanted to travel onward to go by bus to Chicago and New York. That led New York Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat, who had already warned his city was being overwhelmed by new migrants, to complain about the transfers from Denver. The situation illustrates how record numbers crossing the southern border are reverberating northward to cities like Denver, New York and Washington that have long been destinations for immigrants but not busloads of them showing up all at once, straight from the border and with no resources. They are getting a taste of what border cities have been facing, said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. The fact that people are showing up in groups with a need for basic services really is new for northern cities. In some instances, Republican governors primarily Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have tried to drive home that message by transporting immigrants straight from the border to New York or near Vice President Kamala Harris Washington residence in the nations capital. Last year Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also sent some to the resort island of Marthas Vineyard. Its not clear precisely how Denver became a new destination for Venezuelans fleeing their countrys economic and political chaos. Advocates had detected small numbers arriving from the border earlier in 2022 and warned the route was becoming increasingly popular. Then, last fall, many traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border in hopes the Biden administration would end a pandemic regulation that lets the country automatically return asylum seekers to Mexico. Instead, President Joe Biden added Venezuelans to the nationalities covered by the rule in October. Venezuelan crossings dropped at the border, but then something changed in Denver. Whatever the trigger, the number of migrants arriving in the city spiked dramatically in December to sometimes 200 a day, just as a bitter winter freeze and record low temperatures swept through. The storms snarled roads out of the city and canceled several scheduled bus trips to points east, stranding many in a city already struggling to shelter its homeless population. In response, Denver converted three recreation centers into emergency shelters for migrants and paid for families with children to stay at hotels, allocating $3 million to deal with the influx. It reassigned workers to process the new arrivals, assign them to shelters and help them get on buses. Residents donated piles of winter clothing. Cities and states are ill-equipped to deal with this, Mayor Michael Hancock said in an interview. Whether youre on the border or in Denver, Colorado, cities are not set up for this. Amelia Iraheta, a city public health employee reassigned to work with the migrants, said one man reported walking from the border and arrived with a broken foot. One woman, who reached Denver barefoot, still had her feet covered with cactus spines after walking through the borderland desert. Most wore just the clothes on their back woefully insufficient for the subzero temperatures. Coming into Denver in the peak of winter, conditions were not exactly what I think they had been expecting, Iraheta said. Most werent intending to stay long. The city and state say about 70% of the more than 3,800 migrants whove come to Denver since they began tracking on Dec. 9 planned to go elsewhere ultimately. More than 1,600, the city says, have already left town on their own accord. Polis office said he was not available for an interview. The states priority is ensuring people are receiving the resources they need and can reach their desired final destination, which is the opposite of actions other states have taken to send people to places they likely had no intention of going to, spokesman Conor Cahill said in a statement. Jennifer Piper of the American Friends Service Committee, which has worked with the city and several nonprofits to help the migrants, inspected one of the buses before it left Denver. She said all passengers agreed they were on it voluntarily and that almost all had friends or family in New York or Chicago to stay with. These are grown-ups in control of their own destiny, Piper said. The reality is they were going to be on Greyhound buses eventually. The city has set a 14-day limit on stays in the emergency shelters and is talking to other agencies and nonprofits about opening longer-term facilities. Its unclear how Bidens new immigration policy, which opens an additional 30,000 monthly slots for asylum applicants from Venezuela and three other Latin American nations, will affect the flow into Denver. I really think this is not a flash in the pan, Piper said. Denver is now on that route, and I dont think that will shift for at least the next 5-6 months. It may last longer. Alexander Perez, 23, took the same daunting, monthslong overland journey through Colombia, Central America and Mexico as many other Venezuelans. It includes a particularly brutal stretch of jungle isthmus into Panama known as the Darien Gap, devoid of any roads and plagued by armed marauders and deadly natural perils. Along the way he kept thinking about joining a cousin in New York. Following a week in El Paso, he hopped a bus to Denver with the intent of continuing northeast. But after finding a warm welcome and, eventually, a hotel room, he began to reconsider his itinerary. He needed to make some money before heading on. Sometimes God leads you places, Perez said, standing outside a supermarket, eyeing mounds of dirty snow. Maybe, Perez mused, he could stay and earn some money shoveling. Copyright 2023 Albuquerque Journal Police are investigating the Sunday evening shooting of two teens across Central from the University of New Mexico campus. Albuquerque Police Department officers were dispatched to a shooting in the 1800 block of Central at around 7:30 p.m. One of the victims told police he and a friend were walking near the M&M smoke shop on Central and University SE when occupants of a black sedan opened fire, injuring them both, according to APD spokesman Gilbert Gallegos. Both victims were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, Gallegos said in a statement. Police reported finding a handgun in the area and one of the victims later claimed to have owned it. He denied shooting the firearm during the incident, but police found two different types of bullet casings at the scene, according to Gallegos statement. Copyright 2023 Albuquerque Journal For the second time in less than a month, the Bernalillo County Commission has appointed a teacher to fill a seat in the New Mexico House of Representatives. And, while its the same position, its now a different teacher. The commission on Monday chose Flor Yanira Gurrola Valenzuela to serve West Side Albuquerque-based District 16 in the legislature. Gurrola, 48, spent much of her career as a bilingual and math teacher at Washington Middle School, and is currently a professional development coordinator for Dual Language Education New Mexico. A Mexican immigrant, Gurrola said she sees her appointment as an opportunity to give voice to the low-income and immigrant populations she has worked with in Albuquerque. (There are) kids who, no matter how good they are at school or the dreams they have, sometimes dont have opportunities when they finish school, she said in an interview after Mondays virtual meeting. Thats in my mind right now. Im shaped by them. Gurrola, a Democrat, fills a seat that Antonio Moe Maestas, also a Democrat, had to vacate to accept a conflicting appointment to the state Senate. Maestas November move to the Senate occurred with a month and a half left on his 2021-22 term and just a week after he won reelection to a two-year term for 2023-24. Under county policy, the commission had to fill his House seat within three weeks of his resignation. The commission in December chose Albuquerque elementary school teacher Marsella Duarte to complete the last few weeks of his existing term. Adriann Barboa, the commissions then-chairwoman, said the board would meet again after that term expired to pick someone for the next two years. Duarte sought to extend her time in the legislature and was among the six applicants the commission considered in Mondays special meeting. But the commission which welcomed two new members on Jan. 1 considered and voted on Gurrolas nomination first. She earned the appointment on a 3-2 vote with Barboa and the two new commissioners, Barbara Baca and Eric Olivas, in support. Baca whose district overlaps with House District 16 described Gurrola as a good fit for the position, noting that she is a trained engineer, educator, and advocate for underserved and immigrant populations. Shes (the) salt of the earth; she just has the heart and ability to represent our district, Baca said. When she first considered applying for the seat, Gurrola said someone told her the Legislature needed her perspective as an immigrant and educator. She began imagining her students seeing someone like themselves in public office. That was very powerful, she said, noting that she would focus on education and opportunities for youth, as well as West Side transportation and jobs. Steven Michael Quezada and Walt Benson voted against Gurrola. Quezada said the commission would set a bad precedent by replacing Duarte and not heeding an appointment decision made by last years commission. I dont really believe our precedent today should be replacing a sitting representative thats already sitting in that chair and has done the work up in Santa Fe for the last 15 days that we asked her to do, he said. Gurrolas appointment ensures a record number of women serving in the New Mexico House. Women now occupy 38 of the 70 seats. Cover Images/Dutch Press Photo Celebrity According to a report, members of the top staff discuss the potential fallout at Sandringham Estate, where the royal family gathered to celebrate their first Christmas following Queen Elizabeth II's death. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - The British royal family has taken an action to deal with a potential fallout from Prince Harry's book, "Spare". It was unveiled that the family's senior advisers set up a de-facto "war room" after the Duke of Sussex brought up several allegations against them. According to Page Six, members of the top staff discussed the situation at Sandringham Estate, where the royal family gathered to celebrate their first Christmas following Queen Elizabeth II's death. An insider said, "There were undoubtedly fears about what Harry was going to write, and in particular they were worried about the highly personal moments of their lives being retold." "The King wanted to move ahead with the traditional 'stiff upper lip' attitude and follow in the Queen's famous footsteps of 'never complain, never explain,' " the insider added. "But the Prince of Wales argued that perhaps the family should, in fact, go on the offensive and release a statement, much in the same way he said 'We are very much not a racist family,' but he was overruled by his father." Harry's memoir is set to be released on January 10. In the book, the father of two claimed that he and his brother Prince William got physical over his wife, Meghan Markle. According to excerpts of the book obtained by The Guardian, Harry alleged that William attacked him after slamming Meghan. Harry said that his brother grabbed him by the collar, ripped his necklace and knocked him to the ground during a fight in London. As for the reason, things between the brothers allegedly got heated after William labeled the Duchess of Sussex "difficult, rude and abrasive." Harry also noted that William was already worked up when he came over to Nottingham Cottage, where Harry was living at the time, as he complained about the former "Suits" star. At one point, Harry told William that he was just regurgitating media narratives before things got heated between the siblings. Harry accused the Prince of Wales of acting like an heir and being unable to understand him. They continued to insult each other before going into the kitchen, where the alleged attack took place. Harry said he had visible injuries as he fell and landed on a dog bowl, which cracked. The 38-year-old went on to note that William urged him to fight back, but he refused to attack his brother. William, however, showed remorse following the fight. He allegedly came back "looking regretful" and apologized to Harry. You can share this post! Cover Images/Marion Curtis/StarPix Celebrity The 'Homeland' alum is pregnant with her and her husband's third child together four years after welcoming their second son and after 13 years of marriage. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy are set to welcome an additional member to their family. The Hollywood couple is confirmed to be expecting their third child together after 13 years of marriage. The 43-year-old actress and her British actor husband, who have been keeping low-key throughout their relationship, were able to keep the news of her third pregnancy a secret from public until the official announcement. The rep, however, didn't provide other details of her pregnancy, including the sex of the unborn baby and how far along she is, to PEOPLE. Claire and Hugh met on the set of the 2006 film "Evening". They announced their engagement in February 2009 and tied the knot in a private ceremony in France later in the same year. They are already parents to two sons, Cyrus Michael Christopher, 10, and Rowan, 4. Back in 2018, Claire gushed about enjoying her pregnancy with Rowan during a break from work. "Pretty soon I get to retire for a little while and just be pregnant, which I look forward to," she said at an FYC event for her Showtime series "Homeland". "It feels like a huge luxury," the "Romeo + Juliet" star added. "When I was pregnant with my first son, I worked until I was in my eighth month, so this feels like a huge gift, to have a chance to kick my feet up a little bit." The three-time Emmy Award winner once also talked about working while being a mom. "Motherhood is amazing," she said as she brought Cyrus to set while filming the espionage thriller series. "He says, 'Action!' He's a real set baby. It's really sweet. He loves the [show's operations room] because of all the lights. It's a great environment for a kid. It's the circus!" Her current pregnancy isn't the only happy news that Claire has been celebrating lately. Last month, the actress was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actress in a limited series category for her performance in "Fleishman Is in Trouble". You can share this post! Cover Images/Dutch Press Photo Celebrity The Duke of Sussex, who stepped down from The Firm in 2020 and relocated to Los Angeles with his family, says he has 'made peace with a lot of what has happened' though he's 'still waiting for accountability.' Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Prince Harry is "very happy" and "at peace." The 38-year-old royal stepped down from The Firm in 2020 with his wife Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, in search of a new life in L.A. and explained that even though he is still "looking for accountability" and may not have chosen for things to pan out in the way they have, he is "happier than ever before." He said, "I have made peace with a lot of what has happened but I am still waiting for accountability. Not just for us but because of the significance I know it will have for so many other people. I'm sure we got things wrong but I have continued over the last three or four years to ask what we got wrong and every single time I have received no response. But I am very happy. I am at peace. I think that probably angers people and infuriates some people. Some people always thought that Meghan would leave but I don't think they thought I would leave as well. It isn't necessarily something I would have chosen at the time but I own my story and I own the result." The Duke of Sussex now has Archie, three, and 20-month-old Lili with the former "Suits" actress and added that the "safety" of his family has become his top priority since moving Stateside before insisting that he is ready to have conversations now with his estranged family. Speaking on ITV's "Harry the Interview", he told Tom Bradby, "But I've got two brilliant kids and an amazing wife. The happiness I feel now, I have never felt before. The safety of my family is my priority and that is the main reason that we left. I feel safe here and my family feel safe here. I'm safe, my family is happy. It's difficult going back but I am in such a good headspace now that whatever conversations happen now or whatever the future holds - whatever comes from that, I'm in a really good place to be able to have those conversations and not linger on it. There's some people who think I couldn't be happy here because of what I've left behind but the reality is I've never been happier." You can share this post! AP Celebrity During his appearance on ITV's "Harry: The Interview", the Duke of Sussex also talks about his wife Meghan's supposed feud with the Princess of Wales, calling it 'flipped and twisted.' Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Prince Harry has claimed that the Prince and Princess of Wales caused a "barrier" when it came to welcoming Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, into the family. The 38-year-old royal, who tied the knot with the former "Suits" actress, explained that his elder brother and his wife Catherine exhibited behaviour that stemmed from their own "stereotyping" despite initial hopes his relationship would make the family "closer." He said, "I had put a lot of hope in the idea that it would be William and Kate and me and whoever. I thought the four of us would bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together. I did that a lot as the third wheel which was fun at times but I guess also slightly awkward at times, as well." "I don't think they were ever expecting me to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had a very successful career. There was a lot of stereotyping that I was guilty of too at the beginning. American actress," the Duke of Sussex added. He continued, "The fact that I had that in the back of my mind and some of the ways that my brother and sister-in-law were behaving, was causing a barrier to them welcoming her in. American actress, divorced, biracial. There are all different parts of what that can mean." Harry was then asked about his wife's supposed feud with Catherine, Princess of Wales and alleged that although Meghan was reported to have rejected a peace offering of flowers, the story was "flipped and twisted." Speaking on ITV's "Harry: The Interview", he told Tom Bradby, "What I still to this don't know is at what point it was twisted or flipped. They were more than happy to put out statements for less volatile things. Tensions were high but it wasn't a case of she did this or she did that. But the palace could have come out and said that it never happened." You can share this post! Cover Images/Dutch Press Photo Celebrity During ITV's 'Harry: The Interview', the Duke of Sussex also tells Tom Bradby about his decision to step down from official duties in 2020, just two years after he tied the knot with Meghan Markle. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Prince Harry has made it clear that he doesn't want history to repeat itself. The 38-year-old royal, who stepped down from official duties in 2020 just two years after he had tied the knot with Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, detailed his statement during his interview with ITV's Tom Bradby. Harry also explained that his decision to quit regal life was partly down to the death of his mother Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in 1997 at the age of 36, and recalled his father King Charles breaking the tragic news to him as he insisted he does not wish to become a single dad himself. He said, "Thinking back to when I was 12 years old sitting in that sunken bed at Balmoral Castle, my father coming in and sharing that news with me only now as part of writing the book did I really think of how many hours he had been awake. And the compassion I have for him and sitting with that for many., many hours, ringing up friends of his working out 'How the hell do I break this to my two sons?' I never want to be in that position. It's part of the reason why we're here now. I don't want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad and I certainly don't want my children to have a life without a mother or a father." Harry, whose elder brother William, Prince of Wales is heir to the British throne, is set to release his controversial autobiography "Spare" on Tuesday, January 10, and explained that during the writing process, he remembers greeting the millions of devastated mourners who had lined the streets in memory of his mother whilst he himself could not show "any emotion" at all. Speaking on ITV's "Harry: The Interview", he told Tom, "I lost a lot of memories on the other side of this mental wall which again I think is so relatable for those who have experienced loss as a youngster. The inability to pull memories back. But I think a lot of it was a defense mechanism. I refer to [my grief] as post-traumatic injury because I don't have a disorder." "I cried once at the burial and I go into detail about talking about how strange it was and how actually there was some guilt, and I think William as well. Walking around Kensington Palace with 50,000 bouquets of flowers to our mother and there we are shaking people's hands and smiling. I've looked back over it all. The wet hands that we were shaking, we couldn't understand why their hands were wet but it was all the tears that they were wiping away. So that was very strange at the time as youngsters. Seeing this outpouring of emotion from hundreds of millions of people. And everyone felt like they knew our mum. And the two closest people, the two most loved people by her were unable to show any emotion at that moment." You can share this post! Cover Images/Janet Mayer Celebrity Internet users clown the 'Saturday Night Live' alum for the milestone after he begs his fans to follow his yoga instructor wife on the photo-sharing app as a gift for her 39th birthday. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - While Alec Baldwin and his wife Hilaria Baldwin are celebrating the latter's milestone on Instagram, fans aren't too thrilled. Instead, some Internet users were trolling the pair after the yoga instructor reached one million followers on the photo-sharing platform. The "Rust" actor was criticized for begging fans to follow his wife on the app for her 39th birthday on Friday, January 6. A troll wrote underneath Alec's post, "One million followers is what's important on a birthday?? Give me a break." One other questioned, "Is that really important in life?" "No disrespect but could you please explain why this was so important?" another user chimed in. Someone else said, "Could you be any more shallow," with another commenter asking, "Really? I'm almost embarrassed for you for even asking !! How shallow." Some users, meanwhile, were poking fun at Hilaria's Spanish accent scandal, in which she was accused of faking her Spanish heritage. "*cringes in fake Spanish*," one person joked. Another user added, "Does Hilaria magically become actually Spanish at one million followers." In Alec's controversial post on Thursday, the 64-year-old actor shared a video featuring him begging his fans to follow Hilaria's Instagram account as a birthday gift. "I would like to ask you a small favor, and that is my wife is just, it seems like she's just centimeters shy of a million followers on Instagram. I would like to ask you, as a birthday gift or even just gesture to my wife, would you follow her on Instagram?" the "Saturday Night Live" alum said in the video. "Obviously I love my wife, I'm crazy about my wife, blah, blah, blah - all the things we say about people we're in love with. My wife's the most fabulous person I've ever met in my whole life. That's true. That's true. That's definitely true," he continued. Alec added, "I would like as many of you as possible, I would like a really great, great surge of people to follow my wife on Instagram to say happy birthday to my wife. Would you do that for me? ... Please. Thanks." Meanwhile in the caption, "The Boss Baby" star wrote, "Tomorrow is the birthday of my favorite person. May I ask you a favor?" You can share this post! Instagram/Cover Images/Facebook/INFphoto.com Celebrity A few days ahead of the Canadian rapper's sentencing, it's unveiled that the emcee has a new lawyer, David Kenner, who represented the Death Row Records former head's 2015 hit-and-run case. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Tory Lanez was seemingly unhappy with his trial lawyer and made a change to his legal counsel. The Canadian rapper, who's currently in jail waiting for his upcoming sentencing hearing, reportedly fired his attorney and hired Suge Knight's former lawyer after he was found guilty in Megan Thee Stallion shooting case. According to reports, the "Say It" rapper replaced George Mdesyan with one of Suge's former attorneys, David Kenner, to represent him at the upcoming court appearance. This is the third lawyer that the emcee has hired since his charges were laid in 2020, having started with Shawn Holley and worked with George, who allegedly botched the rapper's defense. Tory's sentencing hearing is set for late January, but the rapper has a court date on Tuesday, January 10. It's unclear the nature of his court appearance on Tuesday, but information shared online shows that he is set to appear in L.A. Superior Court 132. Law & Crime reporter Meghann Cuniff explained in a tweet that Penal Code 132 speaks to false evidence and witness tampering. However, the journalist lamented that the court "hides" public records, so it's difficult to know what's going on. Tory's new attorney, David, has represented Suge in his January 2015 hit-and-run case. However, David was fired in 2015. The former head of Death Row Records went on to change attorneys three more times, and in 2018, he agreed to serve 28 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter for running over a man, Terry Carter. The Death Row Records co-founders had initially said that Suge was acting in self-defense when he drove and clipped a man, causing him to die. Last month, Tory was convicted of shooting Megan. On December 23, following eight days of trial, nearly two days of closing arguments and a day of deliberations, a grand jury found Tory, who pleaded not guilty to all counts, guilty of all three charges levied against him. The three counts were felony assault with a semiautomatic firearm, possession of a concealed, unregistered firearm and discharging a firearm with gross negligence. In response to the guilty verdict, Tory's legal team said that they're planning to appeal the verdict. His fans have also established several petitions to appeal his conviction in connection to the shooting. The petition with the most signatures, launched on the same day that Tory was taken into custody, now has over 50,00 signatures with a goal to reach 75,000. You can share this post! Instagram Celebrity Making use of his Instagram account, the 51-year-old Hollywood producer slams his ex-wife Ambyr Childers over the claims that he's under FBI investigation for child endangerment. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Randall Emmett has spoken out against claims that he's being investigated for pedophilia. Making use of his Instagram account, Randall slammed his ex-wife Ambyr Childers over the claims and accused her of lying. "I am at a place where I felt I had to come on and here and say something that actually was the truth," Randall said in a video on Friday, January 6. "The things that have been said about me - everything under the sun, you know, 'narcissist,' cheater' - but at the end of the day, I took the high road because I have three beautiful girls that I didn't want to be out there." The "Midnight in the Switchgrass" producer added, "I've been a dad for a long time. I have custody of all my children, and I have custody of all my children because I'm a good father and I'm a good person." The Florida native, who also shares 21-month-old daughter Ocean with ex-fiancee Lala Kent, continued, "At the end of the day, that is what is the most important thing. At the end of my life, no matter what happens, I'm going to look my three daughters in the face [and] they're going to know their dad was a great father." "At this point, the lies have been stretched so far," he said. "We spent today getting confirmation because we knew there was no truthfulness to any of this, that the FBI has never been investigating me and isn't investigating me because there's nothing to investigate. Unfortunately, in this culture, you can just say whatever you want and then it gets written about and then that's considered 'truth' in this cancel culture." The new post arrived after it was reported on the same day that Ambyr received a temporary restraining order against Randall for alleged child endangerment. The producer was ordered to stay at least 100 yards away from the "You" alum nor contact her unless it is a "brief and peaceful" conversation about co-parenting their daughters. The "Ray Donovan" alum initially sought a protective order last year after claiming an FBI agent had contacted her about Randall's "suspected activities with child exploitation and pedophilia." This wasn't the first time for Randall to shut down the FBI investigation claims. "The Irishman" producer previously denied the allegations in a statement. "I am not being investigated by the FBI nor anyone else, and the notion that I am is beyond absurd," Randall told Page Six. "Anyone can say whatever they want in a pleading," he continued. "That doesn't make it true. There is zero evidence that I'm being investigated for anything, and we still share 50/50 custody of our children. I am shocked and in utter disbelief that Ambyr would even hint at something so disgusting and untrue." You can share this post! Instagram/Cover Images/Janet Mayer Celebrity The controversial political commentator weighs in on the Duke of Sussex's memoir 'Spare', criticizing the Duchess of Sussex for 'putting pregnancy tests next to locks of Princess Diana's hair.' Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Candace Owens is entering the chat. The controversial political commentator weighs in on Prince Harry's upcoming memoir "Spare", in which the Duke of Sussex makes some bombshell remarks amid tension between him and the British royal family. On Sunday, January 8, Candace wrote on her Twitter account, "Meghan putting pregnancy tests next to locks of Princess Diana's hair, plus asking for private moments at Diana's gravesite to speak to her are not things to laugh at." Instead, Candace called Meghan's behavior "terrifyingly psychopatic and manipulative actions." She went on to conclude, "Meghan is dangerous," before noting through the hashtag that the Duke of Sussex "has gone mad." Candace was referring to Harry's claim in the book that he and brother Prince William each have a lock of their mother's hair, which was cut from her head by her sister Sarah shortly after she died. Upon catching wind of the tweet, fans criticized Candace for coming for Meghan. "I wish she'd go away always in black folks business," one fan commented on Instagram. "Why is Candace involving herself in black peoples business?" another fan added. "Can we stop giving Candace Owens a platform? Yes I know your job is to get as many comments and likes per posts, but seriously majority of the time she spews nonsense," one person said. Further slamming Candace, one person wrote, "She hate her own ppl so much she don't know Meghan was doing something spiritual like laying a gift on a alter. Stop demonizing our spiritual practices!!!" However, some others appeared to agree with Cameron. "If my partner was ever that obsessed with my death parent I'd be a little weirded out," one comment read. "I thought I was the only one didn't side with Meagan her antics," someone echoed the sentiments. There were also people who defended Meghan. "So it's weird that she put a pregnancy test next to Diana's locks of hair, but not weird that Harry was in possession of Diana's locks of hair? Y'all gotta pick a struggle," a person noted. One user noted, "Meghan is IN danger not dangerous." Some users also noted that nothing was weird about what Harry and Meghan did. "imma always pay my respect/ask for guidance from my ancestors so I'm not seeing the problem?" one said. A comment also read, "So paying respect to the man you loves mom is crazy?? That's her mother in law!! Go raise ya kids damn." You can share this post! Instagram Celebrity The 30-year-old model/actress appears to be doing so much better lately after leaving her fans seriously concerned with some erratic behavior and disheveled appearance last year. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Cara Delevingne is doing so much better lately. Months after sparking concern over her erratic behavior, the model/actress made use of her social media account to show off her naked yoga session. Over the weekend, the "Suicide Squad" actress posted a photo of her doing naked yoga. In the picture, which was taken from the confines of a cozy-but-snowy cabin, she posed in a perfect headstand. Though her face was out of the frame, fans pointed out that the tattoos on the ribs obviously match hers. Cara is apparently taking some time to take care of her mental health following her erratic public appearances. In September last year, the "Paper Towns" star appeared unable to control her body movements while she was at Van Nuys Airport. At the time, the shoeless model was seen on the phone, bending over, dropping her phone and walking around looking very jittery. Not stopping there, the "Only Murders in the Building" actress was also snapped looking unhealthy when taking drops of an unknown liquid and smoking while sitting in her car. A few minutes later, she stopped at a sex shop and browsed racks of dildos and vibrators for about 30 minutes on Melrose Ave. Adding more concern were the photos of Cara's "Suicide Squad" co-star Margot Robbie, who was caught crying after she left Cara's house in West Hollywood on September 12. That same day, Cara's sister Poppy Delevingne also visited the property. The 36-year-old reportedly left in a black SUV, looking sad and upset. However, Margot denied in November that she was crying, insisting that she just "had something in [her] eye." Fortunately, things seemed to be improving at the end of September. Cara looked healthy when attending a Paris Fashion Week event that debuted designs from her Cara Loves Karl collaboration with Chanel's late creative director, Karl Lagerfeld. Then in late October, Cara was spotted attending a star-studded Halloween celebration, dressing up as a clown. On Christmas Day, the 30-year-old star posted a photo of her enjoying a snow ride. More recently, Cara presented a six-part BBC documentary series titled "Planet Sex". In it, she's seen donating her orgasm to science in Germany, making art from her vagina in Japan, hitting up a women-only sex club, taking a masturbation masterclass and visiting an ethical porn set. You can share this post! Cover Images/Associated Press/Janet Mayer Celebrity During his appearance on a ITV interview, the Duke of Sussex discusses Lady Susan Hussey, who was involved in a race row while attending a reception hosted by Queen Consort Camilla in November. Jan 9, 2023 AceShowbiz - Prince Harry has defended Lady Susan Hussey after she was involved in a race row. While attending a reception hosted by Queen Consort Camilla in November, Sistah Space charity Ngozi Fulani was repeatedly asked where she was "really" from. It subsequently emerged the late Queen Elizabeth's former lady-in-waiting, Lady Hussey, had stepped down from her post in the royal household as a result of the exchange. During his appearance on a ITV interview that aired on Sunday night, January 8, Harry, who stepped down as a senior member of the Royal Family in 2020 to start a new life with his wife Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, in the US, believes she didn't intend to cause any "harm at all." Harry told Tom Bradby, "I'm very happy for Ngozi Fulani to be invited into the palace to sit down with Lady Susan Hussey and to reconcile, because Meghan and I love Susan Hussey. She thinks she's great. And I also know that what she meant - she never meant any harm at all." He went on, "But the response from the British press, and from people online because of the stories that they wrote was horrendous, was absolutely horrendous the response." A palace spokesperson said at the time of the exchange, "We take this incident extremely seriously and have investigated immediately to establish the full details. In this instance, unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments have been made. We have reached out to Ngozi Fulani on this matter, and are inviting her to discuss all elements of her experience in person if she wishes." A month later, Ngozi and Hussey met at Buckingham Palace so she could apologize. A palace source said, "A meeting took place this morning, 16th December, at Buckingham Palace between Ms Ngozi Fulani, founder of Sistah Space, and Lady Susan Hussey to address the incident that took place at a Palace reception last month." "At this meeting, filled with warmth and understanding, Lady Susan offered her sincere apologies for the comments that were made and the distress they caused to Ms. Fulani. Lady Susan has pledged to deepen her awareness of the sensitivities involved and is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the issues in this area," the insider added. You can share this post! CBS Celebrity The Duke of Sussex found it unfair that Andrew kept being protected by security funded by taxpayers and later by royal family while he and wife Meghan Markle were deprived of such luxury. Jan 10, 2023 AceShowbiz - Prince Harry has blasted royal family over Prince Andrew's "embarrassing scandal." The Duke of Sussex insists it was unfair that he and wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, were stripped of their security detail after stepping back from royal duties in 2020 but his uncle retained his despite being stripped of his titles and patronages just months beforehand because of his links with late paedophile Jefrrey Epstein and sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, and sexual assault allegations made by Virginia Giuffre, which were later settled out of court. "Despite being involved in an embarrassing scandal, accused of having sexually abused a young woman, nobody had suggested removing his security. People may have a lot of grievances towards us, but sexual offenses weren't one of them," Harry wrote as quoted by Page Six, who obtained a Spanish copy of his new memoir "Spare". The 38-year-old prince admitted he and his wife never imagined they would love their security detail after seeing how Andrew was treated and also because of the "current climate of hatred" as well as the treatment of his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car accident in 1997 while being pursued by pararazzi. Harry also noted that, as a man in his 30s, it was ridiculous to complain about being cut off by his father, King Charles, but insisted his dad was more than just his guardian and compared the situation to being fired without compensation following a life of service. He wrote, "He was also my boss, my banker, my auditor and the administrator of my money for my entire adult life." Last year, Harry and Meghan - who have children Archie, three, and Lili, 19 months, together - claimed they were unable to return to the UK from their home in California because of their lack of police protection. They said in a statement, "In absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return home. Prince Harry inherited a security risk at birth, for life. He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats." "While his role within the Institution has changed, his profile as a member of the royal family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family." You can share this post! Instagram Celebrity The 69-year-old adult movie star is allegedly suffering from 'severe dementia' as the 'Terror Firma' actor is facing more than 30 counts of rape and sexual assault. Jan 10, 2023 AceShowbiz - Ron Jeremy is expected to be determined incompetent to stand trial. The 69-year-old adult film star - whose full name is Ronald Jeremy Hyatt - is hit with over 30 counts of rape and sexual assault but is said to be suffering from "severe dementia" and will likely be placed in a state-run hospital when he is declared unfit for trial on January 17. LA County Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson said in an email obtained by the Los Angeles Times newspaper that mental health experts had been enlisted by both the "Terror Firma" actor's legal team and prosecutors, who determined his condition and found no evidence he was faking. He wrote, "As a result of the agreement of the experts, the defendant will be declared incompetent to stand trial ... his prognosis for improvement is not good. If he does not improve, we will not be able to try him for his crimes. Because criminal proceedings are suspended as long as he is incompetent, we also cannot get a guilty plea from him or discuss other measures to get justice for the victims in this case." Besides examining medical documents, experts reached their decision based on interviews with the accused, his family and LA County sheriff's deputies, who had interacted him during his incarceration, with some suspecting he suffered from dementia before his arrest in 2020. One of Jeremy's accusers, Lianne Young, told the outlet she was "kind of numb" after hearing the decision. She said, "It's going to come down to public opinion now, and public opinion has looked at Ron like a god. It could be an indication to other predators or viewers of pornography that they can get away with such crimes." Jeremy faces a dozen counts of forcible rape, seven counts of forcible oral copulation, six counts of sexual battery by restraint, four counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object, and two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious or asleep person. The actor also faces one count of committing a lewd act on a minor, stemming from an accusation he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at a party in Santa Clarita, California, in June 2004. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon previously said in a statement, "Far too often, survivors of sexual assault suffer in isolation. We must ensure that survivors have all options available to help with recovery, including trauma-informed services for healing and support to report such crimes." Ron has entered a plea of not guilty to all charges. You can share this post! CarDekho Group, Indias leading Autotech Unicorn, has introduced a TVC campaign #BadhteIndiaKaBharosa celebrating the spirit of Indians to fulfil their dreams. The campaign captures the true essence of the people of India in shaping a Badhta India. The film weaves four different stories of progress into one engaging montage, presenting how CarDekho Group is accompanying people in journey of realizing their dreams. Each story is representing one of the four brands under the umbrella of the CarDekho Group CarDekho, BikeDekho, Rupyy, and InsuranceDekho. Talking about the new campaign, Charu Kishnani, Executive Vice President Marketing-CarDekho said, India is on a journey of transformation and progress. CarDekho Group is proud to support the growth of the nation and its people, creating opportunities that give them a chance to fulfil unrealised dreams. With this idea, CarDekho has introduced a brand campaign celebrating Badhta India. The campaign mirrors the core values of CarDekho Group, to solve customer problems and build a progressive India. A 10-week long campaign, #BadhteIndiaKaBharosa is live on TV and digital platforms. The campaign is written and directed by Amit Nandwani, and produced by CarDekho Group company PowerDrift, Indias top auto content brand, and a full stack-production house. Charu further added, CarDekho has been built on the trust entrusted by millions of users whose dreams we aim to fulfil through our product offerings. Instilling the essence of the brand in all group employees is our Founder & CEO Mr. Amit Jain, who is now also a Shark. Our idea to launch this campaign at this moment is backed with the understanding that CarDekho and Shark Tank is a brilliant synergy, helping ideas become reality and taking India ahead. CarDekho Group has established itself as a leading automotive platform providing customers end-to-end solutions and making vehicle ownership comfortable. The company has created opportunities for customers through companies such as like InsuranceDekho and Rupyy. While InsuranceDekho is helping consumers purchase health, term, and motor insurance at the click of a button while Rupyy is assisting consumers in securing auto loans. Besides offering convenience to the consumers, CarDekho's businesses have also created employment avenues for the people, especially in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Indias home-grown Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) has appointed veteran banker Mr. Surinder Chawla as its new Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The appointment has been approved by the Reserve Bank of India for a period of three years. Mr. Chawla brings with him an illustrious career in Retail Banking spanning over 28 years across marquee institutions such as HDFC Bank, RBL Bank, ABN Amro Bank and Standard Chartered Bank. A merit-listed Chartered Accountant, Mr. Chawla joins PPBL from RBL Bank, where he served as Head - Branch Banking and focused on expanding the CASA base, fee revenue, and cross-selling across channels. Prior to joining RBL Bank in 2013, Mr. Chawla spent about 12 years in key senior management positions at HDFC Bank, culminating in his role as Head of the Retail Liabilities Product Group. As Senior Executive Vice President at HDFC Bank, Mr. Chawla also worked as the head for the Southern, Eastern and Northern regions at different points in his career. The latest appointment comes as part of PPBL's ongoing efforts to strengthen its leadership team, enhance its technology capabilities and drive financial inclusion in the country. With his wealth of experience in the banking industry, Mr. Chawlas expertise will be a great addition to PPBL as it continues to serve customers with its innovative products and services. The appointment will become effective upon the completion of the requisite regulatory formalities. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Chairman of Paytm Payments Bank Board, said, "I am pleased to welcome Surinder to Paytm Payments Bank to drive our unwavering commitment to deepening financial inclusion and offering an exceptional mobile-first banking experience in India. His rich experience in banking and deep understanding of the Indian financial landscape will bring the necessary expertise to further empower Paytm Payments Bank's mission. Mr. Surinder Chawla, MD and CEO, Paytm Payments Bank, said, I am honored to join Paytm Payments Bank as the new MD and CEO at this fascinating juncture to participate in the ongoing digital banking revolution pioneered by PPBL. I look forward to taking the bank to even greater heights with the team of highly motivated professionals at PPBL. As we continue on our journey to provide accessible, convenient banking options to all of our customers with the highest standards of compliance and operational excellence, I am excited to contribute to our shared mission of driving large-scale financial inclusion. Prasar Bharati is considering the idea of launching an OTT platform. The news comes following an agreement signed by Prasar Bharati with YuppTV in order to extend the reach of Doordarshans DD India channel which was launched globally. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed by Prasar Bharati with YuppTV in March in last year, in order to make DD India available in several countries, including in the US and the UK. The government has already approved a scheme worth Rs 2,500 crore for the purpose of modernizing, expanding and upgrading Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR). Prasar Bharati is in the process of attaining these objectives. Tamannaah Bhatia has established herself as one of the industry's most promising actresses. The actress has proven that she is much more than a pretty face with her stellar performances in various films like Baahubali, Sye Ra Narsimha Reddy, F3 and Babli Bouncer. The actress is now all set to make her debut in the Malayalam film industry with 'Bandra'. A source quote, It's going to be a very busy 2023 for Tamannaah. The actress is reportedly set to leave on January 20th for Kerala for shooting. Fans cant wait to see the actress in Malayalam debut. She is one of the few stars to have dabbled in three film industries: Tamil, Telugu and Hindi and has had a great 2022 with back to back project releases. Now she is ready to take over the Malayalam industry with Bandra.' Other than her volume of work the actress attended the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2022 representing the country at these global platforms. The actress has a number of promising projects lined up for 2023 - Prime Videos Jee Karda and Netflixs Lust Stories. Wavemaker India, the most-awarded media agency of GroupM India, has bagged the integrated media mandate of premium healthy snacking brand Happilo. The account was won post following a multi-agency pitch and will be serviced by the agencys office in Bangalore. Happilo is an omnichannel healthy snack brand that provides an array of food products to customers, including dried fruits, dates, seeds, nuts, berries, trail mixes, dry fruit bars, brittle, nut-based butter and spreads, and is the category leader in the country. Post-pandemic, there has been a shift in consumer preferences and the segment of mindful eaters has increased significantly. Talking about the partnership, Vikas D Nahar, Founder and CEO of Happilo said, We are delighted to get on board with Wavemaker as our partner for leading our media mandate. We align on our vision to build Happilo as the go-to snacking brand. We look forward to exciting things that the agency brings to the table. Speaking on the win, Ajay Gupte, CEO - South Asia, Wavemaker said, We are honoured to be a part of Happilo's exciting growth journey. With our market-leading data and technology capabilities backed by our robust purchase journey insights, we are confident of positively contributing to their success. Commenting on the win, M.K.Machaiah (Mac), Chief Client Officer & Office Head - South, Wavemaker India said, We are delighted to partner with Happilo and establish them as one of the preferred healthy snacking brand in the Indian market. Happilo is a fun, young brand catering to an interesting set of consumers who look for tasty yet healthy snacking option. Engaging with new-age customers via innovative media campaigns, is going to be truly exciting. If you're gonna fight, fight like you're the third monkey on the ramp to Noah's Ark... and brother its starting to rain. President Trump's immigration policy reduced the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S. This was a significant accomplishment. One of the most important aspects of Trump's strategy was the "Remain in Mexico" Policy, referred to by DHS as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). "The MPP are a U.S. Government action whereby certain foreign individuals entering or seeking admission to the U.S. from Mexico illegally or without proper documentation may be returned to Mexico and wait outside of the U.S. for the duration of their immigration proceedings." The federal government is responsible for securing the country's borders. President Biden has shirked this responsibility. Biden issued an executive order ending Trump's successful immigration policy. A few months later, DHS director Mayorkas ended MPP, opening U.S. borders. Illegal aliens encountered on the southwest border totaled 458,088 in 2020; 1,734,686 in 2021; and 2,766,582 in 2022. Nobody knows how many aliens have entered the U.S. unencountered. In 2017, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimated that the cost of illegal immigration to American taxpayers was $116 billion. President Biden's border policy has been under increasing scrutiny by Democrats. Gavin Newsom, Eric Adams, Michael Hancock, and others have complained about his policy publicly. As a result, Biden announced a new immigration policy on January 5 at the White House. Biden is expanding a "parole process" put in place for Venezuela "to nationals from Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba." An immigrant with a "qualified sponsor" who is vetted can come to the U.S. and work for two years. Biden's new policy appears to make it easier for migrants to enter the country legally by streamlining the process and eliminating obstacles. There are some elements of the policy that could reduce the pressure of illegal immigration. Illegal aliens will be "increasingly subject to expedited removal to their country of origin and subject to a five-year ban on reentry." "Individuals who irregularly cross the Panama, Mexico, or U.S. border after the date of this announcement ... will be subject to expulsion to Mexico, which will accept returns of 30,000 individuals per month from these four countries." Mexico is a country filled with millions of industrious people. Mexico is polarized. Hardworking people making an honest living revolve around one pole. The other pole is dominated by hardworking people making a dishonest living. The dishonest people are employed by competing cartels that, among other criminal activities, extort tribute from emigrants trying to enter the U.S. Mexican government authorities are accepting bribes from cartels. The Guardian interviewed a coyote, Rosario Morales, and reported, "Mexican migration and security forces including state and local police, the navy, army, and national guard patrol the highways which Rosales will drive, but the group will not be stopped. Rosales sends his contacts the travel schedule, and photos of the car and his clients, to guarantee a blind eye. 'Everyone gets paid, so I never have problems,' said Rosales, who claims to spend 70% of what he earns on bribes." Mexican authorities take bribes from the cartels while accepting U.S. foreign aid to take back 30,000 illegal aliens each month. Everyone wins except American taxpayers. Border porosity has made the illegal importation of drugs a deadly problem. Fentanyl has become the opiate of choice. It is more powerful than heroin, costs less, is easy to move across the nonexistent border, and kills with increasing frequency. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has apprehended 78 terrorists entering the country illegally. Nobody knows how many terrorists and criminals have entered the U.S. unencountered. Criminals rarely check in with authorities when they enter a crime scene. Mexico and the United States don't control the border between their countries; Mexican cartels do. Immigration law is covered by USC Title 8. If a person entering the country illegally has "credible fear of persecution or torture, [he] may seek asylum." Asylum is the legal loophole that Democrats use to allow the massive influx of illegal aliens. Biden and Democrats know there may be more terrorists entering the country than people legitimately seeking asylum. They don't care. In paragraph (C), Title 8 stipulates, "Any alien who, by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact, seeks ... admission into the United States or other benefit provided under this chapter is inadmissible." An alien falsely claiming danger or persecution in his homeland to acquire asylum is misrepresenting facts, which makes him inadmissible to the United States. Federal, state, and local police have authority to arrest aliens in violation of immigration or any other law. Biden referred to asylum in his policy statement on January 5. "There are laws to get here legally. That includes another legal way for someone to come to America by seeking asylum because they're fleeing persecution." In the same statement, he said, "People come to America for a whole lot of different reasons. To seek new opportunity in what is the strongest economy in the world. Can't blame them wanting to do it." If an alien enters the country illegally to obtain a better job using asylum as a guise, the alien is violating immigration law and is not admissible to the United States. Biden legitimizes any reason for alien entry. He still ignores the law. The border is still open. There is no coherent policy informing the public why Biden encourages calamity at the border. Insecure borders invite chaos, suffering, and death for many illegal aliens. It allows easy entry to cheap and plentiful opiates. It assures job loss and lower wages for American workers. Illegal immigration requires an increased consumption of government resources at taxpayer expense. Why would Democrats implement such a destructive policy? Democrats want a new immigration bill. Biden alluded to this in his policy statement: "On my first day in office ... I sent Congress a comprehensive piece of legislation that would completely overhaul what has been a broken immigration system." Democrats demand a new law that will allow anyone in the country illegally to become a citizen in three years if he meets minimum requirements. They believe that these new citizens will support Democrat candidates in elections. Importing new voters dedicated to the success of the Democrat party is now the immigration policy of the United States. If Biden won't enforce current immigration law, why would he enforce a new law? Democrats will obtain the goals they seek with the new law and continue to ignore the sections that don't benefit them. Some Democrats contend that Trump's policies were cruel, forcing people to live in the countries where they were born. Americans have no obligation to allow unfettered immigration. The government has no authority to ignore its own laws to open U.S. borders. The purpose of American government is to ensure the security of its people. Allowing an amalgam of aliens to take jobs, reduce wages, and absorb resources is not government of, by, and for the people. It is government of, by, and for the Democrat party. Democrats will ignore the rule of law so long as they control the mechanisms of government. They use the government to damage the people they were elected to protect. They import new voters in a cynical strategy to obtain and retain power. This is not conjecture. The evidence strolls across the country's open border every hour. Image: woodleywonderworks via Flickr, CC BY 2.0. The most recent $1.7 trillion slap to the voters faces (known as the omnibus bill) includes almost $12 million to fund various LGBTQ+ museums, centers, advisors, and housing projects. According to our federal government, we shouldnt just show tolerance to alternate lifestyles. We should admire, and perhaps even aspire to them. I guess we shouldnt be surprised that theres an epidemic of our most impressionable citizens claiming that theyre a different sex than nature assigned them. Our kids want approval and the Left is telling them that selecting an alternate lifestyle is a good way to get it. It's time we had an adult discussion about the birds and the bees, because we seem to have forgotten how biology works. First, lets cover some definitions. Sex and gender are not the same thing. Sex is: The male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions. Our sex is genetically defined at conception. Humans with XX chromosomes can give birth. Humans with XY chromosomes can impregnate those with XX chromosomes, but cannot give birth themselves. No amount of hormone therapy or surgery will change that fact. Gender is: Either the male or female division of a species, especially as differentiated by social and cultural roles and behavior. Gender is how we choose to live. Our gender selection may be as feminine or toxically masculine as we choose. Our gender preference may facilitate attraction to a same-sex partner or an opposite-sex partner, but it does not change our genetic code -- or our sex. But the Left is determined to confuse the sex/gender terminology. They insist that men who display feminine characteristics are actually women -- if they say so. Theyre not men acting like women, mind you -- theyre actually women. This intentional confusion has given us Men competing in womens sports Men bathing with young girls at health spas Girls sharing their locker rooms and restrooms with boys A woman Supreme Court justice who cant figure out what a woman is An epidemic of people using hormone therapy and surgery in a futile attempt to make reality conform with their perceptions The birds and bees discussion we need is this: Perception does not define reality. Nature defines reality. Survival of most species requires the breeding of opposite sexes, not opposite genders. To think otherwise is not enlightened. It is deranged. Lets pose a hypothetical question. Lets pretend that after some gain of function research at Wuhan, a mysterious virus is leaked. Further, lets pretend the virus causes all animal life on earth to be sexually attracted to the same sex, and repulsed by the opposite sex. Would leftists want to fix it? If so, why? Their long-held position is that same-sex sexual relationships are perfectly normal -- hence their insistence on the normalization of man/man and woman/woman marriages. Of course, we know the answer. Even the most devoted leftist would want to correct such a malady. Whether they admit it or not, they know that opposite-sex attractions are essential to survival. Breeding is necessary for life to continue, and no amount of legislation or propaganda can invalidate that truth. We know the Left would work to cure the virus, because weve seen them take any measure necessary to protect endangered species from extinction. Theyre concerned about the ongoing survival of all living things -- with the possible exception of homo sapiens. The left knows the truth about the natural need for heterosexual interaction -- whether they will admit it or not. Lets return to our birds and bees discussion. Heterosexual relationships are the natural order -- as they are required for survival of the species. Im not saying that homosexual relationships are immoral -- Im discussing science, not morality. Im saying that same-sex sexual relationships are not part of natures design, and when taken to the extreme are a path to extinction. I know the TQ+ contingent of the LGBTQ+ movement argues that claiming to be a different sex than assigned at birth is perfectly normal and not a sign of any irregularity. Okay, fine. Id like them to explain how some men (claiming to me women) using frozen tomato paste to simulate menstrual cycles, is normal. Further, explain why it is incumbent on me to accept such a practitioners perception of reality. Such people need our compassion. They do not need us to enable their continued denial of reality. They certainly dont need funding from the federal government to perpetuate that denial. This is the truth that the Left will not acknowledge: Opposite-sex interaction is required by nature -- same-sex interaction is not. We know it and the Left knows it. So why does the Left continue to perpetuate a false narrative? Perhaps the Lefts insistence that everyone believe something other than reality is because they dont care about science, nature, compassion, tolerance, or even survival. They only care about the destruction of our social fabric as a tactic to undermine western civilization and replace it with their vision of mankind. John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He has written for American Thinker, and American Free News Network. His work has been featured on The Dan Bongino Show, World View Weekend Broadcast with Brannon House, and Steel on Steel with John Loeffler. He can be followed on Facebook or reached at greenjeg@gmail.com. Image: Eli Christman Obviously, the message has not resonated with the federal government that parents are fed up with government dictating what their children are being taught and being told they have no rights as parents. On December 27, the CDC republished a "self-assessment tool" that encourages teachers, administrators, and school health staff to promote LGBT-inclusive "school environments, policies, programs, and practices." The CDC website has an entire section under "For Schools" devoted to "Supporting LGBTQ Youth" that includes professional development for staff. There, under "Tools for Supporting LGBT Youth," is the self-assessment document, "LGBTQ Inclusivity in Schools: A Self-Assessment Tool." The CDC claims the assessment resources and their ideas do not reflect the "official opinion" of the CDC yet highly recommends the assessment document as "a focused, reasonable, and user-friendly approach to identify strategies to increase LGBTQ inclusivity in schools[.] ... [O]ne strategy for improving the health and academic success of all youth." The development of LGBT-inclusive curricula or the adaption of curricula and materials is promoted. Claiming that the assessment is optional, the CDC attempts to deflect attention from its unconstitutional intrusion into public education and its promotion of dangerous sexual activities for students. Although parents are opposed to LGBT symbols in the public school, the self-assessment tool ignores that and promotes creating a safe space for LGBT students with "rainbow flags, pink triangles, unisex bathroom signs." The document recommends using politically correct radical sex terminology "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are out, and "partner" is in. School clinics should offer pamphlets with descriptions of anatomy and physiology as "a body with a penis" and "a body with a vagina." Preferred pronouns are to be used, along with preferred student names. Gender-neutral clothing should be encouraged and students allowed to use the bathroom and locker rooms that align to their chosen gender. This is not the only way the CDC promotes LGBT in public education. How many parents know that, every two years, the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey supposedly anonymous is given to high school students, and the results are sent to the CDC in return for federal funds to the ISD? Recently, the Fort Worth School District in Texas was exposed for giving students the YRB Survey on radical gender ideology. Texas grassroots activist Carlos Turcios tweeted screenshots of the nosy survey, which asks students about their sexual activity and gender identification. Americans should not be surprised at the actions of the CDC, given that the Biden administration includes a transgender medical doctor as assistant secretary of health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. "Rachel" Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, has already raised alarms over his public promotion of puberty-blockers and surgical removal of healthy body parts. His September 2022 video speech to the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Pediatrics, which went viral on Twitter in December, urged medical professionals to become "ambassadors" for the transgender movement Later in September, in Montreal, at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) annual conference, Levine gave the keynote address. He portrayed transgenders as victims and opponents as hate-mongers. Rejecting the fact that transgender youth have underlying mental health issues that could contribute to or cause their dysphoria, Levine claimed that "[i]t is the bullying, it is the harassment, the discrimination that transgender youth face that leads to these outcomes." Ignoring the research, Levine claimed that students who were denied "gender-affirming" medical treatments" which includes disfiguring surgery on sex organs were more likely to commit suicide. Research shows that transgender individuals are almost four times as likely as "cisgender" people to experience a mental health condition. By setting up an environment where LGBT is promoted, public education is contributing to the mental health problems of our youth. These proponents of transgenderism would have us believe that a high percentage of students are transgenders. Yet, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), transgender people and other gender minorities constitute roughly 0.30.5% (25 million) of the global population of nearly eight billion. The origins of radical sex education date back nearly a century to a program implemented in Hungarian public schools by Marxists in their quest to destroy Christianity in Western Europe. The curriculum included sex lectures and graphic instructional materials about free love and sexual intercourse. Students were encouraged to ridicule and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. Hate was turned toward parents, clergy, and all dissenters. The program was a huge success. Continued exposure to atheism, radical sex education, and rebellion against authority turned Hungarian students into bullies, thieves, murderers, sex predators, and sociopaths who disrespected authority. The implementation of a radical sex curriculum and Marxist indoctrination in American public education has created a mental crisis among students. American youths are exhibiting the same characteristics found in Hungarian youths after implementation of a radical sex curriculum: violent, thieves, murderers, sociopaths, sex predators, and God-haters. Transgenderism also is a cash cow. The medical profession profits from "sex change" surgeries, while Big Pharma profits from puberty-blockers and numerous psychiatric medications. CASEL and other SEL providers are profiting handsomely from the sale of their programs. Politicians push Social and Emotional Learning programs into schools to solve the mental health "crisis." It's a known fact that pharmaceutical companies spend far more than any other industry to influence politicians. It's no secret that Big Pharma is cozy with our federal government and its agencies. The communist goal of creating student hatred for America, our founding fathers, and American capitalism has been achieved. Carole Hornsby Haynes is an education policy analyst, curriculum specialist, and historian. chaynes@drcarolehhaynes.com Image via Max Pixel. Just yesterday, the BBC reported that thousands of protesters who allegedly support Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Congress in Brasilia by overwhelming police guarding the area. Other protesters breached the deserted Senate chamber, the presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and other government buildings. The Brazilian media reported that it began as a peaceful protest against Brazil's socialist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who protesters allege won his election by fraud. However, when "nearly 100" buses full of protesters arrived at the capital, law enforcement was overwhelmed. The Associated Press reported that the protesters broke windows, toppled furniture, and hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punctured paintings and overturned the tables at which Supreme Court justices convene. They ripped a door off one justice's office and vandalized an iconic statue outside the court. The protesters reportedly chanted slogans such as "Brazil is ours!" ...and "Free our country from communism!" Forcas armadas faca se cumprir a constituicao! Cumpra sua missao! Salve o Brasil da corrupcao! Livra nosso pais do comunismo! Hoje 7/01/23 Brasilia! pic.twitter.com/QpwcytIxKd Juliana a Sincera (@julianaSL7) January 8, 2023 In time, security forces managed to restore control of the buildings. The occurrences yesterday are being called a culmination of months of protests following the October presidential election, where convicted felon and socialist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defeated the then-incumbent Bolsonaro following two rounds of voting. Lula won the run-off by a wafer-thin margin of 50.84%. The protesters called Lula's victory illegitimate for the following reasons: An audit by the Armed Forces of Brazil of the 2022 runoff presidential election concluded that there was a probability of fraud or irregularities due to Brazil's electronic voting system. In 2017, Lula was convicted on charges of corrupt acts occurring during his first two terms as president. Brazil's federal electoral court has ruled that Lula could not run for president because of his corruption conviction. However, a Supreme Court judge in Brazil annulled Lula's corruption convictions, clearing his path to run for the presidency in 2022. During the election cycle, many pro-Bolsonaro accounts and groups on social media platforms were shut down and prevented from mentioning Lula's corruption convictions. Many Bolsonaro-supporters were fined and subjected to police raids. The global liberal ecosystem that includes the news media covered the elections as if Brazil hung on the precipice of destruction unless Lula won re-election. Once again, this amounts to interference in a national election. When Lula was sworn in as president on January 1, he pledged to undo the legacy of his populist predecessor's government, which he claimed involved depleting funding for education, health, and the conservation of the Amazon rainforest. Days before Lula's inauguration, Justice Alexandre De Moraes of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), which administers elections, temporarily suspended licenses that permit hunters, marksmen, and collectors to carry guns, firearms, and ammunition in the region where the capital city of Brasilia is located. In 2020, De Moraes had presided over a "fake news" probe that resulted in police raids against comedians, YouTube commentators, and journalists for having publicly supported Bolsonaro. In 2021, De Moraes also presided over the arrest and sentencing of former congressman Daniel Silveira to eight years in prison for "insulting" TSE ministers in a YouTube video. Bolsonaro pardoned Silveira last year. De Moraes was also involved in the annulment of corruption charges against Lula that allowed him to run for elections. Bolsonaro, who has often been compared to President Trump in outlook and agenda, left the country for Florida late last month. Tweeting on Sunday evening, Bolsonaro criticized the riots, writing that peaceful demonstrations are part of democracy but that "depredations and invasions of public buildings" are not. Bolsonaro rejected what he called Lula's and his allies' "baseless" allegations that he incited the protests in Brasilia. There are a few open questions regarding these riots. The election results were out last November, and Lula was sworn in on the first of January. Why did the protesters take so long to react? Even if we assume that the protesters took around two months to plan their breach, we must question the lack of security despite a warning about the possibility of disruption after a controversial and tightly contested election. Experts are asking why such a long march got through security to the square, only to then enter government buildings. Footage from local TV stations and social media showed little to no resistance from security forces as the protesters went by. Observers noted that an army brigade is permanently stationed in the presidential palace. Hence, the question remains: how did the rioters manage to invade and vandalize the palace? It also seems odd that the protest began peacefully but turned violent only when buses of protesters arrived. This leads to questions about the bussed protesters. Who paid for the bussing? How could the media and the government be certain that all of these bussed protesters were supporters of Bolsonaro? But these questions aren't being asked. Instead, the news media in the U.S. and beyond are covering this as a riot that is a sequel to the Capitol Hill "insurrection" on Jan. 6, 2021. The rioters are being characterized as "far-right." Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro set the National Congress on fire. pic.twitter.com/L9YxACQtYt Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) January 8, 2023 ATENTADOS EM BRASILIA: Predio do STF tem o andar terreo e o plenario complemente destruidos. Servidores da seguranca foram ameacados e documentos oficiais podem ter sido extraviados. Video: George Marques. pic.twitter.com/NAPmiJqvms Renato Souza (@reporterenato) January 8, 2023 There has been condemnation from global leaders that were similar to the ones following the occurrences on Capitol Hill. The BBC is already blaming "Trump's election-denying allies" for stoking the riots. Steve Bannon was blamed for asking questions about election irregularities in Brazil and promoting the hashtag #BrazilianSpring. Democrat politicians also blamed President Trump. Following the breaches of government buildings, President Lula vowed to punish supporters of Bolsonaro. Justice Minister Flavio Dino told local media that some 200 people had already been arrested. Dino had already referred to anti-Lula protest groups as "incubators of terrorism" last month. In the coming weeks, expect Lula and his allies to use the might of the government to crack down on political opponents. This creates a climate of fear that is the equivalent of criminalizing political opposition. It almost seems as if a template was followed: Elevate the liberal candidate as the sole virtuous savior of the nation in doom, while his opponent is relentlessly denigrated and dehumanized as an insensitive, heartless, bigoted, anachronistic, despotic monster. Manipulate the discourse leading to the elections using the might of the judiciary and the government, and by co-opting the news media and Big Tech. Suppress and censor all wrongdoing of the liberal candidate, and allow the vilest of rumors regarding his opponent to be amplified. Exploit all the vulnerabilities of the voting system to help the liberal candidate, which obviously causes ardent supporters of the "losing" candidate to be upset. Perhaps use proxies to convince supporters of the "losing" candidate to hold a protest in the capital. Reduce security in key areas around the capital, and allow supporters of the "losing" candidate to protest. Infiltrate the protests with violent elements who engage in vandalism and chant slogans that seem like supporters of the "bitter" "losing" candidate. Blame the "losing" candidate and his supporters for the violence. Ensure that videos and images of these occurrences spread across the world via the media. Compel the media to amplify the occurrences, using ominous-sounding terms such as "insurrection" and "coup." The "insurrection" receives global condemnation of the "losing" candidate and his supporters. Use the "riots" or "insurrection" to criminalize political opposition and eventually implement a one-party state. Image: Screen shot from The Independent video via YouTube. As Victoria's Secret goes woke, so goes the bad fortune of its shareholders. This is the story: Victoria's Secret brand CEO Amy Hauk announced that she will be leaving the lingerie giant after a brief stint at the company. "Amy Hauk will be stepping down as CEO of Victorias Secret and PINK in order to spend more time with her family in Florida," the company said in a statement to Fox News Digital. The once-loved brand has had a tumultuous few years with an attempted rebranding that implemented "woke" policies like removing the iconic "Angels" models as well as the yearly fashion show. In 2020, Victorias Secret announced that it would permanently close around 250 stores in the U.S. and Canada after considerable profit loss. We wish Ms. Hauk a lot of fun with her family. Maybe she should take a little time to reread some of those business books about listening to and knowing your customers. In other words, men and women walk into these stores to buy lingerie and other stuff. It could be a husband like me looking for an anniversary gift. Or it could be a wife looking to surprise her husband coming home from a business trip. I never heard of anybody who went to Victoria's Secret to hear a political message. Never. I guess politics and sexy lingerie are never in the same sentence. So why do these business executives with fancy degrees and their P.C. intentions keep going woke and going broke? It reminds me of a local merchant who did not carry a certain product. I asked him why, and he said, "Because my customers don't want that." The fellow is a Vietnamese refugee who came here in the 1970s. He has no MBA from Harvard or much in formal education, but he knew what his customers wanted and stuck to it. Yes, sell what your customers want, and you won't go woke and broke. PS: Check out my blog for posts, podcasts, and videos. Image: Victoria's Secret. For over 2,000 years, the Hippocratic Oath guiding doctors has mandated "First do no harm." What happens, though, when doctors decide that it harms their patients to let them live? Under Canada's Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) program, which encourages and facilitates patient deaths, it turns out that, the song goes, "It's murder by numbers, one, two, three, it's as easy to learn as your ABCs." The New Atlantis has a deep-dive article entitled "No Other Options: Newly revealed documents depict a Canadian euthanasia regime that efficiently ushers the vulnerable to a 'beautiful' death." The first sentence sets the tone when it comes to medical care in Canada: "I find that the act of offering the option of an assisted death is one of the most therapeutic things we do," Stefanie Green tells me. Ironically, Green is a former OB/GYN who once specialized in delivering babies. Green and others like her believe they are "compassionate." That might be true if their job was to deliver a painless death a few days or hours earlier to someone in extreme agony the kind of suffering that outpaces modern pain relief. However, in Canada, it's becoming increasingly common for people to be offered a lethal injection when they have a chronic complaint that could be managed or are depressed: Image: Ellen Wiebe talking about "the most rewarding" work of her career. Video screen grab. The New Atlantis article details how, despite ostensible safeguards to limit euthanasia to imminently terminal patients in tremendous pain, euthanasia is becoming an alternative to the care that the socialized Canadian medical system isn't supplying. The safeguards promised by Trudeau and others to prevent vulnerable people from heading down the road to euthanasia turn out to be vague, pro forma, and easy to get around by doctor-shopping. And interviews with patients and their loved ones show that some of them, perhaps many, are making it to the end of that road. To appreciate the ease of access to euthanasia in Canada, consider this: California and Canada have roughly the same population just under 40 million but California, which also legalized doctor-administered death, killed 486 people in 2021, while Canada killed 10,064. Green, the obstetrician turned death doctor, has already killed more than 300 Canadians in the name of compassion and claims that the negative reports are clickbait. However, Madeline Li, a former proponent, testified before a parliamentary committee that the safeguards are "impotent." To understand just how impotent they are, consider Ellen Wiebe, M.D., who went all out to ensure that a healthy but mentally incapacitated man could die at her hands: In another CAMAP [Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers] seminar recording, we learn of a man who was rejected for MAID because, as assessors found, he did not have a serious illness or the "capacity to make informed decisions about his own personal health." One assessor concluded "it is very clear that he does not qualify." But Dying with Dignity Canada connected him with Ellen Wiebe (pronounced "weeb"), a prominent euthanasia provider and advocate in Vancouver. She assessed him virtually, found him eligible, and found a second assessor to agree. "And he flew all by himself to Vancouver," she said. "I picked him up at the airport, um, brought him to my clinic and provided for him," meaning she euthanized him. Wiebe, incidentally, has executed...er, euthanized over 400 people, and considers it "the most rewarding work" she's ever done. The CAMAP videos in the article aren't embeddable, so you must go to the article to watch them, something I highly recommend (along with reading the whole article). As California's euthanasia law reveals, death panels (for that's what they are) are a leftist goal in America. "Death by government" is the inevitable end point of socialized medicine, a government monopoly that leaves little room for innovation that will increase quality while decreasing costs and the government will always look to cut costs. The most expedient way to do so is to kill expensive patients. Remember: unlike your family, the government does not love you. To the government, you're a widget with a spreadsheet value. Once you've stopped contributing to the system, your value craters. (Just read the heartbreaking story of Les Landry.) At that moment, a social worker will suggest strongly but firmly that you should opt for a painless, terminal shot. She might even add that, by taking your now useless life, you are saving Mother Earth from the burden of sustaining another parasitical human. Prince Harry's book Spare is due to be released on Tuesday, January 10, 2023, but details about what his memoir contains have been leaking out. Amid the revelations of squabbles with his family and the sanctification of his wife, D-list actress Meghan Markle, one truly shocking revelation stands out: Harry claims to have killed 25 Taliban fighters during his service in Afghanistan. He also claims to have regarded the dead fighters as chess pieces to be taken off the board. The backlash has been intense. Retired British Army colonel Richard Kemp gave an interview in which he described Harry's remarks as not only creating a security threat to himself, but also raising the level of threat toward any British serviceman. Colonel Kemp stated that the British Army teaches respect to the enemy, including following the Geneva Conventions, and characterized Harry's boast as tarnishing the reputation of the service: It is especially sad to reflect that there was a time when Harry was very special to the British Army. He served for ten years. He rose to the rank of captain. He did two tours in Afghanistan. As third in line to the British throne, Harry certainly had a good excuse for staying out of harm's way. He chose to serve his country in an active war zone. That is admirable. He launched the Invictus Games, an international sporting event for wounded or sick veterans and those actively serving. That, too, is admirable. Why he should now choose to characterize himself and, by inference, his fellow soldiers as bloodthirsty monsters who think of enemy combatants as subhumans to be swept off a playing board is a mystery. Senior Taliban leader Anas Haqqani took to Twitter to remind Harry that his "chess pieces" were men with families. It is not unreasonable to fear that other Taliban members, irked by Harry's comments, might use something more deadly than a keyboard against members of the British military. Harry is probably beyond their reach, but his fellow soldiers are more vulnerable. I am reminded of the words of David Niven, who was both a celebrated actor and a commando in World War II. "I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war." If only Prince Harry had such wisdom and humility. Image: Prince Harry. YouTube screen grab. Pandra Selivanov is the author of The Pardon, a story of forgiveness based on the thief on the cross in the Bible. After 9/11, the West discovered that the Muslim world imposes its blasphemy laws on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Every few years, they remind us, sometimes with blood and sometimes without, that sharias proscription on images of Mohamed applies to everyone. The latest example of this sharia for all philosophy happened at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where a professor was just fired for showing pictures of Mohamed in a class about Islamic art. Most Americans didnt pay much attention to Islamic strictures before 9/11. Sure, there was Khomeneis famous 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie for daring to write about Mohamed in The Satanic Verses. Rushdie spent the next three decades living under guard. (On August 12, 2022, a Muslim fanatic finally got through the barriers and almost stabbed Rushdie to death.) After 9/11, when people understood just how violent Islam could be, there was a debate in the West about whether non-Muslims should be bound by Islams restrictive (and murderous) blasphemy laws. A convincing argument in favor of respect, was learning that the sharia death penalty for blasphemy applied not only to heretical Muslims but to everyone. In 2004, a Muslim fanatic knifed to death Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film director. His sin? He criticized how Islam treats women. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, his partner in making a film critical of that treatment, has lived under armed guard ever since. Image: Hamline University, the unlikely home of sharia, by McGhiever . CC BY-SA 3.0. By 2005, the question of whether the West should self-censor out of respect for Islam had reached such a pitch that Denmarks Jyllands-Posten decided to make a statement about free speech and the free press. On September 30, 2005, Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons satirizing Mohamed, whom Muslims identify as a prophet and the perfect man. The Muslim world that had relocated to the West went insane, engaging in blood-thirsty protests across Europe (that is, they literally called for blood). Protests in Muslim-majority countries were even more violent, leading to 250 or so deaths. Meanwhile, the cartoonists had to go into hiding. Hiding wasnt limited to Europeans. In 2010, when Trey Parker and Matt Stone had death threats made against them for drawing Mohamed in a South Park cartoon, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris created a cartoon celebrating Everybody Draw Mohammed Day to urge people not to be cowed. Instead, nobody drew Mohammed (they were cowed), and Molly Norris went into hiding, never to be seen again. After a few years of peaceful self-censorship, Charlie Hebdo, a leftist French publication, satirized Mohamed. On January 7, 2015, Muslims slaughtered 12 people in Charlie Hebdos offices and, as a bonus, also slaughtered four Jewish people at a kosher supermarket. Then, in November, as a continuation of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Muslim terrorists went to war against Paris, murdering 130 people. And that brings us to 2023 in St. Paul, Minnesota, where a professor teaching the history of Islamic art (some of which is dazzlingly beautiful) got fired for daring to include pictures of Mohamed, all of which were drawn in the Muslim world. Despite warning her students in her syllabus and on the day of the class that Mohamed would figure in the artwork, one Muslim woman got her knickers in a twist, and adjunct professor Erika Lopez Prater was out of a job: Despite the warnings, Aram Wedatalla, a senior in the class complained to administrators about the imagery the day after the images were shown and gathered support from Muslim students who were not in the class, which resulted in Prater not being welcomed back at the school. Wedatalla, who is also president of the Muslim Student Association, told the campus outlet the Oracle, Im like, This cant be real. As a Muslim, and a Black person, I dont feel like I belong, and I dont think Ill ever belong in a community where they dont value me as a member, and they dont show the same respect that I show them. Fayneese Miller, Hamlines Black president, agreed with Wedatalla, so Prater, despite showing a ridiculous amount of respect and sensitivity to Muslim students, lost her job for blaspheming a faith she doesnt practice. Ironically, before Khomeneis reignition of censorship, Muslims had for centuries painted beautiful images of Mohamed. You see, the issue isnt painting Mohamed. The issue is the Muslim worlds ability to silence people, whether because theyll be murdered, forced into hiding, or done out of a job. By doing so, Muslims successfully prove time and again that the West is subordinate to Islam. "It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV In 2008, Ben Stein released a documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, that addressed the absolute intolerance within academia and the media for even a mention of "intelligent design" as opposed to unguided evolution with regard to the origin of life. The editor of a scientific journal connected to the Smithsonian lost his job for publishing an article by Steven C. Meyer that referenced intelligent design. Journalists who addressed the issue have been fired, and professors have lost their jobs if they admitted to considering it a viable theory. As one might expect, the Wikipedia page on the film mocks it as propaganda. Say the words "intelligent design," and the Darwinian cult hears "creationist." If this sounds familiar, consider the parallel with the lab leak theory of the origin of COVID. The entire country, and most especially virologists, epidemiologists, and doctors, has endured what proponents of the intelligent design theory within academia have experienced for decades. From the outset of the release of COVID upon the world, any voices that opposed the Faustian Faucian narrative were vilified, censored, their careers threatened, just as those scientists or journalists who uttered the words "intelligent design." Schools must close, masks must be worn, people must "social distance" from one another, vaccines must be mandated. None of those things, it turns out, was necessary. Nor was any of them based on any science, not even the vaccines. They all parallel a plan laid out in Event 201, a World Economic Forum exercise that took place in October 2019. Curious timing? Indeed especially considering the participants. Bill Gates for example, has long sought ways and means to reduce the planet's population. The WEF's Klaus Schwab's right-hand man, Yuval Noah Harari, is this generation's Margaret Sanger; he hopes to rid the world of "useless eaters." Ben Stein's film addresses the eugenics movement that Sanger embraced. He explains the connection between Darwinism and Nazism and the murder of thousands of mentally ill and/or physically disabled persons during the Holocaust. There is a direct line between Darwinian natural selection and Hitler's Final Solution. The most interesting thing about Ben Stein's film is that among the hardcore adherents to the belief that evolution is scientific fact, like Richard Dawkins, people who dismiss intelligent design as if it were so much garbage, not one of them can say how life did begin. No one has ever solved that riddle, but they all are committed to Darwin's theory of evolution is if it had been proven. But it has not. A few of the scientists in the film interviewed describe it as rife with inconsistencies, such as the Cambrian Explosion, the unexplained emergence of new organisms approximately 550 million years ago. The Darwinists ignore what they cannot explain and refuse to consider all other possible scenarios. Like our vax-happy COVIDians, it is not about actual science, but about sticking to a prescribed narrative, the one devised by Fauci and Big Pharma that benefited them most of all. But science is decided not by consensus, but by proof, and no one has yet proven how life began, nor has anyone proven that COVID was not a bio-weapon or that any of Fauci's extreme responses was necessary. Rigid intolerance of new ideas has long affected scientific and medical research, from the scientists who are open-minded to the idea of intelligent design to the thousands of doctors who oppose vaccine mandates and knew that ivermectin worked and that COVID poses no danger to children. Many of them have lost their licenses to practice. In California, it is now against the law for physicians to openly defy the state-mandated treatment for COVID. This intolerance for differing ideas is moving us backward. It affects university funding. This partly explains how wokery has taken over higher education. For example, a Ph.D. who wants to teach English literature will not be hired if his research is not shot through with race, class, and gender ideologies. No philosopher, journalist, or scientist who admits to considering intelligent design will get a job. And no doctor who advocates for ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and opposes the wholly experimental vaccines will be safe from ruin by government. Stein sees the intolerance for any suggestion that intelligent design has value as a mental wall that cannot be breached...until it is, like the Berlin Wall. Just such a wall exists between the Biden administration's COVID protocols and the thousands of experts who know better; the vaccines kill. As more and more young athletes drop dead from heart issues, more and more people are perhaps waking up to that fact. All-cause mortality has risen forty percent since the vaccines rolled out. Forty percent! See Edward Dowd's book Cause Unknown. Harry Truman presciently said, "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear" (Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950). Those who that believe intelligent design may be a legitimate theory of the origins of life live in fear for their careers, just as all doctors who know that the vaccines are dangerous and want to warn against them fear for their livelihoods. The millions of us who now see that the Biden administration's FBI and DOJ are committed to silencing any and all opposition are increasingly living in fear. Watch Ben Stein's film. Need a Monday morning day-brightener? Here we go: House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy told Breitbart News that as speaker of the House he would strip Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) of their assignments on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her committee assignment on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. McCarthy also said Swalwell would not be allowed to serve on the Homeland Security Committee either. McCarthy's comments came during the latest On The Hill long-form video special, taped in December at an Eastern Market establishment on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. "The Democrats have created a new thing where they're picking and choosing who can be on committees," McCarthy said. "Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on committee. But this new standard which these Democrats have voted forif Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there is no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or Homeland Security. He will not be serving there." That's from Breitbart News's Matthew Boyle, who reports that Omar's history of anti-Semitism and downplaying of 9/11, Swalwell's steamy relationship with a woman the Intelligence Community identified as a Chinese spy, and Schiff's continuous leaks and lies pretty well made them all unfit for the House intelligence and House foreign affairs committees. It couldn't happen to a more malevolent group of leftists leftists whose contempt for the law and the American people offend at every turn. Mostly, though, it's payback, a continuation of the standards Democrats set themselves when they ousted Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar from their committee assignments, on phony accusations that they were out there shilling for QAnon, which certainly didn't seem to be obvious to anyone else out there. It was done for spite. They just didn't like them and decided to bully and humiliate them instead of debate them. Well, now the shoe's on the other tootsie, and they're forced to live under the rules and standards they created themselves. They're forced to eat their own cooking. McCarthy's action was the right thing to do, even though the Bushie types in the GOP would probably like to claim that McCarthy shouldn't stoop to such tit-for-tat antics and should be above it all. But they would be wrong. There's no other way to "teach" Democrats that in the long run, or possibly two short years, they'll be forced to live by the standards and rules, spoken and unspoken, that they laid down themselves. Doing this opens a door for them to change if they finally realize that they don't like the taste of their own cooking. Now they can live with it. If they don't like what they did, then their only hope to stop it will be to refrain from doing it next time. That way, they will get the courtesy returned by Republicans in the next round after that. The important thing is that McCarthy is not letting the action slide. They can live with it or not live with it, as they prefer, because the ball is now in their court. It will be a blessing for the rest of us not to have to hear more of Schiff's leaks and lies, censorship activity, and grotesque media manipulations, all done under cover of the secrecy of intelligence knowledge. He won't know any more than anyone else now, and he can just eat it. Same with Omar, who can no longer inject fourth-world confusion and resentments into U.S. foreign policy. Something might actually get done on that committee now, and maybe there will be some answers forthcoming on Joe Biden's monster failure in Afghanistan. Same with Swalwell, who has no business being anywhere near intelligence, given that his onetime squeeze and campaign donor, Fang Fang, is still "friends" with some of his relatives on Facebook. That guy isn't about national security; he's about politics. He can now politick on his own dime, not the intelligence community's riches. It's good to see these three singled out, which, in a competitive field, amount to the three most obnoxious members of Congress. McCarthy's act is a great start to what may be a very good speakership indeed. Image: Screen shot from MSNBC video via YouTube. In 1901, the Chicago & North Western Railway erected a new bridge over Des Moines River in Boone, Iowa, the United States. The bridge was officially named the Boone Viaduct, but the locals quickly nicknamed it the Kate Shelley High Bridge, after the heroic 15-year-old lady, Catherine Carroll Kate Shelley, who saved a train full of passengers from sure disaster. The Kate Shelley High Bridge shortly after it was completed. Photo: Chicago & North Western Historical Society It was 6 July 1881. A massive storm lashed across Boone County and the waters of Honey Creek rose quickly and dangerously, washing out the timbers that had been supporting the trestle bridge across the tributary. Concerned about the deluge, the Chicago & North Western Railway sent two pusher locomotives out to check the bridges in the route for possible damage. One locomotive headed west from Moingona toward Ogden, while the other locomotive headed east towards Boone. The second engine made its way across the long Des Moines River bridge without any incident, but as it was crossing Honey Creek, the bridge collapsed sending the locomotive and its four operator crashing into the swollen creek below. Kate Shelley, a 15-year-old Irish immigrant girl living with her family near the creek, heard the crash. Still in her nightdress, she rushed outside and ran to the collapsed bridge to find that two of the men had already climbed to safety and were clinging to the trees by the river bank. The other two men were lost in the water. Kate shouted to the men that she would get help, and then turned towards Moingona. Kayte knew than an express passenger train was due in Moingona in less than an hour, stopping shortly before heading east over the Des Moines River and then Honey Creek. If she did not reach the railroad depot in Moingona in time to warn railroad personnel there about the collapsed trestle bridge, there would be a far worse accident at Honey Creek. Kate Shelley In order to reach Moingona, Kate had to first cross the massive trestle over the Des Moines River. This bridge was nearly 700 feet long, and to discourage pedestrians, the walkways on the bridge were removed, and the ties were farther apart than normal. Kate got down on her hands and knees and with one hand on a rail and the other on a tie, started to crawl across the bridge. Later in 1888, in a speech in Dubuque, she said: Halfway over, a piercing flash of lightning showed me the angry flood more closely than ever, and swept along upon it a great tree, the earth still hanging to its roots, was racing for the bridge, and seemed for the very spot I stood upon. Fear brought me upright on my knees, and I clasped my hands in terror, and in prayer, I hope, lest the shock should carry out the bridge. But the monster darted under the bridge with a sweeping rush and his branches scattered foam and water over me as he passed. Kate completed the crossing and ran the remaining distance to the Moingona station, shouted out the news and collapsed. The station agent immediately sent out a warning telegram and the incoming train, with 200 people on board, was halted. The railroaders then organized a rescue party and went in search of the men still stranded at Honey Creek. The two men named Edgar Wood and Adam Agar were pulled out from the water, but the other two men could not be rescued. The Kate Shelley High Bridge along with the new concrete bridge. Photo: Bob/Flickr Kate was hailed as a hero. The railroad presented her with a gold medal, half barrel of flour, half a load of coal, and a lifetime pass. The Order of Railway Conductors gave her a gold watch and chain. The state of Iowa also gave her a gold medal. Social activist Frances Willard paid part of her college tuition, and a Turkish immigrant raised funds to pay her debts. In 1901 a massive steel trestle was erected over Des Moines River. Although the Chicago and North Western Railway named it the Boone Viaduct, folks began to call it the Kate Shelley High Bridge and the nickname stuck. Thus Kate became the first woman in the United States to have a bridge named after her. In 2009, the Union Pacific Railroad built a second viaduct alongside the old one. This one was officially named the Union Pacific Kate Shelley Bridge. Kate received many offers for marriage from young men but she never married and lived most of her life with her mother and sister Mary. Shelley held many odd jobs, including that of second-class teacher in Boone County, until 1903, when the Chicago and North Western Railway gave her the job of station agent at the new Moingona depot. Kate Shelley died in 1912. Years later, when the Chicago and North Western Railway began operating streamlined passenger trains, they named one the Kate Shelley 400. References: # Kate Shelley: A Girls Heroic Journey, Historynet # www.kateshelley.com Android 14 is soon to start early testing, and were all wondering what we should expect from the next big update. According to Esper, Android 14 could bring a much-needed overhaul to the share menu. This would alleviate an issue that Android users have had to deal with for a while. When you want to share an item using Android, youd sometimes have to hunt down the app you want to share to. This is cause the share menu on Android is pretty inconsistent. The arrangement of available apps can differ depending on the app youre sharing from. Also, the sharing menu itself can also look different depending on the particular Android skin. But, Android 14 could revamp the share menu This news comes from Mishaal Rahman (via XDA Developers), and it could point to some good news on the Android 14 front. However, this is very early news about a future version of Android. Youll want to take it with a grain of salt. According to the source, Google could move the share menu, or Sharesheet, to a Project Mainline module. This means that Google will be able to work on this component and push updates without having to rely on OEM input. The company will have control over the feature. Advertisement The thing is the OEMs typically want to control as much of the experience as possible. So, Using a Pixel phone, youll have a different sharing experience than using a Galaxy phone. However, if Google takes ultimate control over the share menu, it could make it consistent across different OEMs. At the moment, this is extremely early. Were not sure if Google already added the Sharesheet or if this is still in the planning stage. So, we dont have any visuals on this feature just yet. Google could start releasing the developer preview for Android 14 in a month, but we dont know if well see the new share menu even then. Youll want to stay tuned for more information on this. In November, Netflix introduced its ad-supported tier in select markets, including the United States, which allowed viewers to offset the cost of their subscription by watching ads. However, according to a report from Antenna, the ad-supported tier was off to a slow start, accounting for only 9% of U.S. subscriptions. Not only was it the least popular service tier for November, but only 0.1% of existing Netflix subscribers switched from another plan to the ad-supported service. Despite this, Netflix remains optimistic about the future of the service. At CES 2023, Netflixs President of Worldwide Advertising, Jeremi Gorman, provided some insight into the performance of the product and the companys plans. Gorman stated Netflix has been happy with the initial selection of advertisers and the diversity of brands taking part. Its really across the board. Were seeing CPG companies, luxury companies, automotive companies [and] retail. Were seeing a broad swath. Theres a wide variety of advertising types, and I think well continue to see that, said Gorman. Concerns over high ad prices and limited inventory One of the issues raised was the high ad prices Netflix has been charging, with some calling them Super Bowl CPMs (cost per thousand impressions). In a reply, Gorman defended the premium rates that Netflix charges, stating that they are justified because of the high demand and the premium content environment in which the ads are shown. Advertisement Another concern with the ad-supported tier is the limited ad inventory due to many of Netflixs content deals not including AVOD (advertising video on demand) rights. Gorman said that the company is working on the licensing issues and currently has 85% to 95% of its content available on the ad tier. Currently, Netflix is running traditional 15-second and 30-second ads but is considering offering other types of sponsorships in the future, such as single sponsors for a particular show or targeted ads based on content or demographics. There were also concerns that the ad-supported tier could cannibalize Netflixs existing subscriptions as customers switch to the cheaper option. However, Gorman brushed off these concerns, stating that Netflix customers have historically remained on their current plan. LAMPEDUSA - A reported 884 migrants on Monday were staying at the hotspot of Lampedusa, which is designed to accommodate a maximum of 398 people. On Sunday night a ferry operated by Cossyra left the small island to reach Porto Empedocle at dawn to transfer 202 guests. Poor weather conditions on Monday are expected not to allow further transfers. A reported 243 people on Sunday reached the island on six small boats. The mayor of the Pelagie Islands, including Lampedusa, Filippo Mannino, said on Monday that the State must help the island deal with migrant arrivals. "Either the State helps us, with concrete and structural and stable measures, to govern this human drama, or the State must exempt us from all those duties stemming from the management of migration flows and protect Lampedusa from all damages", he noted. The mayor was speaking from the Sicilian city of Agrigento, where the provincial committee for public order and security is being held at the prefecture, with the presence of Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi. "Since taking office - he added - I have not been the mayor of 6,000 residents but of about 20,000, considering those in transit on Lampedusa. I want to be mayor in a calm way, for my people, for the rights and needs of my fellow citizens who have been overlooked for about 30 years, ever since the immigration emergency started. Ongoing talks on Parthenon marbles not easy, Athens Government spokesperson: 'Long path, efforts continue' (ANSAmed) - ATHENS, JANUARY 9 - Greek government spokesperson Yiannis Oikonomou on Monday told reporters that talks on the Parthenon marbles between Athens and the British Museum over the possible return to Greece of the famous sculptures are "ongoing" but "not easy". "We have come a long way, there have been steps forward and efforts are continuing; the negotiations aren't easy", he said during a daily briefing with reporters. Talks are "ongoing", the government spokesman said, with the "objective of the permanent restitution" of the 2,500-year-old sculptures because Greece "doesn't recognize the British Museum's ownership", clarified Oikonomou. Athens says the sculptures that once adorned the facade of the temple of the Acropolis were taken when the country was under Ottoman occupation, while London says they were "legally bought" in 1802 by British diplomat Lord Elgin who then sold them to the British Museum. Over the past few days, British news outlets, in particular the Daily Telegraph, wrote about an imminent accord for the restitution of the statues as a "cultural exchange" and a "long-term loan" to allow the London museum to avoid a ban imposed by a British law to dismantle its collection.(ANSAmed). Lebanon:European investigators start mission on Salameh case To probe central bank governor's work (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, 09 GEN - A delegation of general prosecutors and judges from Germany, France and Luxembourg is scheduled to travel to Lebanon on Monday to continue in Beirut an inquiry into the work of the controversial governor of the Lebanese central bank, Riad Salameh, Lebanese judicial sources were quoted as saying by local media. The reports said that the European delegation will remain in Lebanon until February 20 with the intention of questioning 25 people, including Salameh and his brother Raja. The brothers are under investigation in Lebanon and Europe over alleged financial crimes. Investigators will also reportedly question CEOs and other bank officials, all indicated as potentially responsible for the financial collapse that occurred between 2019 and 2020. Lebanese media, however, stressed that members of the Lebanese judiciary, which is in part controlled by the same political elite that includes Salameh, haven't fully cooperated so far with foreign investigators. Lebanese magistrates in fact have not yet issued a subpoena for people whom European investigators intend to question, thus the presence of Salameh and those involved in the investigation to answer to the investigators' questions is not mandatory. According to local analysts and observers, the governor of the central bank, who has filled that role for 30 years, enjoys the political protection of several members of the Lebanese ruling elite. According to the same sources, from the 1990s until 2019, Salameh was allegedly responsible for several operations that made him and nearly all political and confessional leaders in the country richer. These are the leaders with whom European and Western countries in general continue to have cordial institutional relations, the sources noted. Despite being investigated in Lebanon and abroad, Salameh has never spoken about the possibility of stepping down. (ANSAmed). French National Rally: 'Houellebecq excessive on Muslims' Leader Bardella criticizes author's words (ANSAmed) - PARIS, 09 GEN - The leader of France's far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally, RN), Jordan Bardella, has distanced himself from the words used by writer Michel Houellebecq on Muslims of France, describing them as "excessive". In an interview with magazine Front Populaire, the author described Muslims as a threat for the non-Muslim French, while partially backtracking later. He said that he did not wish for the French population that "Muslims be assimilated, but for them to stop stealing and attacking. Otherwise, another solution is for them to go", said the best-selling author whose books include Submission, going as far as forecasting "Bataclan-style attacks" against the Islamic population. The party leader said the novelist's words "more or less painted everyone with the same brush", when asked to comment live on BFM-TV. "In France, we have a problem with French nationals who were born on French territory, who are here, but whose soul is elsewhere; people who behave as if they were foreign - in this case, we have a problem", continued Bardella. He added however that "there are French of Muslim religion, who come from immigration, who respect our laws and customs and who must be allowed to continue living in France". The RN leader, who comes from a family of Italian immigrants, deplored a "generalization" that "should not be made". After a controversy that lasted several days, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris confirmed on Friday that he was "dropping a complaint" against Houellebecq over his "violent" and "extremely grave" words against the Muslims of France. (ANSAmed). CAIRO - A cargo ship went aground early on Monday in the Suez Canal, sparking fears of a new block in the strategic waterway connecting Asia to Europe by sea, as occurred two years ago. However, after more than an hour, Norwegian shipowner Leth said the M/V Glory, which is 225-meter-long and weighs 65,000 tons, was refloated by tugboats of the Suez Canal Authority and 21 south-bound ships could start or resume their transit. Only minor delays were reportedly forecast. In 2021, the cargo ship "Ever Given", which was significantly larger than the M/V Glory, 400-meter-long and weighing 220,000 tons, went aground for six days, blocking global provision chains with repercussions that lasted months. The Glory suffered a "sudden technical failure", the Canal's Authority was reported as saying by the website of Bloomberg news agency, defining the cargo as a bulk carrier transporting unpackaged goods like cereal. The cargo was travelling from Turkey to China as part of a fleet, the Authority also said, according to AFP news agency. Use of the canal saves a three-week deviation to circumnavigate Africa, but it only has a width of 200 meters and a depth of 24 in some points. Approximately 12% of global trade goes through the Suez Canal with a daily flow of goods worth some 10 billion dollars, according to Lloyd's List. The canal is one of the main sources of revenue in foreign currency for Egypt with billions of dollars earned every year (nearly 8 during the last record year). The incident involving the Ever Given was reported in March two years ago and was mainly due to a sandstorm. MADRID - Spain's interior minister has organized a meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday with security force chiefs to analyse recent cases of femicides after at least 14 certain or probable cases were reported between December 2022 and the first days of 2023, Minister Grande-Marlaska was quoted as saying by Spanish media. The significant number of cases in a relatively short period of time has raised the alarm of the government and other institutions. "It is necessary to examine each possibility of improvement and coordination to avoid all cases", tweeted on Sunday Equal Opportunities Minister Irene Montero. "But we will not end gender-based violence if we don't end male chauvinism: education, prevention and feminism until there won't be any victim". A reported 49 women were believed to have been killed by partners or ex-partners in Spain during the course of 2022. Final preparations are under way ahead of the first rocket launch from UK soil. Several satellites are due to be blasted into space on Monday night from Cornwall Airport near Newquay. If all goes to plan the launch will take place at Spaceport Cornwall as part of the Start Me Up mission. The initial window for the historic mission will open at 10.16pm on Monday, with additional back-up dates continuing into mid and late January. Named in tribute to The Rolling Stones 1981 hit, the mission involves a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft and Virgin Orbits LauncherOne rocket. The 747, dubbed Cosmic Girl, will take off horizontally from the new facility while carrying the rocket. Around an hour into the flight the rocket will be released at 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland. The plane will then return to the spaceport while the rocket will ignite its engine and take multiple small satellites, with a variety of civil and defence applications, into orbit. (PA Graphics) They will be the first satellites launched into space from Europe. In the past, satellites produced in the UK have needed to be sent to foreign spaceports to make their journey into space. Speaking on Sunday, Ian Annett, deputy chief executive at the UK Space Agency, described his immense excitement. Who would not be excited by the fact this is the first time that it has been done in Europe? Thats because its hard, he said. There is a point where the training takes over and you fall into that rhythm of the teams knowing what they need to do. A scale model of Cosmic Girl showing how the rocket will be carried under the wing of the plane (Ben Birchall/PA) They know when they need to make the decisions they need to make. I would say the real achievements here are not the successes that you can necessarily see but all of the challenges that collectively as a team people have overcome. The culmination of all of that is putting these exciting missions into space. Its the things at the pointy end of the rocket that really matter. It was originally hoped the launch could take place before Christmas but owing to technical and regulatory issues it had to be pushed into 2023. Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said: We knew this was not going to be a piece of cake when we took up on the opportunity. (PA Graphics) We worked very closely with the UK Space Agency, the Civil Aviation Authority and Spaceport Cornwall, as well as the international airspace community. I think we have learned a lot doing that. I think, like any first, the first time you do it is difficult, the second time you already know and can anticipate. The short answer is we are excited to be here, and were excited about the future and coming back as soon as later this year to launch again. On Thursday, Virgin Orbits LauncherOne system successfully completed an end-to-end launch rehearsal. The Duke of Sussex has said he is not texting his brother and described the Queen Consort as the villain in an incendiary interview in the US. Speaking with CNNs Anderson Cooper, Harry said Camillas willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her dangerous and there would be bodies left in the street because of that. On Sunday, the duke also spoke with ITV presenter Tom Bradby, where he denied branding the royals racist as he accused his family of getting into bed with the devil. But speaking on 60 minutes with Anderson Cooper, Harry spoke about the royal familys mistrust of his wife Meghan Markle allegedly sparked by her being American, an actress, divorced, black, before joking: She must be a witch. Cooper put it to the duke that his family dynamic was like Game of Thrones without dragons, but Harry replied: I dont watch Game of Thrones but theres definitely dragons and thats again the third party that is the British press. During the interview, the presenter said Harry had written how he had believed his mother was still alive until the age of 23, when he visited Paris for the first time. Harry also said he was not invited onboard a plane taking other members of the royal family to Balmoral Castle, ahead of the Queens death. Speaking about his relationship with his brother, the Prince of Wales, and his father, the King, Harry said he is currently not texting William, and that he has not spoken to his father for quite a while. Harry also sat down with ITVs Tom Bradby on Sunday (Jane Barlow/PA) Do you speak to William now, do you text? Anderson Cooper asked him. Currently, no, but I look forward to us being able to find peace, Harry replied. Asked how long it had been since he had spoken to Charles, he said: We havent spoken for quite a while, no, not recently. Questioned on what his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, would think of his fractured relationship with his brother, Harry said: I think she [Princess Diana] would be sad that it is where it is now. I believe that she would want reconciliation. And I hope thats whats achievable. When asked if he could see himself returning as a full-time member of the royal family, Harry replied: I cant see that happening. On Sunday, in his first primetime television interview promoting his controversial memoir, Harry also criticised family members for a really horrible reaction on the day the Queen died, with leakings and briefings. He labelled royals complicit in the pain and suffering the Duchess of Sussex faced, and told ITVs Bradby he was speaking out in his memoir because silence only allows the abuser to abuse. Harry lambasted the British press throughout the sit-down interview on Sunday night, venting his frustration at the conflict he accused the media of creating, but saying his family had a part in this. He also told Bradby he loved his father and brother, but said: At the moment, I dont recognise them, as much as they probably dont recognise me. He added: Nothing of what Ive done in this book or otherwise has ever been any intention to harm them or hurt them. The Queen Consort was described as a villain by Harry in an interview with CNNs Anderson Cooper (Joe Giddens/PA) The truth is something that I need to rely on, and after many, many years of lies being told about me and my family, there comes a point where, you know, again, going back to the relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil, right, to rehabilitate their image. Harrys book Spare, due out on Tuesday, has sparked a furore over his claims that William physically attacked him, while his admission he killed 25 Taliban members during the Afghanistan war generated protests in Helmand province over the weekend. In shock remarks, Harry denied he accused the royal family of racism in his Oprah interview, when Meghan revealed an unnamed family member raised concerns about how dark their unborn sons skin would be. No I didntthe British press said thatdid Meghan ever mention that theyre racist?There was concern about his skin colour, the duke said. Bradby, appearing taken aback, asked: Wouldnt you describe that as essentially racist? Harry replied: I wouldnt, not having lived within that family. He added: Going back to the difference between what my understanding is because of my own experience, the difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different. The claims in March 2021 left Oprah open-mouthed with shock and plunged the monarchy into crisis as it faced accusations of racism, but Harry again refused to name the royal allegedly involved. Harry also backed the Queens former lady in waiting Lady Susan Hussey who quit an honorary role after asking a black British domestic violence campaigner where she really came from. Meghan and I love Susan HusseyShe never meant any harm at all, he said. Accusing his family of having a role in Meghans distress, Harry said: At that time I didnt fully understand how much or how complicit the family were in that pain and suffering that was happening to my wife, and the one group of people that couldve helped or stopped this from happening were the very people that were, that were encouraging it to happen. As Bradby outlined Harrys criticisms of his father including that the dukes interests are sacrificed to his interests, certainly when it comes to the press, the duke said he understood the need to have that relationship with the tabloid press but did not agree with it. He said there had been incredibly hurtful decisions, adding: And they, and it continues. It hasnt stopped. Its continuing the whole, the whole way through. Harrys tell-all tales in his book include recounting how he took cocaine and magic mushrooms, and lost his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a busy pub, with the stories have dominating the headlines for days. Harry also revealed how he felt slightly isolated and different from his family in his younger years following the death of his mother, but shared joyful times with his great-grandmother the Queen Mother. Two more interviews are set to be broadcast, with Michael Strahan of Good Morning America on Monday and Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on CBS on Wednesday morning UK time. The Duke of Sussex has insisted his grandmother the late Queen was not angry or upset with him for wanting to step down as a senior working royal. Harry, in a US television interview to promote his autobiography Spare, said the monarch knew how hard it was for him, but was sad at how things turned out. He also described how he cant ever get out of the royal family. Good Morning America presenter Michael Strahan asked the duke: Did she ever express that she was upset at you? The Queen with the royal family (Dominic Lipinski/PA) Harry responded: For what? Strahan replied: For wanting to change your role. Harry said: No. My grandmother and I had a very good relationship. It was never a surprise to anybody, least of all her. She knew what was going on. She knew how hard it was. She never said to me that she was angry. I think she was sad that it got to that point. Harrys controversial biography Spare, due out on Tuesday, comes just four months after the death of Queen Elizabeth, amid turbulent times for the monarchy with the long-running feud between Harry and his brother the Prince of Wales. Harry described his sadness that there was no compromise from his family over his hybrid plan to move to Canada but still remain part of the working monarchy in 2020. The Queen summoned the now King and his sons William and Harry to her Norfolk estate to try to resolve the Megxit crisis, but it was ultimately decided Harry and Meghan could not be half in and half out. Strahan asked: There was no compromise with the family? Harry replied: No which was really sad because I still to this day believe that this was entirely possible. Strahan asked: There are going to be people who say Why dont they either be in or get out, because if you get out theres no hypocrisy. Harry said: I cant ever get out and Im incredibly aware of my position. Im incredibly grateful for the life that Ive had and continue to live. But theres no version of me being ever able to get out of this. I was stunned that my family would allow security to be taken away, especially at the most vulnerable point for us. It was at the Sandringham summit that Harry said William left him terrified by screaming and shouting at him, the duke claimed in his Netflix documentary. TEHRAN, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that negotiations on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal are continuing through relevant channels at both sides' request. Nasser Kanaani made the remarks at a weekly press conference without further elaborating on "relevant channels," according to the official news agency IRNA. Kanaani added Iran's policy toward the nuclear issue is clear, and the country is acting within the same political framework. He said Iran is ready for the conclusion of the nuclear talks based on the European Union's proposed package. However, achievement of an agreement is a bilateral process, he said, noting that "the United States is the country that has violated its oath under the nuclear deal and must be accountable for its action." Kanaani also warned that the window of diplomacy will not remain open forever on Iran's side, as mentioned earlier by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and the country's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani, urging the other sides to act rationally and pay attention to their interests within this framework. The revival of the nuclear deal is not Iran's sole foreign policy issue, he added. A number of U.S. officials have said over the past days that the nuclear deal's revival is no longer on Washington's agenda, saying the United States is focused on the recent protests that erupted in Iran following the death of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini in a Tehran hospital on Sept. 16, a few days after her collapse at a police station. Iran has accused the United States and some other Western countries of "inciting riots and supporting terrorists" in the country. Iran signed the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to put some curbs on its nuclear program in return for the removal of the sanctions on the country. The United States, however, pulled out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to reduce some of its nuclear commitments under the deal. The talks on the JCPOA's revival began in April 2021 in Vienna. No breakthrough has been achieved after the latest round of talks in August 2022. The Duke of Sussex has said his brother, the Prince of Wales, ordered him to shave his beard off before his own wedding in 2018. Harry said he had asked permission from the Queen to keep his facial hair prior to the event and that she had allowed him to do so, but that William had been unhappy about the decision. During his first televised interview to promote his new memoir, Spare, he described his beard as a shield to my anxiety and that it made him feel like the new Harry. Speaking to ITVs Tom Bradby, he said: I thinktheres a level of competition there. I remembered that William had a beard himself and that Granny and other people, the ones to tell told him that he had to shave it off. Harry said he had asked permission from the Queen to keep his facial hair prior to the event and that she had allowed him to do so (PA) The difference for me, if there was a difference, but the difference for me was, as I explained to my grandmother, that this beard Im still that Im still wearing, felt to me at the time like the new Harry. As almost like a shield to my anxiety. He said that he had told his brother, who had confronted him about not shaving the beard, that his wife-to-be would not recognise him if he was clean shaven. I think William found it hard that other people told him to shave it off, and yet here I was on my wedding day wearing military uniform, no longer in the military, but thinking as though I believing as though I should shave it off before my wedding day. And I said well I dont believe that Meghans gonna recognise me if she comes up the aisle and sees me beardless. Harry added that he would feel very different without my beard, something that would be hard for people who have never grown a beard to understand. The ITV interview is one of four that the duke is scheduled to participate in, ahead of the release of his memoir on Tuesday. Labour has a plan for the NHS but the Government does not, a Conservative former minister has warned. Sir Edward Leigh also told the Commons that people who had paid taxes all their lives were facing the back of a two-year queue for medical treatment, as he urged ministers to address the multiple problems facing the health service. He joined other Conservative MPs airing their concerns about the NHS, as Health Secretary Steve Barclay set out the Governments plans to address immediate winter pressures facing hospitals, as well as longer term initiatives to prevent pressure building up again. Gainsborough MP Sir Edward told the Commons: They also have Covid and flu in France or Germany or Italy or Sweden or Holland. And winter after winter they cope far better because they have much more integrated social insurance systems. What is our long-term plan? We cant leave the Labour Party to have a long-term plan and we dont. How are we going to reform this centrally controlled construct the people of my age pay taxes all their life and their only right is enjoying the back of a two-year queue. What is his plan? Mr Barclay replied: Firstly, integrating between health and social care through the integrated care boards recognising that actually the pressures on the NHS are often as much about pressure in social care as they are in the NHS itself. Sir Edward Leigh (House of Commons/PA) He also said ministers were recognising that there are workforce pressures and that NHS England is working on a workforce plan. The Health Secretary said the Government has already set out an elective recovery plan, and suggested waiting time data in England was favourable compared with Labours in Wales. He added: Actually in France, in Germany, in Canada, in many other countries, this massive spike in flu and Covid pressure combined with the pressures from the pandemic has placed similar strains on other healthcare systems. Tory former cabinet minister Priti Patel asked when the extra funding announced by Mr Barclay would reach the front line, saying healthcare professionals need it to give the care that they really believe in. She mentioned issues in her Witham constituency including GP-to-patient ratios, a shortage of diagnostic facilities, and that Essex County Council needs more resources for adult social care. She said: Can he tell me, write to me please, to give me the specific details of when on all three of those areas in Essex we will see the money that he has announced today actually come to the front line? Because our doctors and nurses need that money and the resources to do really what they joined the profession for, which is to give the care that they really believe in to members of the public. The Health Secretary responded: In terms of the 500 million announced in the autumn statement, local authorities gave the department and NHS England their data returns on Friday, so we will have data. Ill be able to share more specifically in terms of the 500 million. In terms of the 250 million announced today that is for very urgent delivery into systems and that will be going out extremely quickly. Ministers must guarantee that Channel 4 privatisation is off the agenda for good, Labour has said, as a senior Conservative called for an end to picking fights. Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell criticised the Government for the total waste of time and money in examining a potential sale of the broadcaster. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan confirmed she had scrapped plans to privatise the broadcaster and said Channel 4 will now be able to make and own some of its own content. Ms Powell, speaking during an urgent question in the Commons on Monday, said: The Secretary of State has at least reached the conclusion staring her in the face that plans for the sell-off were bad for Britain, bad for our creative industries and bad for British broadcasters and advertisers. Ms Powell added: But what a total waste of time and money, at least 2 million spent on it. Theres also been a huge opportunity cost not just for Channel 4 but across the creative industries with these plans sucking the life out of all the important work ministers should have been getting on with. Ms Powell said the privatisation plans were an act of cultural vandalism from a government who simply didnt like its news coverage, adding: This is now the second time in six years that her government has proposed this what guarantees can she give that privatisation is off the agenda for good? Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell said the proposed sell-off would have been bad for Britain (Jonathan Brady/PA) Ms Donelan said the Government has outlined an ambitious plan to secure and safeguard the sustainability of Channel 4 so it can thrive and survive in the future. She told MPs: It is completely wrong to suggest that we are now not doing anything or that the money we invested in looking at this has been wasted. Channel 4 have already committed to doubling their investment to 10 million in skills around the country this is a new package. In a written statement released to Parliament earlier on Monday, Ms Donelan said Channel 4 faces limits on its ability to raise capital and its current operating model effectively stops it from making its own content. She added: After careful discussions with Channel 4, I am announcing a package of interventions that will ensure the broadcaster remains focused on sustainability and has new opportunities to grow while serving audiences in the decades to come with high-quality, innovative and distinctive content. When parliamentary time allows, we will, through the Media Bill, introduce a statutory duty on Channel 4 to consider its sustainability as part of its decision-making. We are also working with Channel 4 to agree updated governance structures that assure the government of Channel 4s long-term sustainability, including an updated Memorandum of Understanding between my department and Channel 4 which will be made publicly available. SNP culture spokesperson John Nicolson said surely evidence should have been the guiding principle from the get-go, rather than any personal agenda. Labour MP Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) asked why MPs only heard about this U-turn on Channel 4 news. Ms Donelan said she is committed to the Media Bill but could not give details on its timeframe. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said the Government has outlined an ambitious plan to secure and safeguard the sustainability of Channel 4 (James Manning/PA) Father of the House, Conservative Sir Peter Bottomley, said: I think its right to examine some of the things that were put forward a year or so ago. I wouldnt have frozen the BBC licence fee, I wouldnt have proposed Channel 4 for privatisation, and I wouldnt have put pressure on Arts Council England to strangle the ENO (English National Opera). I think theres more to be done in putting things on the right path forward. A number of Conservatives welcomed the Governments decision, including Tory former Cabinet minister Damian Green, and former culture minister Dame Caroline Dinenage appeared to as well, saying: I really very warmly welcome the Secretary of States words here. Conservative Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) said: If its going to be achieved by borrowing isnt Channel 4 going to sink under debt, that was the reason why I supported its sell-off. Ms Donelan said: We havent increased the amount that Channel 4 can borrow, that would have to be done on a case by case basis. Labours Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) branded the policy completely and utterly bonkers as he challenged the secretary of state to say Im sorry my predecessor had completely lost the plot for completely unknown reasons. Ms Donelan replied: In terms of any leaks, I can assure (him) that that was not a Government leak and there is an investigation going on. Conservative Steve Brine (Winchester) said: This is the right decision to not proceed with the sell off of Channel 4, the end I hope of picking fights. Conservative Scott Benton (Blackpool South) claimed Channel 4 has an unmistakable Liberal, left, metropolitan bias in its programming and particularly in its news output, so much so that it almost makes the BBC look impartial by comparison. Rishi Sunak has joined international condemnation of scenes in Brazil, after thousands of Jair Bolsonaros supporters stormed Congress and other public buildings. Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace were all targeted by the ex-presidents supporters, who refuse to accept his election defeat. World leaders condemned the demonstrations, which echoed the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC by Donald Trump supporters in 2021. I condemn any attempt to undermine the peaceful transfer of power and the democratic will of the people of Brazil. President @LulaOficial and his government has the United Kingdoms full support, and I look forward to building on our countries close ties in the years ahead. Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) January 9, 2023 The Prime Minister said on Twitter: I condemn any attempt to undermine the peaceful transfer of power and the democratic will of the people of Brazil. He said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has the UKs full support. I look forward to building on our countries close ties in the years ahead, he added. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly called the scenes unjustifiable. I strongly condemn the assault on democracy in Brasil. This is a major concern to all of us, the defenders of democracy. My full support to President @LulaOficial, who was elected freely and fairly. Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 9, 2023 US President Joe Biden also criticised the incidents, tweeting: I condemn the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the events a major concern to all of us, the defenders of democracy. A deaf and autistic man got a lovely surprise when he met some of his favourite TV stars in person at his local cinemas. Celebrities, including Hollywood star Olivia Colman and director Sir Sam Mendes, were spotted by eagle-eyed members of the public at a special screening of new feature film Empire Of Light in Thanet, Kent, on January 8, with the pair surprising people at various local cinemas in the area. The movie is set in an old cinema in an English seaside town in the early 1980s and explores human connection and romance. Wilfred Jenkins, 26, who is deaf and autistic and lives in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, told the PA news agency that he met Colman, as well as actor Toby Jones, at the Carlton Cinema in Westgate-on-Sea, and also Sir Sam at the Dreamland Cinema in Margate. Wilfred Jenkins met Sir Sam Mendes outside the Dreamland Cinema in Margate (Wilfred Jenkins/PA) At first I didnt know they were coming as I was told it was for extras, he said. Then I was told the celebrities (would be there), so I quickly got dressed and I came there on time. I was being looked after by Luke the security and he managed to arrange for me to meet those celebrities. Mr Jenkins added that he tends to struggle when there are big crowds of people around and so was grateful to the security for getting him to a safe place where he could meet the stars. Mr Jenkins said Colman was lovely and very kind. She knew who I was. I stood outside the cinema and she came to me and she was very happy to have a selfie with me. Toby Jones was very humble, kind and a gentleman to me along with Sam Mendes, he added. (From left to right) Wilfred Jenkins said he easily recognised Toby Jones (Wilfred Jenkins/PA) He said the trio were amazing but that he especially liked Jones as he was able to recognise him easily. I also remembered (Toby) very fondly (from) Numbertime, a BBC childrens TV show that I used watch when I was little, he added. He also recalled watching both Jones and Colman in various episodes of Midsomer Murders, where the latter played a killer in one episode and Jones played a pathologist in four episodes. A man who was involved in turning an industrial unit into a drugs factory capable of mass producing pills worth hundreds of thousands of pounds has been jailed for four and a half years. Derek Dragsnes, 49, a labourer, from Glasgow, ran the unit in the village of Salsburgh, North Lanarkshire. He was sentenced at the High Court in Livingston on Monday after pleading guilty to being concerned in the supply of etizolam, known as street valium, at a hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh last month, the Crown Office said. Prosecutors said that a lengthy and detailed police search of the premises on Springfield Road in the village uncovered pill-manufacturing equipment spread out over six rooms. One room contained a pill press machine capable of producing 171,000 tablets per hour while in another room, officers seized 53.3 kilos of white powder containing etizolam. This quantity alone would have produced more than 300,000 tablets with an estimated street value of 165,600. Elsewhere, they uncovered 8.1 kilos of blue powder containing etizolam, which could yield 50,700 tablets worth an estimated 25,350, while three other rooms appeared to have been used for the mixing and preparation of the pills. The court heard that a total of 177,731 tablets of five different designs containing etizolam with an estimated street value of 88,800 were also recovered during the police search. David Green, Procurator Fiscal for Homicide and Major Crime, highlighted the role prosecutors and partners played in securing a conviction in the case and removing a significant quantity of drugs from the black market. He said: This was a co-ordinated effort to detect significant quantities of illegal and harmful drugs. This individual is now serving a lengthy prison sentence. The Crown, working with the police, painstakingly built a case to disrupt a network of drug supply. With each case of this kind, we can help reduce the harm that these drugs inflict on Scotlands communities. We are targeting all people who threaten communities across Scotland, not only drug manufacturers but also those who direct their movements. With each case of this kind, we can help reduce the harm these drugs inflict on those communities. In addition to the tablets containing etizolam, a total of 3,476 tablets of similar appearance to the etizolam tablets and stamped with similar designs, some of which bore the mark valium on one side were also recovered and analysed. Prosecutors said that these tablets did not contain controlled drugs but were clearly designed to be sold as such to unsuspecting buyers. Dragsness scheme was uncovered in October 2021 when police officers arrived at the premises with a search warrant. They forced entry into the unit, and prosecutors said it was immediately clear that the property was being used as an etizolam lab on a commercial scale. Further searches of the property, and analysis of the tablets, were then carried out over a period of 16 days. Dragsnes was later apprehended at his Glasgow home by police officers with a search warrant. They found three money-counting machines, bank deposit bags, 8,000 in cash in 50 notes and a cardboard box containing a large quantity of mixed notes which was later counted and came to 104,270. Stormont speaker Alex Maskey has urged political parties to uphold the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement by restoring the devolved powersharing institutions. In a New Year message to all MLAs, Mr Maskey said it cannot be denied that the reputation of the Assembly has not matched the high hopes that existed for it in 1998. Devolution has been in flux since last February when the DUP withdrew its first minister from the ministerial executive in protest at Brexits Northern Ireland Protocol. Outgoing speaker Mr Maskey has been unable to leave his position because several attempts to elect a new speaker and restore the Assembly and executive have been frustrated by the DUP. In his letter to MLAs, Mr Maskey said he would make arrangements for the Assembly to meet and elect a new speaker as soon as it is clear that this can be achieved. He added: It is not for me to comment on the issues behind the current impasse. Members come to the Assembly with their own views, and the right to express those has to be respected. However, no-one should be surprised that the speaker will always want to see the Assembly fully functioning at the earliest opportunity. It is important that the Assembly should be able to exercise all the powers devolved to it, particularly at a time when the pressures on our community are increasing by the day. Mr Maskey added: It will also be 25 years since this Assembly first sat in July 1998. While I hope I will no longer be in office at that point, it is important that these anniversaries should be marked at Parliament Buildings and I will be liaising with officials and the Assembly Commission to have planning in place to ensure that happens. Despite the numerous subsequent negotiations there have been to focus on outstanding issues, undoubtedly the momentum has been disrupted throughout the past 25 years. It also cannot be denied that the reputation of the Assembly has not matched the high hopes that existed for it in 1998. Alex Maskey delivered a new year message to MLAs (Liam McBurney/PA) Since the return of the Assembly in January 2020, I made clear on a number of occasions that the Assembly remained on probation and had much to do to build public confidence. Some three years on, that will now be an even bigger task. However, regardless of past disappointments, it remains imperative that we return to having a functioning Assembly. The speaker continued: However, as we focus on seeking to see the Assembly restored in 2023, I would ask that we set our sights higher than just having parties taking up posts because they are entitled, or expected, to do so. Given the scale of the challenges ahead, we need every party to uphold the spirit, as well as the letter of the Agreement, being determined to make the institutions work collectively, to build agreement, beyond just individual party views, to protect the interests of every part of our community. I believe that we all want to see issues resolved to have the Assembly restored and I would again encourage that to happen as soon as possible in this new year. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has invited Stormont leaders for fresh talks this Wednesday in his latest attempt to break the powersharing deadlock. Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has convened talks with NI political leaders this week (Niall Carson/PA) If a new executive is not formed by January 19, the Government assumes a legal responsibility to call a snap Assembly election by April 13. Irish premier Leo Varadkar, who was reappointed Taoiseach for a second term last month, is also due to visit Northern Ireland before the deadline. Talks between the UK and EU to resolve the impasse over the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol are continuing, with both sides continuing to say a deal is possible. The DUP has made clear it will not allow a return to powersharing until radical changes to the protocol are delivered. The regions largest unionist party has blocked the formation of a new administration following Mays Assembly election and prevented the Assembly meeting to conduct legislative business as part of its protest over the Irish Sea trading arrangements. It claims the protocol has undermined Northern Irelands place within the United Kingdom by creating economic barriers on trade entering the region from Great Britain. Mr Heaton-Harris has cut the pay of MLAs by 27.5% to reflect the fact they are currently not doing their jobs as legislators. The UK is considering supplying Ukrainian forces with British tanks for the first time, in their conflict with Russia. Defence sources have confirmed talks are ongoing with the government in Kyiv regarding the possible supply of British Army Challenger 2 main battle tanks. There was no immediate detail as to how many tanks could be sent or when the delivery could take place. If it goes ahead it would represent a significant stepping up of western support to Ukraine. These conversations have been taking place. The talks are ongoing, a senior UK defence source told the PA news agency. So far, Nato members have drawn back from supplying Kyiv with tanks because of concerns over the reaction in Moscow. If Britain does go ahead, it could be a signal for other allies such as Germany and the United States to follow suit. In particular, the Ukrainians have been pressing for German-made Leopard IIs which are used by a number of Nato nations. While Poland and Finland indicated their readiness to send some of theirs, that would require approval from Germany, which holds the export licence. The government of Chancellor Olaf Schulz has however adopted a more cautious approach than some other allies, to the supply of military hardware. Downing Street said it was important that Nato members maintained a co-ordinated response. We are working in lockstep with our G7 and other allies to guard against anything that could be escalatory, the Prime Ministers official spokesman said. Theres lots of discussion among allies about how we co-ordinate the equipment we provide. First and foremost it is Russias illegal invasion that is requiring these sorts of response. The Ministry of Defence said the UK was committed to matching or exceeding last years funding for military aid to Ukraine in 2023. We have provided over 200 armoured vehicles to Ukraine to date including Stormer vehicles armed with Starstreak missiles, a spokesman said. We have also donated tens of thousands of items including helmets and body armour, mobility and logistics vehicles, anti-tank weapons, air defence missiles and systems, winter and medical equipment. McDonalds (MCD) former CEO Stephen Easterbrook agreed to repay more than $52.7 million in a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over investor fraud allegations. The agency alleges that Easterbrook defrauded the companys investors by lying about sexual relationships with company subordinates while he was CEO, resulting in a separation compensation that he should not have received because of the alleged fraud. The conflict that the company at the time said was related to a single relationship that violated company policy led McDonalds board to oust him from the company in November 2019. In an internal investigation conducted by McDonalds the following year, the company said Easterbrook originally disclosed one intimate relationship with a company subordinate. But through its investigation, the company said it discovered three additional relationships that similarly violated its rules. According to the SEC, McDonalds and Easterbook entered into a settlement agreement that characterized his termination as without cause. That characterization, the SEC said in Monday's announcement, wrongfully allowed Easterbrook to retain equity compensation that he otherwise would have been required to forfeit. McDonald's CEO Stephen Easterbrook unveils the company's new corporate headquarters during a grand opening ceremony on June 4, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. The company headquarters is returning to the city, which it left in 1971, from suburban Oak Brook. Approximately 2,000 people will work from the building. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) In its order, the SEC said that Easterbrook agreed to pay back $52.7 million to the company, representing disgorgement and pre-judgment interest on his ill-gotten gains, along with interest and agency fines. The former CEO, who neither admitted nor denied the charges, agreed to a civil penalty of $400,000 and to refrain for five years from acting as a company officer or director. The full amount of disgorgement and prejudgment interest, the SEC said, is deemed satisfied by Easterbrook's repayments to McDonalds in resolution of the companys lawsuit against him. In August 2020, McDonalds sued Easterbrook in Delaware Chancery Court in an effort to claw back separation compensation, alleging that he lied to the company when specifically asked about the three additional intimate relationships with his subordinates. In December, McDonalds reached a settlement with Easterbrook in the matter, requiring the former CEO to return more than $105 million in combined equity and cash awards. "When corporate officers corrupt internal processes to manage their personal reputations or line their own pockets, they breach their fundamental duties to shareholders, who are entitled to transparency and fair dealing from executives," Gurbir Grewal, the SEC's enforcement division director said in a statement. "By allegedly concealing the extent of his misconduct during the companys internal investigation, Easterbrook broke that trust with and ultimately misled shareholders." McDonalds also was charged with violating securities laws for allegedly withholding from investors the extent of Easterbrooks alleged wrongdoing. However, the SEC said due to the companys substantial cooperation with the agency, it would not seek to impose fines. Without admitting or denying the charges, McDonalds agreed to the order and to undertake remedial measures such as seeking and ultimately recovering the payments it made under Easterbrooks separation agreement, the SEC said. Easterbrook did not immediately respond to Yahoo Finances request for comment. Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on Twitter @alexiskweed. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit. U.S. President Biden honors people during White House ceremony marking two years since January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol in Washington (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for California after a week of storms killed at least 12 people in the past 10 days and knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the state. The emergency declaration authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts and mobilize emergency resources, the White House said in a statement. In the last week, severe weather spawned violent wind gusts that toppled trucks, flooded the streets of small towns along northern California's coast and churned up a storm surge that destroyed a pier in Santa Cruz. (Reporting by Jyoti Narayan in Bengaluru; Editing by Alex Richardson) TEHRAN, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Monday that "foreign enemies' role and involvement in the recent 'riots' in Iran were quite conspicuous." Making the remarks in an address in the northern province of Qom, Khamenei said that "the United States and different European countries each obviously played a role and entered the scene in a way during the recent unrest," according to the leader's website. He noted that by spreading propaganda on social media and through Western, Arabic and Hebrew media, the foreigners pretended the "riots" in Iran were aimed at protesting against and removing the country's weaknesses in the areas of management and economy among others, but removing Iran's strengths was what the "riots" actually sought to achieve. The leader said it is true that Iran has economic and livelihood problems, but the street "riots" will not resolve such issues. "These were undoubtedly acts of treason and the relevant authorities are reacting to them seriously and justly," he added. Protests erupted in Iran after 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini died in a Tehran hospital on Sept. 16, 2022, a few days after her collapse at a police station. Iran has accused the United States and some other Western countries of "inciting riots and supporting terrorists" in the country. RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - The United States has a Jair Bolsonaro problem. The far-right former Brazilian president flew to Florida two days before his term ended on Jan. 1, having challenged the Oct. 30 election he lost to leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But Bolsonaro left behind a violent movement of election-denying supporters, who on Sunday stormed Brazil's presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court. After watching supporters of former U.S. leader Donald Trump invade the U.S. Capitol two years ago, Democratic President Joe Biden is now facing mounting pressure to remove Bolsonaro from his self-imposed exile in suburban Orlando. "Bolsonaro should not be in Florida," Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro said on CNN. "The United States should not be a refuge for this authoritarian who has inspired domestic terrorism in Brazil. He should be sent back to Brazil." Castro said Bolsonaro, a Trump acolyte now based in the former president's home state, had "used the Trump playbook to inspire domestic terrorists." Fellow Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed those views. Nearly 2 years to the day the US Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad attempt to do the same in Brazil. We must stand in solidarity with @LulaOficials democratically elected government. The US must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida. https://t.co/rzsZl9jwZY Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 8, 2023 "The US must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida," she tweeted on Sunday. "Nearly two years to the day the U.S. Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad attempt to do the same in Brazil." Their comments turn up the heat on Bolsonaro, and highlight Washington's big decision about his future. Bolsonaro had a fractious relationship with Biden, and was already on weaker ground back home in Brazil after losing broad protections from prosecution when he stepped down as president. Those probes could lead to his arrest or prevent him from running for office, Reuters reported last week. John Feeley, who was the U.S. ambassador to Panama from 2016-2018 when the Central American nation sought the extradition of its former President Ricardo Martinelli, said the most immediate threat to Bolsonaro would come if his U.S. visa were revoked. "The United States - or any sovereign nation for that matter - may remove a foreigner, even one who entered legally on a visa, for any reason," Feeley said. "It's a purely sovereign decision for which no legal justification is required." Supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrate against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, outside Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, January 8, 2023. (Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters) A U.S. consular official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Bolsonaro had almost certainly entered on an A-1 visa, which are reserved for heads of state. A second source, a senior former U.S. diplomat, also believed it was almost certain that Bolsonaro had entered on an A-1. Normally the A-1 is canceled after the recipient leaves office. But with Bolsonaro having left Brazil and entered the United States before his term ended, the official suspected his A-1 is still active. The official, who has experience with the cancellation of visas for former heads of state, said there is no set time limit on how long someone can stay in the United States on an A-1. "We're in uncharted territory," the official said. "Who knows how long he is going to stay?" A State Department spokesperson said "visa records are confidential under U.S. law; therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases." BASELESS CLAIMS Bolsonaro may be in no hurry to return to Brazil, where he is accused of instigating a violent election denial movement with baseless claims of electoral fraud. Lula, who had already pledged to go after Bolsonaro if needed during his Jan. 1 inauguration speech, on Sunday blamed his predecessor for the invasion. "This genocidist ... is encouraging this via social media from Miami," Lula said. "Everybody knows there are various speeches of the ex-president encouraging this." In a tweet on Sunday, Bolsonaro rejected Lula's accusations and said the invasion had crossed the line of peaceful protest. Jair Bolsonaro, then president of Brazil, speaks during the Brazil-USA Business Relations Seminar, in Miami, Florida, U.S., March 9, 2020. (Marco Bello/Reuters) Bolsonaro was already under investigation in four Supreme Court criminal probes before stepping down as president. In the wake of Sunday's invasion, legal experts said he may find himself the target of a Supreme Court probe, led by crusading Justice Alexandre de Moraes, into anti-democratic protests, which has already yielded several arrests. If Moraes were to sign an arrest warrant while Bolsonaro is in the United States, the former president would be technically required to fly back to Brazil and hand himself over to police. If he refused, Brazil could issue an Interpol Red Notice to prompt his arrest by U.S. federal agents. If detained on U.S. soil, Brazil would then have to formally seek his extradition. Bolsonaro would be free to appeal in the U.S. courts, or he might attempt to seek asylum, although that offers no guarantee of preventing his eventual return to Brazil. Former Panamanian President Martinelli was extradited from the United States back to Panama in 2018, three years after Panama's Supreme Court issued its arrest warrant. A migrant looks through donated clothes at a makeshift shelter in Denver, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. Over the past month, nearly 4,000 immigrants, almost all Venezuelans, have arrived unannounced in the frigid city, with nowhere to stay and sometimes wearing T-shirts and flip-flops. In response, Denver converted three recreation centers into emergency shelters for migrants and paid for families with children to stay at hotels, allocating $3 million to deal with the influx. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert) DENVER (AP) Javier Guillen just wanted to get to the United States as he endured a three-month trek from Venezuela, hiking through Central American jungles and spending four days clinging to the roof of a Mexican train known as the beast to avoid police and kidnappers. But when he finally arrived in El Paso, Texas, last week, the 32-year-old settled on a new destination, only one relatively cheap bus ride away Denver, an additional 680 miles (1,094 kilometers) north from the border. Its the easiest place, closest to Texas, and there are people wholl help immigrants here, Guillen said before making his way to one of a network of shelters the city has scrambled to set up. Over the past month, nearly 4,000 immigrants, almost all Venezuelans, have arrived unannounced in icy Denver, with nowhere to stay and sometimes dressed in nothing more than T-shirts and flip-flops. The influx took city officials by surprise as they grappled with a spate of winter storms that plunged temperatures to record lows and disrupted transit out of the area. When they appealed to the state to open new shelters, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who had allocated $4 million to help care for the migrants, arranged for those who wanted to travel onward to go by bus to Chicago and New York. That led New York Mayor Eric Adams, also a Democrat, who had already warned his city was being overwhelmed by new migrants, to complain about the transfers from Denver. The situation illustrates how record numbers crossing the southern border are reverberating northward to cities like Denver, New York and Washington that have long been destinations for immigrants but not busloads of them showing up all at once, straight from the border and with no resources. They are getting a taste of what border cities have been facing, said Julia Gelatt, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. The fact that people are showing up in groups with a need for basic services really is new for northern cities. In some instances, Republican governors primarily Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have tried to drive home that message by transporting immigrants straight from the border to New York or near Vice President Kamala Harris' Washington residence in the nation's capital. Last year Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also sent some to the resort island of Martha's Vineyard. It's not clear precisely how Denver became a new destination for Venezuelans fleeing their country's economic and political chaos. Advocates had detected small numbers arriving from the border earlier in 2022 and warned the route was becoming increasingly popular. Then, last fall, many traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border in hopes the Biden administration would end a pandemic regulation that lets the country automatically return asylum seekers to Mexico. Instead, President Joe Biden added Venezuelans to the nationalities covered by the rule in October. Venezuelan crossings dropped at the border, but then something changed in Denver. Whatever the trigger, the number of migrants arriving in the city spiked dramatically in December to sometimes 200 a day, just as a bitter winter freeze and record low temperatures swept through. The storms snarled roads out of the city and canceled several scheduled bus trips to points east, stranding many in a city already struggling to shelter its homeless population. In response, Denver converted three recreation centers into emergency shelters for migrants and paid for families with children to stay at hotels, allocating $3 million to deal with the influx. It reassigned workers to process the new arrivals, assign them to shelters and help them get on buses. Residents donated piles of winter clothing. Cities and states are ill-equipped to deal with this, Mayor Michael Hancock said in an interview. Whether you're on the border or in Denver, Colorado, cities are not set up for this. Amelia Iraheta, a city public health employee reassigned to work with the migrants, said one man reported walking from the border and arrived with a broken foot. One woman, who reached Denver barefoot, still had her feet covered with cactus spines after walking through the borderland desert. Most wore just the clothes on their back woefully insufficient for the subzero temperatures. Coming into Denver in the peak of winter, conditions were not exactly what I think they had been expecting, Iraheta said. Most weren't intending to stay long. The city and state say about 70% of the more than 3,800 migrants who've come to Denver since they began tracking on Dec. 9 planned to go elsewhere ultimately. More than 1,600, the city says, have already left town on their own accord. Polis' office said he was not available for an interview. The state's priority is ensuring people are receiving the resources they need and can reach their desired final destination, which is the opposite of actions other states have taken to send people to places they likely had no intention of going to, spokesman Conor Cahill said in a statement. Jennifer Piper of the American Friends Service Committee, which has worked with the city and several nonprofits to help the migrants, inspected one of the buses before it left Denver. She said all passengers agreed they were on it voluntarily and that almost all had friends or family in New York or Chicago to stay with. These are grown-ups in control of their own destiny, Piper said. The reality is they were going to be on Greyhound buses eventually. The city has set a 14-day limit on stays in the emergency shelters and is talking to other agencies and nonprofits about opening longer-term facilities. It's unclear how Biden's new immigration policy, which opens an additional 30,000 monthly slots for asylum applicants from Venezuela and three other Latin American nations, will affect the flow into Denver. I really think this is not a flash in the pan, Piper said. Denver is now on that route, and I don't think that will shift for at least the next 5-6 months. It may last longer. Alexander Perez, 23, took the same daunting, monthslong overland journey through Colombia, Central America and Mexico as many other Venezuelans. It includes a particularly brutal stretch of jungle isthmus into Panama known as the Darien Gap, devoid of any roads and plagued by armed marauders and deadly natural perils. Along the way he kept thinking about joining a cousin in New York. Following a week in El Paso, he hopped a bus to Denver with the intent of continuing northeast. But after finding a warm welcome and, eventually, a hotel room, he began to reconsider his itinerary. He needed to make some money before heading on. Sometimes God leads you places, Perez said, standing outside a supermarket, eyeing mounds of dirty snow. Maybe, Perez mused, he could stay and earn some money shoveling. A dead Finback whale lies on the sand after being brought to shore at the Mississippi Gulf Coast beach in Pass Christian, Miss., Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023. (Hunter Dawkins/The Gazebo Gazette via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (AP) Scientists are examining the corpse of an endangered whale that washed up on a Mississippi Gulf Coast beach. The rare discovery Saturday marks the first time a fin whale stranding has been reported in Mississippi and just the fourth time since 2002 a fin whale stranding has been reported in the Gulf of Mexico, WLOX-TV reported. Scientists from the nonprofit Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and other organizations will study the remains, which washed ashore in Pass Christian. Dr. Moby Solangi, director of the institute, told the Gazebo Gazette that the whale is 30 feet (9 meters) long and weighs between 12,000 and 15,000 pounds (6,804 kilograms). It might have been inadvertently pushed to shore by a ship. The mammal was probably sick and the body got caught in a ship channel, Solangi said. Scientists will determine the cause of death based on pending lab results. After the fin whale population declined due to hunting, the species was classified as endangered and granted protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. WASHINGTON In a scene reminiscent of the violent Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, in the U.S., supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed their Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace Sunday in the capital city of Brasilia. The uprising of Bolsonaro supporters who refused to accept his defeat came a week after his leftist rival, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was inaugurated. Lula da Silva was in Sao Paulo and not in the presidential palace at the time of the breach. Since December, Bolsonaro has been staying in Orlando. In El Paso, Texas, where he was making his first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office, President Joe Biden denounced the attacks in the Brazilian capital. "It's outrageous," he told reporters. Later, in a message posted on Twitter, Biden condemned "the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil." "Brazils democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined," he wrote. "I look forward to continuing to work with @LulaOficial." I condemn the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. Brazils democratic institutions have our full support and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined. I look forward to continuing to work with @LulaOficial. President Biden (@POTUS) January 8, 2023 Bolsonaro, like former President Donald Trump, spent the months since his defeat making claims that election officials and hackers rigged the election. He has spent years challenging Brazil's election system, similar to Trump who spent months saying the 2016 election was being rigged until he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump has repeatedly pushed the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. The claims from Bolsonaro precipitated Sunday's violent scene, with thousands of demonstrators busting through security barricades, scaling walls, destroying property and invading Congress, their high court and the presidential palace. They donned green and yellow colors and carried matching flags symbols of the Bolsonaro presidency, much like the MAGA hats and Trump 2020 banners of the rioters two years ago. Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the the National Congress building in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Some demonstrators in Brazil called for a military coup to restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power. Videos on social media showed protesters attacking police officers with sticks and poles, and, upon breaking into the buildings, they built barricades to keep police out. It took about three hours for security forces to regain control in Brazil. The number of arrests or injuries was not immediately known. A major difference between the U.S. and Brazil uprisings is that the Jan. 6 mob entered the Capitol during an active session of Congress while the presidential election results were being certified. In Brasilia, there were few workers inside the buildings being compromised. The Jan. 6 attack in the U.S. prompted an exhaustive Senate report, House select committee hearings and federal investigations into whether Trump and his top associates should be held legally accountable. About 150 police officers were injured that day and hundreds more have said they were traumatized by the rioters. At least seven people lost their lives in connection with the violence. Two years later: Two years since the Jan. 6 insurrection, extremist groups are fragmented, but live on Contributing: USA Today's Michael Collins and The Associated Press This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Brazil protesters storm Congress, high court in echo of Jan. 6 ATLANTA (AP) Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is done being underestimated. Having vanquished both a Donald Trump-backed Republican challenger and Democratic star Stacey Abrams to win reelection, Kemp is looking to expand his influence in his second term, free from the caricature of the gun-toting, pickup-driving, migrant-catching country boy that emerged during his first campaign for governor. A new vision of Kemp steering his party toward a non-Trumpian conservatism made its debut in his November victory speech after it became clear that he had defeated Abrams by a much larger margin in their rematch than he had in their tight 2018 matchup. This election proves that when Republicans stay focused on real-world solutions that put hardworking people first we can win now, but also in the future, yall, Kemp said. Kemp pledged that night to stay in the fight and followed with concrete steps: He kept his political operation running and lent it to the unsuccessful Senate runoff campaign of Herschel Walker, while forming a federal political action committee that lets the governor influence races for Congress and president. He hasnt ruled out running for the U.S. Senate in 2026 or even seeking the White House. Beyond his own advancement, Kemps victory could provide a blueprint for Republicans in competitive states after voters rejected many of the Trump-molded candidates in 2022. Its a less showy approach, aimed at luring independents and moderates while still achieving conservative policy goals. If Republicans looking forward are focused on winning, I think a lot of folks will be calling Gov. Kemp and wanting his advice, but also trying to replicate the things he did here, said Cody Hall, Kemps political adviser. Former Sen. David Perdue, right, speaks during a gubernatorial republican primary debate toward Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, left, on May 1, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, Pool) Kemp, now 59, was a real estate developer and state senator before Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed him secretary of state in 2010. Eight years later, Kemp was on his way to defeating an establishment candidate for the GOP nomination for governor when Trumps endorsement supercharged his campaign, which focused on gun rights and opposition to illegal immigration. After Kemp defeated Abrams in the 2018 general election by just 1.4 percentage points, she accused him of using the secretary of states office to improperly purge likely Democratic voters. A federal court later rejected legal claims questioning Kemps actions. In his first term, Kemp logged some big conservative achievements, including signing stringent abortion limits in 2019. He also made a diverse slate of appointments and kept his promise of $5,000 raises for public school teachers, moves aimed at solidifying his appeal to the middle in an anticipated Abrams rematch. Kemps relationship with Trump began to deteriorate after the governor appointed Kelly Loeffler to the Senate instead of Trumps preferred pick. Trump later took shots at Kemp over his decision to reopen businesses early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and the presidents rage boiled over when Kemp refused to help Trump and his allies overturn Joe Bidens narrow victory in Georgia in the 2020 election efforts that are now the subject of investigations by state and federal prosecutors. Trump vowed revenge against Kemp, but the governor pressed forward. In 2021, Kemp signed into law a sweeping Republican-sponsored overhaul of state elections inspired by Trumps false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. He also pushed through a bill loosening gun laws. Trump endorsed former Sen. David Perdue as a primary challenger to the governor. Kemp, who never publicly challenged Trump or even responded directly to his tirades, ended up crushing Perdue in the primary. In the meantime, his distance from Trump provided Kemp with credibility among independents and even some Democrats. Its just given him a gravitas you cant buy, said Brian Robinson, a Republican political consultant. Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, left, and Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams face off in a televised debate, in Atlanta, Oct. 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Ben Gray) Even some Democrats acknowledge Kemps increasing political strength after his nearly 8 percentage-point victory over Abrams. State Rep. Al Williams, long close to Abrams, said Kemp is at the height of his powers going into a second term. His inauguration is Thursday. Williams and other backers say that Kemps incumbency, plus the billions in federal COVID-19 aid that he alone decided how to spend under Georgia law, were factors in his win. He spent it very effectively and spread the net wide," Williams said. As the Senate race turned to overtime, Kemp was called on to help Walker in his runoff against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Kemp, who had secured GOP donors and built his own political organization independent from a state party run by Trump acolytes, turned over his voter data operation to allow the Walker campaign to tailor messages to different factions of Republican voters. Still, Kemp largely maintained his distance from Walker, whose campaign was beset by accusations that he had paid for abortions, behaved violently toward women and lied about his education, work history and personal background. Shortly before the runoff, Kemp agreed to appear in a television ad endorsing Walker but made sure that it was his own political team that wrote the script. Steven Law, who leads the political action committee aligned with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, said Kemp did what savvy political heavyweights do: He helped his party while establishing and protecting his own brand. Weve had a party where Trump has had a decisive gravitational pull, and heres a person in Brian Kemp who just stayed apart from that orbit, made his own calls, decided things his way not in opposition to Trump, but at the same time not in obedience to him, Law said, calling Kemps balancing act remarkable. Weve had a party where Trump has had a decisive gravitational pull, and heres a person in Brian Kemp who just stayed apart from that orbit, made his own calls, decided things his way.Steven Law Kemps future political path remains unclear, but he has options. In Georgia, hes never been identified as having open national ambitions, either for the presidency or Senate, and Robinson noted that Kemp has never spoken of Washington fondly. Law demurred when asked whether McConnell or his team has broached the possibility of Kemp running for the Senate in 2026, when Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff would face voters again. Theres also the possibility of a vice presidential bid or a future Cabinet post. Perhaps most likely is a larger role in the Republican Governors Association: Hes now on the RGAs executive committee and could become chair in 2025 or 2026. Hall said Kemp wants to help other states elect conservatives who advocate freedom and liberty and personal responsibility while promoting education, a strong economy and good jobs. Whatever he can do to help more folks like that get elected, Im sure he will, Hall said. At home, Kemp is the paramount party leader and unchallenged boss of state government in a way thats new for him. With a new House speaker and lieutenant governor leading the General Assembly, Kemp is unlikely to meet resistance from GOP majorities. So far, though, hes offered a minimalist second-term agenda: income tax and property tax rebates, some criminal justice measures and minor education changes. His biggest promise is continuity, adding four more years to 20 years of Republican rule in Georgia. The governor could also take firmer control of GOP machinery if he backs an effort to push out Georgia Republican Chair David Shafer, a Trump ally. He is carrying around bags of political capital like the Monopoly man, Robinson said, marveling at what he calls Kemps clear and very empowering mandates from the primary and general election. Go ahead and put a monocle and top hat on him. FILE - EPA Administrator Michael Regan, right, speaks to reporters at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant, a Ridgeland, Miss.-based facility near Jackson, Miss., about longstanding water issues that have plagued the city, Nov. 15, 2021. A Mississippi environmental regulator has denied claims that the state agency he leads discriminated against the capital city of Jackson in allocating federal funds and said he believed an ongoing civil rights investigation into the matter was politically motivated. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) JACKSON, Miss. (AP) A Mississippi environmental regulator has denied claims that the state agency he leads discriminated against the capital city of Jackson in its distribution of federal funds for wastewater treatment. In a recently unearthed letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality Executive Director Christopher Wells wrote that the NAACP has failed to allege a single fact to support its argument that the agency discriminated against Jackson. He said he believed the ongoing civil rights investigation into the matter was politically motivated. Jackson received a loan for every completed application it submitted, Wells wrote. And, because the amount of the loan is based on the cost of the project, no loans were reduced for any reason that could be considered discriminatory. Disruptions to Jackson's water services have ailed the city for years, and its system nearly collapsed in late August after heavy rainfall exacerbated problems at the city's main water treatment plant. Most of Jackson lost running water for several days, and people had to wait in lines for water to drink, cook, bathe and flush toilets. Wells' Dec. 16 letter was sent almost three months after the NAACP filed a federal complaint under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids federal fund recipients from discriminating on the basis of race or national origin. The complaint said that Mississippi officials all but assured a drinking water calamity by depriving Jackson of badly needed funds to upgrade its infrastructure. Over 25 years, Jackson received funds from an important federal program only three times, the NAACP said. When Jackson tried to fund improvements itself, those efforts were repeatedly blocked by state political leaders, according to the complaint. The EPA announced on Oct. 20 that it was investigating whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the states majority-Black capital city by refusing to fund improvements to the water system. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has visited Jackson multiple times and has said longstanding discrimination has contributed to the decline of the citys water system. The federal agency could withhold money from Mississippi if it finds wrongdoing potentially millions of dollars. If the state agencies dont cooperate with the investigation, the EPA could refer the case to the Department of Justice. In his letter, Wells wrote that alleged Title VI violations are based on unarticulated and evolving standards and would run counter to this nations system of federalism, WLBT-TV reported. Wells wrote that the EPA investigation is part and parcel of a political effort to divert attention away from the city of Jacksons own failures. He contends that Jackson's water woes are results of city mismanagement rather than discrimination by the state. The EPA had been aware of Jackson's water problems for years, including when the city entered into a consent decree with the agency in 2012 after it was cited for violating the Clean Water Act, Wells wrote. Competing claims over the cause of the capital city's water trouble has ignited tension between local officials in Jackson, a Democratic stronghold, and Mississippi's Republican state leaders. The AP reported in September that when Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves was the state treasurer in 2011, he touted his own track record of fiscal conservatism by citing his opposition to spending state money for water and sewer projects in Jackson. The EPA is not investigating Reeves. Ahead of the water crisis last summer, people in Jackson had been advised to boil water before consuming it because health officials obtained samples that showed the water could be dangerous to consume. That advisory remained in place until mid-September. The problems returned again during Christmas weekend when frigid weather caused water lines to break and the citys water distribution system failed to produce adequate pressure. Boil water notices in some city neighborhoods remained in place until Jan. 7. Jackson is set to receive nearly $800 million in federal funds for its water system, the bulk of which comes from the $1.7 trillion spending bill that Congress passed in December. ___ Michael Goldberg 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 him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg. FILE - Pope Francis presides over an Epiphany mass in St.Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, on Jan. 6, 2023. Pope Francis on Monday Jan. 9, 2023 broke his silence on the nationwide protests convulsing Iran, denouncing the recourse to the death penalty there and seemingly legitimizing the protests as demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) ROME (AP) Pope Francis on Monday broke his silence on the nationwide protests convulsing Iran, denouncing the recourse to the death penalty there and seemingly legitimizing the rallies as demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women. Francis made the comments in an annual speech to ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, a foreign policy speech the pope delivers at the start of each year outlining the areas of greatest concern for the Holy See. In his remarks, Francis linked the Vaticans opposition to abortion to its opposition to the death penalty, saying both are a violation of the fundamental right to life. Francis has changed church teaching on the death penalty, ruling it is inadmissible in all circumstances. The right to life is also threatened in those places where the death penalty continues to be imposed, as is the case in these days in Iran, following the recent demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women, Francis said. The death penalty cannot be employed for a purported state justice, since it does not constitute a deterrent nor render justice to victims, but only fuels the thirst for vengeance. His comments marked his first public remarks about the protests that erupted in Iran in mid-September over the death of Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old woman died after being arrested by Irans morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republics strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly removing the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab. At least four people have been executed since the demonstrations began, following internationally criticized, rapid, closed-door trials. At least 519 people have been killed in the monthslong demonstrations, with more than 19,200 others arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group thats been monitoring the protests since they began. Its become one of the greatest challenges to Irans Shiite theocracy since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Francis has been cautious to not call out Irans government, given his attempts to foster dialogue with the Muslim world. Francis has forged a strong relationship with the imam of the Al-Azhar in Cairo, the seat of Sunni learning. But his attempts to forge dialogue with the Shiite world have been more circumspect, though he held a landmark meeting in 2021 with the top Shiite cleric in Iraq, the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. There was no immediate reaction to Francis remarks, though Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday called for a stern reaction to the ongoing demonstrations. He said those who set fire to public places had committed treason with no doubt a crime that carries the death penalty in the Islamic Republic. He also repeated an allegation that foreign powers had fomented the unrest, without providing evidence to support the claim. The remarks by Khamenei could embolden authorities to continue the harsh punishment of detainees. Francis referred to the Iran protests in lamenting overall that women in many parts of the world are treated as second-class citizens. They are subjected to violence and abuse, and are denied the opportunity to study, work, employ their talents, and have access to health care and even to food, he said. While Francis has appointed women to many high-ranking jobs in the Vatican, some women say they too are treated as second-class citizens in the Catholic Church since they can't be ordained priests. Francis also referred to Iran in his remarks lamenting the continued threat posed by nuclear weapons in Russia's war in Ukraine, but also in the breakdown of talks over Irans atomic program. Francis has changed church teaching to declare that not only the use of nuclear weapons, but the mere possession of them is immoral. He said the stall in Iran talks was a point of particular concern. It is my hope that a concrete solution can be reached as quickly as possible, for the sake of ensuring a more secure future," the pontiff said. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, though it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels and has drastically limited international oversight of its atomic activities in recent years since the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers. In his remarks, Francis listed conflicts, natural disasters and migration crises afflicting the planet, but also the threats to democracy particularly in the Americas. Making a last-minute change to his speech, he added in the events in recent hours in Brazil, a reference to the thousands of ex-President Jair Bolsonaros supporters who stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace then trashed the nations highest seats of power. In many areas, a sign of the weakening of democracy is heightened political and social polarization, which does not help to resolve the urgent problems of citizens, he said. I think of the various countries of the Americas where political crises are laden with tensions and forms of violence that exacerbate social conflicts. In addition to Brazil, he cited Peru and Haiti, in saying that there is a constant need to overcome partisan ways of thinking and to work for the promotion of the common good." ___ Jon Gambrell contributed to this report from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Reuters) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed an effort by a group of Republican state officials to revive former President Donald Trump's hardline policy that barred certain immigrants deemed likely to require government benefits from gaining lawful permanent residency. The justices turned away an appeal by 14 Republican state attorneys general, led by Ken Paxton of Texas, of a lower court ruling against their request to mount a legal defense of Trump's "public charge" rule after President Biden's administration stopped defending the measure and later rescinded it. The policy was put into effect by Trump's administration in February 2020 and ended by Biden's in March 2021. Paxton was joined by attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia. Trump's administration in a 2019 rule significantly widened the definition of "public charges" who were ineligible for legal U.S. permanent residency, or green cards. The expanded restriction applied to immigrants who receive a government benefit including the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor and food stamps for more than 12 months in any three-year period. A federal judge in Illinois vacated the rule nationwide. The judge later rejected the Republican bid to intervene, saying the request by the state officials came too late, and the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last June agreed. The Republican officials had told the justices that they should be able to defend Trump's rule, saying it has been estimated to save states collectively about $1 billion annually. The Supreme Court last year heard arguments over a separate bid by Republican state officials to intervene in defense of Trump's public charge rule but ultimately dismissed the case without resolving the issue. Biden's administration last September adopted a narrower rule under which immigrants would be deemed public charges only when they are likely to become primarily dependent on the government for subsistence, mirroring a 1999 regulation that had been in place for two decades. Texas on Thursday filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging Biden's rule. Republicans have sharply criticized the immigration policies of Biden, who came into the White House vowing to undo some of the hardline rules pursued by Trump. YEREVAN, JANUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. The government of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) is planning to issue ration stamps for food and other essential products amid the ongoing Azeri blockade. Azerbaijan is keeping the Lachin Corridor blocked since December 12, 2022. The corridor is the only road connection and supply route of Artsakh with Armenia and the rest of the world. The mechanisms for introducing the system have already been developed, the government said following a meeting chaired by State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, who heads the emergency headquarters of the government during the blockade. The ration stamps will initially be applied for several types of essential products. The system will be introduced within several days. After holding town hall meetings across Artsakh, the State Minister said that the meetings proved that the hardships of the blockade did not break the peoples spirit. He said the people have brought forward questions and issues. Three types of issues were raised local issues concerning the specific settlement, general issues requiring systemic solutions, and complaints. There are also urgent issues which must be solved as a priority, Vardanyan said, adding that most questions concerned the ration stamp system. The meeting also addressed the possibility of transporting severely-ill patients through the International Committee of the Red Cross - ICRC, as well as reuniting separated families with minors. Coordinated work with the ICRC was highlighted in these directions, the government of Artsakh said in a readout. The situation in the food, medication, petroleum and diesel fuel markets, as well as ongoing work to ensure uninterrupted energy and water supply, and functioning of other infrastructures was discussed. MOGADISHU, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, said Monday that it has shipped about 30 metric tons of medicine and medical supplies to support lifesaving health services in the most affected areas in Somalia. Wafaa Saeed Abdelatef, the UNICEF representative in Somalia, said children and women make up more than 80 percent of Somalia's displaced population, and children are among the most severely affected, with 5.1 million in need of humanitarian assistance. These challenges are compounded by outbreaks of cholera and measles, which further increase vulnerability, she said. "The arrival of this shipment is critical for Somali children and families who are facing significant challenges due to the drought and associated outbreaks of cholera and measles," Saeed said in a statement issued in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. She said the essential medicines, midwifery kits and other medical supplies will enable UNICEF and its partners to reach approximately 1.3 million people in need and ensure that they have access to lifesaving health services. UNICEF said it is working with the government and implementing partners to target famine-risk districts that are particularly vulnerable as many children, mothers, and people with illnesses or malnutrition in these areas may be unable to access healthcare. Its top priority is to sustain a robust response to this crisis and provide an integrated package of services, including lifesaving health care, immunizations, treatment for severe acute malnutrition and access to safe and adequate water and sanitation for the most vulnerable children, it said. YEREVAN, JANUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Based on the proposal of the Prime Minister of Armenia, President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed a decree appointing Vahe Ghazaryan as Minister of Internal Affairs. Vahe Ghazaryan held the position of Police Chief. We will review and repair every process to prevent or address any incidents of such unruly nature, Chandrasekaran said NEW DELHI: Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran said Sunday that the incident on New York-New Delhi flight in which a passenger urinated on a woman passenger has been a matter of personal anguish to him and the airlines response should have been much swifter. The incident on Air India Flight AI102 on November 26th, 2022 has been a matter of personal anguish to me and my colleagues at Air India. Air Indias response should have been much swifter. We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been The Tata Group and Air India stand by the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew with full conviction. We will review and repair every process to prevent or address any incidents of such unruly nature, Mr Chandrasekaran said in a statement. In a delayed action, pending inquiry, Air India de-rostered one of the two pilots and four cabin crew members. On Saturday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the airline was reviewing its alcohol serving policy on international flights. The CEOs statement made it clear the airline was aware of the incident just a day after it took place on November 26. However, sources in Air India confirmed that when the flight in question -- AI102 -- landed in Delhi, the cabin crew in charge filled in a detailed report of what happened and this was countersigned by the captain. According to the laid down procedure, after every flight, the cabin crew in charge fills out a report of what happened in the cabin during the flight. It is read and counter-signed by the captain," said Capt. S.S. Panesar, a former pilot and former director of flight safety and training of the erstwhile Indian Airlines. If the cabin crew department and Air India did not read or react promptly to the report, how can they blame the captain now? De-rostering and giving the captain a showcause notice is absolutely unfair and ridiculous, Capt. Panesar added. He strongly believes that Air India is making the crew members and the captain scapegoats to avoid any embarrassment and their own fault. Officers such as the director, in-flight services, and other higher-ups in the organisation who sat on the report or tried to broker a deal between the accused and the victim should be punished rather, he said. The pilots fraternity is rallying behind the crew and the captain as they believe that if any action was needed against them, it should have been taken on November 27 or immediately after the incident. They said that the de-rostering of the crew was a clear attempt by the airline to deflect and dissipate culpability. The management was made aware of the incident by the crew via a written report on landing. The management could have asked for more details if the report was not clear. Instead, the airline tried to bury the issue by negotiating with passengers concerned," Capt. Ajay Ahlawat, an Air Force veteran, said. Capt. Amit Singh, the founder of an NGO Safety Matters Foundation, said: The root cause is the prevailing poor safety culture in the airline. While the crew may be held responsible if the incident was not reported, but the management is culpable if the reports were submitted. He added: The management has expressed their regret but still has not apologised. The expression of regret sidesteps the central issue of fault, the admission of which is, after all, what an aggrieved party is seeking. Performance may be key factor, focus on 9 election-going states NEW DELHI: With Prime Minister Narendra Modi likely to go in for a Cabinet rejig on the basis of performance, some key Union ministers are reportedly on edge. The reshuffle could take place between January 15 and 25. Sources said that while speaking to top party leaders, the Prime Minister had hinted that it was time to make changes. A senior party leader revealed that after the results of the recent polls in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the Prime Minister had indicated that despite the historic victory in Gujarat, he was not too pleased with the outcome. This observation has apparently been quite disturbing for some of his key ministers and party office-bearers. Though the BJP decimated the Opposition during the Gujarat Assembly elections, the results in both the Delhi MCD polls and the Himachal Assembly elections were a body blow to the party. Some of the MPs from Himachal Pradesh and Delhi, who apparently indulged in factionalism during the polls, were moving around somewhat worried, a senior party leader said. While it remains to be seen which leaders might face the axe, the proposed reshuffle would be carried out with an eye on forthcoming elections in nine states this year and the 2024 general election. The nine states that will go to the polls this year are Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. It was learnt that the MPs from the poll-bound states may be accommodated in the revamped Cabinet. While there is a buzz the PM may drop non-performing ministers, some MPs who have been star campaigners in various states also expect to be inducted into the Modi Cabinet. Since this might possibly be the last ministerial reshuffle before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, hectic parleys have begun to get into the Modi Cabinet. At least two MPs from Gujarat are likely to be rewarded for the partys stellar performance in the recent Assembly elections. Sources also said that the Prime Minister was also considering inducting more women into the Union Cabinet. Kishwar Desai, is the chair of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, which is setting up the Partition Museum at Town Hall, Amritsar. All of London has been talking about nothing else. Happy 2023. Brrr. It is cold here and snow is threatened this coming week. Of course, while there may have been a Santa in your lives in December it was certainly not the government scattering gifts and going Ho, Ho, Ho! So the merry, happy days of Christmas did not really arrive for Londoners. But that is life and one hopes 2023 brings peace in Ukraine and a change in the fortunes of the UK. The year that we left behind saw the departure of UKs most loved monarch, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. And thus when the year 2022 ended somewhat sadly, it felt like the end of an era. But Londoners bore up stoically as they usually do. They turned up in their thousands to say their final farewells to the lady who had ruled over them for seventy years. Perhaps the enduring image of 2023was the full scale, faultless memorial service. And this confirmed the succession of her seventy-plus-year-old son and heir, Charles. Still, the feeling of unease does not go away. Monarchy is an old but delicate plant. It has served England well for over three millennia. But as the waves of modernity lash onshore, the question is Will Monarchy survive? This question is on everyones mind as it is beginning to look like a tacky soap opera. Usually this would not be an appropriate moment to broach the subject, with a brand new King in place had it not been for a domestic fracas going on within the royal family. The trouble has come, not unexpectedly, from Prince Harry who has just published his eagerly awaited (with some trepidation) memoirs titled Spare. The title refers to the idea that the woman who marries the potential successor to the throne the Prince of Wales must provide two children. The older one would be the heir, and the next in line is the spare, just in case some untoward accident prevented the heir from succeeding. (The late Queens father was a spare but when his older sibling abdicated the throne to marry an American divorcee, her father got the Crown. He became George the Sixth, the last King Emperor of India. ) So spares can be lucky but only by accident, but Harry has done what his great-granduncle did: he married an American divorcee. Only this time, Meghan Markle, an actor with non-White roots, led the way to his resignation from royal duties. As the book, just published in Spain, shows Harry had felt like an outsider for a long time. He had been regretting the loss of his mother Princess Diana at a young age, and his own the marriage alienated Harry from his family. Finally, he has withdrawn from his Windsor household and has settled in California with Meghan and their two children, Archie and Lilibet. Everyone is eagerly going through each chapter of the book as discussed in the media and its UK publication will ensure a mega bestseller. Harry and Meghan may end up being richer than the royals, through the book royalties and other media deals. It began gently with an interview with Oprah Winfrey who heads a most watched TV live interview programme. That caused waves, not least in the London daily press. Then followed interviews with other sources in the US, appearances in public and even a Netflix saga. Meghan said she had suffered racist behaviour in the royal palaces and now Harry has gone public about a serious quarrel with his older brother William and his wife Catherine, the next Monarch and Queen. In this latest bombshell he recalls being hit badly by William. All of London has been talking about nothing else. Mind you the misery of the outdoor with strikes and snow and sundry obstacles to movement, helps Londoners to stay indoors. But Royalty which used to light up Christmas with the Queens broadcast seems to have depressing overtones. All this is enumerating the dangers to the present royals, and their reputations. The late Queen was a pillar of the realm, always correct, respectable and cheerful. A public quarrel, coming on the airwaves and now as a well packaged book, is likely to add to the critics who feel the Royals have outlived their usefulness to the UK. Will the fight of the Heir and the Spare damage the institution of monarchy itself? At present, all bets are off and Harry may be completing what his mother had begun through her own damaging media interactions. The one title he will relish is being the real son of Diana, Princess of Wales. Help from Vietnam made the operation possible, involving two recipients and two donors. According to the 103 Lao Military Hospital, at least a thousand patients suffer from kidney failure. In Laos only six dialysis sessions are covered by the National Health Insurance. Vientiane (AsiaNews) Thanks to help from Vietnam, the 103 Lao Military Hospital saw the first two kidney transplants in the country. At a press conference held today, Colonel Dr Savangxay Darasart, director of the military hospital, said that the two patients, operated on 31 December, had fully recovered from the operation. The living donor operation was possible thanks to the assistance of eight Vietnamese doctors, who helped the Laotian medical team select the two pairs of donors and recipients. Laos is one of the few countries in South-East Asia where kidney transplants could not be performed until recently, In September last year, the Australian government provided the South-East Asian country, which has been ruled by the Communist Party since 1975, with four dialysis machines worth one billion kips (US ,000). The 103 Lao Military Hospital estimates that more than a thousand people suffer from kidney failure across the country and need regular dialysis. Overall, more than 30,000 people die in Laos each year from non-communicable diseases, diabetes being one of the most common. According to the World Health Organisation ((WHO), about half of these deaths are preventable. Under Laoss National Health Insurance, patients are entitled to six free dialysis sessions over the course of their life; subsequent sessions must be fully paid out of pocket. A single dialysis session costs to . The average salary in Laos is US$ 223. According to studies by the Ministry of Health, the number of people with kidney failure is rising; many of them travel to Vietnam, which has 21 transplant centres, for the operation. Today's headlines: 185 Rohingya refugees arrived in Indonesia; Malaysia's conservatives against bikinis, alcohol and gambling; Chaos in northern India due to cold and fog; The Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow has definitively lost control over the Kiev Cave Lavra. ISRAEL - PALESTINE Israel's new far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, instructed the police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces, calling them an instrument of 'terrorism'. Israeli law does not ban Palestinian flags, but police and soldiers have the right to remove them in cases where they feel there is a threat to public order. MALAYSIA In the increasingly conservative state of Kedah, ruled by the Islamist PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party), local authorities criticised the bikini and gambling ban and announced that the sale of alcohol would also be limited, especially in Langkawi, a popular tourist destination. Observers see this as an attempt by the Perikatan Nasional - the coalition of which PAS is a member - to position itself as the champion of Islam in view of the state elections to be held by August. INDONESIA A boat with 185 Rohingya refugees arrived on the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh yesterday. More than half are women and children. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that 2022 could be one of the deadliest years at sea for the Rohingya, an ethnic group of the Islamic faith in Myanmar. INDIA In the north of India, a cold snap and thick fog are causing chaos in airports and railway stations and severe problems for the population. The authorities in the capital Delhi have asked schools to extend their winter holidays and cancel classes. The temperature in some parts of the city dropped to 1.9 degrees yesterday. PAKISTAN A delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will meet the Pakistani finance minister on the sidelines of a conference in Geneva. The IMF has yet to approve the release of USD 1.1 billion that was originally supposed to be disbursed in November last year. Pakistan was thus left with only enough foreign exchange reserves to cover one month's imports. AFGHANISTAN The ban on women working in NGOs could translate into a return to child labour: this is what Save the Children, one of the humanitarian organisations forced to suspend its services to the Afghan population after the imposition of the latest ban by the Taliban, has said. Female aid workers make up 50 per cent of the organisation's workforce and are crucial in reaching women and girls who, for cultural reasons, cannot interact with male aid workers. RUSSIA - UKRAINE The Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, to which many believers and part of the clergy remain attached in Ukraine, has definitively lost control over the Lavra of the Kiev Caves, the first historical monastery of Rus', in which the Christmas holidays were celebrated by the autocephalous Epifanyj of Kiev. The pro-Russian Metropolitan Pavel, superior of the Caves on the Moscow side and called 'Pasa-Mercedes' for his love of luxury, was turned away by entry controls. UZBEKISTAN The director of the 'Uzbekneftegas', Khusniddin Turaev, guaranteed that Uzbekistan has sufficient gas reserves for a long time, with two trillion cubic metres of natural gas available, which is extracted to the extent of 50 billion cubic metres annually, enough for the next 40 years, and the forecast can only be corrected upwards. St Ephrem's will be the first in modern Turkey. The structure will have a bell tower, five floors with rooms for ceremonies and meetings, as well as guest rooms at a total cost of four million euro. A work in line with Syriac tradition, capable of responding to the demands of modernity. Istanbul (AsiaNews) - Within the next two months the first Syrian Orthodox church in modern Turkey will be inaugurated, and opened to the faithful for services and celebrations. Construction work on the church began three years ago in the Yesilkoy district, in the European part of Istanbul. The confirmation comes from Sait Susin, president of the local branch of the Syriac Kadim Foundation, who adds that the total expenditure for the construction of the place of worship is around four million euro. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also present at the inauguration ceremony of the St Efrem's Church (pictured) in 2019. Susin explains that the place of worship represents a novelty - as well as being unique - because a number of churches in the republican era have undergone restoration work or restoration to use, but none of them 'has ever been built from scratch'. Other places of worship, he added in an interview with Anadolu Agency, "were built without official permission. It is the first time that a church has been officially built (in the history of the Turkish Republic). This gives us great pride'. The only Syrian Orthodox church was built in 1844 in the suburb of Tarlabasi, in the district of Beyoglu, but it was not enough for the worship needs of the entire Assyrian community of Turkey's economic and commercial metropolis. In recent years, the worshippers were divided among six churches belonging to other congregations for worship, but these did not fully meet the needs of the rituals and presented problems with regard to the time of use. Hence the need for a new church, with almost exclusive use. Susin continued, "we asked our government to give us a place" and, preferably, in the Bakirkoy district "where most of our community lives", meeting with the go-ahead of then Prime Minister Erdogan and former mayor of Istanbul Kadir Topbas. The Assyrian leader also emphasised that the church had been built in line with the demands of modernity, while maintaining the examples of historical places of worship "in the Syriac tradition" as a basis. The church tower, built on a 700 square metre space next to the Latin Catholic cemetery, is inspired by the historical monasteries of Mardin in south-east Turkey. One floor of the five is used as a cultural centre for the community to gather after mass or ceremonies. On the ground floor are the bishop's quarters, guest rooms and a car park. Freedom of worship is guaranteed in Turkey, but freedom of religion has been violated on various occasions in the recent past. The Turkish government has interfered in the selection of Church leaders. Some clerics have been killed, namely Fr Andrea Santoro in 2006 and Mgr Luigi Padovese in 2010. Some churches and Church-owned buildings have been confiscated. A US clergyman, Rev Andrew Brunson, was detained and later released. In recent months, there have also been cases of land disputes, desecration of cemeteries and expropriation of places of worship. LILONGWE, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Malawi has appealed for donations from public, private companies and organizations to help fight the latest cholera outbreak that has hit the country hard. The Presidential Taskforce on Coronavirus and Cholera made the appeal in a statement on Monday as death toll continues to rise. As of Sunday, Jan. 8, the outbreak had claimed 704 lives since March 2022, when the first cases were recorded. Out of the 704 deaths, 109 deaths have been recorded in January alone. The donations "are expected to cover various gaps currently being experienced in the prevention, control and management of the cases across the country," said the statement co-signed by Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, and the taskforce's co-chair, Wilfred Chalamira Nkhoma. The support that the taskforce is appealing for includes medical supplies such as ringers lactate, giving sets, cholera beds, tents, examination and heavy duty gloves, gum boots, solar lamps, buckets with taps, aprons, soap, chlorine, oral rehydration salts (ORS), and cash, the statement said. The taskforce is also appealing for support to schools to improve water and sanitation facilities. Malawi has recorded over 21,000 cholera cases since last March, with the capital, Lilongwe, and Blantyre, the second largest city, recording 133 and 119 deaths respectively as of Sunday. The outbreak forced the government to suspend the opening of schools on Jan. 4 in Blantyre and Lilongwe. by Shafique Khokhar An international airport security officer threatened by her superior for enforcing the rules. In a video that went viral, the woman bravely challenged the official to press charges. Human Rights Focus Pakistan: "Without the images that showed her innocence what would have happened?" Karachi (AsiaNews) - Accused of blasphemy simply for enforcing the rules for entering a car park at a Pakistani airport. The incident of false accusation of blasphemy occurred on 7 January, when a Christian security officer stopped a vehicle without the necessary documents to enter the car park of the cargo area of Karachi's Jinnah International Airport. A Muslim employer of the same civil aviation authority stopped her and told her to let his acquaintance's vehicle in even without a pass. A video that has gone viral shows him threatening the officer with blasphemy charges, saying "I will call the preachers... I am mad and I will cut you up." Words to which the woman retorts by challengfing him to register a blasphemy case against her if she did something wrong. The incident has caused a widespread uproar: former President Asif Ali Zardari has asked the provincial and federal governments to seriously consider what happened at the Karachi airport. "The accusation of blasphemy is a very dangerous act," said Zardari, calling for measures to protect the woman security officer and a severe punishment against the accuser. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) itself decided to dismiss the employee. Farhatullah Babar, engineer and former senator, said: 'We salute this brave Christian official who refuses to be cowed by false accusations of blasphemy. This is the way to fight bigots. The authorities should take note of it." Speaking to AsiaNews Naveed Walter, president of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP), said the woman's response to the CAA official is the voice of all Christians and innocent minorities who are victims of accusations. "They think Christians are easy targets and they intended to do the same in this case, but she did her duty according to the rules and the law." However, Naveed Walter added: "What action are the authorities taking against the serious threats to Christian women? Dismissal alone is not a solution, there should be actions and strategies together to stop these incidents. If this woman had been killed on the spot, as has happened many times to other innocent people, who would have been held responsible? Only the video of the incident could prove her innocence." Hundreds of workers gathered at a Zybio plant to protest, clashing with riot police. The government hopes to see the economy revive after lifting restrictions. However, big companies have stopped production and laid off thousands of people. For the China Labour Bulletin, ending lockdowns will not solve workers' problems. Beijing (AsiaNews) Hundreds of workers at a factory making COVID-19 antigen kits in Chongqing staged a protest on Saturday after they were laid off and received lower than agreed upon wages. Videos of protesters clashing with police in riot gear were posted on social media. After the sudden easing of anti-Covid restrictions a month ago, following grassroots protests in late November, demand for testing kits and other materials for tracking the SARS-CoV-2 virus collapsed, with production lines standing idle. Videos show people gathering in front of a plant owned by Zybio. In one, workers shout, "Give us our money back!" in others, people are seen throwing traffic cones, chairs and crates at police, forcing them to retreat. Protests with political demands are rare in China, but not labour unrest. At present, the economic situation is tough, with expectations for a possible rebound in the second half of 2023 as the lifting of restrictions opens up the country, even if the Chinese government has still not provided data on the number of infections and deaths from COVID-19. In late December, the Tesla plant in Shanghai halted production, Phone giant Xiaomi also began laying off thousands of workers, while the textile manufactures cut output to limit losses due to fewer orders. For Chinas manufacturing sector, the crisis stems from a combination of factors: the trade war with the United States, the pandemic, and the growing unwillingness of younger people to work in manufacturing in favour of more flexible and less demanding jobs. According to Han Dongfang, editor of Hong Kong's China Labour Bulletin, the lifting of draconian containment measures will not repair the damage caused to workers by three years of lockdowns and quarantines. They will not likely solve structural problems that existed before the outbreak of the pandemic. by Nirmala Carvalho Archbishop Emeritus Bernard Moras of Bangalore is provisionally in charge of the diocese. A statement from the Bishops' Conference notes that Bishop William will take a period of absence following accusations of embezzlement and violation of celibacy. The local clergy is satisfied with the decision, which had been requested some time ago to the Vatican. Delhi (AsiaNews) The Diocese of Mysore, India, has a new pastor, albeit a provisional one. The diocese has been at the centre of a major controversy involving its bishop, Mgr Kannikadass Antony William. The Dicastery for Evangelisation appointed Archbishop Emeritus Bernard Moras of Bangalore (Bengaluru) apostolic administrator sede plena et ad nutum Sanctae Sedis "for the ordinary administration and pastoral care" of the local Church. Archbishop Felix Machado, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), made it official with a statement sent to the apostolic nunciature. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Mysore, in the State of Karnataka, is a suffragan diocese in the city of Mysore, in the Ecclesiastical province of Bangalore, southwestern India. In 2019 it had almost 113,000 members out of a total population of about 12 million. It covers the districts of Mysore, Mandya, Cjamarajanagar and Kogadu; its main place of worship is the Cathedral of Saint Philomena, while the Minor Basilica of Saint Anthony is in Dornahalli. It is divided into 80 parishes. Bishop William, 57, has led the diocese since 2017. He has been accused of fathering children and having affairs with multiple lovers. He is also accused of involvement in the death of four priests who opposed him. A Vatican commission made up of three bishops began investigating in February 2021 after a group of local priests wrote a letter to Pope Francis in 2019 reporting the affair. The Dicastery for Evangelization has decided that the Diocesan Bishop, the Right Rev Kannikadass A William, take a period of absence from the ministry, reads the statement signed by Archbishop Machado. Archbishop Bernard Morass appointment will become effective from 7th January 2023, at 6 pm. The ceremony was held on Saturday at St Philomena cathedral. As for his predecessor, he will be the subject of an investigation and related trial to determine the validity of the accusations. A letter signed by 37 priests sent to the Vatican authorities accuses him of misappropriating funds and violating the obligation of celibacy. A woman reported that she was asked to provide sexual favours in exchange for a job. Fr Faustine Lobo, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Karnataka, is satisfied with the appointment but is critical of Bishop William who stuck to his position for so long when he should instead have voluntarily gone for a leave long ago and prove his innocence. by Arundathie Abeysinghe According to the United Nations, more than six million people are currently struggling to feed themselves and families are forced to sacrifice their childrens education to save money. School dropout is highest on plantation estates. By April, more than a million children could be at home, making it a bigger problem than the countrys financial situation. Colombo (AsiaNews) Due to the economic crisis, Sri Lankan parents are unable to send all their children to school every day. According to the United Nations, more than six million Sri Lankans are currently struggling to feed themselves and their families are sacrificing education to keep costs down. Although Sri Lanka offers free education from first grade to university, meals are not provided in all schools, while the cost of school textbooks and bussing children has forced parents to choose which child to send to school. Extreme poverty is the main reason for many children dropping out of school, said Sandeepa Mirihella, a resident of Monaragala, Uva province, speaking AsiaNews. The current economic crisis has resulted in parents losing their livelihoods. As a result, Several male students have dropped out of school to seek odd jobs to support their families, whereas girls have stayed at home to earn a living by engaging in cottage industries. Sri Lanka has performed well in basic education indicators, an economic analyst explained. This includes a high literacy rate and near-universal participation in primary and secondary schooling, yet there are striking disparities. This is especially true for the education performance of the estate sector comprising plantation communities. The highest percentage of dropouts are in primary and secondary levels, 4 per cent primary, 20 per cent secondary and 26 per cent undergraduates. Many estate sector schools are Type 3 schools (with only primary grades), some experts note. This discourages children from advancing into lower secondary grades as they need to enrol in schools situated far away from the estates. In Nuwara Eliya District, one of the largest estate sectors in the country, 50.2 per cent of schools are Type 3 schools which influences many children to drop out of school after completing their primary education. In Nuwara Eliya district, one of the largest, 50.2 per cent of schools are type 3, and the absence of other schools influences many children to drop out of school after completing primary education." For economic analyst Dhanushka Sirimanne, more than 35 per cent of families cannot even make a meal a day and have difficulty sending their children to school. As a result, about 1.4 million children out of 4.1 million could see their right to education completely denied. Many parents will not be able to bear the burden with their hard-earned meagre income, Sirimanne said. To find Rs.15,000 (US$ 41) or more to send one child to school is impossible for them. Unfortunately, some school principals and teachers (some who are parents too) insist that parents should send their children to school with everything included in the list of books. Teacher trade union leaders who were busy demanding salary increases (some time ago) staging protest rallies and demonstrations are silent on this issue, Sirimanne noted. Meanwhile, Sri Lankas opposition parties have not yet raised the issue that allocations for school education are a mere 166.3 billion rupees (US$ 452 million) for 2023. Everyone must understand that with all the essentials, including food, being expensive, activist Udaya Ganegoda laments, the number of dropouts from schools [. . .] could be 30 to 35 per cent by April 2023. This would be about 1.2 million out of 4.1 million children in school, an issue worse than the economic crisis. In his annual meeting with the diplomatic corps, Francis condemned Irans executions, calling for respect for womens dignity. He also appealed for peace in Myanmar, Jerusalem and the South Caucasus and harmony on the Korean Peninsula. He also expressed hope that provisional agreement with China will benefit the life of the Catholic Church in that country. Vatican City (AsiaNews) Pope Francis this morning held the traditional New Years meeting with the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See in the Hall of the Blessings in the Vatican. In his address, the pontiff said that It is a source of concern that, in many parts of the world, there is a weakening of democracy and of the breadth of freedom that it enables, albeit with all the limitations of any human system. Francis went on to speak about the wounds of today's world, and the lack of respect for life, citing as an example the death penalty, as is the case in these days in Iran, following the recent demonstrations demanding greater respect for the dignity of women. Two men, Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, were executed last Saturday, bringing to four the number of young people put to death for events related to the ongoing wave of protests. For the central thread of his speech, Pope Francis turned to Pope John XXIIIs encyclical Pacem in Terris, which identified truth, justice, solidarity and freedom as the four indispensable pillars for truly building peace. Citing the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the pontiff spoke again about the war in Ukraine, noting that the third world war is taking place in a globalized world, [. . .] whose effects are felt in entire regions, also outside of Europe, due to its repercussions in the areas of energy and food production. With the nuclear threat again hanging over our heads, he said that the world once more feels fear and anguish. Here I can only reaffirm that the possession of atomic weapons is immoral, because nuclear weapons make us all losers. For this reason, he expressed concern about the stalled negotiations over Irans nuclear programme, hoping that negotiations will resume. For the Holy Father, The current conflict in Ukraine has made all the more evident the crisis that has long affected the multilateral system; however, today, It is not a matter of creating coalitions, but of providing opportunities for everyone to be partners in dialogue. All this is made more difficult by attempts to impose a single way of thinking, which hinders dialogue and marginalizes those who see things differently. There is a risk of drifting into what more and more appears as an ideological totalitarianism that promotes intolerance towards those who dissent from certain positions claimed to represent progress, but in fact would appear to lead to an overall regression of humanity, with the violation of freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. For Francis, Peace requires before all else the defense of life, a good that today is jeopardized not only by conflicts, hunger and disease, but all too often even in the mothers womb, through the promotion of an alleged right to abortion. No one, however, can claim rights over the life of another human being, especially one who is powerless and thus completely defenceless. Looking at the many open wounds in today's world, Pope Francis highlighted several in the Middle East and Asia. On Syria he said that rebirth of that country must come about through needed reforms, including constitutional reforms, [. . .] ensuring that the international sanctions imposed do not affect the daily life of a people that has already suffered so much. Lamenting the rising violence between Palestinians and Israelis, the pontiff expressed hope that Jerusalem will once again regain its vocation as a location and a symbol of encounter and peaceful coexistence, and that the authorities of the State of Israel and those of the State of Palestine can recover the courage and determination to dialogue directly. Speaking about the South Caucasus, where the blockade of the Lachin corridor has reignited tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the pope urged the parties to respect the ceasefire, and release military and civilian prisoners, which would be an important step towards a much-desired peace agreement. In Yemen, the truce worked out last October is still holding, yet many civilians continue to die because of mines. The pope expressed his concern about the conflict in Myanmar, which will soon enter its third year. I invite the international community to work to concretize the processes of reconciliation and I urge all the parties involved to undertake anew the path of dialogue, in order to restore hope to the people of that beloved land. Likewise, despite renewed tensions between the two Koreas, he expressed hope that the good will and commitment to concord will not diminish, for the sake of achieving greatly-desired peace and prosperity for the entire Korean people." Among the diplomatic initiatives undertaken by the Holy See in the past year, the pontiff mentioned the renewal of the provisional agreement on episcopal appointments, agreed with the People's Republic of China in 2018. It is my hope, Francis said, that this collaborative relationship can increase, for the benefit of the life of the Catholic Church and that of the Chinese people. Finally, he noted that Peace also calls for the universal recognition of religious freedom. It is troubling that people are being persecuted simply because they publicly profess their faith and in many countries religious freedom is limited. About a third of the worlds population lives under these conditions. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Spring Festival travel rush sees 34.74 mln trips on first day Xinhua) 08:24, January 09, 2023 Passengers are seen in Shenzhen North railway station in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province, Jan 7, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua] BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Some 34.74 million passenger trips were made Saturday, the first day of the 2023 Spring Festival travel rush, new data showed. The figure was 38.9 percent higher than the same period of 2022, according to a work group on the travel rush under the State Council. Some 6.02 million train trips and 27.35 million road trips were made Saturday, up 18.4 percent and 46.9 percent, respectively, from last year. Saturday also saw a 24.9-percent increase in air passenger trips and a 7.4-percent hike in waterway trips. The Spring Festival travel rush, also known as "chunyun," will last from Jan. 7 to Feb. 15 this year, during which many Chinese people will travel to reunite with their families for the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 22 this year. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) ISLAMABAD, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed and 20 others injured late Sunday night in a head-on collision between a passenger bus and a truck in Qila Saifullah district of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, local authorities told media. According to the reports, the accident took place around midnight on the National Highway near the Torosaki area when a bus collided with a truck coming from the opposite direction. The deceased and the injured were shifted to a local hospital, local media reported. The death toll may increase as some of the injured were in critical condition, hospital staff told media. Road accidents frequently happen in Pakistan, mainly due to poorly maintained vehicles, dilapidated roads and negligence of road safety measures. Burglars Break into Illinois Auto Body Shop Searching for Key Fobs By Lorraine Swanson, Patch Published Jan. 9, 2023 Burglars broke into a Palos Hills, IL, auto body shop on Dec. 30, looking for key fobs and stealing a car that was later recovered, police reports said. The break-in happened at Caliber Collision, 7727 112th Place, Palos Hills. Police said the burglars left behind extensive damage in an apparent search for keyless entry and starter devices. The businesss security video showed a person leaving the auto body shop and then attempting to steal several vehicles. According to the report, the burglars managed to steal a Nissan, which officers found wrecked nearby. Police believe the burglars circled back Jan. 4, but by then employees at Caliber Collision had hidden all the key fobs. While no cars were stolen, the burglars reportedly walked off with an envelope containing $400 in cash. A similar burglary also took place the same morning as the Palos Hills incident in Orland Park. Police responded to a security alarm around 6:19 a.m. Dec. 30 at Gerber Collision and Glass, 13433 Southwest Highway, Orland Park. The burglars had broken the glass door and appeared to have rummaged through a desk looking for key fobs, Orland Park police said. Surveillance video showed a group of people running through the garages wash bay area. A few entered a BMW and a Hyundai, but no vehicles appeared to have been taken. Orland Park police said the people caught on security cameras appeared to be wearing white gloves. Early Jan. 5, burglars broke into a North Side car dealership, Chicago police said. Officers responding to an alarm at Leader Auto in the citys River North neighborhood. The burglars shattered a window and left many key fobs on the ground, news reports said. It is not known if any vehicles were taken. South suburban police departments have reported an increase in car thefts and car part thefts over the past year. We thank Patch for reprint permission. We have a real shot at late February. March launch attempt appears highly likely. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 8, 2023 Now that the NASA Space Launch System ( SLS ) pushed the Orion capsule on its maiden voyage around the Moon to the farthest point reached by a crew-capable spaceship (268,563 miles/432,210 km away from Earth), theres not much to look forward to in terms of space launches this year.There is one such event though that might steal the crown of most important of its kind in 2023, and that would be the highly anticipated (and long-delayed) departure of the SpaceX Starship . Initially set to take place last year, the first orbital flight of what's supposed to be the precursor of ships meant to take humans to Mars is likely to do so over the next few months.At the time of writing, Starship does not have an official launch date attached to it. Yet, responding to a question asked on Twitter whether well see the contraption lift off at the end of this month, SpaceXs Elon Musk denied thats the case.Instead, he says, a real shot at getting the Starship off the ground comes in late February, but a March launch attempt appears highly likely. Note the use of the term attempt in Musks reply, as another thing space launches have in common is their tendency to fail.The orbital test Starship comprises the Booster 7 Super Heavy first-stage prototype, a giant rocket powered by no less than 33 Raptor engines. When theyll all ignite for the test, they might make Starship the most powerful rocket ever flown, more powerful than the SLS even, as each engine can develop 510,000 lbf.On top of the booster sits Ship 24, which is the part of the Starship thatll actually reach orbit. It too is powered by Raptor engines, though a much smaller number of them (just six).Whenever it departs (and it eventually will), Starship will do so from SpaceXs Boca Chica Beach, Texas Starbase facility. The mission profile calls for Ship 24 to move around the planet once, at orbital altitude, and then come back to Earth.Just like all other SpaceX machines do, the Starships booster will come down back and land on a pad after Ship 24 had been put on its trajectory. The spacecraft itself will not attempt a landing, but will go for a splashdown off the coast of Hawaii some 90 minutes after it departed Texas. Emirates took on a highly ambitious project last year. It planned to upgrade the interior cabins of no less than 120 aircraft, and do so exclusively at its own facilities, with its in-house engineers. Its no wonder this is claiming to be the largest-known retrofit project in commercial aviation. What is this refreshment supposed to include? First of all, the refurbishment of First Class suites, the upgrade of Business Class suites, and the installation of brand-new Premium Economy seats (which were first introduced by the airline in 2020). The numbers are indeed impressive by the end of the project, the Emirates engineers will have installed almost 4,000 new seats, and upgraded more than 5,000 seats.And thats not all. Each cabin will feature better stairs, carpets, and a new overall style. This includes an elegant neutral-tone color palette, sophisticated hand-stenciled panels in the First Class showers, and the brands iconic ghaf-tree motif (a drought-tolerant tree that is considered the symbol of tolerance in the United Arab Emirates).This is exactly what you notice in the freshly-retrofitted A6-EVM, the first A380 that was completed as part of this massive project. Its now ready to enter service, while engineers move on to the next aircraft. In fact, they will be working on two of them at the same time, with another Super Jumbo starting the retrofitting process every eight days. This way, the airline wants to maintain an ambitious 16-day turnaround per aircraft.As you can imagine, this complex endeavor didnt kick off without preparation. Things began with trials on an A380 , in the summer of 2022. This meant going through the same steps as for an actual retrofit, but documenting every step, testing and timing them.Also, the operators facilities in Dubai got new workshops that were specifically built for this project. This is where the Business and Economy Class seats would be repainted and reupholstered. As for the First Class suites, there are disassembled and then sent to a different company to be refurbished.It seems that airliner cabin retrofitting became a trend in the industry after the pandemic. With most of their fleet on the ground for such a long time, and with financial factors putting a damper on new purchases, airlines began to focus more on retrofitting their current airplanes. On the other hand, the addition of Premium Economy seats is another important trend, due to the fact that leisure travel continues to surpass demand for business flights.Emirates new project seems to be successfully incorporating both of these trends. Estimated to be worth $2 billion, its set to be completed by April 2025. Full Self-Driving AV FSD Not at the time of the impact. AP disengaged about 2 seconds before impact because AEB actuated. The driver did not take control though, which is interesting because I always assumed AP remains in control until the driver takes over. But looks like AEB just disengages green (@greentheonly) December 30, 2022 The footage was disclosed by the white-hat hacker GreenTheOnly, who gets these videos from computers he buys on eBay and similar classified ad websites. Sometimes, people send him the hardware for him to study. Sadly, the white-hat hacker apparently did not disclose where it happened or when.We just know that what appears to be either a Honda Accord or a Nissan Altima was involved in a previous crash and could not be moved from the lane in which it was. God knows why someone was trying to open the rear right door (hopefully, only to pick up personal belongings, not a child in the back seat). The unidentified Tesla hits the rear of the Japanese sedan and miraculously does not hurt or kill the pedestrian that was opening its rear door.In this situation, GreenTheOnly said that the car was on Navigate on Autopilot until about two seconds before the crash. Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) was activated, but did not prevent the collision. When it did so, it turned off Navigate on Autopilot, which may allow Tesla to say it was not technically engaged when the crash occurred. Philip Koopman shared this on his LinkedIn page to urge authorities to end this. They should make sure that Tesla vehicles have a proper driver monitoring system working, that autonowashing is prevented, and that advanced driver assistance systems such as Autopilot andmust account for reasonably foreseeable misuse.In his text, Koopman warns that Tesla fans will blame the driver. However, casting blame accomplishes nothing apart from establishing another explicit episode of moral crumple zones. As Madeleine Clare Elish defined it, it protects the integrity of the technological system, at the expense of the nearest human operator.The Carnegie Mellon professor and autonomous vehicle () safety expert goes even further in his analysis. He alerts that the car is driving and the humans are along for the ride, no matter what disclaimers are in the driver manual and/or warnings. That is a clear reference to what Tesla does. While it has disclaimers warning that Autopilot anddo not make the cars autonomous, the company and Elon Musk have repeatedly said the vehicles drive themselves. Koopman simply agrees with them.In his opinion, that will happen for as long as vehicles lack a driver monitoring system and engagement model that provide real-world results. In other words, one that really makes sure the driver has enough time to regain control of the vehicle in time to prevent crashes such as the one the videos below present.Koopman warns that the combination of automated vehicles with a highly problematic approach to safety is a dangerous situation in which Tesla is simply the most egregious (example) due to poor driver monitoring quality and scale of deployed fleet. The company currently has almost 300,000 FSD customers and many more with Navigate on Autopilot. Both systems are under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Said rider informed the Indian Motorcycle Company of a YouTube video in which the kickstand of a Chief had failed to retract when contacting the ground. Mere weeks after the aforementioned incident, the company became aware of a second incident. No crashes or injuries were reported, though, but Indian was forced to investigate this worrying matter.Following the engineering departments design evaluation, the Executive Review Committee decided that the inconsistent retraction of the kickstand fitted to certain 2022 model year Chief motorcycles constituted a noncompliance with federal motor vehicle safety standard 123. More specifically, S5.2.4 clearly states that a stand shall fold rearward and upward if it contacts the ground when the motorcycle is moving forward. Given these circumstances, a recall had to be issued for said bikes.A report published by thelists Vietnam-based Northstar Precision as the supplier of the kickstand. The root cause hasnt been identified yet, and corrective action hasnt been developed thus far either. Polaris Industries, which owns the Indian Motorcycle Company since 2011, issued a stop-delivery order for 2022 model year Chiefs equipped with suspect stands in December 2022.Dealers have already been informed of this problem, as well as the imminent follow-up with the corrective action. Owners, on the other hand, can expect to receive an envelope by first-class mail on February 17th.Suspect bikes include the Chief (build dates ranging from August 24th, 2022 to October 31st, 2022) and Chief Bobber (May 4th, 2020, to October 17th, 2022). The Darkhorse (May 4th, 2020, to November 7th, 2022) and Bobber Darkhorse (August 27th, 2022 to November 4th, 2022) also need to be mentioned. The Super Chief (August 26th, 2020, to October 14th, 2022) and Super Chief Limited (August 26th, 2020, to November 7th, 2022) pretty much seal the deal. These bikes were not produced in sequential order, and their VINs all start with 5 because theyre made in the United States.The Chief goes a long way back, introduced in 1922 by the Hendee Manufacturing Company as the heir apparent of the Powerplus. Designed by Charles B. Franklin, the Chief was joined by the Big Chief in 1923.Fast forward to the present day, and the most affordable Chief can be yours for $14,999 excluding taxes and options. At the other end of the spectrum, $21,499 buys you the Super Chief Limited. The lesser variant comes with a 111-ci Thunderstroke air-cooled twin with 108 pound-feet (146 Nm) of torque at 3,200 revolutions per minute. The 116-ci version improves to 120 pound-feet (163 Nm) at 2,900 revolutions per minute. SUV In cinematography, there are many stereotypes when it comes to villains versus heroes. Especially in action movies, where the good guys are almost always good to the core, while the bad guys have no redeeming qualities.And now Lexus has just released a very creative ad to promote its all-new Lexus RX with a first-class spy clip that is trying to protect a mysterious briefcase from the bad guys.The ad begins with the spy arriving in a blue Lexus RX to go pick up the briefcase in La Fortalesa, Spain, but the villains are already onto him. And, since they are the bad guys, they drive a dark vehicle, in this case, a blacked-out Ford F-150 from a previous generation.A car chase entails, with the Lexus RX seamlessly taking every curve and driving on any type of terrain with no issues. Thealso nimbly ventures on the narrow streets in the Spanish city of Girona, with the dark pickup truck struggling to keep up. It all ends at the historic Puente de Besalu, where the spy manages to trick the villains and escape toward new adventures.While we dont know the contents of the mysterious briefcase, Lexus enthusiasts will find out more in a few months, with a competition and the chance to win exclusive prizes.The entire short film is called Stay Ahead, with the brand encouraging its audience to embody the ethos in all aspects of their life. It was created to support the launch of the all-new RX in Europe in January 2023. The ad is meant to only feature a 30-second footage on different media across Europe for its campaign, but Lexus also revealed the extended 100-second directors cut to get the viewers immersed in a cinematic experience, which the Japanese manufacturer describes as a homage to classic spy movies.The Lexus RX has reached its fifth generation and, similar to other car manufacturers, the brand decided to electrify it, giving it a hybrid powertrain. The one shown in the ad is the top-of-the-line version, the RX 500h F Sport Performance hybrid.The RX 500h F Sport has a 2.4-liter inline-four engine working alongside a rear-mounted electric motor. Together they send 366 horsepower (371 ps) and a maximum torque of 406 lb-ft (550 Nm) to all wheels via a six-speed automatic transmission. The hybrid SUV needs 5.9 seconds to reach 60 mph (97 kph), with a top speed of 130 mph (209 kph).In Europe, the RX will also be available in the plug-in hybrid RX 450h+, the RX 350h, and the 350 , with a turbocharged 2.4-liter inline-four gasoline engine. At the beginning of this year, an interesting-looking green and blue vessel was arriving in Norway, all the way from Vietnam. Thats where the 78 meter (256 feet) ship was built, at the Vard Vung Tau shipyard. What makes it different than any other ship out there? It will be fitted with a remote control system, for entirely uncrewed operations in the future.This is the first of the Armada fleet, preparing to become the worlds first entirely robotic fleet. The concept was developed by Ocean Infinity, a UK-based company specializing in maritime robotics. It was one of the winners of the 2020 Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, launched by the UK government, and has developed the Armada fleet concept as a sustainable solution for maritime research.These 15 ships will be able to carry out research operations with zero crew on board. In addition to avoiding all the risks associated with human factors, this will also have the benefit of 24/7 operations, greater efficiency in gathering maritime data, and the ability to reach challenging spots. Theyll be fitted with the latest maritime equipment, including sensors, navigation systems, plus modular launch and recovery systems, and will also operate with fewer emissions.Thats because theyre currently powered by hybrid propulsion systems that cut emissions by up to 90%, and are adapted for the use of innovative fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia, in the future.For now, this pioneering platform will carry out its tasks as whats known as a lean-crewed vessel, meaning it will have a minimal number of people on board. In terms of power, it boasts hybrid propulsion. But the plan is to eventually have all 15 ships operating with no onboard crew, and with no emissions. This would truly make this maritime army (Armada is Spanish for army) a groundbreaking one.The Armada 7801 left Vietnam , where it was built, on November 19, 2022, and arrived in Norway recently. This is where Ocean Infinity will fit it with the remote operation system, and start the integration process with the Remote Control Center. In just a few months, it will already enter service, collecting offshore subsea data.The UK tech company is also working with other partners, including the University of Oxford, on developing a Marine Propulsion Test facility, where the future Ammonia Marine Propulsion System (AMPS) will be tested. Photo: Toyota kW I believe some of us have imagined showing up at a school or university reunion, ready to blow everyone away with the person we've become. Cars are, in many ways, extensions of our personalities and can also serve as trophies for all our achievements.The new "Says So Much" campaign aims to convey how amazing it feels to drive and show off the eye-catching all-new sedan. The commercial spot is entitled "Reunion," and it's about a Crown owner meeting up with old school colleagues.The video starts with a woman driving the 2023 Toyota Crown , as "Watch Me Stand Out" by Club Yoko is playing in the background. We glimpse a paper invite for a reunion, indicating where the woman is headed.Toyota included a moment that car enthusiasts can surely relate to. The woman drives by fully reflective windows, admires the reflection of her own car, and smiles. The song seems perfectly synched with this moment, as we hear the lyrics, "Cause I got my own style. Take a look at me now." The ad ends with the woman pulling over near a valet and joining the party.The targeted campaign was developed by Saatchi & Saatchi , a British multinational communications and advertising agency network, and directed by Rachel McDonald, who also worked on campaigns for BMW and Ford. The "Says So Much" Toyota Crown campaign is present both on TV and online on various digital platforms.Viewers are invited to imagine moments where they might effortlessly stand out in the all-new sedan. Of course, you can't tell everything about the car from this ad, so let me delve a bit into detail.The 2023 Toyota Crown was officially unveiled in July 2022, and it reimagines how design, performance, and technology can be combined to create an all-new category for a premium sedan. It's built on Toyota's new TNGA-K platform, the same used for the Avalon, Camry, RAV4, Venza, and Highlander. It comes with higher ground clearance, and customers can choose between standard 19-inch wheels or the extra 21-inch ones, the largest on a Toyota sedan. The latter will further heighten the stance, providing drivers with better visibility.The Crown is available in three trims: XLE, Limited, and Platinum (as the one in the ad), with the option of choosing between two hybrid powertrains: Hybrid Max (only for Platinum) or THS (Toyota Hybrid System). Hybrid Max combines a 2.4-liter turbo engine with an electric motor mounted on the rear axle. Together, they deliver 340 hp (254or 345 ps) and 544 Nm (400 ft-lbs.) of torque. Other notable features of the Platinum variant are the Standard Adaptive Variable Suspension, the unique bi-tone paint showcased in the ad, and standard 21-inch wheels.The bold styling helps the vehicle stand out from the crowd the massive wheels are neatly blended with the flowing silhouette, and the unique paint options complete the look.The 2023 Crown is estimated to arrive at Toyota dealerships in early 2023. The base MSRP for the XLE grade is $39,950 (37,171), while the Limited grade starts at $45,550 (42,381). The top-of-the-line Platinum grade will set you back $52,350 (48,710). MANILA, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos has appointed Carlito Galvez as the new defense secretary after the resignation of the former defense chief, a presidential official said on Monday. In a statement, Presidential Communications Office officer-in-charge Cheloy Garafil said Marcos has accepted the resignation of Defense officer-in-charge Jose Faustino. Galvez, a military general and former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff, has accepted the position, she added. The new defense chief was an adviser to the president on peace, reconciliation and unity before the latest nomination. Under former President Rodrigo Duterte's administration, Galvez was also named chief implementer of the fight against COVID-19, or vaccine czar that was in charge of the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. The Philippines has seen leadership personnel adjustment in defense and military since the new year. Last Friday, Marcos appointed General Andres Centino as the new chief of staff of the AFP, replacing the outgoing Lieutenant General Bartolome Bacarro. If youre well-versed in European motorcycle lore, then you might be familiar with the now-defunct Victoria marque, which operated in Nuremberg, Germany between 1901 and 1966. One of the models they made during the fifties was the KR 26 N Aero, a two-stroke 245cc single-cylinder good for up to 14 ponies at 5,250 rpm. A British lad named Mark had once called this machine his daily commuter.Several years have passed since Mark parted ways with the German thumper, but he decided to emulate its spirit on this ravishing Triumph Thruxton 900. The custom showstopper is the work of Spains Tamarit Motorcycles, and its adorned with a color scheme heavily inspired by the KR 26 N. Without further ado, lets dive in for a closer look at the many ways in which this beauty differs from a stock Thruxton.Well start by examining the bikes front end, where Tamarit ditched the original headlamp in favor of a yellow-tinted module with retro vibes. The headlight housing also stores the only instrumentation found on this machine a tiny motogadget speedometer that keeps clutter at bay. Surrounding this whole setup are new triple clamps and chromed spring embellishments on the upper forks.A bespoke front fender can be spotted lower down, while the cockpit area is home to a fresh handlebar equipped with bar-end blinkers, underslung mirrors, and aftermarket grips. Out back, we come across a reworked subframe supporting separate rider and pillion saddles, with its underside encased in a handmade fender manufactured in-house.Rear-end lighting is provided by a flush-mounted LED strip integrated into the subframe. Peek on the sides, and youll see a pair of gorgeous covers from Tamarits very own catalog of bolt-on parts. K&N air filters are gracefully revealed by their openings, working in conjunction with a premium two-into-two exhaust to help the Thruxton s parallel-twin motor breathe a little more freely.Groovy rider and passenger footpegs also make an appearance, along with a swingarm-mounted license plate holder and Tamarits proprietary chain guard. The shop fitted a drilled skid plate beneath the donors engine and it, too, features a mirror-like finish we absolutely dig. Over in the unsprung sector, you will find grippy Continental rubber and Galfer wave rotors at both ends. Now, its time for us to discuss that Victoria-inspired paintwork.As per the customers request, the chosen livery employs the same colors as the vintage KR 26 N that had once dwelled in his garage. A faded green hue was applied as the base, and its topped with red and gold accents on the fuel tank and side panels. The project was appropriately dubbed Victory following its completion in 2022, but theres no way of knowing what Mark was charged for the final product. SUV And that is just a quick list of examples off the top of anyones mind. There are also potential candidates for greatness, such as the long-awaited next iterations of the N280 fifth-gen 4Runnerand N300 third-gen Tacoma pickup truck, among many others. But, of course, people have their favorites, as always.Both in the real world and across the dreamy realm of digital car content creators, as it turns out. And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have a thoroughly eloquent example. As such, meet the virtual artist better known as Theottle on social media, who recently quit showing his profound CGI love for Alfa Romeo models and quickly got back in the Toyota saddle with yet another Prius Hybrid Reborn twist.So, after teasing our minds and enlightening our hearts with the likes of an Alfa Romeo Tonale compact unibody pickup truck, Tonale GTA, or a couple of Giulietta (both in traditional sedan and novel hatchback forms) revivals, the pixel master is now refocusing his digital attention on his fifth generation Prius series. Interestingly, so far, we have seen CGI transformations that were quite usable all year round, be it a Prius Cross compact crossover SUV, a Celica revival using the Prius and GR86 as the base, or a family-oriented Prius Touring.Now, instead, the latest behind-the-scenes making-of video embedded below presents us with the summer-loving case of yet another Toyota-Mazda collaboration that sees the former use the legendary MX-5 Miata and repackage it as a Prius roadster with a hybrid powertrain. Naturally, it now goes by the Priuster nickname, as a sign of open-top greatness. And the result is, well, quite interesting.Remember, the current fourth generation of the Mazda MX-5 Miata (ND) has already been turned into different other vehicles, of most (in)famous recognition being the Fiat 124 Spider and its sporty Abarth version. But there are also quirkier transformations than the Fiata, such as the Mitsuoka Himiko and Rock Star, or the Hurtan Grand Albaycin.Back to the hypothetical Priuster, it seems like the Prius front and rear design fits quite well indeed with the minimalist proportions of the little roadster and both companies could put minimal effort into converting the MX-5 for such a rebadge. However, the same cannot be said about the proposed hybrid powertrain, which could face major technical hurdles toward implementation. That is not to say that I, personally, would not love to play with a Priuster equipped with the 220-hp plug-in hybrid powertrain , because I certainly would. The world is closer than ever to achieving its dream of totally eco-friendly passenger flights. The smaller, sleeker so-called air taxis are paving the way with green commutes, until large airliners fueled by hydrogen or other alternative fuels can provide clean long-haul travel. Some of the most impressive flying taxis are already gearing up for production, while the dedicated infrastructure is slowly being developed in different parts of the world.Since AAM (advanced air mobility) is an entire system thats basically being developed from scratch, cooperation is key. You cant have flying taxis without vertiports, and you cant have vertiports without official regulations and without help from existing airports. All of these players need to come together and work out the next steps on this historic path.The AIRTAXI World Congress has already been around for a few years, growing more each time. And thats not just because there are increasingly more eVTOL manufacturers and vertiport developers, but also because AAM has gained more attention and trust in the industry.Until recently, it was only cargo drones that were considered reliable enough to secure orders from major customers, and be ready to kick off production. But things have changed. Various airlines around the world have committed to purchasing eVTOLs for passenger flights and adding them to their conventional fleets.In the U.S., one of the largest deals of this kind is linked to United Airlines, who made a $10 million deposit for 100 units of the Midnight eVTOL. And none other than Stellantis will be manufacturing these air taxis designed by Archer Aviation.Archer Aviation happens to be one of the most important eVTOL developers based in California, Joby being another one of the top manufacturers. The fact that multiple top eVTOL developers are based here is precisely why California was chosen as this years location for the AIRTAXI World Congress.Last year, it was held in Istanbul, Turkey, and apparently more than 300 guests attended. In addition to aircraft manufacturers (including established ones such as Airbus and Rolls-Royce), airport operators and numerous airlines were also present.One of the new features this year is something called the Investors Lounge, a fancy VIP area limited to investors, banks, and venture capitalists.But the coolest features for all guests are still the static displays and the vertical airshow (a live demo). The Congress is coming up on October 3, 2023, in North California, and tickets are already available. Karabakh food stores largely ran out of stock already in December. Most of them now sell only locally produced dairy, bread and alcohol. The authorities last week tapped their strategic reserves to start supplying retailers with imported staples such as sunflower oil, sugar, rice and salt. There have since been complaints by Stepanakert residents that not all shops are receiving such emergency supplies and that some are hoarding them. The Karabakh government responded by announcing the mandatory rationing of products supplied by it. Officials said the new distribution system will take effect later this week through ration coupons that will be distributed to all Karabakh residents. The idea is to evenly distribute to the population the small amounts of food from the state reserves, said Narine Aghabalian, a government spokeswoman. The ration coupons could be used for buying only essential products, Aghabalian told RFE/RLs Armenian Service. She did not specify the full list of those items. The official also said: We will continue to deal with the issue of supplying our population with food. I also want to stress that in our meetings with people we can see just how determined and prepared they are to endure the food shortages for asserting their right to freely live in their homeland. The authorities similarly restricted the sale of fuel -- and gasoline in particular -- on December 14 two days after a large group of Azerbaijanis blocked the Lachin Corridor. The latter are demanding that the Azerbaijani government be allowed to inspect illegal ore mines in Karabakh. Baku has backed their demands, rejected by the Armenian side, and dismissed the international communitys calls for the immediate reopening of the corridor. The Karabakh premier, Ruben Vardanyan, said last week that the Armenian-populated region is bracing itself for a prolonged blockade and will not bow to the Azerbaijani pressure. On 8 January 2023, a special program was organised by the BAPS UK and Europe Womens Wing in the Womens Empowerment Hall at Pramukh Swami Maharaj Nagar to celebrate Pramukh Swami Maharajs centennial birth anniversary. The deeply thought-provoking and emotive programme titled Vahetu Jivan Tamaru celebrated Pramukh Swami Maharajs presence on this earth through the unique medium of water as being purifying, spiritually energising, and constantly flowing in selfless service to unite all with God. The programme was interspersed with videos, prayers, devotional singing and dancing. Women of all ages also shared moving testimonies of their personal life-transforming experiences, revealing Pramukh Swami Maharajs divine personality and borderless compassion. Ms. Rashmi Patel of Paris said, In the year 2000, my husband was diagnosed with depression and had addictions that made life very difficult for us. However, in 2006, a letter from Pramukh Swami Maharaj, transformed my life. It gave me strength to face this tough situation. In 2013, as a result of my intense prayers and Pramukh Swami Maharajs compassion, my husband got the chance to have his darshan. His lifestyle changed drastically after that. He was able to overcome depression as well as give up his addictions. He is now sincerely involved in various spiritual activities. Because of Pramukh Swami Maharajs care, my family life has become blissful. Ms. Priyaben Amlani of London said, I had a spiritual upbringing in my Hindu family. However, I went to a different country for my higher education and lost the connection with spirituality as well as temples. Since none of my friends at that time were involved in any spiritual activities, I too was living a life devoid of it. However, once I happened to visit Neasden temple and I felt immense peace. It reminded me of my home. I was very curious to know who created this temple that had such a powerful impact on me. I started researching about Pramukh Swami Maharaj and learned that he was going to visit the BAPS temple in Toronto. Hence, I went alone to Toronto and the moment I did his darshan, I felt that I had found my parents, my true connection and peace. His respect for every religion touched me. I decided to make him my Guru and follow in his footsteps. I feel that my life has been transformed by coming to the Neasden temple. He is holding my hand in all the challenges of life. I cannot even imagine what I would have become if it were not for his presence and the temple that he built in London. There are innumerable people whose lives he has transformed through the BAPS Neasden temple. On this occasion, dignitaries Rajyogini Dr. Binny Sareen, Ms. Bhargavi Dave, Ms. Nivedita Chaudhari, Ms. Harsha Parmar and Ms. Ektaba Sodha were also felicitated in the Women Empowerment Exhibition Hall. Rajyogini Dr. Binny Sareen, Founder & President, Awakening Spirituality, Global Initiative for Peace & Wellbeing, Brahma Kumari HQ, Global Hospital, Mount Abu, describing her experience at Pramukh Swami Maharaj Nagar said, It is an absolute delight and honour to visit Pramukh Swami Maharaj Nagar. Pramukh Swami Maharaj Centenary Celebration is a marvellous miracle of spirituality. Words fall short in describing this Nagar. From this place, the purity, the spiritual messages of love, brotherhood, kindness, blessings, and divine virtues are spreading all over the world. The 7 wonders of the world are nothing compared to what has been created here. In my opinion, this in itself is the number one wonder of spirituality. The message of moral virtues, goodness, love and brotherhood is spreading far and wide across the world from here. Offering tribute to Pramukh Swami Maharaj, she said Pramukh Swami Maharajs inspirational life, his work and divine virtues reflect his message of peace and service to society. These messages are absolutely necessary in these present times. He bestowed happiness, love and smiles on everyone. Pramukh Swami Maharaj is a complete Yug Purush who has guided us onto a beautiful path of service, happiness, love and peace. Expressing her appreciation for the efforts of the volunteers, she said, I especially want to felicitate those volunteering here. The time that you devote here is a great service. From the moment I entered this place, I have been greeted and served with vibrant smiles. Irrespective of financial status, everyone here is able to contribute something, whether it is by smiling at everyone, uttering kind words, expressing compassion through ones eyes and helping others. She concluded her speech by encouraging women to believe in themselves, stating, Womens empowerment is very necessary as women can create a lot of wonders. Women should realise that W in women stands for wonderful creation of God; O stands for outstanding qualities such as tolerance, compassion etc.; M stands for meditating mind while E and N stand for energetic and nurturing qualities, respectively. Ms. Bhargavi Dave, Director of the District Rural Development Agency, Gandhinagar, said, I have seen magnificence in many places and I have felt divinity in many places as well, but here I can feel purity and holiness all around me. This holy land is a culmination of magnificence, divinity and purity. There arent enough words to describe a holy saint like Pramukh Swami Maharaj. Pramukh Swami Maharaj is a Purna Purush. His divine presence clearly exists here. I am currently overcome with emotions and am feeling overwhelmed after observing how beautifully, elegantly and seamlessly this Pramukh Swami Maharaj Centenary Celebration has been organised. I firmly believe that prestigious universities such as Harvard University, ought to conduct a case study of the Pramukh Swami Maharaj Nagar and use it to educate their students. This Nagar vividly demonstrates concepts like celebrations, microplanning, and management. Upon entering the Nagar, I noticed that every volunteer has a loving smile on their face. During my childhood, I had the pleasure of being a part of the past celebrations organised by BAPS in the years 1980 and 1985. Being a part of this current Festival of Inspirations makes me feel blessed. Everyone is welcome at this Pramukh Swami Maharaj Nagar, regardless of age, religion, caste, or creed. Pramukh Swami Maharaj was the epitome of love, compassion and kindness. Even if we take something small away from this Nagar, our lives will become more meaningful. Although humans are materialistic, salvation is what we strive for in the end. Satsang and following in the footsteps of a Purna Purush like Pramukh Swami Maharaj are the only ways of attaining salvation. It is miraculous that volunteers from all walks of life are serving harmoniously together. This Nagar is a blend of the five fundamental values which include devotion, positive emotions, dedication, faith and service. This Nagar, like the forest of Panch Vati exudes saintliness. Visitors from all over the world are being attracted to the Nagar. She spoke passionately about womens empowerment. Emphasising the importance of women in our society, she said, Women are excellent beings in their own right and shouldnt try to be more like men. Women are the embodiments of strength, faith, wealth, intelligence, kindness, forgiveness and peace. A mother binds a family together. Pramukh Swami Maharaj often said that a cultured mother is equivalent to 100 excellent teachers. We are indebted to our mothers. Ms. Nivedita Chaudhari, Commissioner of Madadnish Niyamak School, expressed, This entire festival is an ethereal conscious experience. It has been a priceless experience. In this Nagar, I can feel divinity all around me. Ms. Ektaba Sodha, CEO Satya Sai School, Educationalist and Environmentalist, said, The Womens Empowerment Hall is a wonderful concept and is beautifully executed. I am ever so blessed to be here surrounded by the grace of Shri Pramukh Swami Maharaj. SYDNEY, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Australian home values logged a largest-ever peak-to-trough decline of 8.40 percent between May 2022 and January 2023, according to a report released by property analyst firm CoreLogic on Monday. The report said the result has taken the national housing downturn into new territory, breaking the previous record when home values fell 8.38 percent between October 2017 and June 2019. According to the report, the new record-breaking price falls played out over a much shorter time frame of less than nine months, compared to 20 months for the previous record. Australia's three biggest capital cities are responsible for the bulk of the decline, with Sydney home values leading the latest nosedive, falling 13 percent from their highest point. Brisbane prices plummeted 10 percent, while Melbourne dwelling values dropped 8.6 percent from the peak. The company highlighted that the main force behind the record slump is the recent cycle of rate hikes that have risen at the fastest pace on record, with a 300-basis point increase in the underlying cash rate over just eight months. It resulted in a rapid reduction in borrowing capacity, lowering the amount buyers could offer for homes, and higher interest costs may be dissuading potential buyers altogether, said CoreLogic. "Australians are also more indebted today than through historic periods of rate rises, with the latest Reserve Bank of Australia's estimate of housing debt-to-income ratio sitting at 188.5 percent," the company added. Since May last year, Australia's central bank has launched a spate of consecutive rate hikes, pushing the rate to a decade-high of 3.1 percent. As the cash rate is likely to see further increases, CoreLogic predicted that the housing market conditions are expected to remain soft over the coming months. On 8 January 2023, BAPS devotees from the UK and Europe presented a creative programme titled, In His Own Words: BAPS UK and Europe Day celebrating Pramukh Swami Maharajs contributions to fostering the cultural and spiritual heritage of thousands in UK and Europe. Following the programme, His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj and dignitaries from around the world paid tribute to Pramukh Swami Maharajs inspiration of personal spirituality, Hindu mandirs and humanitarian service in UK and Europe. From 1970 to 2007, Pramukh Swami Maharaj visited the UK and Europe 19 times creating 16 mandirs and over 40 centres fostering morality and spirituality among thousands. In August 1995, he consecrated the iconic stone BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Mandir in London. Additionally, the foundation-stone-laying ceremony for the BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu mandir in Paris was performed in 2022. Evening Assembly The programme commenced at 5.00 PM with over 100 participants of all ages singing dhun. Following this, a drama interspersed with various skits, videos and speeches, depicted Pramukh Swami Maharajs tireless efforts for the devotees of UK and Europe. Through Mahant Swami Maharajs analogies of a flute, pot and rain drops in his publication Divine Memories 4, the audience discovered how Pramukh Swami Maharaj wore out his body for the devotees of UK and Europe, how his universal love touched the hearts of all and how he granted all the bliss of God. UK-based architect Nigel Lane, Managing Director of A. Lane Architects, who helped design the Haveli of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in London shared his impressions of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, I worked closely with Pramukh Swami Maharaj between 1990 and 1995 on a project that was the first of its kind in the West. Today, I want to share what he was like as a person. We had no common language, but his presence came through. He was a man with deep love and affection, full of goodness and doing great things for humanity. Quiet and dignified, so lovely to work with, and without the usual noise of language. He worked hard, giving all his time and energy to others. That is a unique love. Swamiji truly cared for me quietly and deeply. He left a lasting influence on me, and I cherish those memories, which have been etched into my heart. When beside the sea, you dont see the tide coming in. It comes in imperceptibly. That is how I felt about his inspiration. It was quiet, subtle and rises up inside. Pramukh Swami Maharaj wasnt just a Swaminarayan, he wasnt just a guru, he was a universal man. It would be wrong for me to say I miss him because I truly feel that he is eternal. He has remained with me ever since. His Holiness Mahant Swami Maharaj shared his experiences with Pramukh Swami Maharaj saying, Contemplating Pramukh Swami Maharaj increases our understanding and love for him. He has continued to shower immense love and affection on us all. What I distinctly remember from my first meeting with Pramukh Swami Maharaj was his simple, unpretentious demeanour. He was absolutely natural and guileless. He made no effort whatsoever to impress, and yet he left a deep, indelible impression: Yes! I remember saying to myself, This is what I call a sadhu! That is the Pramukh Swami Maharaj I have experienced. Ive said this much, but it still seems like I have not said enough. He was a mountain of virtues, difficult to fully grasp, but this will help us understand him better. Ultimately, we pray, Swami, please help us recognize you and grant us the eternal bliss of God. Several esteemed dignitaries were also present to pay tribute to Pramukh Swami Maharajs life of selfless service. Stage Guests: Gopichand Hinduja, Co-Chairperson of the Hinduja Group shared, Pramukh Swami Maharaj was not a highly educated management professional, but a simple man who found it to be his divine mission to fulfil Gods vision. He produced practical results because he firmly believed that he worked for God, not for himself. I witnessed Pramukh Swami Maharaj meticulously planning the Neasden Temple to its last detail. Pramukh Swami Maharaj overcame many challenges, whether it was permissions or financial struggles, but he was committed to completing the mandir. Life can be like a journey through a dense forest, dark and foreboding. But if you have noble and good souls like Pramukh Swami Maharaj with you, it enlightens you and shows the way how to move forward. Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs of the Government of India shared, Pramukh Swami Maharaj personified saintliness and exuded divinity. As a guide and guru, he touched countless lives not only in India but across the world. He was respected and admired as one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time. He was truly a peoples guru. I have worked closely with BAPS and the BAPS mandir in London for many decades. During the period of the Bhuj earthquake, I witnessed and participated in the exemplary relief efforts offered by the London mandir and the global BAPS organisation with their hundreds of thousands of volunteers. Recently, I also witnessed BAPSs efforts in setting up mobile field kitchens in southeastern Poland during the evacuation of 23,000 Indian students stuck in Ukraine during the military action there. BAPS fed over 1,000 hot vegetarian meals daily to refugees of all faiths and nationalities, touching the hearts of all who were associated with that effort. Right from the beginning of our 7000-year-old civilization, India has emphasised respect for spirituality, saintliness, good deeds, alleviating human suffering and helping people in distress, which finds expression today in Prime Minister Modis philosophy of helping the most disadvantaged first. Such is the vastness and depth of our civilizational knowledge, cultural depth and tradition that today, as we celebrate 75 years of independence and leadership of the G20, there is much that India has to offer the world, and the work of BAPS as similarly inspired cultural, social, and spiritual initiatives providing comfort and care to millions. When our nations development activities for the countries of the global South are showcased, we will also include the work of spiritual organisations like BAPS, which has a global outreach of 1,300 mandirs, 5,000 centres, and thousands of selfless volunteers. BAPSs humanitarian relief work has had a far-reaching impact on innumerable lives. Gen. Dr. V.K. Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways and Civil Aviation of the Government of India said, The work done by BAPS is incomparable. I have seen for many years that in every difficulty, BAPS has worked for the nation and humanity like no other. During the Ukraine crisis, at Prime Minister Modis request to Mahant Swami Maharaj, in no time, volunteers from BAPS UK and Europe reached out to rescue our people. I feel that spirituality is like an ocean, while religions are like rivers that ultimately come to the ocean. The spirituality that inspires us to serve humanity is the highest spirituality. There are not many like Pramukh Swami Maharaj who touched everyones heart and showed compassion for others by serving in this way. His Excellency Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner to India said, We saw how BAPS has given exceptional service in India, the UK and across the world, during the Ukraine crisis, the COVID pandemic and on many other occasions. You are what Prime Minister Modi refers to as the 'Living Bridge' - the foundation on which the relationship between the UK and India is built. We want that connection between our countries to be a strong bridge of openness, tolerance and diversity that supports all the good things between the great nation of India and the United Kingdom. I observed that bridge producing talent, ideas, and culture as well as, of course, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, a practising Hindu. I would like to share a message that His Majesty King Charles III has sent to those assembled here today, As you commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, I wish to send you all my warmest good wishes. It was the greatest pleasure to meet His Holiness at St. Jamess Palace in 1997, and to have been able to visit on several occasions over the years the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, which His Holiness helped to create. His Holinesss timeless message that In the joy of others lies our own, in the progress of others rests our own, in the good of others abides our own, know this to be the key to peace and happiness, resonates as much now as it always has. The Right Honourable Rishi Sunak MP Prime Minister of the United Kingdom shared a video message for the assembly in which he said, Pramukh Swami Maharaj lived by the maxim that In the joy of others lies our own. In the UK he was the inspiration of our magnificent Neasden temple, a familiar sight on our London skyline known as much for its service to the local community as it is for its beauty. That dedication to service is found in all 14 of the mandirs Pramukh Swami Maharaj inspired across the UK. And throughout the pandemic, they stepped up not only to help the Hindu community, but thousands who needed support during that difficult time. Over the past many years, these efforts have not gone unrecognised. Roads have been named after Pramukh Swami Maharaj, and our iconic Wembley Stadium arch has been lit up to pay tribute to his service and support for our country. So, as you gather to mark Pramukh Swami Maharajs 100th birth anniversary, let me pay my respects to his enduring memory and the incredible legacy he has passed on. I wish you every success with these anniversary celebrations. Padma Shri Bob Blackman, UK Member of Parliament (Harrow East), As we celebrate the birth centenary of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, we remember his words, In the joy of others lies our own. Those eight simple words sum up the man who gave such devotion and dedication to the whole world. Although his earthly time has come to an end, his spirit continues on eternally. He leaves a lasting legacy with 1,125 magnificent mandirs and millions of devotees, every one of which carries his spirit and his message. That lasting legacy will go on eternally, long after weve all left this earth. I offer my gratitude to all the volunteers of BAPS who have been such a force for good in the United Kingdom, whether it is in providing education, voluntary support or service. The greatest thing about every BAPS volunteer is that you can be the Chief Executive of the most important company in the country or a humble worker, but in the mandir, everyone is equal, and everyone takes on the tasks necessary to do the job. Sir Keir Rodney Starmer MP Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party, UK shared a video message in which he said, I have been privileged to visit Neasden Temple in London created by His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj. It truly is a landmark for Hindus and the whole of the United Kingdom. It is incredible to see first-hand how thousands of volunteers have been inspired to serve society. This was clearly visible during the pandemic, the Ukraine crisis, and now the cost-of-living crisis. Pramukh Swami Maharaj was a leader, building over 1,200 temples and his work has been recognized across the world. Padma Shri Barry Gardiner, UK Member of Parliament (Brent North) said, Pramukh Swami Maharaj never valued a person for what they owned. For him, every person had worth and was valuable because they were a human being a life precious to God. All who have ever met Pramukh Swami Maharaj will know what I mean when I say, with his eyes he seemed to look right into your heart, into your soul. It did not feel uncomfortable because you never felt he was doing it to judge you. I am sure he could have seen all the wrongs, all the selfish things that we try to hide away, but he was not looking for those. He was looking for the good in us, for the human, for the worthy, because he knew and believed it was therehowever small, however much we might have hidden it even from ourselves. Yesterday, I visited Akshardham in Gandhinagar where a wonderful gentleman told me that 30 years ago, Pramukh Swami Maharaj had given him a rule to live by that could be literally translated as, The things that are good, I make my own. But what it really means is that whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are noble, whatsoever things are worthy, think on these things and build your life around them. A life that is focused not on possessions, but on the good, the beautiful, the worthythat was the life of Pramukh Swami Maharaj. May he continue to inspire each one of us to make it our life as well. Pujya Rakeshbhai Jhaveri, Founder and Spiritual Head of Shrimad Rajchandra Mission said, Julius Caesar said, Veni, Vidi, ViciI came. I saw. I conquered. When I met Pramukh Swami for the first time in Gondal in 1991, I said, I came, I saw and he conquered my heart. When you think of the many positive qualities, only one name comes to mindPramukh Swami Maharaj. He was a river of service and compassion. He was free of ego and totally pure. Formation and transformation were the hallmarks of Pramukh Swami. However, what touched me the most was his absolute purityfree of all ego, with his mind fixed only on God. People say the skys the limit but I say that Pramukh Swami is the limit. In the same way that the Sun does not belong to any one country or person, Pramukh Swami does not belong to BAPS but to all of us. Bangladesh Nationalist Party Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir speaks to supporters outside party headquarters in Dhaka following his release from prison, Jan. 9, 2023. Updated at 4:50 p.m. ET on 2023-01-09 A top Bangladeshi opposition leader vowed "no retreat" in efforts to defeat the ruling Awami League upon being freed on bail Monday following a month in jail. Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Bangladesh Nationalist Partys secretary general, and Mirza Abbas, a member of BNPs standing committee, were arrested from their homes on Dec. 9, charged with inciting violence as police moved to clear party activists gathered outside BNP headquarters two days earlier. The two men left Dhaka Central Jail Monday and went to the party offices in Naya Paltan, a Dhaka neighborhood, where hundreds of supporters were gathered. We have no retreat. We just have to move on. We will succeed in the movement we have started. We have to intensify our movement and defeat the autocratic regime, Mirza Fakhrul said. Let us restore democracy from the hands of this fascist Awami government. We come out of jail today with a new commitment. We pledge again, we will continue until we win. Before his arrest, Mirza Fakhrul was to be the chief speaker at a Dec. 10 rally in Dhaka, which government officials insisted must not take place outside BNP's offices. At least one man was killed and scores were injured on Dec. 7 as police armed with rifles, shotguns, water cannons and batons battled on the street with protesters armed with rocks. According to the police, 45 officers were injured. The rally took place Dec. 10 at a sports field on the outskirts of Dhaka, with about 100,000 people in attendance, organizers said. It was the final rally in a series of ten held throughout the country demanding that the ruling party make way for a neutral caretaker government during the next general election, planned for December 2023 or January 2024. Many party supporters were arrested during the campaign, according to Mirza Fakhrul. Many of our activists are still in jail and sadly they are living inhumane lives. I demand their immediate release, he said. Following at least four rejections, the High Court had on Tuesday granted bail to the two leaders, a decision upheld by the Supreme Courts Appellate Division on Sunday. We received the release order from Dhakas Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court at 4:20 p.m. today, Senior Jail Superintendent Subhash Ghosh told BenarNews. After verifying the bail order documents, we released them from the jail at 5:40 p.m. A leader of BNPs volunteer wing said the arrests had strengthened the party. The government tried to stop the voices against it and demoralize the spirit of the party people by sending our leaders to jail, Omar Faruk Kuchar told BenarNews. But now we are more united and our leaders and party have become more popular among the people of Bangladesh. HANOI, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam needs to gear up to welcome Chinese tourists, focusing on improving service quality and strengthening promotion activities, Vietnam News Agency reported on Monday, citing local tourism experts. Chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh said the first thing the tourism sector should do is to take immediate measures to improve the quality of services to attract Chinese tourists. President of the Vietnam Travel Association's Union Cao Tri Dung said it is important to resume the regular flight and charter flight networks, and strengthen the promotion of destinations in localities that have direct flights from China or are close to China in proximity. The image and content promoted must be impressive and show the outstanding features of Vietnam as a safe, hospitable and exciting destination for all Chinese tourists, he added. Relevant agencies and companies should also implement their promotion activities on social media platforms which are popular in China, Dung said. China is Vietnam's largest tourism market with 5.8 million people visiting the Southeast Asian country in 2019, accounting for nearly one-third of international arrivals. In 2022, Vietnam received only 3.5 million international visitors. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (left) reacts while talking to Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Bogor, Indonesia, Jan. 9, 2023. Malaysias Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said his country supports investment in Indonesias new capital in East Kalimantan because it would spur growth in the Malaysian Bornean states of Sabah and Sarawak. Anwar was speaking during his first state visit to Indonesia as PM, during which at least 10 Malaysian companies expressed commitments to investing in their neighbors new capital, which has been struggling to attract investments. [I] hope that the growth of the national capital Nusantara will also benefit Sarawak and Sabah, more than what I can do for [them], Anwar said after talks with Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo at the Bogor presidential palace. Its proximity and economic interests are significant. My colleagues in Sarawak and Sabah applaud this initiative, said Anwar, who was on his first overseas trip since being sworn in as prime minister in November. A new law passed in January 2022 named the new Indonesian capital Nusantara, which broadly means archipelago. Anwar said potential investment pledged by Malaysian companies in Nusantara was valued at 1.66 billion ringgit (U.S. $379 million). In addition, businesses from the two countries signed memoranda of understanding on cooperation in the fields of shipping, green industry financing and development of batteries for electric vehicles. Jokowi said Malaysian businesses were looking at investments in sectors including electronics, health, waste management, construction and property. I warmly welcome the interest of investors in the construction of the new national capital Nusantara, Jokowi said. In August 2019, Jokowi announced that the country would move the capital from crowded and partially sinking Jakarta, on Java Island, to East Kalimantan, a densely forested and thinly populated province in the Indonesian part of Borneo. The government has struggled to attract investment for its construction since Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank last year withdrew its plans to invest. In December, Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said Softbank withdrew because the Indonesian government deemed its proposal was unfair. The proposal submitted [by Softbank], in our opinion, only benefits them, not the state. And we dont want to be dictated to, Bahlil told state news agency Antara. Nevertheless, the government says it has started constructing roads, bridges and drainage at the new capitals site. Covering 256,142 hectares (632,940 acres), the capitals cost is estimated by the government to be U.S. $32.5 billion, 53 percent of which will be covered by the countrys budget. The National Development Planning Agency projected that by 2045, Nusantara would have a population of 1.9 million about 10 times the areas current number. North Penajam Paser, the regency where the future seat of government will be constructed, is home to about 180,000 people. The population of East Kalimantan is expected to grow to 11 million, from 3.7 million today, according to the agency. But environmentalists have warned that clearing a forest and turning it into the national capital could potentially be an ecological disaster. ASEAN central to Indo-Pacific peace Indonesia and Malaysia also agreed Monday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations must play a central role in ensuring peace in the Indo-Pacific, Jokowi said, amid rising U.S.-China tensions in the region. After talks with Anwar, Jokowi said the two countries agreed to strengthen ASEAN to ensure stability in what has become the geopolitical theater for Sino-U.S. rivalry. Indonesia will chair the 10-nation regional bloc in 2023. ASEAN must be able to play a central role in creating a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific, Jokowi said. The two leaders also urged the Myanmar junta to implement ASEANs so-called five-point consensus aimed at restoring peace and democracy in the country after the military toppled a civilian government in February 2021. The Myanmar junta agreed to the consensus with ASEAN in April 2021, but has reneged on the agreement. That country has since descended into a bloody civil conflict, with many analysts saying the violence only increased in the second half of 2022. More than 2,700 people have been killed and more than 17,000 have been arrested in Myanmar, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Jokowi also said Malaysia was committed to providing protection for Indonesian migrant workers and the rights of their children. In other action, Indonesia and Malaysia agreed to jointly fight what Jokowi called discrimination against palm oil through the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC). The two countries are the biggest producers of the commodity. The European Commission has approved a measure to phase out palm oil-based biofuel by 2030, amid accusations it is linked to deforestation, angering palm oil producers such as the two Southeast Asian nations. Welcome progress Teuku Rezasyah, international relations lecturer at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, said Malaysias interest in investing in the new capital marked welcome progress at a time when Indonesia was seeking to attract foreign money. With Malaysia under Anwars leadership, relations between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are expected to become even closer, given his affinity to Indonesia when he was young, Teuku said. Indonesia for him is a reference for development, he said. Azmi Hassan, a senior fellow at the Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, called Anwars visit to Indonesia special because the plight of the Muslim world is close to his heart. Anwar has been very active in communicating with Indonesian leaders and has great relationships with the top leaders of the country and its religious leaders as well, he said I guess Malaysia and Indonesia can play a critical role in discussing and finding solutions to issues which include the Rohingya, the Uyghur in Xinjiang, Palestine, the Middle East and the Kashmir region, he said. Iman Muttaqin Yusof in Kuala Lumpur contributed to the report. Police and soldiers secure the site of an explosion in the town of Jolo, southern Philippines, Aug. 24, 2020. Gunmen allegedly linked to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) injured a paramilitary officer and three civilians during a Sunday night attack on an army detachment on the southern island of Basilan, police and military officials said. The militants launched the attack on the 18th Infantry Battalion patrol base manned by the Civilian Active Auxiliary on the same day 21 militants surrendered in Jolo, a nearby island, officials said. The attackers were believed to be ASG, said Col. Richard Verceles, operations leader of police forces in western Mindanao. The militants positioned themselves just a few meters from the detachment and fired rounds of high-caliber weapons, including M79 rifle grenades, toward the government position, he said. The attack appeared to be revenge against the detachment, which is near a village where a bandit leader and three other suspected Abu Sayyaf followers were killed in a November 2022 clash, officials said. Pro-government militiamen fought back, which led to a firefight that lasted 30 minutes before the enemy side retreated, Verceles added. Our forces have intensified border security to prevent similar attacks, he said. Army forces stationed in the area were alerted about the attack and sent reinforcements, although they failed to catch the militants. Police identified those injured as militiaman Romy Mangkabung, his wife, Hasma Akah-Mangkabung, and 10-year-old nephew, Jonie Mangkabung. Nasira Moreno, the daughter of another militia member, was injured as well. The four were taken to the Lamitan District Hospital where they were recovering from gunshot wounds, the military and police said. Militants surrender Meanwhile, Marine Brig. Gen. Arturo Rojas, the Western Mindanao Command acting leader, said 21 Abu Sayyaf members surrendered to troops on Jolo island on Sunday morning. Among the militants were Madjid Said/Majid Said , identified as a leader of the group, and his sub-commander, Jamiri Jauhari. They surrendered in a village in the town of Patikul, where ASG had for years staged attacks and taken hostages for ransom, Rojas said, adding they gave up high-powered firearms, including assault rifles. We are hopeful that the Abu Sayyaf Group in Sulu will soon be defeated and peace and order in the province of Sulu will be fully restored, Rojas said as he presented the militants in nearby Zamboanga City. Im very happy with this development. Also, we were able to isolate them and stopped their recruitment efforts, Rojas said, adding that military successes have drained the militants of resources and support. The former violent extremists were provided with food and financial assistance, and are housed in a relocation site. It was not clear whether they would be prosecuted for their past crimes. In early November, the military reported 174 Abu Sayyaf suspects had surrendered in the south in 2022, including about 40 non-combatants who were providing logistical support to the group. The overall strength of the Abu Sayyaf Group was believed to have fallen to 130 active fighters in ASGs strongholds on the southern islands of Basilan and Jolo, the military said at the time. Former Philippine chief peace adviser and COVID-19 vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr., named new defense secretary, is seen during an event held to receive vaccines from the U.S. government, July 27, 2022. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday appointed a new defense secretary amid destabilization concerns, days after he replaced the military chief just five months into his tenure. Marcos named Carlito Galvez, a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) under former president Rodrigo Duterte, the new defense secretary, without disclosing why his predecessor, Jose Faustino Jr., resigned, said a Presidential Communications Office statement. It is with deep regret that the president has accepted the resignation of DND OIC Sr. Usec. Jose Faustino Jr. The president has offered the position of DND Secretary to Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. and he has accepted, the statement said. The Department of National Defense welcomed the appointment of Galvez, who served as presidential peace adviser and vaccine czar during the COVID-19 pandemic under Marcos predecessor Rodrigo Duterte. With Sec. Galvezs years of experience as a military commander and as a civilian public servant, we are confident that he will be able to effectively lead the department as we fulfill our mandates to the nation, department spokesman Arsenio Andolong said in a statement. The department also wished Faustino the best as it welcomed its new leader. Faustino had been a no-show at the AFP change of command ceremony on Saturday. Marcos over the weekend re-appointed Andres Centino as military chief, having earlier replaced him with Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro. Bacarro was supposed to be the first AFP chief with a three-year term, after a law signed by Duterte in April 2022 set fixed terms for key military officials. The law was intended to end the so-called revolving-door policy, referring to the quick succession of AFP chiefs who had to step down after serving for only a few months upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 56. The AFP chief being replaced prompted destabilization rumors in the country that, having seen several coup attempts, has a fraught history with the military establishment. Over the weekend, alleged destabilization reports spread on chat groups of the military and the police and on social media. Both establishments denied it. Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. said he had ordered an investigation into an alleged leaked memorandum placing all police units under heightened alert status. He said it was normal for the police force to be on alert during change of command ceremonies, noting the president attends those events. As far as the destabilization [plot] is concerned, I dont think there is one, Azurin told reporters on Monday. Military spokesman Medel Aguilar issued a similar denial. The truth is we dont have a problem, Aguilar said in a radio interview. We have nothing to worry about because the situation is normal. Dont believe reports that there are destabilization plots, because the Armed Forces are professionals. Philippine devotees participate in the Walk of Faith procession in Manila as part of celebrations for the feast day of the Black Nazarene, a centuries-old charred statue of Jesus Christ, Jan. 8, 2023. [Aaron Favila/AP] Earlier, Aguilar said the reported movement of police assets during the weekend was usual practice in preparation for the Feast of the Black Nazarene in Manila, which drew thousands of devotees. Meanwhile, the Philippine Army expressed support for Centino, saying it will always respect and support the decision of the president and commander-in-chief. We are confident that Gen. Centino, who led the AFP from November 2021 to August 2022, will support the Philippine Army in attaining its vision of becoming a world-class land force that is a source of national pride by 2028. The organization is assured on its strides in its modernization thrusts, it said in a statement on Saturday. 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. PITTSFIELD You work in an office and want to switch to a more flexible, hybrid schedule that allows you to do your job remotely at least part of the time. Your employer isnt on board. What can you do to break the logjam? We asked professionals in human resources and workforce development for advice on how to approach an employer with this request. They suggested taking these four steps. 1. Make a plan. Be clear about how youll get the work done Have all details of your plan to work a more flexible schedule mapped out before meeting with your employer. If an employee is asking for flexibility, I would suggest that they write something up in terms of what theyre asking for, present it to the HR department, and be willing to have a conversation about it, said Kyle Pardo, executive vice president of AIM HR Solutions for Associated Industries of Massachusetts. How they are going to get the work done. What additional tools might they need, she said. That gives the employer some good information to use if they decide theyre going to allow that flexibility. Paul Mattingly, manager of industry relations at the MassHire Workforce Board in Pittsfield, says employers want to be sure the work will get done. Come up with a plan or guideline that proves to them that it gets done, he said. How youre going to meet the deadlines. If you go in with a plan, that helps so they dont have to come up with it on the fly. Meredith Wise, president of the Human Resources Management Association of Western New England, said employers will look more favorably on employees who are prepared. They would like to see that employees have definitely put some thought into it, Wise said. And they have at least portions of the plan worked out ... so its not just an off-the-cuff, Hey I want to work from home two days a week. 2. Set a timeline Employers who arent sold on hybrid work arrangements may be willing to consider them if theres a trial period, the experts say. Lets do it for six months and then evaluate it, Pardo said. If it doesnt work, we can go back to the old method after six months. This might help some of those employers who are not sure and might give them a way to ease into it. Setting timelines can depend on the employer, Wise said. I think some employers are not particularly setting out a timeline, but theyre laying out the ground rules that if this doesnt work after a specific period of time, were going to pull it back into the office, she said. 3. Have a secure place to work Employers want to know where their employees would work remotely. That place needs in some ways to replicate conditions of an office. Meaning: It is secure, stable and reasonably private. Its important for employers to have a comfort level that their employee thats working from home does have a dedicated space, Wise said. That theyre not always working from the kitchen counter or the dining room table unless thats truly been turned into an office. One reason is to ensure the individual, especially if theyre dealing with any kind of private information, can truly be doing something without being heard by somebody else in the house, or without someone coming up and looking over your shoulder, she said. They want to make sure the area is free from some of those distractions. 4. Ensure all tasks can be done remotely Make sure that remote work fulfills expectations. One of the biggest concerns on an employers side is Whats the productivity is going to be? Pardo said. Workers should anticipate that concern and address it head on. Show that all the work you do in an office can and will be performed remotely. HANOI, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The overall air quality in Vietnam's capital Hanoi reached "very unhealthy" levels on Monday, which means the entire population is likely to be affected. Most air monitoring stations in Hanoi reported an Air Quality Index (AQI) of 201-300 as purple showing health warnings of emergency conditions as of Monday morning. The index recorded in some stations in Hanoi and the northern Thai Nguyen and Hung Yen provinces even surpassed 300, which means that everyone may experience more serious health effects, according to the Vietnam News Agency on Monday. The Vietnam Environment Administration under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment suggested people frequently update the air quality information, the news agency said. Experts said the air pollution recently is mainly due to weather factors, as Hanoi and other localities in the northern region have experienced cold and dry weather, which causes pollutants to be concentrated in the area near the ground and leads to serious pollution. They recommend people wear face masks which can help protect them from fine particulate matters (PM2.5). Findings of the World Health Organization have shown that air pollution is responsible for approximately 60,000 deaths in Vietnam each year. Jacqueline Kennedy, pictured here in Pittsfield with her dog, Bear, said she wanted to see more policies to help Americans come out of the current GOP majority in the House following the election of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker. NORTH ADAMS On the two-year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, President Joe Biden honored police officers and election officials who dealt with the event or its aftermath. In his remarks, Biden also remembered William Billy Evans, a North Adams native and U.S. Capitol Police officer who died in April 2021 when an attacker drove a car into him at a barricade outside the Capitol. Evans was 41. He was killed several months after the Jan. 6 insurrection while the Capitol was still cordoned off, Biden said. "Officer Evans was killed defending a checkpoint you had to go through to get up to the Capitol, because of these God-awful, sick threats that continue to move forth," Biden said. "Its just hard to believe. Its hard to believe it could happen here in America." Night News Editor Mitchell Chapman is The Eagles night news editor. He has been with The Eagle since 2016. He is a former editor of The MCLA Beacon and was a Berkshires Week intern in 2017. Today Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A shower of rain or wet snow possible. Low 36F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Tonight Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A shower of rain or wet snow possible. Low 36F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Tomorrow Sunshine and clouds mixed. High around 55F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Lunit will supply its AI solution for chest x-ray image analysis to the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein for three years until 2025 South Korea-based startup Lunit has signed a software license agreement with the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Under the agreement, Lunit will supply its artificial intelligence (AI) solution for chest x-ray image analysis, Lunit INSIGHT CXR, to the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein for three years until 2025. The hospital plans to operate Lunits AI solution in screening chest x-ray images in its intensive care unit and emergency room as well as in-patient examinations. Lunit INSIGHT CXR detects suspicious lesions in chest x-ray images, helping radiologists distinguish disease areas by providing the location of the lesion with an abnormality score that reflects the AIs confidence level. The AI solution can detect 10 of the most common chest abnormalities with 97-99% accuracy, including pulmonary nodules, pulmonary fibrosis, and pneumothorax, as well as supporting tuberculosis screening. We are thrilled to provide Lunits AI solution to the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, one of the most trusted medical institutions in South America and the world, said Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit. Through this new partnership, Lunit will continue to actively expand our business in South America. Earlier this year, the health tech firm raised $15 million in a funding round Bengaluru-based connected health tech startup Eka Care is set to grow its presence in India by entering Nagpur. With a presence in more than 42 cities, Eka Care will now bring its comprehensive and personalised practice management platform to the doctors of Nagpur. The Eka Care platform can be customised by the doctor according to their speciality, which would make their clinical practice easier to manage and operate. With Eka Care, doctors can manage their appointments, digital prescription, billing, lab and pharmacy services, patients medical records, and their digital presence. Speaking on the development, Vikalp Sahni, Founder and CEO, Eka Care, said, We want the doctors in Nagpur to consider us as an information company and not a prescription company. We believe our technology cannot replace doctors; instead, it can aid them with the right set of information. Earlier this year, the health tech firm raised $15 million in a funding round led by Hummingbird Ventures, with participation from 3one4 Capital, Mirae Asset, Verlinvest, and Aditya Birla Ventures. Binny Bansal, Co-Founder of Flipkart, and Rohit MA, Co-Founder of the Cloudnine group of hospitals, have also invested in the firm. Jeremy Bullmore has died at the age of 93. Source WPP ttps://www.wpp.com/news/2023/01/jeremy-bullmore WPP Jeremy Bullmore has died The news of his passing away was made by Mark Read, the chief executive of WPP on Twitter. I am very sad to share the news that our friend and colleague Jeremy Bullmore has passed away, aged 93. Jeremy died peacefully at home this week, with his family around him. We will miss him terribly. Our deepest condolences go to his family 1/3 pic.twitter.com/IuMff7ufRi Mark Read (@readmark) January 6, 2023 Bullmore's family have asked that anyone who would like to honour his memory make a donation to Shelter. Most admired in the industry In a note to WPP staff reflecting on Bullmore's death, Read described him as "one of the most admired, loved and cherished people in our industry". "No time spent with Jeremy was ever wasted. If you went to see him in his office, he would without fail make you think, make you laugh, and make you challenge whatever assumption you had gone in with. We will miss him terribly. Not only those who knew him personally, but his army of loyal readers who devoured every perfectly chosen word in his consistently brilliant columns, articles, speeches and essays," says Read in the note. Campaign UK also quotes Advertising Association CEO Stephen Woodfords tribute to Bullmore. Bullmores nearly 70 year career in advertising was like no other his wit and wisdom lit up so many campaigns, columns, books and conferences in all that time and I am so sad to hear the news of his passing away. Jeremy Bullmore, adlands greatest philosopher, has died at the age of 93 https://t.co/D4j4tao9Cz via @campaignmag HistoryOfAdvertising (@HatAds) January 6, 2023 A career spanning 67 years Bullmore had just retired from WPP last fall after a 67-year career at the holding company, and 33 years at J Walter Thompson. According to Campaign UK Bullmore joined J Walter Thompson as a copywriter in 1954 rising to become chairman of the shop, which WPP bought in 1987. He remained at WPP for another third of a century and he was a board director of the business, which has its headquarters in London, from 1988 to 2004. From 2004, Bullmore sat on the group's advisory board and continued to work from his office in WPPs headquarters until the pandemic. He wrote a thoughtful essay each year in the companys annual report most recently in April 2021, says the publication. He was also a columnist and agony uncle for Campaign, Management Today and The Guardian. Welcome to 2023, the year that rhymes with 20 Plenty Three! Here's hoping for a year of abundance for us all! Also, the year that the term impact will come to dominate business narratives, with topics such as energy, education, ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) and equality goals of every kind predicted to impact many business decisions, no matter what sector youre in. This is why we identified Impact as the chosen theme for this years BizTrends feature. Having launched today, BizTrends2023: BIG IMPACT! is a not-to-be-missed series of articles from leading analysts, curated by our editors across 19 sectors. BizTrends marks the definitive start to 2023 and trend guide for business in the year ahead. #BizTrends2023 Special Section>> Even more Impact Last year we shared insights such as these, from Auro Trini Castelli, chief sustainability officer at DDB NYC: The space that business will need to play in the future will be in the realms of true societal impact; from Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, billed as the worlds largest asset managers: Every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society and from author Morgan Simon: The trend of impact investing is poised to eclipse traditional aid by ten times in the next decade. These and other factors, have prompted us to pivot the name of Biz CSI & Sustainability portal to ESG & Sustainability, to be able to better prioritise and promote the huge shifts in business communications and activations we anticipate in the forthcoming years. From February, the ESG & Sustainability portal will be under the editorship of Shan Radcliffe. Submit news to moc.ytinummoczib@swengse. Despite the past years being characterised by Covid and energy austerity, Ukrainian and other global human rights and environmental violations, we believe that with increased equality and equity on the agenda, Bizcommunitys business-to-business focus is ideally positioned to anticipate a new generation of corporate content, of refreshed societal impact and governance goals and to enable you to ride these huge trend waves into the future. If we all pull together towards more equitable goals, there is hope that our region can set an example to the world and that the year may well be remembered as one of plenty for more of us! As usual our mandate is to ensure your company initiatives and activations make the desired impact via our platforms. Wishing you a super impactful year in Biz! Opening up a Press Office Newsroom on Bizcommunity allows the publishing and tracking of your companys environmental, societal and governance impact content, ensuring that search for the high value terms such as ESG and Impact will result in enhanced SEO results for your impact-related corporate content. If you would like any of the IMPACT ESG decision-makers in your company to be featured high up on our home pages get in touch at moc.ytinummoczib@tcapmi. For the past 24 years, Kia South Africa has been a part of the unique journeys that see South Africans moving across the country. Whether it is travelling to visit family during the festive season, the daily school run or a trip to the grocery store, our daily commutes are always inspired by the people we're with, the places we explore, and the memories made along the way. As a brand in tune with the South African way of life, Kia understands how and why we move. Capturing the essence of the unique ways in which South Africans move, the #KiaTsamaya campaign is launched with an emotive music video, a uniquely local expression of how we travel, underpinned by a modern folk song. In Setswana, Sesotho and Sepedi there are the words kea and ke ya which sound like Kia and interestingly, they relate to movement and travel, comments Stephen Crosse, sales and marketing director of Kia South Africa. We found the sonic similarity between the words, coupled with our nations history of migration to be an authentic and unexpected opportunity to connect with South Africans through music in a meaningful way. The Kia Tsamaya anthem expresses the notion of going away, alone and together, and finding inspiration in the places we go to and the shared experiences. While its a boldly South African campaign, the inspiration behind it remains true to Kias global brand slogan, Movement that inspires. Movement has always been a part of Kias DNA and will remain so even though the way in which we move may change over time, comments Christo Valentyn, Kia South Africas head of marketing. At its core, movement creates the space to find inspiration in new experiences, to find fresh perspectives. When we change our perspective, we can change our world for the better. Created by lauded film composer Zethu Mashika, the catchy song is a nod to the 80s - an instrumental composition which has a distinctly old school feel, with a fresh twist; even though it is new, it feels like you have heard it a million times. While we all travel for different reasons, we can share in the familiarity of songs sung in unison, the reassuring hum that fills the silence on a long stretch of road and the unforgettable echoes that call back memories of home. Following the journeys of a diverse group of characters, the #KiaTsamaya music video, directed by Matshepo Maja, delicately portrays a myriad of human truths. There is a family travelling to a coming-of-age ceremony, a solo woman taking her brand-new car home to celebrate the fruits of her labour, a couple from the LGBTQI+ community braving possible rejection, glimpses of a father and son with camping trailer in tow as they break away on a bonding trip, and a group of friends heading to the coast with surfboards stacked high. These rich stories are explored in a relatable way, and while some are implied and others unequivocally told, there is a feeling of familiarity in these distinctly local scenes and memories yet to be made. Through a nostalgic visual treatment, sweeping views of urban and rural landscapes are interspersed with scenic pitstops, paths crossed and intimate moments. We are offered a sense of the freedom, togetherness, and celebration that only a road trip in a Kia on South African soil allows. As a nation we are always on the move, and by nature we relish the stops along the way to explore, greet unfamiliar faces and to forge deeper bonds with those closest to us. The Kia Tsamaya anthem offers a vehicle for connection, a song sheet for celebration and a melody that moves us towards the unlimited possibilities held by the road ahead, concludes Gary Scott, CEO of Kia South Africa. #KiaTsamaya is the spirit of Kia. As a brand that believes movement is at the genesis of human development, Kia enables progress by providing innovative in-car spaces, exciting new products and meaningful, convenient services. Allow yourself to be inspired and make every journey a #KiaTsamaya journey. Join the movement at www.kiatsamaya.co.za South African power utility Eskom on Sunday said police were investigating whether an attempt was made to poison its outgoing chief executive officer Andre de Ruyter. Andre de Ruyter, Group Chief Executive of state-owned power utility Eskom speaks during a media briefing in Johannesburg, South Africa, 31 January 2020. Reuters/Sumaya Hisham//File Photo Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan also told Reuters on Sunday the alleged incident "will be thoroughly investigated" and anyone responsible charged. Without giving any details, Gordhan said an intense battle was taking place "between those who want South Africa to work and thrive and those who want to corruptly enrich themselves". Faced with political pressure, De Ruyter resigned on 14 December 2022 after failing to solve a crisis in Eskom that has led to record power cuts in Africa's most industrialised economy. After officially taking office in January 2020, De Ruyter led a company-wide clampdown on corruption and organised criminal behaviour, including sabotage of infrastructure, at Eskom plants. His last day in office will be 31 March 2023. "Eskom cannot comment further on the poisoning incident involving the group chief executive, which occurred during December 2022, as the matter is subject to police investigation," the utility's head of security said in a statement. Reuters could not immediately reach De Ruyter for comment. The alleged cyanide poisoning was first reported by specialist energy publication EE Business Intelligence on Saturday. Opposition party the Democratic Alliance on Sunday called for decisive action against criminal syndicates that it said were "hell-bent on cementing their stranglehold on Eskom that is destroying the economy". The South African police services did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. Eskom's board chairman Mpho Makwana was also unavailable. Shipping traffic in the Suez Canal was proceeding normally on Monday after tugs towed a cargo vessel that broke down during its passage through the waterway, the Canal Authority said. An aerial view of the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal are pictured through the window of an airplane on a flight between Cairo and Doha, Egypt, November 27, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh The M/V Glory, which was sailing to China, suffered a technical fault when it was 38km into its passage southward through the canal, before being towed by four tugs to a repair area, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) said in a statement. The Suez Canal is one of the world's busiest waterways and the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. In 2021, a huge container ship, the Ever Given, became stuck in high winds across a southern section of the canal, blocking traffic for six days before it could be dislodged. The M/V Glory is a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier, data from trackers VesselFinder and MarineTraffic showed. It departed Ukraine's Chornomorsk port on 25 December bound for China with 65,970 metric tonnes of corn, according to the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) overseeing Ukraine grain exports. The JCC, which includes representatives from the United Nations, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia, said the ship had been cleared to carry on its journey from Istanbul after an inspection on 3 January. The eThekwini Municipality and Durban Tourism is calling for nominations for the second annual Durban Tourism Business Awards. Businesses in the tourism and hospitality sectors can enter the awards in categories and subcategories, including the Upcoming Filmmakers Award, Service Excellence Award, Sustainable Development Award, Entrepreneurship Award and the Special Achievement Award. The 2022 iteration of the awards attracted some 155 product owners in Durban who entered with thousands of votes cast. The benefits of these awards are the prizes of up to the value of R50, 000 for winners, with the first runner up receiving a prize to the value of R35,000 and the second runner up receiving a prize up to the value of R25,000. All winners and runner-ups will receive a trophy and certificate. Another benefit of participation in these awards is the marketing of the awards on provincial and international platforms on all Durban Tourism social media handles, radio, television and print. Entry to the awards guarantees that your business will be profiled on all Durban Tourism social media handles and print in major local and national newspapers to give your business extensive coverage, Durban Tourism said. Entries for this years awards can be made at https://www.durbantourismawards.com/register and the nominations period ends on January 14. The public will also vote on the nominated businesses and a judging panel will also visit those businesses. The entries, public votes and the overall adjudication of the awards will be audited by the eThekwini Municipality Audit Department, Durban Tourism said. The last few years have been grueling in the advertising sector. Faster turnarounds, more channels, lower fees, less patience, less face-to-face, more loneliness, longer hours, more planning yet less creativity. More for less. Consequently, lower quality, more compromises, less heart. Mental health out of the shadows Luckily, one of the better outcomes of the Covid crisis, was that mental health came out of the shadows. People realised that their colleagues or suppliers were taking strain, and they stopped to ask. Programmes were initiated to help people get help. Mental health check-ins took place before Teams calls started. Online initiatives to monitor the happiness and health of teams were developed and implemented to build resilience and "employee well-being strategy". People who were struggling were given the attention and resources they needed to cope and remain productive. Handle with care Accenture Song's Fjord Trends has identified "Handle With Care" as one of its five major trends. "Care has moved centre stage" he says. "We have seen the rising importance of self-care. The pandemic has wreaked havoc on mental health around the world. The amount of time and attention now devoted to caring for the well-being of colleagues has likely increased. Compassion and grace in the face of a colleague's strugglessuch as mental health issues, grief, or a sudden disruption through illnesshave become normalised. The responsibilities around self-care and caring for others will likely continue to be a priority. For brands, visibly caring for customers builds trust, says Fjord. Technology became both a new channel and a source of solutions to care, to administer, treat, and connect mental well-being. Apps and websites communities like Calm, 7Cups and others evolved from individual offerings to providing management support for employee health and happiness. Mindfulness became normalised, as did speaking about personal issues and letting your kids sit in on meetings. Hopefully, the crisis mindset that forced these changes, and forced leaders to listen and empathise, will continue. Worst ever talent crisis Why is this important? It's important because the advertising industry is filled to the brim with knowledge workers. They are self-driven, motivated, and energetic. They search for newness and love a challenge. What they don't love though is more speed and less time to think and craft. They also don't love the tension emanating from clients being under pressure, under-resourced, and under-skilled in key decision-making areas that affect the process and quality of output. The combination of the relentless turning of the wheel, at pace and scale, and lower mental fitness, is potentially disastrous on two levels. One, the industry on a global scale is finding it harder and harder to attract talent. A recent WFA report on the "worst ever talent crisis" found 85% of agencies recognise the scarcity of talent as a problem, with 38% rating it very highly. 67% highlight how scarcity is a major blocker towards growth, identifying talent as the key commodity driving the industry. Why is it hard to attract and retain talent? Abusive client relationships are as little fun as they sound. Why put yourself through it? The hours are always-on and the pay and benefits aren't as good as the tech companies. The ability to have autonomy, mastery, and purpose (factors of motivation according to Daniel Pink's book Drive) is slim. The WFA's research confirms a negative client-agency relationship dynamic is a major turnoff for attracting or retaining talent in agencies, particularly where there is an imbalance in trust, transparency, and remuneration. Much of the research points to the need for better training and alignment of expectations to reset the way that talent is supported and rewarded. "Education and alignment on the client side are essential. The service gap is always a result of expectation misalignment." What is ultimately behind the perceived shortage? Agree/Strongly Agree The second problem with an uncaring and un-nurturing way of working is with the "creative tap"; that should be open, with the best people wanting to work on your briefs, with inspiration and energy flowing your way, is slowly but surely being closed until clients get what they want, and no more. More heart is needed Why is that a problem? Because what they want isn't nearly as good as what they need. The process is not only made harder with poor briefs and bad evaluation skills, it inevitably takes longer, costs more, and generates lower-quality output. The creative tap doesn't magically re-open on the next brief either. So, the industry needs more heart in the process. More nurturing of people, not deadlines and timesheets. Less volume, more thoughtful brand building, more growth unlocking work. This comes from more time to think, more allowing talent to do its thing. Brands too are realising that maybe they need more heart. The Fjord trend report suggests that brands show theyre more caring, empathetic side. Unless brand managers have been living under a rock, they will have read the tomes of published work about the effectiveness of emotional messaging, in research published by the IPA, the WAF, WARC, and research companies like Kantar and System1. In the Long and the Short of It, by Peter Field and Les Binet, they found that emotional campaigns build brands more strongly regardless of the measure: awareness, commitment, trust, differentiation, fame, or image. Emotional campaigns are far more powerful at building brands. They create emotional bonds and associations. Source: https://www.westwoodone.com/blog/2018/06/25/rational-versus-emotional-creative-short-term-and-long-term-impact/ Short-termism functional messaging serves its purpose, but more and more research shows that the abandonment of brand-building activities in favour of short-term activities, is long-term damaging. Brands need careful and consistent input into building memories, refreshing perceptions, solidifying distinctiveness, and emotion works. For the heart to come back into the creative output, the creative teams need to work with heart. And for them to do so, their clients need to do so too. Employee experience As part of the Fjord trend around care, their last suggestion is for employers to take a detailed look at the employee experience. "Designing internal processes and rules to reduce employees' mental load is a subtle, yet important way to show care. In all aspects of work, employers can declutter and make cumbersome experiences invisible and easy and give people space to do the work they're meant to do." This advice is appropriate and necessary both for marketing teams and agencies. The nurturing of talent and the unlocking of innovation must be the result of this slow but steady mental health discussion. But it's not just about getting an app and doing meditation at lunchtime, it's about a radical rethink of the way the teams work together to make better quality work that is proven to work better. Kicking off in Wuhan, China's open-air "wet markets" in December of 2019, Covid-19 spread faster and wider than anything I have ever seen. When it hit, it landed a big blow with what started out as a 21-day lockdown in March of 2020 in Mzansi; lasting as long as April 2022 when the National State of Disaster was ended by our dear President. Loyiso Twala, McCann Joburg's chief creative officer, examines what the new normal means to the creative industry After all we endured, we have been left with this ever-buzzing buzz phrase, the new normal. I think of it as the awkward state of going back to how things used to be, whilst embracing the open mind of how new or renewed things could be now as we shape our future. It is in this spirit that I view the trends that I have spotted going into 2023 and possibly well beyond it. Much like Covid-19, they make a big impact and lead us into a new normal we sometimes never even knew weve always wanted. Micro trend: The age of the adaptive logo In a time where many disruptive brands are entering the market and many heritage brands are rebranding, its relevant to highlight a design trend. 3D logos reigned supreme when design software advances made computer-generated imagery and its effects great for highly embellished graphics. Around 10 years ago, when Apple updated to iOS 7, flat 2D logo designs took centre stage, helping to improve storage capacity for icons and imagery within the smartphone devices limited space. 2D is modern and 3D is outdated. Recently, weve seen adaptive logos show up in a highly responsive world, where the logo isnt one single graphic but a graphic mark whose form can adapt depending on the context it is being seen in. This offers static logos a way of living in different iterations which gives them an animated quality. A trend I am happy to see growing. Courtesy of Whitney Museum Macro trends Purpose is the product or service In the past brands commonly competed and lead with differentiation. I propose a trend that is noticeably different today. As seen in recent times with the Grand Prix winners at Cannes Lions, the highest accolade for creative communication that drives progress, purpose is what gets the awards for work that is not focused on typically selling a product or service but rather the heart and soul of the brand with broader impact relevant to the brand. Its not about differentiation, but distinction discovered through insight and data sources to give the communication the edge it needs. And its not creative for creative sake. Its been proven that award-winning creative has up to 54% higher ROI than other work. This past year, out of the thousands of entries received, only 3% won. The most awarded piece at Cannes Lions this year, with 12 trophies three of them Grand Prix - straddles the lanes of product demo with purpose to truly resonate. This is the Unfiltered History Tour for Vice Media. Lesso Lessons by Roto & The Ministry of Health Kenya and The Elections Edition by An-Nahar Newspaper are also great examples of this trend. With the advent of green-washing where purpose is viewed skeptically as something brands pursue as a once-off, this approach of making the purpose aligned to the product or service allows brands to be consistent in their purpose work. B2B stand up From inception, the industry has celebrated creativity and as it matured, it celebrated creativity and effectiveness. In the spirit of celebrating possibly the most effective creativity out there, 2022 became the inaugural year for the B2B products and service category at Cannes Lions. Much like how we saw a focus on health has elevated the work in the specialised medical advertising space, with the massive incentive of winning a much-sought after Lion, lets expect to see a rise of specialized agencies and even traditional agencies paying more attention to more B2B work than typically B2C creative opportunities. Mega trends Although South Africa has many different issues from more developed countries in Europe and North America, some of the global trends that have emerged from there will have an impact in time in this country. Johanna McDowell, Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS), and Partner in Scopen Africa, examines global trends that will impact the local creative industry Sustainability and purpose Sustainability and purpose were two key trends we observed at the recent Ad Forum Summit in Amsterdam where many of the 15 agencies that we met demonstrated their intentions around these two trends not only in the work that they were producing for brands but also in the way they behave as businesses. Whether through employment policies, level of HR support for staff, interaction with the broader business community, the kind of power they use in their buildings, I had the sense that these agencies were able to be very focused on much broader issues than the day-to-day operational issues that might negatively affect them. South Africa is not in such a position as we deal with the never-ending power cuts and economic conditions largely rooted in bad government policies and levels of corruption which seem to be pervasive. Nonetheless, the global trends are being observed and there is a growing consciousness about the need for cleaner energy, sustainable power sources and even the possibilities of a four-day working week. In-housing agencies On a more operational level, we see that the in-housing of agencies trend that emerged a few years ago although truth be told there has always been some sort of in-housing work being done by marketers if mainly executional only continues to provoke discussion and interest from marketers and that aspects of digital marketing are starting to go in house for some clients. The challenge here always is the shortage of talent, the opportunities for digital nomads who can work remotely from South Africa anywhere in the world and earn currency that is far more favourable than rands. While this global trend exists everywhere it is exacerbated in South Africa by the amount of people who are emigrating the current brain drain. This definitely already has had an impact not only on talent for in-housing purposes but also for talent in agencies in general and also within the marketing environment. As far as in-housing as a trend is concerned it will expand and contract continuously especially as the short-term cost savings do not necessarily get replicated in future years. Value of creativity One of my colleagues at the AAR recently wrote a crystal-ball gazing piece where he mentioned the many factors affecting our industry and what could happen in 2023, and yet he commented how little attention was being paid to the value of creativity and how brands can employ this to achieve their marketing and business ambitions. Interestingly I read a recent comment by a local agency leader who believes that the pendulum has swung too far to all things digital which probably has been caused by the current obsession with ROI and ROAS (return on ad spend). I think he may be right and that the pendulum might swing back a little during 2023 more to bigger ideas and higher levels of creativity in order to build brands for the longer term. Skills shortage impact on growth On that note the question is being raised constantly here in South Africa about the skills shortage in the marketing community and that there are middle to senior marketing managers who have not been fully equipped with the skills they need to practice marketing at a level that will promote growth - the all important factor in our economy here in South Africa and of course globally. Unless these marketers are better equipped and perhaps this is where agencies could assist the skills shortage will have a long-term impact on the growth of this economy. These trends are quite serious, not light-hearted and frivolous. I do believe it is because we are in an era of post-pandemic re adjustment which will take us a few more years to navigate before we can finally look back and realise that we all came through it in one way or another -and hopefully better for having had what was a cataclysmic experience. Leading a school where we pride ourselves on preparing students for the rapidly changing world of marketing and advertising, we always try to keep a finger on the global pulse. Verusha Maharaj. Source: Supplied. Of course, our ambitious young students have their own vision for the industry they have chosen to enter - and their own ideas about how it needs to transform. Bearing tomorrows creatives in mind, we have identified four trends that excite us about the marketing and advertising industry right now, and where it seems to be headed. Rethinking what attracts young talent According to data shared by LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky at the Cannes Lions this year, the advertising industry lost 5.5% more talent than it gained over the last five years. This eye-opening statistic is even more sobering when compared with the tech industry, which gained 23% more talent than it lost over the same period. What this tells us is that a rethink is necessary. More than simply finding new ways to attract and retain creative talent, the fundamental value of creativity itself needs to be prioritised, including fair and competitive pay from day one. The fact that this notion entered the discourse at Cannes is heartening. It suggests that creative industry players at global level are open to having the conversation. Its no longer enough to simply be a large agency promising the opportunity to work on famous brands with big budgets, to make young talent come running. A TBWA Worldwide study found that a more diverse working culture, making employees wellbeing a priority and respecting their personal time, and creating clear operational structures and career paths are the key priorities for potential young hires. No avoiding the tech We are faced with a new world that has forced creatives to adopt a different mindset and meet physical and virtual consumers where they are. Brands entering virtual spaces should be joining the conversation and adding value to it, or building a world where a new community can grow. But simply disrupting in the virtual world is not going to win you any fans. Think about how you can use new mediums to drive engagement and advocacy. The industry needs to rethink what will attract young talent to pursue opportunities The second most decorated piece of winning work this year at Cannes was Backup Ukraine. Ukrainian people were given a tool on their mobile phones to scan important monuments and cultural treasures in case they got destroyed, so they can be rebuilt in the metaverse. Yet using technology in a clever way isnt worth much if there are still people who cant access it. So while we should all be investing in technology-driven work, more thought needs to be given to the roll-out. Better business Businesses today face some of their toughest challenges ever. New technology combined with cultural, political, and pandemic-related shifts have upended established ways of working. We are seeing more brands with an appetite for risk, unconventional thinking and creative problem-solving, reinventing the way they do business to drive transformative change. Major brands and agencies this year have shown us that a sustainable business transformation needs to be more than just a good idea. It needs to have a strong social impact to deliver profitable growth and permanent change. It needs to be more than a one-brief campaign. It needs to start a movement. Recent research by IBM has shown that three out of five global consumers say that socially responsible products make up at least 50% of their recent purchases. So theres no denying that the time is now. Ethical and inclusive marketing While it might seem the world has come a long way when it comes to inclusivity and representation, we definitely still have a long way to go. According to the Geena Davis Institute of Gender in Media, the body of international creative work surveyed has almost reached gender parity. The prevalence of visually prominent people of colour has also, according to the Institute, improved within the last five years. However, representation of people with a disability sits at 2.2% of all visually prominent characters (bearing in mind that 15% of the worlds population has a disability). And, in a context where we continue to battle against long-entrenched sexual politics, we salute the work of organisations like Consent Labs.Their Classify Consent campaign aims to draw awareness to lack of consent by including warnings similar to those that alert viewers to violence, nudity and strong language. Their aim is not to censor content, but to highlight the extent to which lack of consent is accepted and normalised. With sustainability finally becoming a serious priority and not just a buzzword, being better in terms of ethics and inclusivity is crucial to the survival of every advertising and marketing business. The forecast for the buildings industry in 2023 represents a conundrum of sorts. On the one hand, South Africa and some of our Anglophone African country peers face the instability of a volatile grid, while on the other, we are making tremendous strides towards establishing smarter, sustainable buildings driven by renewable energy sources. Anoop Hariparsad, offer and channel marketing manager: digital energy at Schneider Electric The challenge is how to we bring together our current energy shortage with developing and establishing a sustainable building industry. 2022 the return to normalcy To contextualise the above, its important that we take one step back. Last year undoubtedly saw the country return to some form of normalcy - many employers have implemented hybrid working models which escalated the demand for office space as employees returned to the office. To that end, building managers started looking at greener, more efficient facilities. This is good news as buildings which offer energy efficiency that doesnt compromise on comfortable occupancy, such as HVAC and lighting, are leading the way to a smarter buildings industry. Another major prerequisite has been 24/7 online capability. Buildings must also be online, and preferably offer automation which can push data into the cloud, providing important insights into how the facilities are performing and how energy usage can be adjusted to ensure sustainable operations. Cyber security should be a priority However, as more buildings come online, its also important that cyber security becomes a major priority. Both buildings and their occupants must be protected against any potential malicious cyber onslaughts. This is particularly true for buildings that house data centres. In 2022, we saw many buildings used to facilitate new data centres - a trend that we believe will continue in 2023. Again, keeping data centres safe from both online and physical security breaches is paramount. The year ahead Looking at 2023, smart cities have become a bona fide industry buzzword, however, in order for South Africa and our Anglophone Africa peers to realise this futuristic development, we must first stabilise our energy resources and the provision thereof. That being said, there is no doubt that smart cities lie in our future; already we are seeing smaller entities going completely off grid, using solar and wind power or a hybrid system to power their daily operations. One of the major features of a smart city is the ability to be completely self-sustainable, living in a bubble of sorts. Here we are seeing developments such as Steyn City looking at how they can establish an infrastructure that is self-sustained, fed by a mix of renewable energy resources as opposed to traditional power. Electric vehicles are also enjoying some adoption with mid- to higher-income South Africans investing in various manufacturer options. However, and this is also an important consideration when establishing a smart city, these vehicles require charging infrastructure which must be fed by a stable energy source. Therefore, to make the most of the proliferation of electric vehicles, both residential and commercial buildings must have the requisite infrastructure to keep their vehicles charged and ready to roll. Developing sustainable, energy-efficient buildings The bottom line is we need cleaner and more stable sources of energy. The buildings industry has the potential to lead the way in a world that is moving towards renewables as the next, sustainable form of energy. Developers and current owners can truly differentiate themselves by establishing buildings that are sustainable and energy-efficient whilst using clean resources such as solar. This will ensure that the building remains online, providing businesses with the assurance that they will be able to continue with operations even during load shedding and unplanned power outages. Several solutions available And it need not cost a fortune. There are several, proven technologies available to building owners and managers that can go a long way in optimising energy usage. A complete building management system (BMS) can then follow suit and will undoubtedly provide considerable returns, enhancing resource visibility, manageability, and sustainability. 2023 will continue to build on 2022, laying a foundation for a building industry that works smarter and leads the way to a more sustainable future. The world achieved a reduction in carbon intensity (measured as tonnes of CO2/real GDP) of 0.5% in 2021. New insights from PwC South Africa's recently published Net Zero Economy Index 2022: South African viewpoint show that South Africa reduced its carbon intensity by a significant 4.6% during the year. This included a decline in coal (-0.8%) and gas (-3.0%) usage while energy from wind (+16.7%) and hydroelectricity (+100.9%) increased significantly. Coal accounted for 71.0% of the local fuel mix in 2021, down from 71.9% in the previous year. Figure 1: National fuel consumption by type (% of total). Source: PwC calculations based on data from bp The recent decrease in coal usage was not, however, due to the country actively trying to use less of this resource, but rather largely as a result of record-high electricity load-shedding during 2021, caused by significant breakdowns at coal-fired power stations. As a result of its relative inaction in decarbonisation, South Africa is still the most carbon-intensive economy within the Group of 20 (G20) due to its reliance on coal for electricity generation. However, this needs to be seen within a global context of disappointing decarbonisation results. PwC wanted the agenda at the recent COP27 to concentrate on taking action and meeting climate commitments as previous commitments have not been matched by enough action. As climate action slowed down amongst the G20 countries, the global rate of decarbonisation in 2021 was at its lowest level in over a decade. South Africa starting JET IP implementation plans in February 2023 Looking ahead, the year 2023 is anticipated to be a period of greater climate action in South Africa. The government recently launched its Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP) for an initial period of five years (2023-2027) at COP27. The country developed this investment plan to clarify its priority investment requirements starting in 2023 in the electricity, new energy vehicles (NEVs), and green hydrogen sectors, to support goals of energy security, a just transition, and economic growth. Lullu Krugel, partner at PwCs Strategy& In the immediate future, arrangements for JET IP implementation will start in February 2023. The implementation plan will be a product of efforts across government, civil society, trade unions and the private sector. The plan will include relevant timelines and will rely on existing South African institutions and systems augmented by adopting both local and international best practice across various disciplines. In the new year, Eskom is also expected to start the decommissioning and repurposing of coal-fired power plants at its Camden and Hendrina power stations. These efforts will see the power utility remove 3,600MW of coal-fired power generation from the grid over a three-year period. These (and other similar operations) will be refitted with renewable energy generation and energy storage capacity. This endeavour will include reskilling workers to transition from jobs linked to coal to employment opportunities in the clean energy sector. Businesses needs to build their climate resilience On a practical level, what does the national decarbonisation drive mean for private companies? From our interactions with government and business leaders at COP27, it is clear that evidence of decarbonisation is a powerful differentiator for businesses in an environment where having a CO2 emissions target is merely a licence to operate. Leading organisations are generating incremental value by reimagining how their capabilities will be deployed in a post-carbon world and appealing to sustainability-aware consumers, investors, staff and other stakeholders via sustainable transformations. Climate resilience is a powerful source of protection against disruption and value loss. South African companies need to build climate resilience via a deep analysis of value chain exposure to physical and transitional risks this will in all likelihood be mandated through sustainability reporting standards, although the speed of adoption in South Africa is still unclear. Enterprises should, however, not stop at risk resilience, but also identify and convert business opportunities resulting from mitigation and adaptation activities. Figure 2: Value creation through climate readiness. Source: PwC click to enlarge Deep analysis is needed to understand supply chain emissions Prior to COP27, we detailed four net zero priorities that businesses should pursue in 2023 in an effort to build climate resilience. These are: 1. decarbonisation of operations and the supply chain; 2. understanding climate risk and building resilience; 3. mobilisation of sustainable capital; and 4. robust audit and ESG reporting. Regarding the first point, supply chain emissions often dwarf the carbon impact of direct operations: for most companies, they make up 6595% of their carbon impact. We have also typically found that as much as 80% of an organisations supply chain emissions come from as few as one-fifth of its purchases. At the same time, companies cannot go it alone in the efforts to decarbonise supply chains. Cooperation is a key theme for this year across all industries as the opportunities and challenges raised by climate change transcend historical business models. Many companies within the same industry will collectively need to overcome the lack of supplier emissions data through joint data pooling. Data collection and transparency will be key to understanding the nature of emissions. The collaboration needs to include not only industry players and stakeholders, but also the public sector and affected communities. Decarbonisation is a joint effort and needs commitment and action from all members of society, starting today. At its core, e-learning includes encompassing performance plans tailored around knowledge capability, skill and mastery. It also enables the ability to drive sustainable cultural and behavioural changes. These are the characteristics to consider as the traditional building blocks of learning and development (L&D) functions. Michael Hanly, Managing Director of New Leaf Technologies Here are five trends for formulating a successful L&D strategy in 2023. Reskilling and upskilling are at the forefront of learning strategies To enable business agility and maintain competitiveness, organisations need to shift their L&D from fixed or static learning to a dynamic landscape of skills that can be deployed to work whilst simultaneously evolving according to unique requirements. Imagine a world where instead of assigning workers to projects based on reporting lines or jobs, they are matched to projects aligning with their interests and skills. Where work seekers no longer need to rely on job postings or word-of-mouth, but instead are presented with customised opportunities based on their unique portfolio of skills. Where leaders have real-time insight into how their workforces capabilities support both work processes and business outcomes. Where employees are valued and rewarded for their skills and how they apply them to create organisational value, over their title, level, or educational degree. Its a way to informationally architect a human-centric future by understanding what the workforce currently brings to the table, while proactively equipping them for success tomorrow. We have always relied on jobs as the building blocks of our talent processes. Jobs are not easily changed, nor are they developed with organisational outcomes in mind. And a human-centric workforce better supports a business environment that prizes innovation and speed over efficiency. It enables organisations to immediately identify talent to support a new strategic objective, or rapidly pull together a mix of diverse skills that will spark innovation. Shifting the talent management focus from tightly constrained job roles to flexible skill profiles will pave the way for numerous positive organisational and workforce outcomes. Collaboration and personalisation Online learning can be lonely and requires innovative ways to increase participation and enhance the collaborative components within a learning environment. One efficient way to overcome this is through content curation, whereby one is continually finding, filtering and sharing relevant content with learners/employees who can access it all in a single location. Content curation will help your learners experience constant learning through forums, discussions, and chats for peer-to-peer collaboration. Personalisation is about targeting individuals, addressing their needs, context and goals, and providing the right content or learning experiences to help their unique needs; much like Spotify or Netflix, which takes your history and popularity and uses algorithms to suggest personalisation. Its able to adapt according to a series of defined rules to provide a "just-in-time" experience. The algorithms detect a users needs and provides personalised recommendations. This learner-centric and accelerated approach to content delivery will greatly reduce the overall learning time and increase knowledge uptake while addressing unique knowledge gaps based on each individual's performance. Onboarding Its more challenging bringing new employees up to speed remotely while simultaneously trying to bridge the gap in their performance, especially when time is of the essence. However, it is vital to set people up for success now more than ever even if that means taking a little extra time to perfect. As an employer, you want to cultivate an environment that unlocks a new hires potential faster. Ideally, you want the right process in place, which allows you to monitor them continuously and make adjustments where improvement is needed. Effective onboarding is an incredibly impactful process that will improve employee retention, shorten their time to become competent and rapidly increase their performance. An onboarding programme will reduce the burden on new hires by using a phased approach to learning. For example, what do employees need to know on day one, week one, month three, or after a year on the job? Employers should emphasise the individual strengths new hires can apply to their jobs. Accepting the organisational culture may not be as important as making the new hire feel valued. Employees must get a clear first impression of the work culture and environment. To understand the roles of human resources, direct line managers, and co-workers in their immediate team. To understand their duties and company policies comprehensively and develop skills that are immediately put to use with relatable tasks while allowing practice time. Learning analytics and training intelligence augmentation (IA) These cues can then be used to create personalised and way more effective learning paths that enable learners to absorb information, practice, obtain feedback and remediation, far more effectively through informed data-led decisions. Data allows you to make critical and informed decisions. Businesses are required to report to stakeholders such as their ATRs, and WSPs, and measure the impact of performance interventions against the bottom line at an exco level. Traditionally data reporting wasnt always visually appealing, but when you connect all that data, it starts to formulate different perspectives. Moving on from legacide (legacy) However, a lot of organisations are stuck and having to MacGyver their way into the digital learning space, which led to duct-taping together classroom-based training materials into an online experience that is far from satisfactory. As L&D, your role is vital for business success. It would be unwise not to include this as an integral aspect of a business's growth strategy. Start by identifying all potential barriers to performance. This will ensure that all threats are considered when creating the proposed training intervention. This approach shifts the focus from learning to performance outcomes. As L&D and training professionals, its no longer sufficient to merely be the knowledge and skills team, reactively executing demands from other departments. You need to drive performance. Keeping an eye on the latest industry trends and innovations will help you formulate your best year in the training department yet. In the past two years, almost everything in our working lives has changed. With growing pressure on South Africa's economic recovery from increasingly tough circumstances - load shedding, the skills brain drain, quiet quitting/firing and the counteroffer cycle all wreaking havoc on the job market - employers are having to find creative ways to adjust their hiring strategies, business models and working environments to attract and retain talent in a pool that has shrunk since 2020. Dalya Ketz, Managing Director at Gcubed Boutique Recruitment To prepare for 2023, it is vital for business leaders and companies to stay ahead of emerging trends and put measures in place that will tip the scales, from defusing into leveraging the outcomes of such trends. With this in mind, lets take a look at how some of these might shape our workplaces over the next 12 months. 1. The four-day work week: weve been having it already On average, knowledge workers lose two to three hours of work time each day due to pointless meetings, poor technology implementations, and workplace distractions. In other words, the four-day work week goes unseen because its masked by outdated working practices. The new four-day work week is based on the 100-80-100 model, proposed by co-founders of 4 Day Week Global. This model dictates 100% of the pay for 80% of the time in exchange for a commitment to delivering 100% of the output required. A number of South African companies are set to take part in a six-month pilot of the four-day work week in 2023. Advice: Organisations looking to prevent employee burnout, increase talent attraction and boost employee satisfaction will consider the four-day work week, shifting the conversation from time-based output to productivity-based output. As more companies realise that the new frontier for competitiveness hinges on quality of life, reduced hours and productivity-focused working, the four-day work week will be the differentiator that gives them the recruitment and retention edge in a formidable candidate-driven labour market. 2. Quiet quitting/quiet firing phenomenon: correcting hustle culture The main cause of this particular workplace trend is burnout, especially with younger Gen Z professionals in their 20s and the trend of quiet quitting reveals how desperately we need a solution to hustle culture. The days of individuals pouring their heart and souls into their work are over. Quiet quitting is not resigning from a job - it simply entails doing exactly what is required (and no more) to meet the job description, while prioritising a work-life balance that places less emphasis on work. On the employer side of this trend is the quiet firing phenomenon, which involves making a job so unrewarding that the individual feels compelled to resign. Obviously this type of employment dynamic is less than ideal, and solving it requires addressing the root of the problem - the placement of the wrong person in the job in the first place. Advice: Hiring companies must understand the importance of culture and that the employment relationship needs to be based on more than a salary. This means they must offer potential candidates more than just money. To make a big impact in 2023, companies must focus on: Employee wellness within a clear, unified company culture that provides a safe space for individuals to feel a sense of belonging and engagement. Rethinking brand purpose to find meaningful ways to foster individual career development while focusing on the wellness of the business as a whole. Finding ways to make employees feel valued, which is one of the most effective ways to guard against quiet quitting. A culture of appreciation leads to a culture of quality output. As such, its important for companies to create work environments of reciprocation. This is where a recruitment partner can effectively mitigate quiet quitting (and consequently the need for quiet firing) by helping client companies to find the right candidates from the outset. The individual chosen to fill a particular role at a company must not just tick the boxes from a job description angle, but also from a personal and company culture view. 3. Employee retention for millennials and Gen Z: From lip service to making a difference According to the 2022 Deloitte Millennial Survey, the younger workforce component is disillusioned by the current political situation of the world, finding most companies disproportionately driven by greed and profit. In 2023, the desire for work with purpose will increase, and millennial and Gen Z employees will seek out work that matters. To improve engagement and retention, and avoid a social media backlash, employers will need to tie the organisations mission and values to employees personal principles: achieving something larger and making a bigger impact than profit. Advice: For businesses that want to grow, employee retention is just as important as recruitment. And having evidenced an uncompromising set of values and a willingness to move jobs, special attention must be paid to younger employees. These generations can be more effectively retained by a company that provides a flexible approach to work, opportunity for mentorship and clear personal career development, within a strong culture of diversity and inclusion. 4. Breaking the counter-offer cycle: work is more than money Digital skills are still fairly new, and while many individuals are in training to learn new skills, they are not yet able to meet the demand. This leads to job-hopping for skilled individuals as they are headhunted, which results in companies counter-offering with more money, when they attempt to resign. As this cycle repeats every few months, it creates an unsustainable situation in which salaries for certain skills have become over-inflated. Advice: Companies can no longer ignore employee retention, particularly where they are aware of the fact that certain skills are difficult (if not impossible) to replace. Counter-offering is not an effective retention strategy, and more effort is required to create the kind of working environment that people are not eager to leave. More emphasis needs to be placed on internal skills development opportunities, as recruitment is not the only way to acquire skills. It is an immediate solution to filling a particular vacancy and should be used in conjunction with other strategies that seek to widen the skills pool to the benefit of the company to rebalance the industry as a whole and address the counter-offer conundrum before the bubble bursts. 5. The rise of the side hustle: doing what it takes to make ends meet In the face of economic uncertainty and the rapidly escalating cost of living, there is an increased need for workers to generate a second (or even third) income. The younger generations are not having their needs met by employment, and theyre seeking alternatives on their own steam, instead of expecting a handout. At the core of their approach to work is a desire as old as capitalism itself to be financially independent, which will enable them to opt out of old-fashioned ideas, such as having a boss or subscribing to the notion of full-time employment entirely. Instead of asking whether these youngsters have unrealistic expectations and questioning their work ethic, its far more productive to create a working environment that enables them to seek their financial independence in a manner that complements their job, instead of conflicting with it. Advice: Companies can create a work environment that encourages entrepreneurialism, by allowing these workers the flexibility to explore their options when their work commitments have been met. Give employees the tools to prepare for their financial future - with guidance in areas such as healthcare finance, retirement planning and debt counselling. Conclusion: Prioritising people over profits is at the root of addressing all workplace challenges Making a BIG IMPACT in 2023 means remembering that the most important part of any workplace and any company is its people. Employees want recognition and opportunity. They want the chance to improve themselves, and they want their contribution to the success of their company to be recognised. They want to work for companies that actually care about tackling global issues like climate change, diversity, equality and world peace. Companies that provide the right conditions for people to live their best lives, both at work and out in the world, will become sought-after employment destinations with their choice of the top talent across the generational brackets. Payroll has a reputation for being a slow-moving sector. But although it seems nothing much changes or happens in the world of payroll - apart from continuous legislation changes - the sector is not left untouched by relentless advances in technology. Jeff Ryan, MD of AWCape Added to that, new ways of working and a dynamic tax and regulatory landscape are also keeping payroll administration teams on their toes. Here are a few of the major trends that will shape payroll in 2023 and beyond. 1. The fluid workforce The world of work has changed for good. Hybrid work is here for good, with many people working remotely all or some of the time. Many companies are sourcing remote talent nationwide or even worldwide. And many employers are embracing more flexible modes of work, such as using contractors and freelancers more extensively, or offering more flexible arrangements for people who want to work part-time. Trends such as the four-day week promise even more change to come. Payroll teams need to adjust their processes to accommodate a wider range of working models. 2. Vision 2024 Every February, payroll teams wait to hear about upcoming PAYE changes for the new financial year in the Finance Ministers Budget Speech. These changes typically involve only small tweaks to payroll calculations. However, beyond 2023, we can expect more significant changes as government and SARS start to move ahead with long-delayed items on their agendas National Health Insurance is one. SARS ambitious Vision 2024 envisages doing away with filing season in favour of a more real-time approach to personal tax. Vision 2024 anticipates using third-party data from third-party returns to pre-populate an "assessment" for the individual through a SARS app where near real-time tax liabilities will be shown. Employers may be expected to withhold employees' tax (PAYE) based on this data. For example, if an employee contributes to a personal retirement annuity policy or generates income from interest on a bank account, employers will be asked to adjust withholding tax appropriately. Its not clear how close this vision is to fruition, but its something payroll managers should be thinking about already. 3. Seamless workflows Mid-sized companies are likely to increasingly follow the example of large enterprises by adopting solutions that enable tight integration of finance, human resources (HR), employee self-service and payroll. This helps them to reduce costs and improve efficiencies by working off consistent data everywhere in the business and eliminating the need to capture the same data multiple times. Organisations integrating HR and finance with payroll spend less money and use fewer resources, improving the overall business performance of the company. Furthermore, they have accurate, real-time business information to support better decision-making. Integration between payroll and HR systems also enable self-service experiences that empower the workforce. 4. Data-driven decision-making Most businesses are looking to use analytics to drive better decision-making, and the payroll is a potential goldmine of data. Data about absenteeism, overtime, employee attrition and retention, compensation, job costing and budgeting can yield powerful insights about employee well-being, engagement and satisfaction. The data becomes even more powerful in a business with an integrated view of HR, payroll and finances. For example, it can also paint a picture of organisational KPIs like productivity or revenue per head. We can expect to see payroll teams ramp up their use of analytics this year, going beyond basic reporting to partnering with other functions on strategic growth. 5. Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) Its early days for AI and RPA in payroll, but we are starting to see some interesting use cases emerge. We could envisage AI playing a role in data validation and anomaly detection, helping companies to further sharpen accuracy and more rapidly detect potential fraud or errors. RPA, meanwhile, could help to streamline manual processes such as capturing data from scanned documents. An example of this is the intelligent time capture software that analyses previous timesheets as well as your calendar to prepopulate timesheets entries. The cloud is the foundation for next-generation payroll Many payroll teams are finding it hard to keep ahead of admin at a time when employee and tax regulations are becoming more intricate. They also recognise that tough data privacy regulations mean they need to be careful stewards of employees personal information. And of course, the pressure to become more efficient never ends. This is why we are seeing more and more payroll departments using manual/on-premise systems move to the cloud. A cloud-based system allows HR and payroll employees to work online and collaborate wherever they are essential in these times of remote and hybrid working models. It is also the foundation for seamless workflows, data-driven decisions and AI adoption. Cybersecurity has become crucial as digital technologies change our world-whether for online banking, e-commerce, chatting on WhatsApp or working from home, we need online protection. Just as we lock our homes and safeguard our valuables, we must take measures that stop online criminals from taking what is not theirs. Gerhard Swart, CTO of Performanta | image supplied The battle against cybercrime is not new. But the world and South Africa have experienced a significant escalation in the past several years, leading to rapid evolutions in the security industry and a growing understanding among business leaders that they need to step up their engagement. Meanwhile, tried-and-tested attack methods are growing bolder. These factors predict that 2023 could be a defining year for cybersecurity trends. Phishing escalates and expands Phishing is a method where criminals create fake correspondence to dupe victims into giving up account details or access to their systems. It remains the primary way for criminals to target usaccording to Mimecast, phishing attacks targeted an astounding 94% of SA companies between mid-2021 and 2022. The criminals are increasing their focus on financial targets, including banks and other areas such as e-commerce transactions, creating a 65% jump between Q1 and Q2 of 2022 (Kaspersky). Moreover, phishing activities have expanded beyond email to include SMS, phone calls, social media and WhatsApp messages. Criminals are starting to offer 'Phishing-as-a-Service' products that anyone can use to launch such attacks. Phishing will continue to grow more widespread and dangerous during 2023. Ransomware voids cyber insurance Criminals use ransomware to encrypt company data and force businesses to pay a ransom in return for access to their files. Ransomware attacks have targeted major South African organisations, such as Transnet and the Justice Department, not to mention countless SMEs. Many companies pay the ransom, ultimately fuelling this practice. It is so endemic that Australia is considering making ransomware payments illegal. Major organisations try to mitigate the ransomware risk by taking on cyber insurance, but this is a race to the bottom. In Q1 of 2022, cyber insurance premiums rose at an average of 37% and by a staggering 83% for some companies, according to Gallagher Consultants. The requirements for such insurance are already very stringent, and it's likely that in 2023 we'll see cyber insurance becoming untenable for most organisations, primarily because of ransomware. Cloud architecture security gains prominence Though not causation, there is a correlation between rising cybercrime activity and our adoption of connectivity and cloud services. Check Point's 2022 Cloud Security Report claims that 27% of polled organisations had experienced a public cloud security breach during the year. This result is likely conservative due to under-reporting and does not cover other areas such as hybrid and public cloud. Most such attacks are avoidable, but organisations often make fundamental mistakes. Many still assume the cloud is naturally more secure, which is only partially true. Cloud systems often have more rigorous security, but these systems cannot cover all possibilitiesespecially regarding their clients' practices and internal systems. Organisations must still rise to the challenge, ensuring they have proper security practices in place. We're seeing more of this attitude take root, and it will be a primary consideration for cloud users in 2023. Security knowledge for business leaders Cybersecurity is gaining a more prominent space in the minds of business leaders, who recognise the immense threat it poses to their operations and solvency. Part of this change is due to legislation such as the Protection of Personal Information Act, which places more punitive responsibilities on organisational leaders. But recognition differs from the knowledge that helps embed cybersecurity as part of business thinking and strategy. 2023 is unlikely to be the year when we see senior business courses vividly incorporate cybersecurity as part of their education. Yet expect this conversation and requirement to expand. Such education is different from cyber hygiene and safety courses. We need more education that contextualises cybersecurity to specific roles. What should a CFO or COO understand? What must boards ask and know? The scope is broad: CMOs should see cybercrime in the context of communications and social media. CXOs need to grasp how cybercrime manipulates experiences. This level of education should extend from executives' formal learning channels. Perhaps we'll one day see MBAs and business degrees with thorough cyber resilience modulesthat would be a step in the right direction. The African fintech ecosystem continues to expand, despite global economic challenges. As an investment segment, the fintech industry made up more than 25% of all venture capital rounds in the last few years, with South Africa joining other regional leaders, such as Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya. Out of the nine notable tech unicorns in Africa, seven are fintech companies. Ashlin Perumall, Partner - Corporate and M&A Practice Group, Baker McKenzie A recent study by Mastercard noted that African fintech startups increased in number from 311 in 2019 to 564 by 2021. The study also noted that of the $2.7bn in venture capital funding that was deployed in Africa in 2021, 61% of that was in fintech startups. The study found that sub-Saharan Africa region had one of the highest year-on-year growth rates globally, with fintech startups recording 894% year-on-year growth in funding in 2021. With the right targeted solutions, the potential for rapid growth is significant. In the last few years, the region also saw the majority of fintech investment capital coming from various offshore money markets, including west-coast United States, the United Kingdom and China. African fintech startups are also able to do more with dollar-based capital raises if they have locally based operations. Mobile money leads the way Mobile money and third-party payment systems in particular, are segment leaders in the African fintech space, with more than half of the world's mobile money customers now based in Africa. A low proportion of Africa's population currently has adequate access to financial products and the potential for digital deployment of solutions took off alongside the rise in mobile and internet access. For example, due to a lack of interconnectedness in the cross-border banking infrastructure and a huge migrant labour workforce, there was a clear need for ways to transmit money across regions safely. Servicing the underbanked and migrant workforce has also created opportunities for innovative financial solutions in Africa and user markets are huge. Kenya's fintech industry was originally focused on mobile money transfer services and has ridden the wave of exponential market adoption since 2007. Building on technology akin to GSM text messaging, major players in the market were able to expand its offering to users who did not have internet or data connection, but had access to cellular phone towers and basic mobile devices. In that same period, financial inclusion went from 26% in 2006 to 83% of the total population today. That activity created a market that many other fintech entrants were able to diversify within and as a result, a large portion of GDP flowed through such services. This makes the regulators similarly fintech-friendly and interested in being cooperative towards innovation. Nigerias unicorns winning the race Three of the largest African unicorns come from Nigeria, and the country is dominant in Africa in respect of fintech venture capital investments. The Mastercard study found that Nigeria's fintechs accounted for a third of all venture capital funding deployed into fintech in 2021. The country has also benefitted from a highly entrepreneurial technology sector and deep issues in respect of financial inclusion. About 38 million adults in Nigeria are completely financially excluded, particularly when it comes to credit access. This created the perfect conditions for dynamic fintechs to emerge with a massive potential market if successful. Senegal's Wave, the first unicorn from the Francophone African region, recently saw a $200m capital raise in a Series A round of fundraising. This was largest Series A to come out of that region to-date. Examples such as this demonstrate that there are still a lot more African regions yet to take off in the African fintech push. SA focus on fintech fine print South Africa benefits from a robust financial and banking industry, but one that has been slow in terms of adoption of new technologies and modernising of legacy banking tech. This has led to the country seeing additional trends in open banking fintechs that are operating on top of current bank infrastructure but providing more nimble payment channels. There have been several recent regulatory developments as the country prepares to fully adopt fintech and its various sub-segments. South Africa also has specific compliance and due diligence issues that must be addressed before and during fintech transactions. The country has taken a coordinated approach to fintech across its regulators, first creating the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group or IFWG, a consortium of the key financial regulators. This consortium includes the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), which also doubles up as the prudential authority and monetary systems regulator, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), the Financial Intelligence Centre and the country's credit regulator. This group has engaged in public-private participatory discussions and the production of position papers to settle on the policies to advise the drafting of regulations. Much of the focus of the IFWG has been the regulation of crypto assets, with anti-money laundering and South African exchange control being the primary focus areas. In October 2022, the FSCA declared that crypto assets would not be included under the definition of 'financial products' in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act. The effect of the Declaration is that any person who provides advice or renders intermediary services in relation to crypto assets must be authorised under the FAIS Act as a financial services provider, and must comply with the requirements of the Act. Rise of real-time and rapid payment systems In the wider fintech arena, South African regulators have focused on the payments regulation environment, given the size of this sub-segment and because it has been due for a significant overhaul for some time as part of the central bank's Vision 2025 programme. The SARB has been working on a new Rapid Payments Programme (RPP) aimed at modernising real-time payments, such as immediate credit push, pay-by-proxy and request-to-pay functionality in the national payment system. In late October 2022, it was announced the RPP would implement its first service, PayShap, in 2023. PayShap, a real-time interbank digital payments service, will be offered by Absa, FNB, Nedbank and Standard Bank first, before being extended to other banks. Treading carefully around IP issues, stagflation The most prominent issue still encountered during fintech deals in South Africa is the housing of the intellectual property (IP) in South African corporate startups. South Africa is subject to an exchange control regime, whereby any transfer of intellectual property offshore from residents requires Reserve Bank approval. As a result, many fintechs have either structured around this with IP sitting in offshore vehicles, or have not, which then separately raises concerns with many VC investors on global expansion. Either way, IP presents a specific deal structuring and diligence issue which must be looked at carefully in the South African context. The biggest challenge fintech faces globally is stagflation and that investors are going to be more careful in their investment choices and risk-taking. However, the African fintech space has shown incredible resilience to global market turmoil and there is still a lot more room for growth in segments such as such as alternative lending, digital investment and neo-banking. Disputes in Africa continue to grow in complexity as businesses enter new markets against a backdrop of increased digitalisation and tighter regulatory scrutiny. Now business is being called to focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies as an essential component of their operations and in order to stay competitive. Organisations with operations in Africa must engage meaningfully with ESG to build robust sustainability strategies that meet stakeholder expectations and enable compliance with global and domestic mandatory and voluntary ESG standards and codes. Let's take a closer look at each of these components. Darryl Bernstein, Partner and Head of the Dispute Resolution Practice at Baker McKenzie Governance: Focus on anti-corruption and security The Governance aspect of ESG, wide-ranging such as it is, has seen an increased focus on anti-bribery and corruption, data privacy and cyber security issues. Baker McKenzies recently released Global Disputes Forecast 2022 revealed that digital transformation was driving around 30% of global disputes, followed by cybersecurity/data issues (25%). In terms of the types of disputes expected to be a risk going forward, 57% of respondents said that cybersecurity issues were going to be a major cause of risk in their organisations in the next 12 months. Data disputes were cited as a risk for 46% of respondents. The report also combined the responses for cybersecurity and data disputes, and found that 72% of respondents considered these issues to be a risk, making it the standout disputes risk for most companies in the next twelve months. The direct risks to organisations include loss of IP and confidential information, theft and fraud, disruption to business and reputational damage. Legal risks flow from these, including regulatory and law enforcement action, claims for breach of contract and class actions for breach of privacy. Environment: Keeping clean and green The Environment aspect grows in emphasis as climate change impacts become clearer and nearer. To counter climate change, initiatives in Africa now have a heightened focus on green, low-carbon and sustainable development, via, for example, clean energy production, community care initiatives, green transport and sustainable water projects, wildlife protection programmes and low-carbon development projects. Organisations in Africa are adopting new sustainability strategies that address climate change risk and identify the sustainable opportunities that arise from addressing climate concerns. Countries in Africa that have published climate risk disclosure guidance include Mauritius, Kenya and South Africa. Kenya issued Guidance on Climate Related Risk Management for financial services companies in 2021. The Bank of Mauritius issued guidelines on additional macro-prudential measures for the banking sector, including a standardised approach to credit risk and climate risk management, in April 2022. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange published the Sustainability Disclosure Guidance and Climate Change Disclosure Guidance in June 2022. Also in 2022, the South African Reserve Bank's Prudential Authority noted that it would "issue specific regulatory guidance in 2023 on its expectations on how climate risks should be integrated into supervised institutions risk management, governance and reporting processes in accordance with its internal roadmap. This regulatory guidance will be aligned with emerging international best practice." Other countries that have issued climate related regulations or guidance on disclosure, best practice or stress tests, include Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Social: Workplace culture and employee welfare The Social aspect emphasises protecting an organisations workers and the wider local populations in which these businesses are rooted. Organisations are looking at ways to build better social programmes that are more resilient to future pandemics and ensure good business practice. A focus on issues such as enhancing considerations around the health and safety of employees and communities, implementing diverse and inclusive workplace cultures, and building good management teams that can pull employees together in all kinds of remote, physical workplace and hybrid settings, put companies in a strong position to move forward. Updates to frameworks Some of the larger African jurisdictions have already implemented mandatory ESG and sustainability reporting frameworks and, going forward, more African regulators are expected to replace current voluntary frameworks with mandatory ones or to adopt new mandatory frameworks. In turn, organisations operating in Africa will seek guidance and more detail from corporate regulators on how they want to see ESG reported and the practices behind the reporting process. In South Africa, there are many laws that govern ESG factors, including business and financial sector conduct, economic and social empowerment and environmental protection. Voluntary codes such as the King IV Code on corporate governance and the Code for Responsible Investing in South Africa also serve as a guide to businesses on ESG considerations. Globally, in addition to numerous country-specific laws, there are a plethora of voluntary sustainability-focused codes and standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and the Human Rights and UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework. Increasing accountability ESG risk management has become a mainstream component of corporate due diligence programmes, and corporate boards are being held accountable for their ESG practices by their shareholders, stakeholders and management teams. Risks for non-compliance with the multitude of global and local laws, voluntary codes and best practices governing ESG factors range from criminal prosecution and hefty fines to reputational risk and business failure as a result of not fulfilling ESG commitments. For African organisations, maintaining a long-term sustainability strategy ensures sound financial performance, full compliance with local and global laws and frameworks, and substantially increased resilience in the challenging post-pandemic socio-economic environment. As the industry slowly but surely recovers from the impact of the last two years, I want to take a look into what the year ahead may hold when it comes to restaurant, food and drink trends Image supplied: Ryan Cole, head chef at Salsify at the Roundhouse Food trends There will probably be a shift away from international cuisines and techniques, with kitchens looking towards heritage and origin. Its going to be about the discovery of land at a hyper-local level. For instance, well be looking at what Camps Bay used to be, what has been eaten here in the past, and how it was cooked. The discovery of what was will lead to what will be. Its going deeper into those buzzwords of locality and seasonality, the countrys restaurants have long proven that they cook to an international standard. Now its time to discover the country and even the continents own culinary history. Looking at food in a regional, South African and African context. We have so much culture, history and heritage on this continent, and I really think thats going to be the next point of exploration. Theres been a lot of talk around fermentation the past few years too but again its going to go deeper into history and heritage. Ancestral fermentation techniques like fermenting in honey, or fermenting berries to must its essentially lacto-fermenting - but these were all techniques used by past generations to preserve and extend ingredients through seasons. Think local versions of vinegars made using indigenous ingredients or expressions of the oldest alcoholic beverage, mead, making appearances on menus. Africa rising From the hyper-endemic to continental cooking, I expect to see the further development and ownership of African identity in food - looking up into the continent and seeing whats happening across it. The capabilities of the continent really come to the fore. We have so much culture, history and heritage throughout Africa, and I really think thats going to be the next point of exploration. The same will be true when it comes to ingredients. Expect the likes of madumbi, casava, okra and river greens to be incorporated into dishes. The same can be said about game meat and poultry the chef sees a move towards using more local venison, guinea fowl and quail. Though, its not only in the food where Africa will shine. This year I hope to see the honouring of African hospitality. We dont need to be implementing European standards of hospitality. Here at Salsify, we have a Nigerian sommelier, waiters from Zimbabwe, and young chefs and students from across the country we should be bolstering and celebrating all our identities. That African warmth, bringing people in, treating people like theyre in your home. Its something thats special and deserves to be celebrated. Fine dining remains There was a lot of hype around fine dining dying but, post-pandemic, it can be seen that couldnt be further from the truth. People are excited to come out and value experiences more than ever. In a way, its the same as going to a theatre, or a concert - something that is firmly here to stay. Its been incredible seeing the appetite for what we offer here at Salsify, now more than ever people are excited to come out and experience new things, theres almost a new lease on life. As such, restaurants will be investing more time, money and energy into creating these culinary experiences. Expect constantly changing menus and even spaces, and plenty of bespoke crockery made just for a certain dish or style of presentation. This also creates the opportunity to celebrate and champion local makers and artisans. Allowing the restaurant to further support communities in surrounding areas, through this drive for bespoke and custom-curated pieces, processes and artworks. Niche varietals and wines When it comes to wine, I expect a host of interesting and often unheard-of grape varieties or different styles of wine to be popping up especially on tasting menus. These are wines that patrons are unlikely to have come across in a shop or tried elsewhere. We really love working with unexpected and unusual varieties, when it comes to pairing. Many of the lesser-known types of wine make for phenomenal food wines and it enhances the experience when the guest can try something new that they may not have even heard of before. With digital transformation and rapid advances in technology ensuring change in the market is swift and constant, South African businesses must keep up, or face being left behind. Agility is the key to business success, and the healthcare industry is no exception. A recent study found that businesses that achieved successful agile transformations typically delivered 30% gains across key areas like efficiency, operational performance, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee engagement. And, just as in any other industry, the best way to stay agile in the healthcare sector is by leveraging insights into users and markets to make data-driven decisions and inform a future roadmap and forecasting. Such data is in plentiful supply these days. Around the world, data is being generated at a tremendous rate, particularly since Covid drove a sharp increase in remote and hybrid working. Predictions from the International Data Corporation suggest that the amount of digital data created between 2020 and 2025 alone will be more than double the total data created since the dawn of digital storage. Data informs development In the healthcare sector, patient information is increasingly processed online and Covid has driven the advent and growth of virtual consultations. Data insights have the power to impact industry development and innovation if the data is aggregated, synthesised and presented effectively. As the quality, volume and frequency of new data improves, healthcare has a golden opportunity to improve too. When legacy systems are updated and formerly analogue processes digitised, reams of new data points and insights are generated. Companies can use their data to innovate more, improve processes and system efficiencies, create better products, services and experiences for their customers and patients, and provide better employee experiences for their own staff. There is already evidence of these improvements in both the public and private sectors in South Africa. The City of Johannesburg, for example, announced in April this year that it would begin digitising patient records through an e-health solution to help drive efficiency and better patient care. The long-term aim is to integrate these digital health records into other systems nationally and allow the City to treat its residents in a more insightful, reliable and holistic way. Another advancement has been the introduction of a fully integrated virtual consultation platform in June 2021. The system makes home-based care accessible in South Africa by allowing healthcare providers to connect with patients no matter whether they have medical aid cover or not, or which medical scheme they belong to. The platform is accessible at any time from any device smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop and also allows healthcare providers and patients to additionally connect with other providers from multiple healthcare disciplines without having to switch between systems. There are also technology solutions geared towards mental health. Panda, a mental health support app launched a year ago, democratises access to mental health support and helps people find the right care at the right time. The app uses its data to gain valuable insights about mental health in South Africa: it has, for instance, revealed a critical need for support for anxiety, depression, stress, sleep-deprivation and self-esteem. Enter machine learning to overcome data challenges A challenge remains, however. So much of the data being collected and stored by these platforms and solutions is unstructured and incompatible with other data. Therefore, the first hurdle is harmonising all the data across the organisation and the services it delivers. The second is determining which data should be kept and which deleted. The third is assessing, classifying and interpreting the data effectively, so that it can be utilised for decision-making. This is where automated analysis comes in. Machine learning (ML) technology is the key to dealing with large amounts of data and extracting the meaning and value that it offers. Processing unstructured data with technology-driven solutions can give pharmaceutical, clinical research, and other healthcare organisations a real competitive advantage. As a case in point: ML and artificial intelligence (AI) are being deployed to speed up drug development processes and ensure that drugs are delivering optimal benefits to patients. The ability to process and interpret large data sets at speed means ML technology can also make predictions around bio-activity, toxicity and physicochemical properties beyond what human analysis is capable of. Furthermore, AI and ML can be used to identify traits and characteristics in imagery that the human eye cannot detect or process on the same scale cutting down on waiting times and aiding diagnostic accuracy. Machine learning is also being utilised to improve supply chains. It can identify production bottlenecks, reduce the length of batch disposition cycles and monitor in-line manufacturing processes to ensure safety and quality. Using the power of the cloud ML and AI technologies are increasingly highlighting how they can empower leaders to make better strategic decisions with previously untapped information. The encouraging reality is that cloud computing is now more accessible and scalable than ever before. As more and more businesses move to the cloud, tailored data solutions are available to healthcare organisations from start-up to multinational. Using a cloud-native services platform, businesses can easily capture, classify, index, enrich and visualise their data, whether physical or digital. This tool, which uses machine learning technology and Googles AI capabilities, enables teams to present their data in a usable format and pull out the information that is relevant to their needs. If analysed properly, data can deliver invaluable insights about patients, therapies, operational processes, and more. The healthcare industry in South Africa should be taking advantage of the technology at its disposal today because the chances of the next big medical breakthrough being discovered by analysing data are higher than theyve ever been. As post-Covid-19 reality gets caught up with political, economic and social volatility, optimistic technology innovations cast a vision for the future. Source: Supplied. Avsharn Bachoo is the group technology director for Afrocentric group. Sometimes far-reaching, the potential of emerging trends to transform society has driven a global technological gold rush, however, much remains to be explored regarding its impact in healthcare. Goodbye telehealth, hello metaverse Telehealth, the use of video calling apps to experience virtual appointments has become the norm post-Covid. This surge has evolved into a more immersive world of the metaverse. But what is it and what does it mean for this industry? Simply put, the metaverse is a virtual space where the digital and real worlds overlap and people interact using avatars. Its backbone comprises augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. Meeting your surgeon in the metaverse will permit a more personalised experience, such as reviewing your digital twin heart, a virtual representation of your heart for your planned artery procedure. Portable heart rate and blood pressure monitors can sync with the metaverse for data collection. In the metaverse, your surgeon can conduct surgeries before a procedure is carried out in the live surgical room with enough data to develop bespoke treatment. Gamification and personalisation of the metaverse allow patients to socialise with others with similar health issues, providing a sense of community to make lifestyle changes. It may sound odd for adults to use a virtual platform of cartooned avatars, but the metaverse is already mainstream and on track to revolutionise medical processes. AI transcending doctors? A smartphone app downloaded from your app store has an AI algorithm that can identify eye diseases using your phone camera, just as meticulous as medical specialists. An AI sensor can detect skin cancer with more accuracy than your human doctor. Empirical research shows that IBMs Watson diagnoses heart disease better than many cardiologists. Finally, downloads of mental-health apps using deep learning algorithms for psychology and psychiatry have increased by 500% removing barriers to traditional treatment. With AI superior to humans in terms of raw computational power, it can spot subtle patterns that human doctors easily miss. Where does that leave human doctors in the medical diagnostic industry? Despite all the benefits of AI, human doctors will not be replaced. 2023 will augment roles with AI working more actively and closely alongside doctors without actually replacing them. Doctors will more confidentially use AI diagnosis as a second opinion to their diagnosis. Democratisation, control of your own medical data Patient data often needs to be shared quickly and efficiently across different healthcare professionals operating in separate networks. Delayed information transmission can lead to slow treatment, duplication of lab work and patients paying higher medical bills. Healthcare professionals stored patient records are exceptionally inconvenient for patients to access. 2023 will see interoperability within the healthcare industry, giving patients full access and control over their healthcare data. This will be achieved by enabling them access to their Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Doctors will be able to access a patients complete history, thereby reducing the need for duplicate tests if already performed and increasing diagnosis and treatment speed. This will lead to a health score to enable personalised healthcare treatment. Furthermore, patients will be able to access their health records on their smartphones. Cyberchondria; are you obsessed with Dr Google? Stomach ache? You could visit your doctor or consult Dr Google. However, the first thing that comes up is colon cancer! Although a stomach ache is more likely caused by food bacteria or a strained muscle from your last workout, search engines tend to list the most serious ailments at the beginning of their search results. Cyberchondria is a technology-based mental disorder where a person spends hours researching illness symptoms online. Psychologists state that the more a cyberchondriac tries to find information online to assure themselves that their illness is minor, the more they spiral into cycles of increased anxiety jumping to the worst possible conclusions. With Google just revealing that health-related queries are now the second most searched term, and the American Psychiatric Association evaluating cyberchondria to be a recognised mental disorder, 2023 will see this technology-based illness accelerate further. Standing on the shoulders of giants Tech giants such as Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft developed big data platforms, API, and contact-tracing apps during Covid that instantly aggregated live mobile data and triggered an ecosystem of solutions that helped reduce the spread of Covid and potentially future pandemics. Interestingly enough, these giants also manufacture the most popular wearable devices. These wearables have sensors that continuously monitor your current health, measuring biometrics like your heart rate, temperature and activity levels, and can predict your long-term health based on the data collected. The sensors in the next generation of wearables can analyse your perspiration for toxins, viruses, and bacteria. 2023 will see these tech giants further integrate themselves into the healthcare sector. Platforms such as metaverse and AI introduced earlier are being spearheaded by them. These giants are providing digital solutions to facilitate data sharing and interoperability gaps, as well as replace dated legacy systems and infrastructure. 2023 will see traditional stakeholders such as health insurers forming strategic partnerships with these giants to infuse their digital transformations. Nothing ventured, nothing gained Healthcare services are initialised as soon as a patient becomes ill. 2023 will see healthcare providers change their approach from a reactive to a preventive healthcare paradigm. Healthcare will move to health that is consumer-owned and powered by these revolutionary technologies that will support early interventions and allow preventative strategies. We must look at these innovations and technologies with optimism given their potential to provide a virtually limitless health experience. Anything that can break the barriers of geographic restriction, improve care for patients around the world and move human health one step forward is a possibility worth exploring. Virtual reality or reality check? There remains a limitless opportunity to empower the health industry and drive true exploration through technology. Last year was a challenging year for us in the tourism sector because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions that came along with it. When the year started there were many unknowns but at the heart of those unknowns was a sector made of determined business owners who wanted to save jobs, the country's economy and our pride and joy which is the many beautiful tourism establishments. Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa, CEO, Tourism Business Council of South Africa 2023 is however starting on a different and positive note. Data from Stats SA points to a sector that is recovering with an increase of over 100% in arrivals into the country. Last year we also saw the introduction of direct flights from international countries such as Germany directly to Kruger National Park. We expect that these are the makings of a bumper tourism season for 2023. With that said, a few notable things are expected to top the trends that we as an industry body will be watching. It is our hope that these will help the tourism sector and reach our goals of growing the tourism sector to the over 3% contribution to the countrys GDP we last saw in 2019. Renewed focus on domestic travelers One of the significant things that the pandemic showed us as a sector is that domestic travellers are the bedrock of our industry. We saw an increase last year as well in the amount of domestic travel. Many of our members recalibrated their pricing to allow South Africans to afford seeing their country throughout the year. South Africa offers value for money for local travellers in that we have several options available for the different pockets and affordability levels of local consumers. However, to fully tap into the domestic market we need to increase capacity of airlines. A few of the airlines that operate domestic routes have announced plans for this increased capacity. It is a move that we as an industry body welcome. Increase in intra-Africa travel The Tourism Business Council of South Africas (TBCSA) leadership conference held last September saw a revision of the tourism industrys 2030 growth strategy. Part of the plan includes a focus on growing the rest of the African continent as a key growth market for South Africa. Data from Stats SA shows that travellers who visited South Africa from the rest of the continent increased by over 130% in the third quarter of 2022. This is proof that there is interest to travel to South Africa by our neighbours. Research by Forward Keys shows that if intra-Africa travel is tapped into this could lead to a more robust tourism recovery. We are on the right path as the country recently announced that as of January 2023 Kenyan nationals will no longer require a visa to travel to South Africa on holiday. Visa waivers are something that we as the TBCSA have been lobbying for. It is our hope that more African countries will be granted these waivers to help facilitate the ease of travel required around the continent. Another strong signal for our focus on growing Africa as a key source market is the launch of Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tourism Business Platform (TBP). This body comprises 16 SADC member states. I serve as interim chairman of this body, and I am looking forward to seeing how our work to advance the sustainable development of the regional tourism industry will fare in boosting arrivals from the continent. Thriving mice sector I was one of the many advocates for the migration from zoom and back to in-person gatherings. This year we are going to see more of those in-person conferences. Starting with our own industry events such as meetings Africa, Tourism Indaba and even our very own second edition of the TBCSA leadership conference later this year. South Africa is among the leaders in business tourism globally. Data from South African Tourism published in 2019 shows that about 800,000 people travel to South Africa annually for business, generating millions for the economy. Before the pandemic, the Department of Tourism showed that South Africa hosted 211,000 regional, national, and international meetings, conferences, and exhibitions. This just further strengthens the case for investing in our MICE industry. One of our members the Seeza network, for example, will be bringing three conferences with a collective economic benefit of R11m. Better engagement on policy between government, private sector Ive mentioned that last year we at the TBCSA held our inaugural leadership conference where we discussed among other things the importance of a working relationship between the private and public sectors in the tourism sector. It is our view that a strong working relationship will allow us to achieve our goal of 15 million arrivals by 2030. The relationship between us and the private sector is something that we are going to keep working on this year. We have formed working groups for example through our memorandum of understanding with South African tourism and have consistently held dialogues with our colleagues at home affairs, tourism, and transport. This year we want to increase those engagements for the better good of the sector. If you're tired of censorship, cancel culture, and the erosion of privacy and civil liberties subscribe to Reclaim The Net. French digital transition minister Jean-Noel Barrot visited Twitter owner Elon Musk to discuss compliance with European censorship rules. Barrot tweeted that he visited Musk after attending CES in Las Vegas on Saturday. The French minister claimed that Musk said Twitter would comply with EU laws. At Twitter headquarters, Elon Musk confirmed to me his intention to comply with European rules, and his commitments on content moderation, the fight against disinformation, and the protection of children, he wrote in a tweet that included a photo of himself and the Twitter CEO. Since Musk took over Twitter in late October, he has made several changes, including rolling back Covid censorship policies and laying off members of staff. Shortly after Musk took over, European Commissioner Thierry Breton warned that the platform had to adhere to the blocs speech rules. Last year, the EU passed the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation that will require online platforms to take down harmful content immediately and suspend users who repeatedly violate the rules. The law will take effect in 2024. There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.Montesquieu, Enlightenment philosopher For those wondering what to expect from the government in 2023, it looks like were going to be in for more of the same in terms of the governments brand of madness, mayhem, corruption and brutality. Digital prisons. Unceasingly, the government and its corporate partners are pushing for a national digital ID system. Local police agencies have already been given access to facial recognition software and databases containing 20 billion images, the precursor to a digital ID. Eventually, a digital ID will be required to gain access to all aspects of life: government, work, travel, healthcare, financial services, shopping, etc. Before long, biometrics (iris scans, face print, voice, DNA, etc.), will become the de facto digital ID. Precrime. Under the pretext of helping overwhelmed government agencies work more efficiently, AI predictive and surveillance technologies are being used to classify, segregate and flag the populace with little concern for privacy rights or due process. All of this sorting, sifting and calculating is being done swiftly, secretly and incessantly with the help of AI technology and a surveillance state that monitors your every move. AI predictive tools are being deployed in almost every area of life. Mandatory quarantines. Building on precedents established during the COVID-19 pandemic, government agents may be empowered to indefinitely detain anyone they suspect of posing a medical risk to others without providing an explanation, subject them to medical tests without their consent, and carry out such detentions and quarantines without any kind of due process or judicial review. Mental health assessments by non-medical personnel. As a result of a nationwide push to train a broad spectrum of so-called gatekeepers in mental health first-aid training, more Americans are going to run the risk of being reported by non-medical personnel and detained for having mental health issues. Tracking chips for citizens. Momentum is building for corporations and the government alike to be able to track the populace, whether through the use of RFID chips embedded in a national ID card, microscopic chips embedded in ones skin, or tags in retail products. Military involvement domestically. The future, according to a Pentagon training video, will be militaristic, dystopian and far from friendly to freedom. Indeed, all signs point to the battlefield of the future being the American home front. Anticipating this, the government plans to have the military work in conjunction with local police to quell civil unrest domestically. Government censorship of anything it classifies as disinformation. In the governments ongoing assault on those who criticize the governmentwhether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thoughtgovernment and corporate censors claiming to protect us from dangerous, disinformation campaigns are, in fact, laying the groundwork now to preempt any dangerous ideas that might challenge the power elites stranglehold over our lives. Threat assessments. The government has a growing listshared with fusion centers and law enforcement agenciesof ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state. Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score. Its just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence. War on cash. The government and its corporate partners are engaged in a concerted campaign to shift consumers towards a digital mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient. This push for a digital currency dovetails with the governments war on cash, which it has been subtly waging for some time now. In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal. Expansive surveillance. AI surveillance harnesses the power of artificial intelligence and widespread surveillance technology to do what the police state lacks the manpower and resources to do efficiently or effectively: be everywhere, watch everyone and everything, monitor, identify, catalogue, cross-check, cross-reference, and collude. Everything that was once private is now up for grabs to the right buyer. With every new AI surveillance technology that is adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry are being marginalized, undermined and eviscerated. Militarized police. Having transformed local law enforcement into extensions of the military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the FBI are moving into the next phase of the transformation, turning the nations police officers into techno-warriors, complete with iris scanners, body scanners, thermal imaging Doppler radar devices, facial recognition programs, license plate readers, cell phone extraction software, Stingray devices and so much more. Police shootings of unarmed citizens. Owing in large part to the militarization of local law enforcement agencies, not a week goes by without more reports of hair-raising incidents by police imbued with a take-no-prisoners attitude and a battlefield approach to the communities in which they serve. Police brutality and the use of excessive force continues unabated. False flags and terrorist attacks. Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenrypurportedly to keep us safe and the nation securehas come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government. This has become the shadow governments modus operandi regardless of which party is in power: the government creates a menaceknowing full well the ramifications such a danger might pose to the publicthen without ever owning up to the part it played in unleashing that particular menace on an unsuspecting populace, it demands additional powers in order to protect we the people from the threat. Endless wars to keep Americas militarys empire employed. The military and security industrial complexes that have advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, are the very entities that will continue to profit the most from Americas expanding military empire abroad and here at home. Erosions of private property. Private property means little at a time when SWAT teams and other government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, wound or kill you, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family. Likewise, if government officials can fine and arrest you for growing vegetables in your front yard, praying with friends in your living room, installing solar panels on your roof, and raising chickens in your backyard, youre no longer the owner of your property. Overcriminalization. The government has increasingly adopted the authoritarian notion that it knows best and therefore must control, regulate and dictate almost everything about the citizenrys public, private and professional lives. Overregulation and overcriminalization have been pushed to such outrageous limits that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in ones home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someones hair. Strip searches and the denigration of bodily integrity. Court rulings undermining the Fourth Amendment and justifying invasive strip searches have left us powerless against police empowered to forcefully draw our blood, forcibly take our DNA, strip search us, and probe us intimately. Individualsmen and women alikecontinue to be subjected to what is essentially government-sanctioned rape by police in the course of routine traffic stops. Censorship. First Amendment activities are being pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. Free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors have conspired to corrode our core freedoms. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remains the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the principal pillar of a free government. Taxation Without Any Real Representation. As a Princeton University survey indicates, our elected officials, especially those in the nations capital, represent the interests of the rich and powerful rather than the average citizen. We are no longer a representative republic. With Big Business and Big Government having fused into a corporate state, the president and his state counterpartsthe governorshave become little more than CEOs of the Corporate State, which day by day is assuming more government control over our lives. Never before have average Americans had so little say in the workings of their government and even less access to their so-called representatives. Year after year, the government remains the greatest threat to our freedoms, and yet year after year, we the people allow ourselves to be suckered into believing that politics will fix whats wrong with the country. Indeed, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the very definition of insanity. Source: https://bit.ly/3ItNINg ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org. Harry said he had made it his mission to revolutionise the British press, especially after the Jeremy Clarkson article which was hurtful and cruel towards my wife. Loading 2. Breakdown with Willy was a long time coming Despite the brotherly bickering only seemingly coming to the surface after he met Meghan, Harry acknowledges that his relationship with William had always been fraught with sibling rivalry. Harry claims that William asked him to pretend that they didnt know each other in high school, and that rather than bringing them together, the driving force between the two brothers drifting apart was the death of their mother. We had a very similar traumatic experience, and then we ... we dealt with it two very different ways, the Duke said. Fast-forward to the Sussexes 2017 engagement, Harry said that while William didnt try to talk him out of marrying Meghan, he did voice concerns early on. 3. Harry believed Diana had faked her own death Prince Harry spoke about the moment his father King Charles III informed him of his mothers death in a car crash in Paris. He said he didnt remember Charles telling him that Princess Dianas car was chased by paparazzi to her death, but said that he has a lot of compassion for his father, now that he himself has become a parent. The Duke of Sussex admitted that, until he was 23 years old, he believed his mother might still be alive, and that the accident in Paris might have been staged so that she could escape the media intrusion. Harry said that the divide between him and his brother dated back to the death of their mother. Credit: AP Despite saying that he no longer had a desire to re-open the case into Princess Dianas death, Harry said that there were still a lot of things unexplained and that he even had a driver take him through the same tunnel in Paris to see if the story about the driver losing control was plausible. 4. The bridesmaid and the beard Prince Harry himself acknowledged that there were 25 versions of the bridesmaid story which is said to have left his sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, in tears. Loading Ahead of the Sussexes May 2018 wedding, a tabloid report emerged alleging that Meghan had made Catherine cry in an argument over a bridesmaid dress fitting. During Mondays ITV interview Harry reinforced that it was Kate who had made Meghan cry, not the other way around, and that Kate apologised the following day. Asked why the story was never corrected, Harry said: My understanding is the reason they [the royal family] didnt want to come out and say it wasnt true would therefore lead to Well if it wasnt that, was it the other way round? Meanwhile, Harry also spoke of the unusual falling out between him and William over his decision to keep his beard for his wedding, which was not royal tradition, and typically not allowed in military uniform. Harry said he sought approval from Queen Elizabeth II to keep his beard for his televised nuptials describing it as a shield to my anxiety. His grandmother gave him the green light but William who had been clean-shaven for his own wedding did not approve, prompting a week-long fight between the brothers. Harry claimed that William attempted to use his authority as the heir to override the decision and order Harry to shave the offending beard. Prince Harry kept his beard at his wedding despite his bothers alleged disapproval. Credit: AP 6. Reconciliation After all of this, you might be thinking, surely Harry wants to leave the royals behind? However, he says the opposite is true, and that, if he had it his way, they would make amends. Ticketing technology used by some of the worlds largest and best public transport networks could be rolled out in Victoria when the state decides on the future of its outdated myki system. Touching on with just a credit card at train stations and on trams and buses is one major upgrade expected when the Andrews government signs a new contract to run the system this year. Japanese technology group NTT Datas $100-million-a-year deal expires on November 30 and the state invited expressions of interest from rival operators about a year ago. A swath of industry leaders, including US outfits Cubic and Conduent, French multinational Thales and Hong Kongs MTR, were among those competing with NTT, which is vying for another term, according to sources familiar with the process and who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to its commercial sensitivity. A prominent lawyer has cautioned that nightclub owners should consider potential legal risks when considering banning sneakers associated with eshays in a bid to deter anti-social behaviour. Malcolm Pages, owner of Bar1 Nightclub in the northern Perth suburb of Hillarys, said on Monday his ban would come into effect from February 1 and would only apply to a certain style of person. If youre at a cocktail party or a 21st and you rock up as a well-dressed lady in red shoes you wont be told to change your shoes, he told Perths Radio 6PR. Its more of a certain element of person who has red Nikes, ASICs or New Balance to match with a big thick chain and a certain shirt. The military presence on the ground in Western Australias flood-ravaged Kimberley region will double by Tuesday, as the prime minister marvels at the trail of destruction left by ex-tropical cyclone Ellie. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spent the morning at Fitzroy Crossing about 400 kilometres east of Broome, which bore the brunt of what has been described as the worst flood in the states history. The flood created an inland sea spanning 50 kilometres, forcing hundreds of residents to flee, leaving roads impassable and isolating remote Aboriginal communities. The record-high 15.8 metre floodwaters in the Fitzroy River catchment are subsiding and heading downstream south of Derby, with the river at Willare now peaking at 10.6 metres. A NSW Labor government would bring social housing construction, maintenance and tenant management under one roof in an election promise to tackle the ballooning housing waitlist which surpassed 51,000 last year. The states housing crisis has emerged as one of the key policy contests ahead of the looming March state election, with the opposition this week also vowing to help first home buyers by abolishing stamp duty on purchases up to $800,000. Labor leader Chris Minns has pledged to improve the delivery of social housing in NSW. Credit: Dean Sewell Labor claims the policy will remove or reduce stamp duty for 95 per cent of first home buyers, while the government says its alternative opt-in land tax option for properties of up to $1.5 million will give more buyers more choice. In a fresh pitch to target the housing crisis, Labor leader Chris Minns on Monday night said he would improve the delivery of social housing in NSW by merging three existing government agencies into a single body. New COVID protocol science-based response to current epidemic situation Chinadaily.com.cn) 09:42, January 09, 2023 Medical workers run intravenous drips for patients at the fever clinic of China-Japan Friendship hospital in Beijing. [Photo by Wang Jing/China Daily] China released the 10th edition of its diagnosis and treatment protocol for COVID-19 on Saturday, the first of its kind since the country announced that it will be managed as a Category B disease. Over the past three years, the virus has been strictly prevented and controlled according to the same strict Category A standards that apply to diseases such as the plague and cholera. But in light of how the epidemic situation has evolved, with the current variants of the virus more transmissible but less virulent than earlier ones, and with few cases presenting as pneumonia, the disease has been downgraded from novel coronavirus pneumonia to novel coronavirus infection, and it is to be managed accordingly, starting Sunday. The previous edition of the protocol was released in March last year. The latest edition calls for a treat-it-as-it-is shift of focus for the governments and public health systems, as well as neighborhoods and individual residents, as the emphasis is on treatment rather than preventing infection. The revised national protocol, which is based on the experience of some big cities in their head-on collision with the virus last month, will undoubtedly help standardize diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 infections nationwide, as in line with clinical practice it classifies cases as being light, medium, severe or critical. This will be especially welcomed by small towns and rural areas, as the protocol improves the diagnostic criteria and warning indicators for severe and critical cases, which will ease the pressure on their public health facilities as less severe cases can be treated with over-the-counter medications at home. The adjustment of the protocol can help ensure that limited medical care resources can be concentrated on caring for those who are most vulnerable, such as the elderly, children and people with underlying diseases, in a bid to prevent and reduce the occurrence of severe cases and minimize the number of deaths caused by COVID-19. But having said that, more medical care resources should now be diverted to villages in light of the requirements of the protocol so as to minimize the pressure on the public health system and the national economy that is expected to arise as a result of the projected resurgence of COVID-19 infections during the 40-day Spring Festival holiday peak travel period that will begin on Friday. The issuance of the protocol should prompt public health departments across the country to accelerate the adjustment of the distribution of medical resources between urban and rural areas through the pre-settled assistance model, whereby major hospitals in cities provide local rural clinics and village doctors with direct assistance in terms of personnel, medicines, funding, facilities and equipment, as well as diagnosis and treatment guidance. The protocol highlights the importance of quick diagnosis, high clinical treatment efficiency, early treatment and the use of a combination of traditional Chinese and Western medicines, the importance of which has been fully demonstrated in the nation's fight with the virus last month after it lifted its strict virus control policies. The latest COVID-19 infection diagnosis and treatment protocol, which adheres to the country's consistent principle of always putting life and health first, effectively responds to the appeals and demands of society, while still being firmly rooted in science and the actual epidemic situation in the country. Since the first version of the diagnosis and treatment protocol for COVID 19 was released in January 2020, there have been obvious changes in each version. But these have all been determined by the constancy of the guiding ideology, which demands a scientific response to the pandemic and flexibility in the diagnosis and treatment measures so that they can address the evolving situation. Each of the 10 editions represents an important stage in the development of China's epidemic prevention and control efforts, as each of them marks the optimal approach under the prevailing conditions at that time. Each has fulfilled its mission for the period they were made for. It is good to see that many provincial-level regions, including Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing as well as Fujian and Guizhou provinces, have already issued their implementation plans in accordance with the latest protocol. For instance, they all give full play to a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system and greater coordination and connection between grassroots clinics and the fever departments of major hospitals, so as to boost the capacity of the former to handle COVID-19 cases. The rapidity with which localities are executing the protocol should serve to consolidate people's confidence that their lives and health will continue to be effectively guarded against the virus and that the removal of the constraints on socioeconomic activities will bring the return of their life to normal at an early date. What's more, given its optimized COVID-19 strategy, the world's second-largest economy is in a better position to help boost the global economic recovery as an anchor to global supply chains and a main driving force for the global market. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) More than 1600 bicycles have been left abandoned on the street and in warehouses after bike-sharing company Mobike failed in Australia for the second time. The companys website, app and bike-tracking software have been taken offline since Mobike quietly went under last year, preventing the companys liquidators from knowing the location and number of bicycles left on the street. A Mobike abandoned in the Sydney CBD. Credit: Nikki Short Mobikes failure comes as a new wave of bike-sharing schemes, such as HelloRide and Bird, have set up in Sydney, hoping that their electric bikes, GPS tracking and better relationships with councils will let them prosper. Mobike arrived in Australia in 2017 as a Chinese start-up with more than $1 billion in investor funding and put its orange and silver push-bikes on city streets in Sydney and Queenslands Gold Coast. London: Queen Elizabeth II gave the Duke of Sussex a cryptic response when he asked her permission to marry Meghan, he reveals in his memoir. Prince Harry was unsure whether his grandmother was trying to tell him she wanted to refuse his request, was being sarcastic or playing word games. Prince Harry was told he needed to ask his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, for permission to marry Meghan, now the Duchess of Sussex. Credit: AP The Duke feared he was doomed to be the next Margaret, he writes, in reference to his great aunt, Princess Margaret, who was not allowed to marry the love of her life, divorcee Peter Townsend. Harry recounts the moment he plucked up the courage to ask the Queen in his forthcoming book, Spare, which is officially published on Tuesday but was released early in Spain. London: Prince Harry has further exacerbated a war of words within the British royal family, accusing them of being complicit in the pain and suffering inflicted on his wife, calling his step-mother a dangerous villain and claiming his father had not been ready for parenthood. In two dramatic interviews spanning almost 120 minutes on British and US television, the Duke of Sussex claimed his family members had helped to trash his and wife Meghans reputations, forcing them to move to California two years ago, and claimed they had shown no willingness to reconcile. Britains Prince Harry speaking during an interview with ITVs Tom Bradby for the programme Harry: The Interview. Credit: AP But Harry insisted that he did not believe the royal family was racist and claimed he had never suggested they were. He told ITV that when he and his wife revealed in their Oprah Winfrey interview that a member of the family had raised concerns about the colour of their unborn sons skin they were not accusing them of racism, instead suggesting they were guilty of an unconscious bias. Detailing the breakdown of his relationship with his brother, Harry said the Prince of Wales had voiced concerns about him marrying the Duchess, and claimed William and his wife, Catherine, had not made Meghan feel welcome from the get-go and had stereotyped her as an American, actress, divorced, bi-racial. Brazilian authorities have vowed to protect democracy and punish thousands of his supporters. A soldier carefully collects national flags after supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro left the encampment. Credit: AP Police broke down a pro-Bolsonaro encampment outside a military building on Monday and detained some 1200 people there, the Justice Ministrys press office told The Associated Press. Lula and the heads of the Supreme Court, Senate and Lower House also signed a letter on Monday denouncing acts of terrorism and vandalism and saying they were taking legal measures. Justice Minister Flavio Dino told reporters police have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital. The buildings would be inspected for evidence including fingerprints and images to hold people to account, and that the rioters apparently intended to spark similar unrest nationwide. Loading They will not succeed in destroying Brazilian democracy. We need to say that fully, with all firmness and conviction, Dino said. We will not accept the path of criminality to carry out political fights in Brazil. A criminal is treated like a criminal. On Sunday, rioters donning the green and yellow of the national flag broke windows, toppled furniture, hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punctured a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the palace in seven places and completely destroyed other works of art. They overturned the U-shaped table at which Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justices office and vandalised an iconic statue outside the court. The monumental buildings interiors were left in ruins. Mondays arrests came in addition to the 300 arrested on Sunday while caught in the act. Damaged portraits of former Senate Presidents Jose Sarney and Renan Calheiros are seen at the Brazilian National Congress. Credit: Getty But police were noticeably slow to react even after the arrival of more than 100 buses leading many to ponder whether authorities had either simply ignored numerous warnings, underestimated the protesters strength, or been somehow complicit. Public prosecutors in the capital said local security forces had at the very least been negligent. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor. Another justice blamed authorities for not swiftly cracking down on budding neo-fascism. After his October 30 electoral defeat, Bolsonaro has been stoking belief among his hardcore supporters that the electronic voting system was prone to fraud though he never presented any evidence. His lawmaker son Eduardo Bolsonaro held several meetings with former US president Donald Trump, Trumps longtime ally Steve Bannon and his senior campaign adviser, Jason Miller. Results from Brazils election the closest in more than three decades were quickly recognised by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of governments. And Bolsonaro surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view. He neither conceded defeat nor emphatically cried fraud, though he and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes that was swiftly dismissed. People survey damage caused by Bolsonaro supporters following a riot the previous day at Planalto Palace. Credit: Getty Brazilians have used electronic voting since 1996 that some security experts consider less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazils system is, however, closely scrutinised and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud. Loading Still, Bolsonaros supporters refused to accept the results. They blocked roads and have remained camped outside military buildings, urging the armed forces to intervene. Dino, the justice minister, referred to the encampments as incubators of terrorism. Protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, but isolated threats including a bomb found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilias airport prompted security concerns. Two days before Lulas January 1 inauguration, Bolsonaro flew to the US and took up temporary residence in Orlando. Many Brazilians expressed relief that, while he declined to participate in the transition of power, his absence allowed it to occur without incident. Or so it had been, until Sundays havoc. Bolsonarism mimics the same strategies as Trumpism. Our January 8 an unprecedented manifestation in Brazilian politics is clearly copied from January 6 in the Capitol, said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia. Todays sad episodes represent yet another attempt to destabilise democracy and demonstrate that the authoritarian, populist radicalism of Brazils extreme right remains active under the command of former president Bolsonaro, the Trump of Latin America. US President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jointly said on Monday that Canada, Mexico, and the United States condemn the January 8 attacks on Brazils democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power. We stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions. French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to support Lula unconditionally. In a message on Twitter in Portuguese he said, The will of the Brazilian people and democratic institutions must be respected. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the riots, saying Australia stood with the democratically elected government. Soldiers help clear out an encampment set up by supporters of Bolsonaro. Credit: AP When democracies have elections, its important that they be respected and tragically weve seen here actions that look a bit similar to what happened at the US Capitol building on January 6 after the election of President Biden. Its important that we respect democratic processes, Albanese said. Analysts told the AP that the upheaval could yield greater political support for Lula and his stated mission to pacify the polarised country, with many right-wing citizens and politicians repulsed by the scenes and eager to distance themselves from far-right radicalism. The leader of Bolsonaros own party called the uprising an embarrassment. This may have been the beginning of the end. The political system will want to isolate that radical movement and move away from it, said Mario Sergio Lima, political analyst at Medley Advisors. I think what we will see now is the right trying to create new alternatives and new leaders, and the centre distancing itself. In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to assume control of security in the federal district. He said that the so-called fascist fanatics, as well as those who financed their activities, must be punished, and also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging their uprising. Bolsonaro repudiated the presidents accusation late Sunday. Writing on Twitter, he said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings are exceptions to the rule. Unlike the 2021 attack in the US, few officials would have been working in the top government buildings on a Sunday. And videos showed limited presence of the capitals military police. One video showed a group of protesters easily pushing through a police barricade, with only a few officers using pepper spray. Another showed officers standing by as protesters stormed the Congress, including one using his phone to record what was happening. This was a gross error by the federal districts government. It was a tragedy foretold, said Thiago de Aragao, director of strategy at Brasilia-based political consultancy Arko Advice. Everyone knew [the protesters] were coming to Brasilia. The expectation was that the federal districts government was going to mount a response to protect the capital. They didnt do any of that. Lula said at his news conference there was incompetence or bad faith on the part of police, and he promised some would be punished. After the incident came to light, the regulator asked for a report on January 5. Air India did not report a second peeing incident to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) when a male passenger urinated on a vacant seat and the blanket of a female co-passenger on a Paris-Delhi flight on December 6, 2022. The regulator has issued a show cause notice to Air Indias accountable manager. Air Indias response to the December 6 incident was lackadaisical and delayed, the DGCA noted. This is in violation of the DGCA rules, under which an airline has to inform the regulator about any incident of passenger misconduct within 12 hours of the aircrafts landing. The DGCA said that the first incident was brought to its notice only on January 4. The first peeing incident had taken place on Air Indias New York-Delhi flight on November 26 when passenger Shankar Mishra, who was then a vice-president at Wells Fargo, urinated on a female passenger. Also Read Running airline in JV a challenge, says Air India CEO Campbell Wilson Air India to get fresh brand identity: CEO Campbell Wilson tells staff 'Unprofessional': Aviation regulator slams Air India for urination incident What DGCA's new medical guidelines prescribe for transgender persons Report improper behaviour during flights promptly: Air India CEO to staff Cleartrip says aiming for growth in flight tickets, hotels business in 2023 PVR aims to operate 1,000 screens by FY24-end, invest Rs 300 cr: JMD Gyscoal Alloys' profit jumps to Rs 2.20 cr in Q2; revenue from ops rises TGBL joins hands with PMC to extract clean, green hydrogen from waste Life insurers' new biz premium growth eases to 10% as LIC loses pace Mishra was arrested on January 7 by the Delhi Police in Bengaluru. The DGCA termed Air Indias handling of the first incident as unprofessional, devoid of empathy and in violation of its rules. In the same flight, another passenger who was drunk was caught smoking in the lavatory and he was not listening to the cabin crew, the regulator said. The second peeing incident took place on the Paris-Delhi flight on December 6, the DGCAs statement said. Therefore, the regulator has issued a show cause notice to Air Indias accountable manager. Air India didnt report the (Paris-Delhi) incident until the DGCA sought a report from it on January 5. After perusal of the reply submitted by Air India through an email dated January 6, 2023, prima facie it emerges that provisions related to handling of unruly passengers have not been complied with, the regulator noted. The regulator has given two weeks to the airlines accountable manager to submit a reply. It said, Why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligations. Level 1 includes physical gestures, verbal harassment, and unruly inebriation, under which the airline can ban a passenger from flying for up to three months. Level 2 includes physically abusive behaviour like pushing, hitting, kicking or sexual harassment, under which the airline can ban a passenger for up to six months. According to the DGCAs 2017 rules, unruly behaviour has been categorised under three levels. According to the rules, the pilot is required to relay the onboard incident to the airlines control room. A diversion, too, can be carried out, if required, and upon landing a police case can be lodged. Level 3 incidents include life-threatening behaviour such as causing damage to aircraft operating systems, and murderous assault, among others, under which the ban can be imposed for two years and above. We fell short of addressing this situation the way it should have been, he said. Air Indias response to the November 26 incident should have been much swifter, Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran had said on Sunday. Purohit, the former CEO of Tata CLiQ, will lead Metas strategic relationship with brands and agencies to drive revenue growth across key channels, the company said in a statement. He will partner with the media and others for accelerating the adoption of digital tools by advertisers and agencies. Vikas Purohit will head Facebook parent Metas global business group in India, said the social media platform on Monday. As the cold wave intensifies in Lucknow, the district administration has announced closure of all schools for students up to Class 8 till January 14 as per the earlier order. For the students of Class 9 to 12 who do not have pre board / practical exams, classes will be held online from January 9 to 11. If there is no online arrangement, there will be holidays for students of Classes 9 to 12 in such schools. For the students of Class 10 and Class 12 who have pre board / practical exams from January 9 to 11, school timings would be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will be the responsibility of the school management to make adequate arrangements to prevent cold in the classrooms and it should be ensured that heaters, etc., are used to maintain normal temperature in each room. Students will not be made to sit outside in the open for classes / practicals / exams. Uniform is not mandatory and it is advised that students should be given entry even if they come in colourful warm clothes. District level officers were asked to ensure strict compliance of the order, said District Magistrate Surya Pal Gangwar. Also Read Here's a full list of bank and school holidays in Sept 2022; Check details Eid celebrated with fervour in India as people cast aside Covid-19 fears Eid al-adha: Lucknow celebrates with message of love, prayer for rains UP Police strengthens security, ramps up deployment ahead of Bakrid What does Parliament's winter session mean for you? LIVE: PM Modi to inaugurate Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention in Indore Covid-19 situation in India better than elsewhere: SII CEO Adar Poonawalla PM Modi to inaugurate Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention in MP's Indore G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant flags off Run Blue initiative by Mina Guli Top headlines: Tata Digital's loss up 6x, India's to grow at 6% in FY24 --IANS amita/dpb Ending all speculations, senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Monday announced that he will be contesting the forthcoming Karnataka Assembly polls from Kolar constituency. The 75-year-old former chief minister, who was looking for a "safe seat", had been giving indications about choosing Kolar for some time now, by holding a series of meetings with party leaders from the district. "I have decided to be a candidate for the next election from Kolar," Siddaramaiah said at a public meeting here amid loud cheers from the crowd. "I have decided to contest from this constituency, but it is subject to approval from the high command," he said. Congress leaders and workers from Kolar have been exerting pressure on the Congress Legislature Party leader to contest from there. Siddaramaiah had received similar requests from Varuna, Badami, Hebbal, Koppal and Chamrajpet segments among others. The Congress Legislature Party Leader's earlier visit to Kolar in November and his cryptic statement about coming back to the constituency during the filing of nomination, had led to speculation that he may contest the 2023 assembly election from here. Also Read Govt plans to invite bids to extract gold from dumps at Kolar mines Why did UPA govt wait 4 years: Karnataka CM hits out at Siddaramaiah Protests against me with black flags 'state sponsored,' says Siddaramaiah Karnataka Cong dubs BJP's Janaspandana rally as 'convention of commission' Congress pushes to make 'corruption' a key political narrative in Karnataka Govt asks utilities to import 6% of their coal need until September 3,700 Indian dams will lose 26% storage capacity by 2050: UN study Women in construction, real estate sector earn less than males: Report Comeback trail: Sports stars who returned to make a mark after an accident Delhi PWD to remove eviction notice from Dhaula Kuan slum dwellers: Sisodia Siddaramaiah, who currently represents Badami segment of Bagalkote district in northern Karnataka, had indicated that he may not contest from there, citing his inability to give more time for people and party workers of the constituency. Srinivasa Gowda, Kolar's sitting MLA from JD(S), who has switched sides to Congress, had earlier indicated that will not be contesting polls and wants Siddaramaiah to contest. Siddaramaiah, who has announced that 2023 assembly polls would be his last, had made it clear that he would not contest from Chamundeshwari. As the then sitting chief minister, he lost the 2018 polls in Chamundeshwari to JD(S) candidate G T Deve Gowda by 36,042 votes. He, however, won Badami, the other constituency from where he had contested and defeated B Sriramulu (BJP) by 1,696 votes. Making his debut in the Assembly in 1983, Siddaramaiah had got elected from Chamundeshwari on a Lok Dal Party ticket. He has won five times from this constituency and tasted defeat thrice. After neighbouring Varuna became a constituency in 2008 following delimitation, Siddaramaiah represented it till he vacated the seat for his son Dr Yathindra (now MLA) in the 2018 assembly polls and went back to his old constituency of Camundeshwari. Siddaramaiah, who was chief minister from 2013 to 2018, is nursing ambitions for a second term in office, if the party wins the next assembly polls. With State Congress President D K Shivakumar too having similar aspirations, it has triggered a game of one-upmanship between the two leaders. Congress functionaries hope that Siddaramaiah contesting from Kolar will help the party's prospects in the districts of Kolar, Chikkaballapura and Bengaluru Rural, and they recalled his work in ensuring water supply for the drought-affected region by initiating Yettinahole Project, and filling up tanks with KC Valley and HN Valley projects. According to party sources, Kolar is a safe bet for Siddaramaiah as it will consolidate AHINDA votes in his favour and Vokkaliga leaders of the party from the region also have pledged support to him. AHINDA is a Kannada acronym that stands for 'Alpasankhyataru' (minorities), 'Hindulidavaru' (Backward Classes) and 'Dalitaru' (Dalits). They said Siddaramaiah's supporters have conducted surveys and have concluded that the seat can ensure a comfortable win for the "Kuruba" leader, and Kolar being close to Bengaluru city could make it easy for him to ensure his presence there often. Amid fears that a factional rift in the Kolar unit of the party, with former Union minister K H Muniyappa upset, may become a drawback to his prospects, the Leader of Opposition had made attempts to reach out to the sulking leader. Siddaramaiah had even met Muniyappa before leaving for Kolar on Monday. Muniyappa is upset with senior MLA and former Speaker Ramesh Kumar's (a Siddaramaiah loyalist) growing prominence in the Kolar unit. A Delhi court will hear on January 19 the bail application of liquor giant Pernod Ricard's executive, Benoy Babu, arrested in a money laundering case related to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam also involving Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. Special Judge M K Nagpal, who was scheduled to hear the arguments on Babu's bail application on Monday, adjourned the matter on pleas made by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as well as the advocate appearing for the accused. In its order, the judge also noted that the prosecution complaint (ED's equivalent to a charge sheet) against Babu, as well as against some other co-accused, had been filed before the court and the court was yet to take cognisance of the documents. ED is investigation the alleged irregularities in the now-scrapped liquor policy of the Delhi government. Bail application of the accused is fixed for arguments today. However, prosecution complaint qua him, as well as against some other co-accused, stands filed before this court now and Counsel representing the accused submits that they are in the process of inspecting records of the said complaint and documents filed in support thereof. Hence, some time is being requested for addressing arguments on the application. As jointly requested, list the application now on January 19, 2023 for arguments, the judge said. The ED had on January 6 filed a supplementary charge sheet against five individuals and seven companies in the case. Also Read Pernod Ricard India CEO Thibault Cuny steps down due to health reasons Thibault Cuny, MD & CEO, Pernod Ricard South Asia quits over health issues French spirits major Pernod Ricard appoints Paul-Robert Bouhier as India MD France's Pernod puts India investments on hold, cites protracted tax fight Delhi excise policy case: ED arrests AAP in-charge, Hyderabad businessman Bank fraud case: Videocon's Dhoot moves HC against 'illegal' arrest by CBI Go First flight leaves passengers behind, DGCA promises appropriate action PM Modi holds bilateral talks with Presidents of Suriname and Guyana Free canteen for farmers visiting state-run Mandis in Odisha's Gajapati New Parliament building to be ready by January-end, say govt sources The ED, however, did not name Sisodia as accused in the case, and told the judge that further investigation is going on in the mater. The individuals named in the charge sheet are Vijay Nair, Sharath Reddy, Binoy Babu, Abhishek Boinpally and Amit Arora. The money laundering case stems from a CBI FIR that had also named Sisodia as an accused, among others. The CBI had raided the premises of the deputy chief minister and some Delhi government bureaucrats after filing the case. The excise scheme came under the scanner after the Delhi lieutenant governor recommended a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the implementation of the Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22. The LG had also suspended 11 excise officials. A court here on Monday sent six accused in the case involving the death of a 20-year-old woman, who had got trapped in the underside of a car and killed, to 14 days' judicial custody. "14 days judicial custody granted," Metropolitan Magistrate Sanya Dalal said. The prosecution said it was found during their custodial interrogation that the accused were aware of the victim's body being dragged under the wheels. The additional public prosecutor, however, did not disclose the identity of the two accused who got down from the car to inspect what was under the wheels. The investigating officer informed the court that CCTV footages were being obtained, the route taken by the car was being established, and around 20 witnesses had recorded their statements. He also said a new witness, who was around 100 metres from the spot of the accident, has joined the investigation. Also Read Women dragging death case: Court sends five accused to police custody Delhi's Kanjhawala horror: What we know so far in the hit-and-run case Delhi hit-and-drag case: Sixth accused sent to three-day police custody Delhi road accident: Rs 10 lakh ex-gratia sanctioned for victim's family Home Ministry seeks report from Delhi Police on Kanjhawala incident Cong slams BJP for criticizing ex-army chief general Deepak Kapoor Pravasi Bharatiyas are 'brand ambassadors' of India on foreign soil: Modi PM Modi to visit Hyderabad on Jan 19 to launch various railway projects Tax evasion: HC questions I-T dept's move seeking to prosecute Anil Ambani MCD brawl: BJP leaders protesting outside Kejriwal's house detained Police had initially arrested Deepak Khanna (26), Amit Khanna (25), Krishan (27), Mithun (26), and Manoj Mittal in the case last Monday. On expiry of their three-day police custody, the court extended their custodial interrogation by four days on Thursday. Later, they zeroed in on Ashutosh, who was arrested on Friday, and remanded in police custody for three days. Another accused Ankush Khanna surrendered before the police on Friday and he was granted bail on Saturday. Anjali Singh, 20, was killed in the early hours of the New Year after her scooter was hit by a car which dragged her for 12 km from Sultanpuri to Kanjhawala. Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday said that the Delhi Government's Public Works Department has been ordered to withdraw its notice to slum dwellers living in Dhaula Kuan to leave the area. "PWD officials have been ordered to immediately withdraw the order of demolition of slums located near Dhaula Kuan. Demolition of the houses, without any other arrangement in the cold is not acceptable. Arvind Kejriwal government will never stand by a decision to render the public homeless," said Sisodia in a tweet in Hindi. Earlier on December 29, the PWD had issued a notice to the slum dwellers of Dhaula Kuan to leave the area. The eviction notice asks the residents to vacate the slum area within 15 days. "We have been living here for the last 30 years... where will we go amid extreme weather and cold conditions? The notice has been given to leave the area within 15 days of issuance," said a local resident. The PWD notice has underlined that if the dwellers do not leave the slum by themselves, help from police will be taken. "It is being informed... that you demolish the dwellings yourselves and leave the area of both sides within 15 days of pasting the notice, otherwise your slums will be demolished by the police," reads the notice. Also Read Slum dwellers to be part of consultations concerning their living: Sisodia Centre's housing initiatives will benefit middle class, slum dwellers: Puri Traffic restrictions in Delhi in view of Interpol meeting; jams likely MCD polls: Delhi BJP woos slum dwellers with trip to EWS flats in Kalkaji MCD polls: BJP issues 'Wachan Patra', promises EWS flats for slum dwellers Govt calls out TV channels on 'distasteful' reporting on accidents, deaths Trust has to be built among people of different religions: Amartya Sen Cold wave grips Odisha with 3.7 degrees Celsius in Koraput's Similiguda Jharkhand extends winter vacation till Jan 14 amid cold for primary schools Meta hires former Tata CLiQ CEO to head global business group in India --IANS ssh/svn/ L&T competed for projects funded by foreign sources as there was transparency in the award of contracts and financing was secure, he said. "T "If we look at large infrastructure projects under construction, most of them are either funded by Japan (Japan International Cooperation Agency or Jica) or World Bank. These projects should be ideally funded by governments. But state governments are diverting their funds to offer freebies like electricity and food. Developing infrastructure should be the governments top priority if we have to take a long-term approach to develop the country and bring people out of poverty," Naik said. A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha gave a second extension for the payment after the Centre in June sought an extension of three months. The Supreme Court on Monday gave the central government time till March 15 to pay arrears under the One Rank-One Pension (OROP) to all eligible pensioners of the armed forces. The court asked the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement, a group representing retired defence officials, to appeal if it feels aggrieved by any government action on payment of arrears. Under the OROP scheme, all retired military personnel of the same rank and the same duration of service are paid the same pension, irrespective of when they retire. He assured the court that the money will start flowing into the accounts of these pensioners by March 15. Attorney General R Venkataramani, who appeared for the Centre, told the court that there are 2.5 million pensioners and the Comptroller General of Defence Accounts has finished processing tabulating data on them. The information has been forwarded to the Ministry of Defence for approval, he added. Also Read Coal pensioners protest in capital, demand review of pension scheme BS Number Wise: Old scheme puts burden of employee pension on the states Old pension scheme: Is politics trumping economics? Universal Pension Scheme: New EPFO scheme may cover unorganised workers EPFO calls for increasing retirement age to ease pressure on pension funds Congress leader Siddaramaiah to contest Karnataka Assembly polls from Kolar Govt asks utilities to import 6% of their coal need until September 3,700 Indian dams will lose 26% storage capacity by 2050: UN study Women in construction, real estate sector earn less than males: Report Comeback trail: Sports stars who returned to make a mark after an accident Under the scheme, the armed forces personnel who retired by June 30, 2019 [excluding pre-mature (PMR) retired, with effect from July 01, 2014] will be covered under this revision. The Union Cabinet revised the pension of armed forces pensioners and family pensioners under OROP with effect from July 1, 2019. The Ministry of Defence said the pension of the past pensioners would be re-fixed based on the average minimum and maximum pension of Defence Forces retirees of the calendar year 2018 in the same rank with the same length of service. A new locker rule that has come into effect for existing bank customers this January has led to utter confusion among them, leading to long queues for stamp paper at several bank branches, Live Mint reported Monday. With the new regulation coming into force, most customers are now rushing to their banks to renew their locker agreements. While banks say they have been urging their customers to avoid last-minute delays, some said the banks began alerting them very close to the deadline. The RBI regulation says at the time of allotment of the locker, the bank will have to enter into an agreement with the customer "on a paper duly stamped". People have also complained about the divergence in the value of the stamp paper required for agreement renewal and whether the banks will provide these. The State Bank of India (SBI) clarified in a tweet on January 2 that the value of the stamp paper differed depending on the Stamp Acts of the respective states. Also Read JK Paper surges 10% on robust Q1; West Coast, Andhra Paper rally up to 16% Safety to liability: What changes for bank locker customers from Jan 1 ICC notifies slew of changes to cricket rules, bans saliva use permanently RBI hikes repo rate by 35 bps to 6.25%, cuts FY23 GDP forecast to 6.8% RBI MPC: Here is what experts have to say about the policy announcement Private jets to jewellery: Customs duty to be hiked on 35 items in Budget Economists peg India's FY24 growth at 6% after advance estimates Urgent action needed to dilute risk of downturn, says World Bank Financial inclusion, remittance cost focus areas in G20 meeting Remittance cost for workers outside India may drop to 3% by 2027: Official The regulation has been in the making for some time, and the RBI has been rolling it out gradually. In August 2021, the RBI revised regulations on maintaining bank lockers. These regulations were applicable to new customers from January last year. However, for existing bank customers, these norms have come into effect from January this year. The central bank has asked the banks to put in place board-approved agreements with customers for safe deposit lockers and allowed them to adopt a model locker agreement framed by the Indian Banks' Association (IBA), according to the Mint report. The report cited an employee of a state-run bank in Kolkata as saying that the bank had run out of stamp papers. "We are asking customers to get it themselves. Some are heading to post offices, but they, too, are unable to meet the demand," the employee said on the condition of anonymity. The $200-billion Indian apparel and textile industry is likely to get relief via a rejig in duty structure in the next Union Budget, according to a report in Live Mint. The report cited a senior government official saying that the textile duty adjustments will help make Indian sellers competitive in the Western markets. The textile industry has repeatedly sought relief from the government, saying they are battling high cotton prices. Indian cotton prices had touched a record high of Rs 1 lakh per candy at one point this FY, likely because of a mismatch in demand and supply. The industry also says a slowdown in exports of cotton yarn, a key raw material, due to weakening global demand has also tied their hands. Until the new cotton season, the prices are expected to remain high. Also Read Cotton yarn mills planning to stop production amid poor demand, Ukraine war Metal stocks: Will export duty rollback help? Should you hold textile stocks amid rising cotton prices 'Adverse global conditions present a challenge for textile demand' IPL 2023: Updated squad list of all teams after the mini-auction in Kochi Bank customers scramble to renew agreement as new locker rules kick in Private jets to jewellery: Customs duty to be hiked on 35 items in Budget Economists peg India's FY24 growth at 6% after advance estimates Urgent action needed to dilute risk of downturn, says World Bank Financial inclusion, remittance cost focus areas in G20 meeting "Our thinking is to avoid inverted [duty] structure in trade and to make sure that if it is necessary to import raw material, the price should not be excessive, which will make our final product uncompetitive," the official told Mint. "Meanwhile, we are taking steps to boost the production of cotton by implementing newer techniques for efficient farming. Branding activity of Indian varieties of cotton, such as 'Kasturi cotton' is also taken up in collaboration with the industry, which will have a long-term positive impact on the industry. Free trade agreements, especially with the EU, UK and Australia, will open up large markets for Indian textile products," the official added. Atul S Ganatra, president of the Cotton Association of India, sought an exemption from import duty. "The government has imposed an 11% import duty on cotton from 2 February 2021. This has drastically eroded the competitiveness of our value-added products in the international markets, and our textile industry, which is the second largest employment provider in the country, is now constrained to work with only 50% of its installed capacity." Chandrima Chatterjee, secretary general of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), echoed the sentiment. "We have been seeking removal of duty on cotton largely on extra-long-staple cotton which India does not haveas cotton prices are under stress." According to the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers (SIAM), 4.13 million vehicles including passenger and commercial were sold in the country between January and November 2022. SIAM releases quarterly data on commercial vehicles, and thus numbers for the October-December quarter are awaited for the segment. Also, original equipment makers (OEMs) like Tata Motors (TML) have shifted to quarterly reporting of both wholesale and retail sales numbers. So Tata Motors data is awaited. India has overtaken Japan to become the third largest vehicle market in 2022 after China and the US, selling more than 4.25 million vehicles riding on pent- up demand and enhanced production by carmakers. According to preliminary data reported by Nikkei Asia, Japan sold 4.2 million vehicles in 2022, down 5.6 per cent year-on-year (YoY). However, as the countrys largest passenger car player, Maruti Suzuki India, has reported its December domestic sales figures (113,535 units, excluding sales to other OEMs), the overall sales in India have crossed the 4.25-million mark. With the addition of TMLs quarterly numbers and the commercial vehicle sales figures, Indias margin over Japan is only likely to grow further. Data from automotive websites showed that China has posted a 1.7 per cent rise in vehicle sales in 2022 to 26.75 million units, while the US recorded 7.8 per cent YoY decline to 13.89 million. In 2021, China was the leader in the global market, selling 26.27 million vehicles, followed by the US with 15.4 million, and Japan (4.44 million). Also Read Mercedes-Benz India on road to best-ever sales: MD & CEO Martin Schwenk Merc's new EQS stays focused on luxury and comfort, EV or not Mercedes-Benz in top gear, sees the highest ever June quarter sales Santosh Iyer to lead Mercedes in India as Martin Shwenk moves to Thailand Macro issues not impacting demand: Mercedes India CEO Martin Schwenk Three-four countries keen on UPI, says NPCI MD & CEO Dilip Asbe Fixed income returns in India to surge, prompt higher investments: Analysts From RIL to L&T and Adani, corporate giants build on EPC rule change Kerala says Year of Enterprise project fetched Rs 7,200 cr investment Govt mulls lifting rice export curbs as supply improves, prices stabilise Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group, tweeted on Monday: When I went to business school in the 80s, the world was obsessed with the rise of Japan in the auto world. If I had told my international classmates that India would one day surpass Japan in terms of output (yes, much to still learn in quality) I would have been laughed at. Nikkei Asia reported that Japans auto sales had peaked in 1990 at 7.7 million units, but the countrys declining population offers little hope for growth. It reported that China surged past Japan to become the second-largest auto market in 2006. In 2009, China overtook the US to become number one. Shortage of automotive semiconductor chips dragged production volumes during 2021 and the initial months of 2022. This also created pent-up demand and long waitlists for cars, turning 2022 into a particularly good year. In 2018, roughly 4.4 million vehicles were sold in India, but the volume dipped in 2019 (4 million). After Covid-19 struck, the numbers plummeted below 3 million units in 2020. In 2021, however, sales recovered and touched the 4-million mark. Observers feel there is plenty of headroom for growth of vehicle sales in India as the countrys population is soon expected to outstrip China and vehicle ownership penetration is still low at 8.5 per cent of households. The 'Year of Enterprises' project, which aimed to create 100,000 enterprises, was judged the best practices model in a national conference on micro small and medium enterprises. Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the conference discussed enhancing cooperative federalism and smooth relations between the centre and states. Kerala had created 118,509 enterprises and got investments worth Rs 7,261.54 crore this fiscal till Sunday, claiming success for targets it had set for its Year of Enterprises. "Under this project, the government of Kerala has achieved its goal in eight months. It has created history in the country that it took a limited time span to achieve the target, infrastructure created by the government, number of women entrepreneurs," said P Rajeev, Keralas industries minister. The project in November achieved a target of 101,353 enterprises and created an investment of Rs 6282 crore by creating 220,500 job opportunities. The project had created 256,140 jobs till Sunday, said the state government. Inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on March 30 last year, the project achieved its targets within eight months in November. As per the record from the department of industries, the project created 40,622 jobs in agriculture and food processing through 16,129 enterprises with an investment of Rs 963.68 crore. It created 22,312 jobs in garments and textiles through 10,743 enterprises and an investment of Rs 474 crore. In the electrical and electronic sector, 7,454 jobs were created through 4,014 enterprises and an investment of Rs 241 crore. The service sector got 7,048 new enterprises with Rs 428 crore investment, creating 16,156 job opportunities. Under the project, Malappuram and Ernakulam created more than 20,000 job opportunities. Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Palakkad districts created more than 15,000 job opportunities. In a bid to reduce imports and promote domestic manufacturing, the Centre has made a list of 35 items on which the customs duty is likely to be increased in the upcoming Budget, a report by the Economic Times (ET) said. It includes items like private jets, helicopters, high-end electronic items, plastic goods, jewellery, high-gloss paper and vitamins. "A list has been drawn up based on the inputs from various ministries that are being examined," an official told ET. The government has also reportedly issued quality control orders to curb the imports of these non-essential items. "Goods already being manufactured in the country are being considered," the official added. Also Read Centre to levy import duties on non-essential items as exports fall: Report Trump tariffs: Higher India share in US metal imports, shows data The emerging stress in imports: Surprisingly, it's coal more than oil What is the National List of Essential Medicines? Centre to put curbs on imports of some items to arrest rupee's fall: Report Economists peg India's FY24 growth at 6% after advance estimates Urgent action needed to dilute risk of downturn, says World Bank Financial inclusion, remittance cost focus areas in G20 meeting Remittance cost for workers outside India may drop to 3% by 2027: Official Centre creating ecosystem to benefit each of 140 crore Indians: NCGG chief In December, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry asked various ministries to make a list of imported non-essential items that can be considered for tariff hikes. The Centre has been cautious about the current account deficit, which rose to a nine-month high in the quarter ending September to 4.4 per cent. Deloitte, in a report released last week, said that it might worsen further. Apart from the risk of a high import bill, the exports may also face pressure in FY24. "With local demand set to outpace export growth, the merchandise trade deficit could remain at $25 billion per month, translating into a CAD of 3.2-3.4 per cent of GDP," ICRA chief economist Aditi Nayar told ET. The move to increase the customs duty is also aimed at strengthening the Centre's 'Make in India' programme, which was launched in 2014. In Budget 2023, too, the Centre hiked import tariffs on several items like imitation jewellery, umbrellas and earphones. The number of employees in the IT sector in Telangana grew from 3.23 lakh in 2014 to 8.7 lakh in 2022 while IT exports rose from Rs 57,000 crore to Rs 1.83 lakh crore during the same period, IT Minister K T Rama Rao said here on Monday. Rama Rao who participated in an interactive session with IT industry leaders, organised by Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) credited the outcomes achieved over the last eight years to the department concerned and the industry, an official release said. Citing Nasscom's report, the Minister said that out of the 4.5 lakh jobs created in the IT sector in India last year, 1.5 lakh or one-third of the total jobs were added by Hyderabad leaving behind Bengaluru which created 1.46 lakh jobs. "The number of employees or employers who are looking at Hyderabad is growing. I sincerely believe that this is just the beginning," the Minister said. Speaking about the two million jobs that are expected to be created in India in the coming years, the IT Minister said that the State government will continue to closely collaborate with the industry to grab the opportunity. He appealed to the industry leaders to look beyond Hyderabad and expand their operations in Tier-II towns of the State, and urged them to point out the State government about new opportunities and prospective investors. Also Read Telangana attracts over Rs 2.5 trn investments in 8 years: KT Rama Rao 'Every Indian has debt of Rs 1.25 lakh': KTR reacts to FM's Telangana jibe Telangana, Centre in war of words on Twitter over medical colleges Start with Gujarat if you can: TRS dares BJP to 'impose' Hindi across India Corporatisation of power, agri sectors will be disastrous: K T Rama Rao Huge investments opportunities are there in India, says Piyush Goyal 'India needs to invest up to $100 bn annually more for 2070 net-zero goal' India's fuel demand hits 9-month high in Dec due to uptick in PV sales Ease lending norms for artisans, weavers: Amit Mitra to FM Sitharaman India can tap Switzerland's innovation with FTA, says Ralf Heckner Requesting the industry leaders to guide the State government in a way that local youth get the bulk of the jobs, the Minister said Telangana has been working to see how partnership between industry and academia can be formed. Telangana tops the list of States in the metric of per capita e-transactions offered through MeeSeva, he said adding it is the first State to use facial recognition to renew pensioners' life certificates and in local body polls. He said the government would make a complete exit from IDBI Bank when it received the upside value on the remaining stake after acquisition. The government will soon notify the exemption period for meeting the public-shareholding norm for the prospective owner of IDBI Bank, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey told Business Standard. We have to decide now on the time period. We cant go on making changes after we decide on changing hands. At a certain stage of the deal we will give it. It will be notified for what period they (the new owners) are exempt, he said. He said the government had received interests from both global and domestic investors to acquire a majority stake in the bank in the first such transaction in the banking sector. The senior bureaucrat expects to close the deal by September-October. The government had recently notified it reserved the right to exempt public-sector enterprises from the minimum public shareholding norm even after a change in ownership. Indications are the notification might come before inviting the financial bids for the deal. Also Read IDBI Bank net profit jumps 46% to Rs 828.09 crore in Sept quarter IDBI Bank's Q1 net rises 25% to Rs 756 cr as provisions, contingencies dip Govt asks Sebi to ease public shareholding norms for IDBI Bank: Report IDBI Bank re-appoints S Jebaraj as deputy MD for 3 years effective Sept 20 RBI ready to relax norms to facilitate LIC, government stake sale in IDBI Fino Payments Bank ups interest rate on savings deposit to 5% Banks raise record Rs 91,500 crore in debt capital in FY23 so far: Report Bandhan Bank collection efficiency rises to 98% at end of Dec 2022 IDBI Bank gets domestic, global bids for stake sale, says Dipam secy IDBI Bank stake sale: Suitors may have to place financial bids by March The senior bureaucrat was of view that even though IDBI Bank was exempted till 2024 and the rule recently clarified that public float exemption would continue in case of a change in ownership, clarity should be given. Following this, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) allowed the Central government to classify its stake in IDBI Bank as public but also directed that the new buyer should comply with public-float norms within a year of the sale. Complete exit from IDBI On Sebis condition on meeting minimum public shareholding in a year, Pandey said it was a standard and generic rule and applied to all listed entities -- private or public -- whenever there was a new acquirer. At present, the government is looking to sell 30.48 per cent and LIC 30.24 per cent stake, aggregating to 60.72 per cent of the equity share capital of IDBI Bank. After this stake sale, the combined shareholding of LIC and the government will come down to 34 per cent. He said that the government intended to exit IDBI Bank completely as "we are not into the commercial business of banking", but there was no timeline or road map being committed to the acquirer on the exit plan. The exit plan will depend on when we could be able to monetise the partial stake," Pandey said. Good response to IDBI EoIs On the expressions of interest (EoIs), the secretary said the preliminary bids had received a good response. He said the process had moved to the second phase, which includes due diligence of the EoI and an assessment of the Reserve Bank of Indias fit and proper process. Saturday was the deadline to submit first bids for buying a stake in the lender. By Nikunj Ohri (Reuters) - The Indian government has received interest from both domestic and foreign investors to acquire a majority stake in IDBI Bank, the country's divestment secretary told Reuters on Monday. On Saturday, the government said it got multiple bids for the majority stake in IDBI Bank. The federal government owns 45.48% of IDBI Bank, and is looking to divest a 30.48% stake in the lender, alongside state-owned Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC), which will sell a 30.24% from its holding of 49.24% in the bank. "We hope to conclude IDBI Bank sale by first half of the next financial year," Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary of Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, said in an interview. The bidders will be vetted for the Reserve Bank of India's "fit and proper criteria" and then the confidential data of the lender will be shared with potential bidders, Pandey said. Also Read DIPAM extends last date for submission of EoI for IDBI stake sale Bidders for IDBI Bank to declare no conviction or adverse regulatory orders Life insurers' new biz premium growth eases to 10% as LIC loses pace RBI ready to relax norms to facilitate LIC, government stake sale in IDBI LIC taking steps to transform corporate governance: DIPAM Secretary IDBI Bank stake sale: Suitors may have to place financial bids by March Total business to cross Rs 2 trn milestone soon: Punjab & Sind Bank MD Employee strength of banks in pvt space almost equals PSBs': RBI data First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC explored offer for Standard Chartered Sebi nod to reclassify govt holding in IDBI Bank as 'public' after sale He did not give names of the bidders. The divestment department, managing privatisation of state-owned firms and overseeing stake sales in companies, has so far mopped up 311.1 billion rupees ($3.78 billion) out of its 650 billion rupees target for 2022-23. "The government will explore whatever opportunity (offer for sale) if market conditions remain favourable," Pandey said. The federal government is planning to sell a part of its stake in Hindustan Zinc in the current financial year, he added. India owns 29.5% stake in Hindustan Zinc. ($1 = 82.3040 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Nikunj Ohri; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil) A New Haven man was recently sentenced to more than eight years prison for possessing a stolen firearm and for violating conditions of his supervised release from a prior federal conviction, according to federal authorities. Javon Moorning, 43, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven to a total of 105 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, according to federal authorities. Authorities, citing court documents and statements made in court, said Moorning was previously sentenced in New Haven federal court in 2011 to 100 months, or more than 8 years, in prison and three years of supervised release, for distributing crack cocaine. His sentence was reduced to 84 months, or 7 years, in prison in 2014. Moorning was released from federal prison in June 2018, but a short time later, and while on supervised release, he sold heroin and crack cocaine to a person working with law enforcement, federal authorities said in a statement. When Moorning was arrested on July 24, 2018, he possessed additional amounts of heroin and crack cocaine, the statement said. Moorning pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute and distribution of heroin and cocaine base and admitted he had violated his supervised release and, in 2019, he was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of supervised release, federal authorities said. Moorning was released from prison in April 2020 and in May 2022, was a passenger in a car that crashed into a tree in Hamden after he and an associate allegedly attempted to flee from state probation and Hamden police officers who were serving probation violation warrants, the statement said. Moorning ran from the vehicle, removed a 9mm handgun from his waistband and tossed it to the ground, the statement said. State probation officers apprehended Moorning and found him in possession of approximately 20 individual-dose bags of suspected heroin, and quantities of crack cocaine and MDMA pills. A Hamden officer recovered the loaded firearm Moorning had discarded; it had been reported stolen in South Carolina in 2020, federal authorities said. Moorning has been detained since June 3, 2022 and pleaded guilty on Sept. 14. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Hamden Police Department, Connecticut Office of Adult Probation, and New Haven States Attorneys Office. The reconstruction work of a century-old railway track in northern Sri Lanka, which will be completed under India's assistance, was officially inaugurated here on Monday, a move aimed at enhancing mobility of goods and services and boosting economic activity in the cash-strapped island nation. The 43-km long reconstructed railway track between Medawachchiya and Madhu Road represents the first phase of the project to reconstruct the Northern Railway Line, covering 252 km. IRCON International, an Indian company that has contributed to several railway reconstruction projects in Sri Lanka, is headlining this project. Additionally, ancillary works from Maho to Omanthai 128 km is also being undertaken by IRCON, under an existing line of credit (LoC) of USD 318 million, at a cost of USD 91.27 million. As a long-standing development partner of Sri Lanka, the Government of India executed several projects in Sri Lanka under its concessional loans and grant schemes. Of the different sectors of cooperation under these facilities, the upgradation and modernisation of Sri Lankan Railways has been one of the priority areas, the Indian High Commission here said in a statement. Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay said the move "underscored the importance of modernisation of Railways in enhancing mobility of goods and services in Sri Lanka thereby boosting economic activity." "India has executed projects of over USD 1 billion in the railways sector in Sri Lanka under five Indian LoCs," Baglay said. Also Read Sri Lanka PM summons emergency meeting as protesters storm Gotabaya's house India vs Sri Lanka, Super 4 Asia Cup 2022: Live streaming, where to watch? Sri Lanka's Oppn parties to meet to discuss formation of new all-party govt Lankan govt designates high-security zones for ensuring stability: Official Sri Lankan Parliament announces president's vacancy as Rajapaksa resigns Ex-Pak general convicted of espionage pardoned by new military leadership China chips ban: Why US wants S Korea, Japan and the Netherlands on board Amid protests in Brazil, Elon Musk hopes they resolve matters 'peacefully' Bolsonaro denounces violence after supporters storm Brazil's govt buildings Nepal's first Parliament session after PM Prachanda's win begins today "In addition, projects of about USD 180 million are either ongoing or in pipeline under existing LoCs," he added. The High Commissioner stressed the importance of strengthening connectivity internally in Sri Lanka as well as with India for enhancing pilgrimages, tourism, trade and economic benefits for people from both countries. "A glorious new chapter of India-Sri Lanka railway cooperation begins today with the ceremonial inauguration of railway track reconstruction work at Madavachi," the Indian High Commission tweeted. Sri Lanka's Transport Minister Bandula Gunawardena thanked India for its assistance, and said the railway track, which was built in 1905, had not been upgraded for over a century. As part of its 'Neighbourhood First' policy, India has extended multi-pronged assistance to Sri Lanka to help the country tide over its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since its independence from Great Britain in 1948. In a similar move, India handed 125 SUVs to the Sri Lanka Police under a line of credit in December last year to support the island nation and help it address the serious mobility restriction issues faced by the police, due to the non-availability of vehicles. India has also handed 75 passenger buses to Sri Lanka as part of its assistance towards strengthening public transport infrastructure in the country. Extending a much-needed lifeline to a neighbour in need, India gave financial assistance of nearly USD 4 billion to Colombo during the year. In January last year, India announced a USD 900 million loan to Sri Lanka to build up its depleted foreign reserves as the financial crisis began to unfold. Later, it offered a USD 500 million credit line to Sri Lanka to fund the country's fuel purchases. The credit line was later expanded to USD 700 million due to the sheer gravity of the situation. The Indian credit lines since early 2022 have been in use to import essentials and fuel after street protests erupted due to severe shortages of essentials. Stressing the importance of South Korean and Dutch cooperation alongside Japan, he was speaking by phone days ahead of Prime Minister Fumio Kishidas summit with President Joe Biden on Friday. The two allies will endorse a joint statement covering a wide range of security issues, but work is continuing on a chip industry restriction deal, he said. The US is in discussions with Japan, the Netherlands and South Korea to restrict semiconductor exports to China, and it needs all parties to agree on a deal, US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said in an interview. South Korea is home to two of the worlds leading memory chipmakers, Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc., while the Netherlands has ASML Holding NV, maker of the worlds most advanced chip lithography systems. Japan, whose businesses provide essential machinery and materials for chip fabricators, also plays a critical role in the industrys supply chain. Washington hopes to align all three nations in pursuing its stricter measures on China exports. Youve got to work through not just Japan but youve got to work through obviously Korea, youve got to work through the Dutch, Emanuel said. Its going to take a lot of work. The Korean government is not in discussions with the US regarding participation in American restrictions on exports to China, according to a trade ministry spokesman. All the parties are at the table, all the parties have a mutual shared interest in the outcome. Everybody has different aspects of the industry, Emanuel said. The deal being sought will not be just bilateral, he said. It must be multilateral. Also Read IND vs BAN Live Streaming: When and how to watch the T20 WC match in India Technological battles heat up between US and China over semiconductor chips Punjab to Odisha, single-use plastic ban has little effect in towns Ban vs Afg, Asia Cup 2022, Match 3: Predicted 11, time, weather and pitch IND vs BAN T20 World Cup Highlights: India win 5-run thriller vs Bangladesh Amid protests in Brazil, Elon Musk hopes they resolve matters 'peacefully' Bolsonaro denounces violence after supporters storm Brazil's govt buildings Nepal's first Parliament session after PM Prachanda's win begins today Japanese PM Kishida highlights security concerns on trip to Europe, US Russia claims deadly attack on Ukraine, but Kyiv denies any casualties Pfizer and the government agency that oversees the state medical insurance program failed to agree on a further cut on the price of Paxlovid, which initially sold for 2,300 yuan ($339) and was recently lowered to about 1,900 yuan for a course of treatment, according to Chinese media reports. It is currently covered by state medical insurance under a provisional measure, which will continue until end of March, the National Healthcare Security Administration said in a statement on Sunday. Talks to negotiate a lower price for Pfizer Inc.s Covid antiviral pill Paxlovid in China didnt pan out, the health authority said, creating a quandary for the government amid a rampant outbreak in the worlds most populous nation. Pfizers unwillingness to further reduce Paxlovids price underscores the challenge Beijing faces in getting US and European drugmakers to help ease its strain in dealing with a colossal wave of Covid that has overwhelmed hospitals and caused medicine shortages. The government remains in talks with Pfizer for a licensing deal to allow domestic companies to manufacture generic versions of Paxlovid, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing people it didnt identify. While five Chinese companies make inexpensive, generic versions of Paxlovid for low-income countries under an agreement with the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool, they cannot sell the output in China. Continued Collaboration Pfizer will continue to collaborate with the government and other stakeholders to secure an adequate supply of Paxlovid in China, even though negotiations for state insurance coverage didnt work out, the New York-based drugmaker said in a statement to Bloomberg on Monday. Also Read Pfizer's Paxlovid antiviral lowered long-Covid risk, suggests study Covid: Paxlovid rebound can be contagious even with no symptoms, says study Hyderabad-based drug major Hetero prices Paxlovid generic at $60 per course Pfizer India Q2 PAT rises to Rs 226 crore on lower costs, price hikes Beijing to distribute Pfizer antiviral drug amid unprecedented Covid wave Cargo ship that went aground in Suez Canal refloated, say officials Defunct US satellite could possibly fall on Korean Peninsula, its vicinity India, Bangladesh unlikely to cut subsidy bill as elections near: Moody's Chinese military holds large-scale joint strike drills aimed at Taiwan Democratic traditions must be respected: PM Modi on Brazil protests Companies ranging from AstraZeneca Plc and GSK Plc to Gilead Sciences Inc. and Pfizer have participated since the expanded sales volume stemming from the insurance coverage can more than offset the reduced revenue from price cuts. The approach means some drugs in China cost just a faction of their price in developed countries. Given Chinas under-developed private medical insurance market and the reliance of its 1.4 billion people on the state-run program, Beijing has been dangling inclusion on governments reimbursement list to push drugmakers to offer deep cost cuts. It negotiates once-a-year to set prices for newly approved and life-saving medicines that are part of the 2.87 trillion yuan ($420 billion) state program, which covers more than 95% of the population. Other Options While China has relied exclusively on homegrown vaccines for most of the pandemic, authorities in Beijing have demonstrated a greater appetite for antiviral therapies developed abroad following the countrys abrupt termination of its Covid Zero approach in December. After Paxlovid was approved in early 2022, state-owned China Meheco Co. struck a deal to import and distribute more of it to meet surging demand. The state-run health insurance program extended coverage to the home-grown Covid antiviral azvudine and traditional Chinese herbal medicine granules, though neither has demonstrated the same ability to prevent severe disease and death in clinical trials as Paxlovid. Pfizer has also reached deals with two Chinese manufacturers to produce the drugs ingredients locally. Chinas drug regulator approved Merck & Co.s antiviral Lagevrio in late December. Supply of the Pfizer drug in China has fallen significantly short of the demand for it, a situation exacerbated by the comparatively low rates of vaccination among the vulnerable elderly who are at greater risk of severe disease or death. Many families have turned to the black market, buying the drug from other countries or bringing in generic versions made in India. Gu Tingting was looking forward to seeing her grandfather and eating local cuisine in Beijing after a three-year absence in London, where she works for an energy company. There was jubilation and heartache in cities across China as the long-awaited border reopening the final step in countrys dismantling of Covid Zero sparked a homecoming rush for many diaspora. Starting Sunday, China no longer requires quarantine for arrivals after authorities ditched the policy that, along with the exorbitant cost of air fares amid severe capacity constraints, was a major deterrent for travelers. While anyone wanting to enter the country will still need a 48-hour negative Covid test result, the substantial easing in border controls just two weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday marks an end to Beijings efforts to keep out the virus. Im gonna cry, Im back in Beijing and will eat dumplings, lamb skewers, everything I like, said the 28-year old, who flew into the capital via Hong Kong. A raft of countries have implemented testing requirements on travelers from China after infections surged, and airlines have been reluctant to immediately make major changes to their flight schedules meaning capacity remains tight and prices high. But the influx of travelers heading into the country is unlikely to be matched by a surge in demand for overseas trips. The flow of Chinese tourists, previously a $280 billion spending force in global holiday hotspots from Paris to Tokyo, will take months if not years to recover to its pre-pandemic level. Also Read Hong Kong homes on the verge of becoming least affordable in 24 years Hong Kong's Jimmy Lai to plead not guilty in national security case Pakistan vs Hong Kong, Asia Cup 2022: Live streaming, where to watch China was not prepared for Covid surge, 3 waves may hit this winter: Report Covid-19 run: Hong Kong's population drops by record, says report Global economy may be entering a difficult era and economists are worried PM Sharif leaves for Geneva to attend Pak-UN conference to raise $16 bn S Korea to complete preparations for Level 4 autonomous car by 2024 No 'meaningful growth' for China's smartphone industry until 2024: Report Flexible working hours can benefit productivity, work-life balance: ILO The reopening of Chinas borders marks the end of Covid Zero, a strategy that left the worlds second-biggest economy isolated for three years and weighed heavily on the economy. While the measures managed to keep the virus at bay for much of the pandemic as it killed millions elsewhere, they became increasingly irrelevant as the emergence of more infectious variants made stamping out the coronavirus all but impossible. The willingness to travel has started to strongly rebound among Chinese, said Chen Xin, head of China leisure and transport research at UBS Securities. But it still takes time to be reflected in the outbound travel routes. The reopening is extremely important for the economy, he said. For those three years it was shut down, the relationships with our partners in different countries just deteriorated. Royce flew into Shanghai from Hong Kong on Sunday after an almost month-long trip to Australia his first overseas journey in three years. He waited for four days in Hong Kong to avoid quarantine in the mainland. Royce, who operates an import-export business in Shanghai, plans to leave again for Europe next month to meet clients. It is the last country to abolish border restrictions, more than a year after early Covid Zero proponents such as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand resumed quarantine-free international travel. The government began rolling back quarantine, which was stretched arbitrarily by local authorities in parts of China to almost a month at some points in the pandemic, in June last year, with the pace of change quickening after China abruptly abandoned domestic Covid control measures like mass testing and lockdowns in the final months of 2022. Much of the initial inbound flow is expected to come from Hong Kong, through which many of the diaspora will travel given limited direct flights from global destinations to mainland cities. Theres been a rush to secure spots in the daily quota of about 60,000 people allowed to travel northward from the financial hub, including 50,000 via the land borders that separate the two places. The reopening wont bring much risk of a new outbreak because the BQ and XBB subvariants are still part of the omicron strain, Wu Zunyou, a chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told state broadcaster CCTV. Wu said China hasnt found any new mutation domestically. Im very excited to see my parents. Getting to spend Chinese New Year with them means a lot to me, he said. I havent been home in almost two years, so the announcement felt like a fever dream, said Connor Zhao, a 25-year-old consultant who lives in San Francisco. Hes currently on holiday in Bangkok and will fly to Qingdao on Jan. 19, with his trip including a layover in Hong Kong. The government hopes to reach complete normalcy in terms of the mainland border reopening, Lee said on Sunday at the Lok Ma Chau station border control point. I hope it will be as soon as possible. Hong Kongs leader John Lee said the next step would be lifting the quota, though he didnt provide any date. I feel like a part of me is coming back to life, said Wang, who crossed into mainland China at Lok Ma Chau station. In the past years Ive felt alone and distressed, deprived of the chance to see my family. Olivia Wang is one who took immediate advantage of the border opening. The graduate student at the University of Hong Kong has been separated for three years from her partner, who lives in the neighboring city of Shenzhen. She has seen her partner, who she married in October, seven times in that period. Each visit she endured quarantine of up to 21 days. As for the resumption of visitation by foreigners and business people to China, the requirement for a negative PCR test and practices like near-universal mask wearing may act as a deterrent in the near term. But for the first time since the virus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, China has rejoined the rest of the world. The Chinese military held large-scale joint combat strike drills starting Sunday, sending war planes and navy vessels toward Taiwan, both the Chinese and Taiwanese defence ministries said. The exercises coincided with the visit of a group of German lawmakers who landed in Taiwan on Monday morning. Leading the delegation is the Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who leads the German Parliament's Defence Committee. The exercises have continued into Monday, Taiwan's defence ministry said, monitoring Chinese warplanes and navy vessels on its missile systems. China's actions have severely disrupted the peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits and surrounding waters," the ministry said. The German lawmakers will meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, as well as Taiwan's National Security Council head and the Mainland Affairs Council, which handles issues related to China. Also Read South Korea protests against Japan's claims to Dokdo in defense white paper Turkey hikes up passage fees through its straits almost fivefold: Report China's military sends 39 warplanes, 3 ships toward Taiwan in 24 hours 21 warplanes, five naval ships from China tracked around Taiwan Strait Explained: Taiwan international status, & can China take control by force? Democratic traditions must be respected: PM Modi on Brazil protests Taiwan passes 'Chips Act', offers tax credits to local chipmakers Indian-origin Manpreet Monica Singh becomes first female Sikh judge in US Melting glaciers of Tibet may impact regional security in S Asia: Report Brazil admn clear govt offices of protesters, at least 170 arrested China has stepped up its pressure on Taiwan's military in recent years by sending warplanes or navy vessels on an almost-daily basis toward the self-ruled island. China claims sovereignty over the island, which split from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war. Over the course of 24 hours between 6 a.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday morning, China's People's Liberation Army flew 57 warplanes and four ships toward Taiwan, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defence said in a statement Monday morning. Twenty-eight of those planes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary that both sides had previously stood by. China announced the drills around 11 p.m. Sunday, saying their primary target was to practice land-strikes and sea assaults, according to a statement from Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the PLA's Eastern Theatre Command. At the end of December, China sent a record 71 planes and 7 ships toward Taiwan, the largest such scale exercise in 2022. Taiwan will hold its annual two-day military drills starting Wednesday. The exercise ahead of Lunar New Year holidays is aimed at showcasing its defence capabilities. The waiting time for orders of the rear-wheel-drive and long-range versions of Model Y was a week longer on Monday than it had been on Friday, Tesla's website showed. Prospective Tesla Inc buyers in China are waiting longer for certain versions of its Model Y car, suggesting the electric-vehicle maker's decision to cut prices is stoking demand in its second-largest market. The wait as of Monday was two to five weeks on those models. The company's shares rose about 8% to $122.20 on Monday after losing 68% in the past 12 months. Tesla cut prices by 6% to 13.5% on Friday in discounts that brought some of its cars to near BYD's best-selling models in a step analysts read as a sign that a price war could be building at a time when demand in China has faltered. The wait time for all versions of the Model 3 and the performance version of the Model Y remained at one to four weeks as of Monday. Also Read Tesla announces Model S, X launch in China, prices to be unveiled on Friday Tesla recalls about 30,000 Model X cars over front passenger airbag issue Delhi Model Virtual School gets 800 applications; may extend last date Maruti Suzuki to hike prices of its models from January amid cost pressure Elon Musk's Tesla may unveil $25,000 Model 2 car in 2024: Report Cornwall channels Cape Canaveral with its first planned space flight Cornwall channels Cape Canaveral with its first planned space flight Google backs Indian agritech startup Cropin in its Rs 113cr funding Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp gives mega bonuses worth 50 months' salary Goldman Sachs to cut about 3,200 jobs this week after cost review "It (the wait time) is an early indication that the price cuts are having their intended impact, which is to boost demand," said CFRA Research analyst Garrett Nelson. As of Monday, Tesla had not made any adjustment to its January production plan for its Shanghai plant, with suspension of the assembly lines to start from Jan. 20 through the end of the month, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Angry Chinese owners who bought Tesla cars in late 2022 and missed out on the additional discount said they were waiting for a response from the company for their demand for some kind of compensation after a flurry of impromptu protests. Nelson added that Tesla's vehicle production has exceeded sales for three straight quarters and the company has chosen to lower prices and take some additional downtime at the Shanghai factory to bring supply and demand back in balance. Some of the buyers in China said they had been led to believe that the further discounts would not be coming. Many were also looking to take advantage of a nation-wide EV subsidy that expired at year end. A Tesla representative told Reuters on Saturday that the company has no plan to compensate those buyers for price cuts they had missed. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. Comments on Chinese social media were largely negative toward the Tesla buyers who have protested, with many saying online they should have understood the terms of the contract. Chinese state media have largely opted not to cover the protests, which online videos showed happened in cities including Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Xi'an. Reuters witnessed a protest at a Tesla facility in Shanghai. A retired Pakistani general convicted of sharing "classified information" with foreign spies has been pardoned by the new military leadership and released from prison. However, he still plans to continue challenging the guilty verdict, awarded to him by an army tribunal until he is honourably acquitted, Dawn news quoted his lawyer as saying. Lt Gen retired Javed Iqbal was released from Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail on December 29, 2022, after the new military leadership reviewed his case soon after taking charge and, according to his lawyer Omer Farouk Adam, "realised the injustice done to him" by the previous command. Gen Iqbal was awarded 14 years rigorous imprisonment by Field General Court Martial (FGCM) -- a life term in Pakistan -- on May 30, 2019 after being convicted of "espionage/leakage of sensitive information to foreign agencies prejudicial to the national security", but eventually came out of jail after four years, Dawn reported. The jailed general was, therefore, scheduled to be freed on May 29 this year, but the new Army Chief Gen Asim Munir finished the sentence completely, paving the way for his early release. Gen Iqbal's conviction on espionage-related charges and sentencing was almost unprecedented for a three-star retired military officer, and more so for someone who had held key appointments, including director-general of military operations, adjutant-general, and corps commander, Dawn reported. Also Read Here's how govt documents are classified to keep sensitive information safe More than 100 classified Donald Trump documents recovered back in Jan Experts point to Trump's unprecedented disregard of post-presidency norms European Union accuses Meta of antitrust breaches with classified ads Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago hint sensitive data compromise: Biden China chips ban: Why US wants S Korea, Japan and the Netherlands on board Amid protests in Brazil, Elon Musk hopes they resolve matters 'peacefully' Bolsonaro denounces violence after supporters storm Brazil's govt buildings Nepal's first Parliament session after PM Prachanda's win begins today Japanese PM Kishida highlights security concerns on trip to Europe, US He had also led the military's internal probe into the US special forces' raid in Abbottabad in 2011 in which Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was killed. While announcing the sentence, the army had neither disclosed what secrets he had allegedly divulged to foreign spies, nor identified the foreign agency. Gen Iqbal's engagements with Americans, which ultimately landed him in trouble, allegedly started when he was approached by Ryan Kessler from Gaming Company Take-II during a visit to US after retirement and engaged as a consultant in 2016. However, his involvement came to an end after he objected to plans for showing US forces thwarting an attempt to smuggle nuclear material through Karachi port, Dawn reported. He is alleged to have subsequently come in contact with two other individuals, one from the Harvard Group and someone who worked for the US National Security Adviser's office. The latter got in touch with him in 2018, and the general is said to have conveyed these engagements to Gen Bajwa. He was never granted a subsequent audience with the army chief and taken into custody on Dec 5, 2018, Dawn reported. After investigations, Gen Iqbal was charged under Section 3 of Official Secrets Act and Section 59 of Army Act, 1952 and court martial proceedings were initiated against him. The allegations against him included sharing his career profile; disclosing the SPD deals with fissile material; explaining the selection process for the appointment of the army chief; detailing how the army channels its advice to the government and elaborating the National Security Committee's composition; talking about Pakistani role in military operations in Afghanistan; divulging plans to erect fence on border with Afghanistan; revealing that a joint training exercise had been held with Russia and sharing information about negotiations with Russia for acquisition of military equipment, especially gunship helicopters; giving details of deployment of an infantry brigade at Gwadar for security of Chinese and CPEC and army's involvement in CPEC security. In his communications, he was also said to have told the Americans that UAE and Saudi Arabia provided funds for the rehabilitation of militancy-hit areas of KP province; and that US assistance was going to the government instead of directly reaching the armed forces, Dawn reported. --IANS san/ksk/ Top Iranian and Pakistani military commanders have called for establishing a joint military working group, the official IRNA news agency reported. The remarks were made in a phone conversation on Sunday between the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Mohammad Bagheri and the newly-appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the Pakistan Army Sahir Shamshad Mirza. Noting the good relations between the armed forces of the two countries and the development of defence and security cooperation especially on the common borders, Bagheri announced full readiness of the Iranian armed forces to speed up the establishment of a joint military task force with Pakistan. The Iranian Commander considered the establishment of border markets as an effective step in enhancing the security of common borders, urging an increase in the border guards forces of the Pakistani Army, Xinhua news agency reported. Shamshad Mirza also considered accelerating the establishment of a joint military task force as one of the priorities of the Pakistani Army, saying the common border of the two countries is the border of peace and friendship. --IANS Also Read Iran to uphold nuke commitments, if sanctions removed: Iranian atomic chief New nuclear agreement with Iran not going to be easy: EU diplomat Iranian drones used by Russia in Ukraine shows how war has helped Iran Iran to send delegation to Vienna for talks with IAEA, says FM Abdollahian Iran to receive $7 billion of its frozen foreign exchange assets from US Pro-Bolsonaro rioters storm top govt offices, Supreme Court in Brazil Seattle public schools blame tech giants for social media harm in lawsuit Urgent action needed to dilute risk of downturn, says World Bank China reopens borders for travellers in final farewell to zero-Covid Vladimir Putin's energy gambit fizzles as warm winter saves Europe int/khz/ Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida begins a weeklong trip Monday to strengthen military ties with Europe and Britain and bring into focus the Japan-U.S. alliance at a summit in Washington, as Japan breaks from its postwar restraint to take on more offensive roles with an eye toward China. Kishida's talks with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday will highlight his five-nation tour that also takes him to France, Italy, Britain and Canada some of Group of Seven nations with which Japan has stepped up defence ties. His first stop is Paris on Monday. Kishida said his summit with Biden will underscore the strength of the Japan-U.S. alliance and how the two countries can work more closely under Japan's new security and defense strategies. Japan in December adopted key security and defense reforms, including a counterstrike capability that makes a break from the country's exclusively self-defense-only postwar principle. Japan says the current deployment of missile interceptors is insufficient to defend it from rapid weapons advancement in China and North Korea. Also Read Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tests positive for Covid-19: Report Japan to okay $490 billion in stimulus to cushion impact of inflation Japan's economy minister resigns over ties to Unification Church Japan's PM Kishida tests Covid positive, in isolation, cancels travels Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sacks 3rd minister in a month Russia claims deadly attack on Ukraine, but Kyiv denies any casualties Israel revokes Palestinian FM's travel permit over push for ICJ opinion New poll claims Rishi Sunak, 15 ministers may lose seat in general election President Biden to get a firsthand look at US-Mexico border situation China's new envoy vows to further enhance bilateral ties with Nepal Kishida said he will explain to Biden the new strategy, under which Japan is also reinforcing defences on its southwestern islands close to Taiwan, including Yonaguni and Ishigaki, where new bases are being constructed. Will will discuss further strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance, and how we work together to achieve a fee and open Indo-Pacific," Kishida told a NHK national television talk show Sunday, referring to a vision of national and economic security cooperation the two countries promote to counter China's growing military and economic influence. Under the new strategies, Japan plans to start deploying in 2026 long-range cruise missiles that can reach potential targets in China, nearly double its defense budget within five years to a NATO standard of about 2% of GDP from the current 1%, and improve cyberspace and intelligence capabilities. The idea is to do as much as possible in a short time as some experts see growing risks that Chinese President Xi Jingpin may take action against self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory. Japan's new strategy has been well received by the Biden administration and some members of the Congress. Experts say it would also widen cooperation with their main regional partners Australia and possibly South Korea. This is an opportunity to rethink and update the structure and the mechanisms of the alliance to reflect a much more capable partner that's coming, said Christopher Johnstone, senior adviser and Japan chair for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. He said, however, that Japan's focus on the strike capability and budget is a welcome but a daunting agenda" that will require a lot of cooperation with the United States. Paving the way for the summit, Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will fly to Washington to meet their American counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Antony Blinken, on Wednesday, followed by separate defence ministers' talks Thursday. The Biden administration, which also adopted its security strategy in October, expects Japan to assist in the supply and storage of fuel and munitions in case of a Taiwan emergency, experts say. Japan and the United States are also reportedly considering establishing a joint command. During the talks at the White House, the two leaders are also expected to discuss China, North Korea's nuclear and missile development as well as Russia's war on Ukraine, Japanese officials said. Cooperation in the area of supply chain and economic security will be also on the table. Last week, Japanese Economy and Industry Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo disussed in Washington the importance to work together to promote and protect critical and emerging technologies, including semiconductors, and export controls to address competitiveness and security concerns. During his trip, Kishida will seek to further strengthen bilateral military ties with four other countries, Japanese officials say. Japan's joint development and production of its F-X next generation fighter jet with Britain and Italy for a planned deployment in 2035 will be a top agenda item during his visits in Rome and London on Tuesday and Wednesday. Japan and Britain have also been discussing a Reciprocal Access Agreement that would remove obstacles to holding joint military exercises in either country. Besides the Japan-U.S. security treaty that allows U.S. troops to station in Japan, Tokyo has a similar agreement only with Australia, and Britain would be second. During his talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, Kishida is expected to share concern over China's growing activity in the South Pacific and confirm stepping up joint military exercise between the two sides. For Mary and Ted Gawlicki the goal was simple: to give back to the community. And for the Storrs couple, that community is Hartford and its residents, and they have the means to help achieve the goal. With their Gawlicki Family Foundation, which was started in 2012, the couple is able to give grants to various nonprofit organizations that focus on areas of education, health and community development, including economic and social development. The foundation was launched after the Gawlickis sold their business, Corporate Translations Inc., which they said provided translations for pharmaceutical and biotech businesses internationally, with a staff of about 200, not including about 700 freelance translators. The business was sold in 2015. The couple said they had a productive relationship with Hartford while running their $36 million East Hartford-based business for more than 25 years, and want to see the city maintain its vibrancy and achieve its promise, including as a regional center and for young people and in educational endeavors. In terms of education ? the Gawlickis both earned MBAs the foundation focuses on students from preschool through high school, as the couple said they believe that helping young people achieve a strong education whether academic or technical also will help draw young people back to the city to live, work and improve the quality of life there. To date the foundation has awarded more than $8 million to more than 50 organizations. We had the means to give back, Ted Gawlicki said. A program supported by the Gawlicki Family Foundation is the Y-BELL Power Scholars Academy program for students in Hartford and East Hartford, An example, he said, was working with ReadyCT, a policy-driven organization that in part focuses on education and opportunities, to place Hartford high school students as interns at more than 40 area businesses. The intern program was well-received by the students and the businesses, and is an example of real and measurable progress the foundation can achieve, Ted Gawlicki said. The foundation also has partnered with the Boys & Girls Club, Hartford Promise and many others. It does give us tremendous satisfaction; we really think we are making a difference, he said. There is a lot of good stuff going on. In another example of its work, the foundation gave $500,000 from 2021-2025 to the Wilson Gray YMCA on Albany Avenue in Hartford and the Y-BELL Power Scholars Academy education program. Valencia Williams, executive director of the branch, said the grants do make a difference in the work that we do. For example, Williams said, there is a program for girls ages 8 to 16, Girls Creating a Future, which focuses on social competency and positive relationships. A similar program is Young Men with a Purpose, which aims to engage male youths to be leaders, make positive choices and manage mental health challenges. We have been impacted by loss of residents to violence, Williams noted. A program supported by the Gawlicki Family Foundation is the Y-BELL Power Scholars Academy program for students in Hartford and East Hartford, Williams said the foundations support works well with the YMCAs goal to be a critical part of support services for residents in the Albany Avenue neighborhood and to replace lost traditional support. The Gawlickis are able to add critical programming that our young people need, Williams said. Throughout the YMCA programming, including with education, babysitting services, is teaching about healthful lifestyles and eating, as the north end of Hartford tends to be a food desert, Williams said., This is a place where we are open to all; we want to strengthen our families, Williams said. We are seen as a neighborhood support. Jeff Williams, associate vice president of development for the YMCA of Greater Hartford, said another program supported by the foundation is the Y-BELL Power Scholars Academy program in Hartford and East Hartford, which aims to lessen summer learning loss and the achievement gap for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, Williams said the YMCA partners with CREC/University of Hartford Magnet Schools and East Hartford Public School to offer the program in the two communities. It includes literacy and math instruction taught by certified teachers and structured enrichment activities, including STEM, the arts, physical education, and life skills, he said. The summer 2022 program served 216 students in Hartford and East Hartford and participants gained an average of a month in math and stayed level in literacy, Williams said. The average daily attendance rate was 79% and retention rate was 86%, he said. A program supported by the Gawlicki Family Foundation is the Y-BELL Power Scholars Academy program for students in Hartford and East Hartford, Williams noted that the program surveys showed, among other things, that 83% of teachers reported students grew more confident in their ability to learn and 100% of parents reported feeling valued in their childs learning during the program. Mary Gawlicki said a positive aspect of what the YMCA does for city youths is that they look at the whole child. This means education, physical and mental health and recreation, and working to engage parents, she said. The couple also noted their support for the YMCA preschool program and summer education program, which aims to help students retain reading and mathematics skills. Our ultimate goal in all our philanthropic actions to (support education) and have (students) come back and work and strengthen the Hartford community, Ted Gawlicki said. However, the couple said, they also hope to inspire others to join them in their goal to help Hartfords young people succeed. They also have supported many health organizations, and other non-profits in the Northeast. We want to be an example, Mary Gawlicki said. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday his country would invest in the development of Indonesia's new capital on Borneo island, which both nations share. Anwar made his first overseas trip to Jakarta since taking office in November, saying at least 10 Malaysian companies have committed to invest in Nusantara, the new capital that was chosen in 2019 to replace Jakarta, some 2,000 kilometres (1,240 miles) away. The city of about 10 million on the densely populated main island of Java has been sinking due to environmental degradation and overcrowding. The main cause is uncontrolled groundwater extraction exacerbated by the rising levels of the Java Sea. Anwar cited the proximity of Nusantara to Malaysia's Sabah and Sarawak states and federal territories on Borneo island, saying the new capital's growth will benefit the region's economy. The first phase of development of Nusantara started in March last year, and is expected to be completed in 2045. Anwar and Indonesian President Joko Widodo also witnessed the signing of agreements for economic cooperation estimated to be worth USD 263 million. Also Read Malaysia king names reformist oppn leader Anwar Ibrahim as prime minister Anwar Ibrahim of PH coalition named Malaysia's 10th Prime Minister New Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim vows to heal divided nation, economy Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim appeals for poll victory Malaysian PM to use targeted subsidies to address high cost of living Century-old railway track in Sri Lanka being rebuilt with Indian assistance Ex-Pak general convicted of espionage pardoned by new military leadership China chips ban: Why US wants S Korea, Japan and the Netherlands on board Amid protests in Brazil, Elon Musk hopes they resolve matters 'peacefully' Bolsonaro denounces violence after supporters storm Brazil's govt buildings Anwar arrived in Jakarta on Sunday with a delegation that includes Foreign Affairs Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir, who held separate talks with his Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi, last week. The two sides also discussed issues of land and maritime border demarcation, and employment and protection of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia, which has long been plagued with cases of human trafficking and abuse. Indonesia's government data shows over 50 per cent of Indonesians working abroad, or about 1.6 million, are in Malaysia. Widodo welcome Anwar's commitment to protect migrant workers, and reiterated his request to Malaysia to also provide education for workers' children. Both leaders also discussed the situation in military-ruled Myanmar and joint efforts to address their exports of palm oil. Indonesia and Malaysia account for 85 per cent of global palm oil production, which plays an important role in their economic recovery. But they are hampered by the European Union, which they say favours producers of other vegetable oils. Anwar is widely known in Indonesia as a champion of democracy in Malaysia since he was a former deputy prime minister, whose sacking and imprisonment in the 1990s led to massive street protests and a reform movement that rose into a major political force. He has frequently visited Indonesia when he was an opposition leader. Indonesia has a special place in my heart," he told a joint news conference with Widodo. "I was in a difficult situation, my life was tossed around in suffering, Indonesia welcomed me as a true friend. Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace in the capital on Sunday, a week after the inauguration of his leftist rival, President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva. Thousands of demonstrators bypassed security barricades, climbed on roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant and sit on Brasilia's vast Three Powers Square. Some of them called for a military intervention to either restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power, or oust Lula from the presidency. In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula said Bolsonaro had encouraged the uprising by those he termed fascist fanatics, and he read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to take control of security in the federal district. There is no precedent for what they did and these people need to be punished, Lula said. TV channel Globo News showed protesters wearing the green and yellow colors of the national flag that also have come to symbolize the nation's conservative movement, and were adopted by Bolsonaro's suppoerters. Also Read Brazil's Lula sworn in as prez, vows accountability from outgoing Bolsonaro Brazil's ex-President Lula plans to fight deforestation if re-elected Bolsonaro, Lula to face runoff vote in Brazil's presidential elections Brazilians vote today in historic election with Lula against Bolsonaro Biden congratulates Lula da Silva on becoming Brazil's president again Seattle public schools blame tech giants for social media harm in lawsuit Urgent action needed to dilute risk of downturn, says World Bank China reopens borders for travellers in final farewell to zero-Covid Vladimir Putin's energy gambit fizzles as warm winter saves Europe China's new envoy vows to further enhance bilateral ties with Nepal The former president has repeatedly sparred with Supreme Court justices, and the room where they convene was trashed by the rioters. They sprayed fire hoses inside the Congress building and ransacked offices at the presidential palace. Windows were broken in all of the buildings. Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida ahead of Lula's inauguration, has not commented on Sunday's events. Police fired tear gas to try to regain control of the buildings. About 6:30 p.m. local time (4:30 p.m. EST), less than four hours after the storming, security forces were shown on television backing protesters away from the Supreme Court and marching them down a ramp to the presidential palace with their hands secured behind their backs. But with the damage already done, many in Brazil were questioning how the police had ignored abundant warnings, were unprepared or were somehow complicit. Lula said at his news conference there was incompetence or bad faith? on the part of police, and that they had been likewise complacent when Bolsonaro supporters rioted in the capital weeks ago. He promised those officers would be punished and expelled from the corps. The incident recalled the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Political analysts have warned for months that a similar storming was a possibility in Brazil, given that Bolsonaro has sown doubt about the reliability of the nation's electronic voting system without any evidence. The results were recognized as legitimate by politicians from across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of foreign governments. Unlike the 2021 attack in the U.S., it is likely that few officials were working in the Brazilian Congress and Supreme Court on a Sunday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter that Washington condemned the attacks, saying that using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. Earlier videos on social media showed a limited presence of the capital's military police; one showed officers standing by as people flooded into Congress, with one using his phone to record images. The capital's security secretariat didn't respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment about the relative absence of the police. Brazilian authorities had two years to learn the lessons from the Capitol invasion and to prepare themselves for something similar in Brazil," said Maurcio Santoro, political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Local security forces in Brasilia failed in a systematic way to prevent and to respond to extremist actions in the city. And the new federal authorities, such as the ministers of justice and of defense, were not able to act in a decisive way. Federal District Gov. Ibaneis Rocha confirmed on Twitter he had fired the capital city's head of public security, Anderson Torres. Local media reported that Torres is currently in the U.S. The office of Lula's attorney general asked the Supreme Court to order Torres' imprisonment. Bolsonaro supporters have been protesting Lula's electoral win since Oct. 30, blocking roads, setting vehicles on fire and gathering outside military buildings, urging the armed forces to intervene. The head of Brazil's electoral authority rejected the request from Bolsonaro and his political party to nullify ballots cast on most electronic voting machines. Two years since Jan. 6, Trump's legacy continues to poison our hemisphere, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate's foreign relations committee, tweeted, adding that he blamed Bolsonaro for inciting the acts. Protecting democracy & holding malign actors to account is essential. The Russian military claimed Sunday to have carried out deadly missile strikes on barracks used by Ukrainian troops in retaliation for the deaths of dozens of Russian soldiers in a rocket attack a week ago. Ukrainian officials denied there were any casualties. The Russian Defence Ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, killing 600 of them. Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the strikes were retaliation for Ukraine's attack in Makiivka, in which at least 89 Russian soldiers died. Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's forces in the east, told The Associated Press that Russian strikes on Kramatorsk damaged only civilian infrastructure, adding: The armed forces of Ukraine weren't affected. The Donetsk regional administration said seven Russian missiles hit Kramatorsk and two more hit Konstantynivka, without causing any casualties. It said an educational institution, an industrial facility and garages were damaged in Kramatorsk, and an industrial zone was hit in Kostyantynivka. Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said two school buildings and eight apartment houses were damaged. In the early hours of Jan. 1, Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in Makiivka, also in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing dozens of them in one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin's forces since the war began more than 10 months ago. Also Read What is a phishing attack? UN, G7 decry Russian attack in Ukrainian cities as possible war crime US: Apple Watch detects deadly tumour, saves user's life in Maine What's behind Europe's spate of major deadly wildfires? | Explainer Scientists find deadly pool in Red Sea that kills anyone who swims into it Israel revokes Palestinian FM's travel permit over push for ICJ opinion New poll claims Rishi Sunak, 15 ministers may lose seat in general election President Biden to get a firsthand look at US-Mexico border situation China's new envoy vows to further enhance bilateral ties with Nepal Making efforts to activate eight-member regional group SAARC: Nepal Also on Sunday, the Ukrainian military claimed to have hit a residential hall of a medical university in Rubizhne, a town in the Russian-occupied eastern Luhansk region, killing 14 Russian soldiers housed there. The number of wounded was unknown, it said. Elsewhere in the east, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said one person was killed in strikes on Bakhmut, and eight others were wounded. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, the town of Merefa was hit during the night, killing one person and two other settlements in the region were shelled, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. The latest developments come after Russian forces ended a partially observed cease-fire timed to coincide with Orthodox Christmas celebrations on Saturday. Officials there have repeatedly said they will ensure the latest chip technologies remain in Taiwan, a point that has been reaffirmed by executives at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and other local chip giants. Taiwanese lawmakers have passed new rules that let local chip firms turn 25% of their annual research and development expenses into tax credits, part of efforts to keep cutting-edge semiconductor technologies at home and maintain the islands technology leadership. As the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union are all offering massive incentives to build domestic supply chains, Taiwan should bolster the global competitiveness of its key industries, Taiwans Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement on Saturday. The new rules will help encourage Taiwanese companies to keep their roots here. While Taiwans assisted local chipmakers in the past with infrastructure construction and other measures, the island is now stepping up its efforts. To mitigate those concerns, TSMC is building new facilities in Japan and the US, and is considering an additional site in Germany. Governments from Washington to Seoul have been offering incentives for domestic chip production, in hopes of reducing a heavy reliance on Taiwan for advanced semiconductors and avoiding future supply disruptions. Also Read Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to soon start 3-nm chip production Technological battles heat up between US and China over semiconductor chips Will India become a global player in semiconductor chips? Apple main supplier TSMC will start mass production of 3nm chips soon China opposes new US chip law, says it will undermine global supply chains Indian-origin Manpreet Monica Singh becomes first female Sikh judge in US Melting glaciers of Tibet may impact regional security in S Asia: Report Brazil admn clear govt offices of protesters, at least 170 arrested US Prez Biden, UN Chief Guterres condemn assault on Brazil's govt buildings Iran, Pakistan call for setting up joint military task force: Report SBI Cards and Payment Services said that its board approved re-appointment of Rama Mohan Rao Amara as managing director (MD) & chief executive officer (CEO) of the company for a further period of one year effective from 30 January 2023.Rama Mohan Rao Amara has been nominated by State Bank of India for the re-appointment. It is however, subject to approval of shareholders and other necessary approvals as may be required. Rama Mohan Rao Amara is an engineering graduate, and also has renowned financial accreditations namely CFA and FRM and is a Certified Associate of Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). Rao, deputy managing director in State Bank of India (SBI), took the helm at SBI Card on 30 January 2021. SBI Cards and Payment Services is a non-banking financial company that offers extensive credit card portfolio to individual cardholders and corporate clients. The company's net profit jumped 52.1% to Rs 525.64 crore on 28.1% rise in total income to Rs 3,453.32 crore in Q2 FY23 over Q2 FY22. The scrip rose 0.24% to currently trade at Rs 775.70 on the BSE. Powered by Capital Market - Live News CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury Sunday said the secular forces need to work together to bring "better times for the country". He also claimed that whenever the Congress took the Left's advice seriously it benefited the party and India. At a discussion titled 'Remembering Pranab' organised by the Pranab Mukherjee Legacy Foundation at India International Centre here, Yechury recalled Pranab Mukherjee's role in binding the Congress and Left parties together during the first UPA government. Mukherjee knew the art of managing contradictions and uniting opposites, the CPI(M) general secretary said. "Today, when you see Parliament and democracy, you wish all the more that had he been with us to advise and guide us. For better times in the country, the secular forces have to work together. Working together is what I have learnt from Pranab (Mukherjee)," he said. He further said Pranab Mukherjee's life and work have an indelible impression in the making of modern India. Prince Harry has accused his stepmother, Camilla, the queen consort, of leaking private conversations to the media to burnish her own reputation as he promotes a new book that lays bare his story of his life behind palace walls. In interviews broadcast Sunday and Monday, Harry accused members of the royal family of getting into bed with the devil to gain favorable tabloid coverage, singling out Camillas efforts to rehabilitate her image with the British people after her longtime affair with his father, now King Charles III. That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press, he told CBS. There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being queen consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street. Harry spoke to Britains ITV, CBSs 60 Minutes and Good Morning America? to promote his book Spare, which is to be widely released Tuesday. Some U.K. bookshops plan to open at midnight to meet demand for the highly anticipated memoir, which has generated incendiary headlines with reports that it includes details of bitter family resentments, as well as Harry and his wife Meghans decision to give up their royal roles and move to California. In the interviews, Harry repeatedly blamed the media for the troubles that afflicted the couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, saying the coverage contributed to the rift with his brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate. They always pitched us against each other,? he told Good Morning America. They pitch Kate and Meghan against each other. Harry was also unapologetic about launching legal battles against some parts of the British media. While he said his father believes it is probably a suicide mission to take on the press, Harry described changing the media landscape in the UK as being my lifes work. But Harry also continued to criticize the royal family itself. He repeated his claim that there was concern in the royal family about his unborn childs skin color after he married biracial American actress Meghan Markle. Harry and Meghan first mentioned the incident during an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021, but they havent identified the family member who expressed concern. Harry insisted his family wasnt racist, but said the episode was an example of unconscious bias. The prince told CBS that he was probably bigoted before he met Meghan, and said that the royal family, which is held to a higher moral standard, needed to learn and grow in order to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Otherwise unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism, Harry told ITV. Spare explores Harrys grief over the death of his mother in 1997, and his long-simmering resentment at his role as the royal spare, overshadowed by the heir older brother William. He recounts arguments and a physical altercation with William, reveals how he lost his virginity and describes using cocaine and cannabis. He also says he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving as an Apache helicopter pilot in Afghanistan drawing criticism from both the Taliban and British military veterans. The allegations about Camilla are particularly sensitive because of her role in the acrimonious breakdown of Charles marriage to the late Princess Diana, William and Harrys mother. Diana once described Camilla, who carried out a long-term affair with Charles, as the third person in their marriage. While many members of the public initially shunned Camilla, she has won fans by taking on a wide range of charitable activities and has been credited with helping Charles appear less stuffy and more in tune with modern Britain. Writing about his fathers 2005 wedding to Camilla, Harry says: I had complex feelings about gaining a stepparent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar. Still, he says he wanted his father to be happy. In a funny way I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe shed be less dangerous if she was happy? Spare is the latest in a string of public pronouncements by Harry and Meghan since they quit royal life and moved to California in 2020, citing what they saw as the medias racist treatment of Meghan and a lack of support from the palace. It follows the interview with Winfrey and a six-part Netflix series released last month. In the ghostwritten memoir, Harry, 38, describes the couples acrimonious split from the royal family after their request for a part-time royal role was rejected. The television interviews are certain to pile more pressure on the royal family. Harry is also appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Royal officials havent commented on any of the allegations, though allies have pushed back on the claims, largely anonymously. Harry has defended the memoir describing it as his effort to own my story after years of spin and distortion by others. In the 60 Minutes interview, Harry denied his book was intended to hurt his family. Omid Scobie, co-author of Finding Freedom, a book on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, said Harry is offering the look behind the palace walls that the public has always wanted. Of course, that does come with some downsides for those who have been part of his journey,? Scobie told the BBC. We heard some sort of really startling confessions and stories about members of the royal family, particularly when it comes to Camilla and her relationship with the press. While Harry said he hadnt spoken with his father or brother in a while, he hopes to find peace with them. But he told ITV that the the ball is in their court. Theyve shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile, he said. While the saga is damaging to the royal family, it may not be as harmful as people might think and will give the global audience a forum to discuss difficult issues like misogyny and racism, said Boston University professor Arianne Chernock, an expert in modern British history. But she was cautious about doomsayers suggesting the monarchy itself was in trouble. The institution has endured more than 1,000 years after all. This is a central component of the history of the royal family, she said. Scandal is the norm not the exception. Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless contributed. South Koreas Ex-leader Park Geun-hye made her first appearance in a year Tuesday as she visited a Buddhist temple in Daegu, a conservative-leaning city in southeast Korea. After spending nearly five years in prison on corruption charges, Park has largely stayed out of the public eye since being pardoned by then-President Moon Jae-in in December 2021. Park was greeted by a senior monk at the temple and paid her respects by burning incense in front of a Buddha statue, South Korean media reported Apr 12, 2023 07:36 PM Alex Jones lawyer Norm Pattis, whose law license was summarily suspended last week for sharing confidential medical files with other lawyers, was working Monday to win a delay that would allow him remain involved in a Capitol insurrection case in Washington while taking an immediate appeal in Connecticut if he cannot get imposition of the suspension postponed there. And in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, Pattis fired back at Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis, who ordered the suspension, attributing it to a pattern of alleged personal bias and abuse of discretion directed at both him and Jones. Pattis was in Washington where, until last week, he was part of the legal team defending alleged far-right, U.S. Capitol insurrectionist and Proud Boy member Joseph Biggs. The trial court had demonstrable bias against him and abused its discretion in taking jurisdiction over this matter, Pattis and a colleague wrote of Bellis in an effort to persuade a Washington judge to permit him to remain part of the Proud Boys defense team. Elsewhere in the filing, they wrote, Observers of the trial have reported an impression that the judge showed palpable animosity toward him. Bellis presided over the contentious Sandy Hook defamation suit that ended last year in a $1.4 billion verdict against Jones. In ordering Pattis suspension late last week, she said his failure to protect highly sensitive medical and psychiatric records belonging to relatives of Sandy Hook victims caused the records to be carelessly passed around from one unauthorized person to another in violation of her repeated court orders. The records at the center of the suspension, about 4,000 pages of medical and psychiatric records that were among about 390,000 pages of other records provided to Pattis office by relatives of Sandy Hook victims, were never disclosed publicly. Pattis has acknowledged that he set in motion a series of exchanges that distributed the records between his law office in Connecticut and three others in Texas all of which were involved in some fashion in lawsuits by Sandy Hook relatives against Jones. In his filing in Washington Monday, Pattis said none of the recipients of the records, contained on a computer hard drive, looked at them. He has said his violation of confidentiality orders was inadvertent. The final recipient has said he destroyed the records. Bellis wrote in a long order imposing the suspension, that Pattis sharing of the records with Texas lawyers was a willful violation of her orders that were issued to protect the Sandy Hook families forced to share the records with Jones from misuse of the material in an effort to discredit them. Had the records become public, Bellis said the families faced potentially stunning harm. The suspension took effect late Thursday when Bellis issued her order and was immediately effective in the federal courts in Washington, which have a reciprocity agreement with Connecticut concerning lawyer discipline. Pattis spent part of Monday trying to convince the Washington court that is presiding over the seditious conspiracy trial of Biggs and four other Proud Boys to postpone the suspension. No decision had been reached Monday afternoon. The sedition trial is set to begin this week. In Connecticut, lawyers for Pattis had asked Bellis to postpone the suspension to allow him to appeal it. Should Bellis refuse, the six month suspension would likely have run before an appeal can be heard. Lawyers and judges following the case predicted Monday that neither Bellis, nor Judicial Branch disciplinary counsel Brian Staines, who Bellis appointed to press misconduct charges against Pattis, are likely to agree to a postponement. Should Bellis deny a postponement, Pattis said he may try to press an expedited appeal with the state Appellate Court. Coincidentally, Pattis office and his former colleague John R. Williams formally filed a notice Monday afternoon of Jones intention to appeal the potentially record setting verdict against Jones last fall in the Connecticut defamation suits by relatives of Sandy Hook shooting victims. In her suspension order, Bellis said Pattis disclosure of the records was inexcusable, that it was part of an abject failure to safeguard the plaintiffs sensitive records, and that it caused the records to be carelessly passed around from one unauthorized person to another in violation of multiple court orders. Pattis was just as critical of the judge in his court filing in Washington, implying the suspension was retribution for his criticism of her rulings and his attempt to disqualify her during the contentious, four-year long Jones litigation. He acknowledged that his defense of Jones was aggressive, sometimes toeing he line between respect and contempt for the court. Jones, he said, was openly and admittedly in contempt of court. Referring to himself, Pattis said: He had previously moved to disqualify the trial court for a pattern of abuse of discretion and an appearance of bias against his client, Alex Jones, who stood trial in Connecticut for comments he made about the shooting deaths of school children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The trial court denied that motion. He believes it was improper for the court to hear an issue involving him after he had challenged its competence and impartiality in a public pleading. Elsewhere, Pattis questioned whether Bellis could be impartial toward him when he criticized her understanding of the first amendment after she imposed sanctions on Jones for incendiary comments on his Infowars broadcast about a lawyer for relatives of the Sandy Hook victims. Pattis also wrote that Bellis had pressed for possible discipline against him even earlier in the Jones trial for his alleged failure to properly supervise the use of a power of attorney in the signing of an affidavit. Pattis said he reported himself to a disciplinary committee and was ultimately exonerated. Prior to his exoneration by an independent panel on the judges earlier referral involving the aforesaid affidavit, the judge called him to the bench for a private discussion in which it expressed its disappointment in him, telling him that she had previously highly regarded him, the filing said. This comment suggests that the court had prejudged a decision involving him before he had even had a chance to address the allegations in an evidentiary hearing. Faced with the possibility of being left behind in the shift towards EVs, Toyota has announced a radical shift in company policy and directi... Chinese tech innovations shine at CES 2023 09:56, January 09, 2023 By Tan Jingjing ( Xinhua People visit the exhibition area of Chinese company TCL during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) LAS VEGAS, the United States, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) -- Chinese consumer electronics brands launched a diverse range of innovation products at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held this week in Las Vegas. The world's premier tech show draws more than 3,200 exhibitors from over 170 countries and regions. Hundreds of Chinese companies participated in the show, including well-known brands like TCL, Lenovo, and Hisense as well as startups. TCL, one of the dominant players in the global TV industry, announced new innovative TV, sound bar models and home appliances at the show, including its ultra slim 8K mini LED TV and 49-Inch R800 5000+ Zones MLED Display. A man experiences augmented reality (AR) glasses of Chinese company TCL during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) Its smart wearable products such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) glasses also attracted lots of visitors. Tamir Berliner, a show attendee from Tel Aviv of Israel, tried on TCL's VR glasses to play games. "It is one of the best VR glasses I tried on for its high-resolution and very immersive experience," he told Xinhua. "TCL smart screens rank the second in the highly competitive U.S. sales market. TCL hopes to take the opportunity of CES to show our smart technology innovation products to the whole world," Mark Zhang, general manager of North America Business Group, TCL Industries, told Xinhua. A man experiences a 49-inch mini LED curved gaming screen of Chinese company TCL during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) Lenovo unveiled the latest lineup of devices and solutions focused on innovation and improving the user experience. Among them are Lenovo's cutting-edge laptop -- Yoga Book 9i, the LA AI chip -- the world's first dedicated AI chip on a gaming laptop, and Lenovo's biggest and most powerful tablet -- Lenovo Tab Extreme. From new form factors, design-led products, and innovative uses of AI, the new portfolio gives consumers a more personalized technology experience. Hisense launched its new ULED and Laser TV product lineups at CES 2023, featuring more mini LED options and laser cinema options. It also debuted new appliances and presented at its booth how smart kitchen solutions make life easier and more convenient. People visit the exhibition area of Chinese company TCL during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) "CES is a great platform for us to show our leading products, learn the latest trend of the industry and have exchanges with counterparts," Fisher Yu, executive vice president of Hisense Group, told Xinhua. He said Hisense will continue to strengthen investment in research and development, and better analyze user behavior and consumer behavior in different overseas markets, to develop more innovative products accordingly. Clean energy and energy storage solutions have been a focus at CES 2023. Chinese companies take limelight at the show, and their clean energy solutions attracted attention and recognition from visitors. People visit the exhibition area of Chinese company Hisense during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) Jackery, a pioneer in the portable power industry which is based in Shenzhen in Guangdong province, unveiled innovative portable solar generators at CES 2023. Its Solar Generator 3000 Pro, producing a maximum of 8500Wh per day, can provide backup power for five days of outdoor adventures or home emergencies. Jackery also bagged four CES 2023 Innovation Awards for its innovative portable renewable energy solutions. People look at a drone in the exhibition area of Chinese company Autel Robotics during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) "The pandemic has changed people's lifestyles. A lot of people prefer outdoor activities. Portable solar power generators could offer power for RVs, electric appliances such as microwaves, refrigerators, and BBQ ovens while they are outdoors," Jack Sun, founder and chairman of Jackery, told Xinhua. Chinese consumer electronics companies have taken technology innovation to facilitate the diversified development of brands, leading to an overall increase in market share for the Chinese consumer electronics industry. CES 2023 kicked off in Las Vegas on Thursday and runs through Sunday. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) A statewide animal rescue group has turned to humor, sarcasm and the brutal truth on social media to find a home for a cray cray teacup Chihuahua whos not so lovable. In fact, Bridgeport Animal Rescue Crew of Connecticut is waiving the usual adoption fee for Pixie, in hopes of enticing the right person to adopt the tiny dog. So far it looks like the over-the-top approach is working. In fewer than 24 hours the post had over 15,000 shares on Facebook. Jocelyn Baum, a member of BARC CTs Board of Directors, said overnight within hours there were more than 12 applications and some interesting comments on the Facebook post. The Facebook post is headed with, F R E E D O G, and the first line is: She will hate you AND expect her dinner to be served on time. Pixie weighs four pounds and doesnt like men, children or affection except on her own terms, Baum said. The post states that Pixie loves to be held but dont try and pick her up, except with a towel. She will come for you with all [four pounds] like a Nissan Altima with tinted-out windows trying to pass the car doing 65 in the fast lane on the 27A connector, the post states. The adoption ad for Pixie throws out this colorful pitch: Wouldnt it be fun to live in the grips of a demonic Chihuahua hellscape in your very own home? The post addresses experienced chihuahua owners with, you probably know what Im talking about: 50% leave me tf alone, 50% feed me now you peasant. Baum said they agreed to take Pixie a few months ago from a shelter in Waterbury while in the midst of rescuing another dog. Baum said Pixie was living among big dogs in a crowded shelter. Should we have known we were freeing the devil? the post asks, then answers its own question with: Probs. But shes healthy. Shes not old. Pixie is about 7 years old. She will ignore your dogs. She will ignore your cats. She will ignore you unless shes feeling some type of way. The post also states bluntly, Theres not a very big market for neurotic gremlins but we have to believe theres someone out there for Pixie because we have no other option. Baum said they modeled the tone and style of the letter after a viral adoption post by the Second Chance Adoption League of New Jersey, as they searched for a home for their demonic chihuahua who was eventually adopted by a New Haven woman. Baum said this is the first time BARC CT went extremely out of the lines, because we didnt know how to get attention for her. It was a good decision it turns out, as the feedback is pouring in. Much to our surprise its been successful, Baum said of the post. Its so wildly truthful. Painful honesty is whats working about this (post). Pixie has never been in the presence of a child and whichever new home she gets, it will be childfree, as the post reads, We can already imagine the demonic noises and shaking fury that would erupt from her body if a child attempted to pick her up. Pixie wants to be your child the child you never wanted. Pixies new home will likely be free of men, too. If you have a husband dont bother applying, unless you hate him and youre hoping for a divorce, the post states. On the bright side, Pixie is loyal, with this qualifier, but if someone tried to harm you I can guarantee she would run away, fast. Pixie likes to go for car rides, is housebroken, enjoys sitting outside in the sun. is quiet and non-destructive when left alone at home and loves her crate. Baum said the Facebook post is getting a lot of comments from Chihuahua owners past and present. Elaine Judd Stempinski wrote on Facebook, Omg ?? I laughed so hard my face hurts! I hope this adorable baby finds her forever home! Camille Delisle-Carrigan commented, Hilarious post, especially the part about her already hating you just for reading this post. Hope she finds the perfect home for her. Evon Gallant wrote, I had one like her for 23 years. God l miss her strict rules. She definitely ruled the house. Rachel Rossing asked, Is this real? Because I want her. Colacem's L'Orignal plant could see fresh environmental objections 09 January 2023 Colacems Canadian cement plant could face further objections. Victor Bonspille, the Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake, near Oka, Quebec, wants the federal and Ontario governments to reconsider plans by Colacem to build a new cement plant near LOrignal and for more consultation. On 19 December 2022, Mr Bonspille wrote to the federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault, who, had rejected Action Champlains request for a federal Impact Assessment on 3 November 2022. Mr Bonspilles letter requests that Mr Guilbeault immediately direct the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to review the cement plant project until such time as the Crown in right of Canada has met its constitutional and legal obligations to consult with the Kanesatake community. Kanesatake is the closest of all First Nations communities to the project, located approximately 50km downwind and downstream from the project site, our community would be directly affected by adverse environmental impacts of the project potentially leading to negative health, social, and economic impacts on our community as well, Mr Bonspille wrote to Mr Guilbault. Mr Bonspille told Mr Guilbault that Kanesatake explicitly rejects the claim of the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, made on 22 November 2022, that Kanesatake was consulted. Therefore, Mr Bonspille also told Me Guilbault that the Crown is in breach of its constitutional duty to consult with the community about the project. Published under Bangladesh's cement export revenue totalled US$4.69m in 1HFY22-23 09 January 2023 During the first six months of FY22-23 (July-December), Bangladesh's cement industry earned export revenue of US$4.69m on the export of cement, mostly to neighbouring Asian countries, compared to US$3.91m in the same six months last year. This translates to growth of 20 per cent YoY but marks a shortfall of 9.1 per cent to meet the target of US$5.166m set for these months of the ongoing fiscal year. The figure also includes a minor amount of salt, stone and related products, says the Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data. Bangladesh has set an export target for the cement industry at US$11m during the 12 months of the ongoing financial year ending 31 June 2023, compared to US$9.57m earned in FY21-22 (July 2021-June 2022). This translates to expected growth of 15 per cent YoY, according to the EPB. Bangladesh's total merchandise exports, including cement, reached US$27.31bn during 6MFY22-23 against US$24.69bn in corresponding months a year earlier, reflecting growth of 10.6 per cent. More than a dozen companies export cement to India, Myanmar, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka. Published under Fancesa suspends deliveries to Santa Cruz ICR Newsroom By 09 January 2023 Bolivian cement producer Fabrica Nacional de Cemento SA (Fancesa) has suspended deliveries to Santa Cruz due to blockades and mobilisations following the arrest of Governor Luis Fernando Camacho, according to Correo del Sur. The conflict, which has seen clashes with police and blockages, has severely challenged the companys ability to supply cement to the local market. "Given the permanent blockades and mobilisations that prevent the normal transit of motorised vehicles, bound for Santa Cruz, causing damage to Fancesa and the transport sector, the determination has been made to suspend cargo shipments to that commercial place until further notice, indicates a statement from the cement company. Published under Did anyone in Hartford know Diana Perez, the Pan American World Airways flight attendant killed in the 1973 terrorist attack at a Rome Airport? Thats a question retired flight attendant Ann Blumensaadt is posing in the quest for more information on Perezs life. Blumensaadt, a retired flight attendant and Greenwich resident, is a member of World Wings International, a charitable organization of former Pan Am flight attendants. She said the group would like to honor Perez in some way, but there is scant information about her. The only stewardess who was on the Pan Am Flight 110 and is still alive refuses to talk about it, Blumensaadt said. The only possible clue to any connections is a vague piece about a plaque in her honor that appeared in the Jan. 3, 1974, edition of the Hartford Courant. It would be great to hear from them, Blumensaadt said, about anyone linked to Perez. We never had any biographical information. Blumensaadt is also a member of the Pan Am Historical Foundation, dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of Pan Am. We also honor co-workers that we lost to these terrible events, she said. According to news reports, Perez was a purser or head flight attendant who was greeting passengers at the door as they walked up from the tarmac when terrorists threw grenades into both open doors of the Clipper Celestial, a Pan Am 707. The flight was scheduled to fly from the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Rome to Beirut International Airport in Lebanon and then on to Tehran, Iran. She was killed, along with the captains wife, Bonnie Erbeck who was seated in first class, and 28 passengers. The tragedy occurred in Rome at the Fiumicino Airport. Captain Andrew Erbeck survived, as did the other four or so flight attendants on board. Terrorists also killed two people in the airport terminal that day. They then hijacked Lufthansa Flight 303, which was waiting to depart for Munich, and killed two passengers. On Dec. 17, 2021 the 48th anniversary of the attack World Wings International honored the memory of Perez in an email to members. Diana and 33 others would die that day when a group of Palestinian terrorists invaded the FCO terminal, killing two in the terminal, then storming the tarmac where they attacked Pan Am Flight 110 and hijacked Lufthansa Flight 303, the email said. While hijackings were a threat to aviation at that time, this attack brought terrorism to the forefront and was a harbinger of things to come. Blumensaadt said the organization is still seeking any personal information about Perez, including where she was from, what kind of person she was, or anything about her family. The organization knew she was at the job for 25 years and that her home base was Miami. Though Blumensaadt was a flight attendant for Pan Am from 1969 until they closed in 1991, her home base was at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, so they didnt likely cross paths. Blumensaadt, however, said she will never forget the site after landing at the same Rome airport three days after the attack. She saw the fuselage of the ill-fated 707 with the top blown off. It was certainly heart-stopping. It was certainly an image that stayed with me, she said. She said flight attendants have a bond. In the early days, they would find themselves working together for as long as a month. The short news piece that appeared in the Courant in 1974, a year after the attack, states the plaque would be hung at JFK because Miss Perezs dedication and heroism would long be remembered. Blumensaadt said through the years she looked high and low for the plaque at JFK including in employee areas where it would likely hang and has never located it. The Courant story ran with a photograph of Perez. She said all the crew members who survived the attack kept flying, one of them becoming a crusader for flight safety. Anyone with information about Perez is asked to contact Blumensaadt by email at snookylanson@verizon.net. A manager at Dollar General, 6510 Shallowford Road, told police he was in the office and saw a man leaving after getting in line to pay for his merchandise. He said that the man walked out of the store holding two cases of soft drinks and a bag of chips. After he saw this on camera, he ran outside and attempted to get the man to purchase the items. The man then told him that he was not coming back inside and got into his vehicle and left the scene. The manager was able to call Dispatch and provide the tag number for the vehicle he saw the man get in, and after running that tag, police were not able to find any information on it. Police were able to capture a picture of the man and it will be added to the report. The man who walked out of the store was an older black male wearing a brown jacket and jeans. There is no other suspect information. * * * A woman on Long Street told police she had rented out a room to another woman and she was supposed to be out by 3 p.m. that day. The woman told police she would be leaving the house that evening and locking the door, which means the woman renting the room would no longer have access. She said she would return the next day at 8 a.m. to allow her renter to gather her belongings and move out of the property. The renter has lived in the residence for five months and does claim residence there. * * * Two women on N. Germantown Road were involved in a verbal disorder and said at some point one of the women put a hole in the wall. That woman told police it was accidental via the door knob, and that it occurred the day prior. The other woman said she just wanted her to leave her alone. Both women agreed to call it a night and try to get some sleep. * * * A woman on 6th Avenue called police and said she attempted to get her money back from her male friend, but initially he wasn't cooperating with her by giving it back. She said before police arrived she was given her money back by the man and now she no longer needs police and everything is fine. * * * Police were called to 1051 Montague Place on a suspicious man, described as a skinny black male in his 40s-50s, inside the units under construction. When police arrived, the man was no longer on scene. * * * A woman told police someone damaged the driver's side front of her vehicle while it was parked on Poplar Street between 4:45 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. She said the headlight was sticking out and there were cracks with chipped paint. The woman needed a report for her insurance. * * * A man was reported causing a scene at the Mapco, 1933 Hamill Road. Day shift had also received a call about this man approximately an hour prior, but was never able to make contact. Police trespassed the man from the property at the request of the manager. * * * Police noticed a silver SUV parked at a closed business at 2998 E 49th St. This address shares a parking lot with CSL Plasma, which was also closed. The SUV was a silver Ford Escape, and there were no tags on the vehicle. Police looked into the vehicle, and noticed that the keys were in the ignition with another key on the key chain. Police could also see several vehicle parts and wiring throughout the vehicle. Police ran the VIN through INFO, but it was not stolen. Police then made several attempts to contact the registered owner of the vehicle via cell phone, but were unsuccessful. * * * A man told police that around the 400 I-75 NB he ran over possibly a bucket and it had punctured his fuel tank. The man had his own tow on the way and TDOT waited with him for his tow. * * * A man on Old Cleveland Pike told police that a man and woman had taken a U-Haul (AZ tag) that he had rented and that they did not have permission to have it. He did say the man had used the truck previously, but was no longer allowed to use it. The tag the man provided police did not come back registered. The man said that there was gray spray paint on the driver's side of the truck and that he would call back at a later time to give police any information on the truck, after he called U-Haul. A Georgia Northwestern Technical College graduate who defeated breast cancer is now a mammography technician. Kim Raulerson grew up in Thomaston, but moved to Bartow County 28 years ago. She and her family have made their home in Taylorsville for the last two decades. She started college, but life happened, she said, and she opted to stay home with her daughters. I always wanted to go back and finish my college career, Ms. Raulerson said. About 11 years ago, I was working part-time for a general contractor, the building industry had taken a dive, and our girls were all but grown. I decided that was a good time for me to step out of my comfort zone and head back to college. At age 46, she applied to GNTC. I had many moments of wondering what in the world I was doing going to college at my age, she said. I have always been interested in working in the medical field. As I read up on the Radiologic Technology program, I decided that was the road I wanted to take. She called her acceptance into the Radiologic Technology program at GNTCs Floyd County Campus in Rome on the first try Amazing. Truly a blessing. She acknowledged having a tough first year in the program, but had no inkling of the obstacles she would soon face. With only two semesters left to complete her program, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had every intention of quitting, she said. How could I possibly do the coursework, clinicals, tests and everything expected from me for the program while also having surgery, taking chemo and radiation? Shes glad her GNTC family of classmates, instructors and facultyas well as her own familywould not let her give up. Her instructors worked with her to enable her to keep up with her coursework and to prevent her from falling too far behind; however, she did not receive any special favors and was required to complete all the coursework and clinical requirements. Kims treatment consisted of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, which made her very sick, said Susan Wheat, GNTC Radiology program director. Im sure at times Kim felt like giving up on her education; however, she never complained and rarely missed class or clinical. Ms. Raulerson said she was performing her clinicals at Harbin Clinic when she was diagnosed. The love and support the Harbin staff showed her were essential to her recovery. I was supposed to be at a hospital for my last semester, she said. My oncologist did not want me in a hospital setting because my immune system was too weak. Harbin worked with my instructors to allow me to stay there for my last semester as well. Her battle with cancer was probably the hardest six or seven months of my life, Ms. Raulerson said. Enduring all of this, Kim still graduated at the top of her class, Ms. Wheat said. Ms. Raulerson graduated on time in 2014 with her associate degree in radiologic technology and went on to earn a mammography certificate from GNTC in 2018. She graduated with honors in both programs. Now Kim helps other women overcome their fight for survival from breast cancer, Ms. Wheat said. Life has come full circle, Ms. Raulerson said, adding that she is now employed with Harbin Clinic Imaging in Cartersville as lead mammography technician. Ms. Raulersons education taught her perseverance and prepared her to take on her role as a mammographer, said Rachel Miller, Imaging manager at Harbins Cartersville clinic and Ms. Raulersons supervisor. Ms. Miller has observed that Ms. Raulersons cancer experience has taught her great compassion and understanding for her patients, but has also prodded her to advocate for them. She educates patients who believe they have a lower risk of developing breast cancer because they have no family history of it about the importance of having routine screenings, Ms. Miller said. How grateful and blessed I am to have been able to attend GNTC and now to be able to pour the knowledge and wisdom from my experience, as well as my love, support and encouragement, into my patients in the same way I was loved and supported, Ms. Raulerson said. A legal dispute between County Mayor Weston Wamp and County Attorney Rheubin Taylor won't be solved until at least March 6. At a brief court session on Monday morning, Chancellor Jeffery Atherton set that date for a case update, scheduling and a motions hearing. He said he was willing to expedite the case, but he noted that some of the necessary motions have not yet been filed. Former Judge Neil Thomas, who represents attorney Taylor, said he would be filing a motion on Thursday. County Mayor Wamp earlier sent a termination letter to the county attorney, who refused to step down. He said he has a contract running for two more years. Attorney Taylor then filed suit and the county mayor responded. County Commission members have been clamoring for the case to be settled, citing rising legal costs and the distraction to needed county projects. Costs were put at $71,000 thus far. County Mayor Wamp said he wants a resolution and expected it to come "sooner rather than later." He declined to withdraw his termination letter, saying an important legal question on the role of the county attorney needs to be clarified. He also has been critical of attorney Taylor. The County Commission has stood behind attorney Taylor 11-0 on several votes. The commission last week voted to cut off pay to Wamp attorney Barret Albritton, who has gotten $24,500 of county funds thus far. He was not present at the court session, but was represented by attorney Everett Hixson. Attorney John Konvalinka, who represents the commission, was present at the session, but said he was "a passive observer." The Planning Commission has recommended denial for a project to put 74 townhomes on 9.3 acres near Morris Hill Road in East Brainerd. Residents had complained that Chambers Road, where the site is location, is not wide enough for two cars to pass. The developer said he planned to widen the road by the project. The developer said an existing pond would remain along with 2.9 acres of green space in a floodway section. One resident said he had moved to that location "because my wife found a place in the woods in the middle of town." Neighbors also spoke of flooding problems in that vicinity near Ryall Spring Branch. Planning staff said the project was not consistent with the East Brainerd Plan and that 46 single-family homes could be built under existing zoning. Jennifer Coolidge Was So Strange on a Trip to Africa With Mike White That He Wrote a Role on The White Lotus Just for Her Jennifer Coolidge is one of the biggest stars to come out of the hit series The White Lotus. The role seems tailor-made for the actor/comedian, and thats not by accident. Showrunner Mike White created Coolidges part specifically for her. Jennifer Coolidge and Mike White have been friends for over a decade Jennifer Coolidge and Mike White | Araya Diaz/Getty Images Coolidge plays Tanya McQuoid, a kooky heiress who travels around the world and stays at the White Lotus resorts. Shes the only character (so far) who has appeared in both seasons of the popular HBO comedy. The actor and White met long before The White Lotus premiered. They played a couple in 2009s Gentlemen Broncos, a comedy about an aspiring writer who must defend his stories from another writer who claims he wrote them. I knew him from that, Coolidge said during a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. We had been friends over the years. The two grew so close they even vacationed together. Mike White saw the unedited version of Jennifer Coolidge on a trip to Africa When Whites boyfriend couldnt go on a romantic trip to Africa, the White Lotus creator called Coolidge. She jumped at the chance to travel. It was very intimate, she laughed. You know, the tents theyre beautiful, but youre right next to each other in them, and so he got to see a very unedited version of me. She said White was amused by how strange I was on the trip. And that was what eventually won her the part. Coolidge discussed the role further at a White Lotus FYC event. Mike discovered, on this trip, that I was sort of sad I wasnt in a relationship, and he saw me watching these wedding videos on my iPhone in the middle of the night, the actor shared (via IndieWire). I swear to God, I think thats where [Mike] got this whole idea of Greg, she continued, referring to the character Tanya hooks up with in season 1 and marries in season 2. I think Mike was just hoping for me to have anything with anyone, and he wrote this part. Where youve seen Jennifer Coolidge before Coolidge has been a longtime fan favorite, thanks to memorable roles in popular movies such as Legally Blonde, American Pie, A Cinderella Story, and Best in Show. Recently, she appeared in the popular Netflix series The Watcher and commercials for Uber Eats and Old Navy. However, her role in The White Lotus has catapulted her to a new level of stardom. Coolidge even won an Emmy for her performance as Tanya. Whats next for the White Lotus star? Jennifer Coolidge and Jon Gries in The White Lotus | Fabio Lovino/HBO Coolidge will appear alongside Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel, and Lenny Kravitz in Shotgun Wedding, set to premiere later this year. Fans can also see her in the upcoming Netflix movie We Have a Ghost, featuring Stranger Things actor David Harbour and Marvel star Anthony Mackie. Vikings Star Travis Fimmel Has No Idea Why He Became an Actor: To Be Honest, Its Not My Thing Known to Vikings fans as Ragnar Lothbrok, Travis Fimmel revealed that being an actor isnt his thing, though hes made it a successful career. Despite his many recent roles, Fimmel said he chose the wrong job, as he prefers to avoid being the center of attention in real life. Still, hes found a way to give it his best. Travis Fimmel | John Sciulli/WireImage Travis Fimmel was a model before he was an actor Fimmel was born in Australia and made a name for himself in the United States through an iconic Calvin Klein ad campaign in the early 2000s. From there, he made his way into acting and became widely recognized for his roles on shows like the History Channels Vikings and HBOs Raised by Wolves. In one of Fimmels latest projects, hes playing a cold case detective in a show called Black Snow, available on Stan. He said the role interested him because it was shot in parts of Australia he hadnt seen (The Sydney Morning Herald). Fimmel explained that hes intrigued by his characters flaws and issues but noted he doesnt get as deep as others in his line of work. He said, Im not too much of a lofty actor like that to have a way in.' Travis Fimmel gives you the lowdown on The Stan Original Series Black Snow, premiering New Years Day, only on Stan. #BlackSnowOnStan #StanOriginals pic.twitter.com/hyfLvgoMhr Stan. (@StanAustralia) December 15, 2022 Travis Fimmel has no idea why he became an actor Though Fimmel has found success in acting, he told the Sydney Morning Herald, I have no idea why I became an actor. To be honest, he added, its not my thing. He disclosed that his aversion to his craft comes from his personality. He explained, I never sang and danced in front of my parents. I never wanted to be the only person talking in a room, and I still dont. In real life, I cant stand anything being about me, he shared and added, I really chose the wrong career. Fimmel, who once said hes also not fond of action scenes, offered, English is my first language, but I really struggle with it. However, he enjoys trying to be good at something and believes, Whatever you do, youve got to try your best, so I try to make up for it in that way It helps that hes also learned to entertain himself while hes at it. Travis Fimmel walked out of auditions In an interview with GQ Australia, Fimmel confessed to walking out of casting auditions due to his nervousness. He said, I hate it. Absolutely hate it. Its very unrealistic. Theres people that like to get up and talk in front of people. I wasnt the kid that enjoyed reading out loud in class. Ive walked out halfway through, embarrassed, plenty of times, he admitted. I put myself on videotape. I cant remember the last job I got from actually auditioning. Fimmel called trying out for parts horrible and said he gets nervous, sweaty, [and] embarrassed. However, he knows uncomfortable requirements will always be part of the job. You just have to do it. But it doesnt get easier, he explained. The University of Arizona Medical Center - University Campus is located in Tucson, Arizona. According to a report in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, as of 2016, historically underrepresented ethnic and racial groups made up less than 10% of medical school faculty and only 3% of professors. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close Michael Sharpe, the 71-year-old former Hartford charter school CEO who was convicted of kidnapping four women who were attacked in their homes in the 1980s, was sentenced to life in prison on Monday in a case that had been cold for decades until DNA evidence led to a breakthrough. Sharpe appeared in court in Hartford on Monday before Judge Frank M. DAddabbo, who handed down what he said was a life sentence for Sharpe: 72 years in prison with a minimum of 40 years to be served. DAddabbo said that each of the four survivors would live with the agonizing trauma of their attacks for as long as they lived and likened their pain to lifelong sentences as well. DAddabbo said that over the length of his career, he rarely felt the pretense of a predator in court. But on Monday, he said he did. You fit that definition, he told Sharpe. A person who ruthlessly exploits others. Sharpe was found guilty in November of four counts of first-degree kidnapping and four counts of first-degree kidnapping in the commission of a felony nearly four decades after he attacked four women in their homes in June and July of 1984 in Bloomfield, Windsor, Rocky Hill and Middletown. All four of Sharpes survivors, who testified against him in court, delivered victim impact statements on Monday. Three of them appeared in court and one spoke via video conferencing, imploring the judge to consider the terror of their attacks and the decades of fear they navigated as they waited for justice. One of Sharpes survivors likened the last 38 years to being on a rollercoaster blindfolded, while another described the trickle-down effect her attack had on her life, her career, her marriage and her husbands career. Sharpe, who did not visibly react to either the detailed and graphic testimonies at trial or the tearful victim impact statements, dabbed a tissue at his eyes as his daughter and son-in-law begged the judge for leniency. He then broke down in tears as he turned to address the survivors who were seated in the courtroom. I just dont know how I could have possibly done something so monstrous, said Sharpe. Sharpe told the judge he has gaps in his memory dating back to kindergarten and said that one of those gaps spans June and July of 1984. He said he has no memory of committing the monstrous acts he was convicted of, but given the DNA evidence, he made the decision to leave it to a jury of his peers to lay out whether or not Im this monster. And they said I was, said Sharpe, who had asked to stay seated as he spoke due to medical concerns. And so Im going to have to live by that. With that, Sharpe said that he would stand up. He stood and turned toward the three women who were present on the right side of the courtroom. His statements marked the first time the survivors heard his voice since their attacks. I dont know what happened. I dont know. But Im so sorry. So, so, so, so sorry, he said through tears. You deserve so much better. No one should ever come into your home and violate you. If I was this person, if I was this monster, I hope he is dead inside that two months of my life, he said. Michael Marion Sharpe did not visibly react to the tearful victim impact statements during Mondays sentencing. As he spoke, the survivors shook and cried. One survivor heaved gasping sobs, prompting her husband and daughter to rush to her side to comfort her. The women known in court only as Jane Does 1-4 had each told the jury of the terrorizing moments they survived with Sharpe in their homes. Supervisory Assistant States Attorney John Fahey, who prosecuted the case with Senior Assistant States Attorney Robin Krawczyk, became emotional on Monday when he acknowledged that the trial tore scars open for the women. To a certain extent I almost feel guilty that we put them through that, he told the judge. But I also know we wouldnt want it any other way. He asked the judge to consider the isolation that the experience inflicted upon them. They had 36 years of looking over their shoulder because they didnt know what their attacker looked like, he said. He also asked the judge to consider how Sharpes behavior escalated over the course of four attacks, how he left a cash tip for the third woman who was attacked and kissed the fourth woman goodbye and thanked for being a good sport. Though Fahey did not request a specific length for a sentence, he implored that 38 years isnt enough. After hearing from Fahey, Sharpe and his attorney, DAbbaddo said that in determining the sentence, he considered the thought process Sharpe must have had to enter a persons home at night, violating the sanctity of their homes and bodies, he said. He also said Sharpe chose to violate a parents right to protect their child. One of the survivors was in bed with her then-3-year-old daughter at the time Sharpe broke in. He noted the disrespectful callousness Sharpe displayed by remaining in his victims homes after the attacks, going through their refrigerators, asking for luncheon meat to eat and disconnecting their phones. He said he took into account Sharpes childhood, his mental health and substance use issues and his criminal history. The judge said he looked at each survivors individual experience when handing down his sentencing. He sentenced Sharpe to two concurrent 18-year sentences, with minimums of 10 years served, for each womans attack. DAbbaddo said the four women exhibited great courage by pulling up terrifying memories that theyd spent years pushing back in order to deliver vivid and clear recollections of their attacks for the jury. One of the survivors closed her eyes as the judge spoke, holding a tissue to her mouth as her friend soothingly rubbed her back. Another leaned into the embrace of her daughter. Sharpes two brothers, whose DNA was also tested in connection to this case, also spoke on his behalf Monday and requested leniency. He faced up to 100 years in prison for his crimes. The verdict closed a chapter on a case that had long gone cold and left investigators and survivors without a name to pair with the attacker who terrorized the young women and left them living in fear for so long. Investigators had chased down countless leads and tips over the years, searching for a link between four young women who were blindfolded and assaulted in their apartments and condos. Finally, in 2020, new DNA technology in allowed cold case detectives to link Sharpe to DNA evidence left behind on bed sheets, towels and washcloths at the crime scenes, after testing DNA from trash they collected from his home and then confirming the match with a cheek swab test. Sharpe could not be charged with sexual assault, as the statute of limitations had passed in 1989. Instead, prosecutors charged Sharpe with kidnapping, which in Connecticut means abducting another person, preventing them from leaving using physical force or threat and restraining them with the intent to violate or abuse them. Prosecutors told the jury that Sharpe attacked each woman in the dark of night, breaking in through a sliding glass door. Each woman testified that on the nights of their attacks, Sharpe told them he had just killed someone and needed to hide out with them, or needed money to escape. The victims testified that he blindfolded them, threatened them, assaulted them, rummaged through their things, turned on water faucets and bathroom fans, unplugged or dissembled their phones, and, in some cases, ate food from their refrigerators before leaving. Prosecutors argued that because the women felt they could not leave without risking their lives when Sharpe was in their homes, they were, by law, kidnapped. In the 38 years since they awoke to a strange man in their bedrooms, each of the women explained how they struggled to push through the lasting trauma. They developed bonds with one another after Sharpes arrest and were finally able to share their stories with each other after the trial. They said after his conviction that they felt justice was serviced and made the decision to be known not as Jane Does but by their names: Linda, Shelley, Roseanne and Kathy. They shared stories of bravery, resilience and relief that their attacker who has been in custody since his conviction was finally behind bars. Forensic analysts testified in court that there was a 1 in 7 billion chance the DNA belonged to someone other than Sharpe, a point that Sharpes defense team hung their case on. After hearing the survivors emotional testimonies and days worth of forensic analysis at trial, the jury quickly found Sharpe guilty on all charges. On Monday, the judge also imposed protective orders for each of the survivors, barring Sharpe from any contact with them. This 27-year-old girl has a boyfriend the same age as her, and this past fall, her boyfriend asked her to come to his friends wedding with him. She had a great time at the wedding, although she did feel a bit uncomfortable at the beginning since she didnt know a single person at the wedding except for her boyfriend. It didnt take her long, though, before she began chatting with some of the other guests at the wedding, and she ended up not feeling so out of place. While at the wedding, she noticed one girl had been sitting by herself for hours on end, so she mentioned to her boyfriend that she was going to try to strike up a conversation with her since it made her feel sad. She also said to her boyfriend she understood what it was like to not know anyone at the wedding, and he replied that he didnt know this girl at all. So, she went off to chat with this girl, who admitted that she only knew the bride, but that was it. She ended up speaking to this girl for quite some time, and she said her name was Sydney. While she was chatting with Sydney, her boyfriend was off talking to some of his friends. He did end up coming over to her and Sydney, and she made a quick introduction. All her boyfriend said was hi, and his name and Sydney replied with the same, so it seemed that her boyfriend did not know Sydney at all prior to that moment. A few mornings later, we were in the car, and he said, Sydney should move here! She would like it better! It was unprompted, so it caught me off guard, and then my first thought was, well, thats a strange thing to say because you guys dont know each other, she explained. Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. As seven recreational marijuana dispensaries open in Connecticut on Tuesday, long lines are expected and parking spaces will be at a premium, according to spokesmen for the facilities. All seven dispensaries are hybrids, serving both medical and recreational customers. They will open first for medical clients at 9 a.m. and for recreational customers at 10, following rules set by the state Department of Consumer Protection. Fine Fettle Dispensary will open recreational cannabis sales Tuesday at three of its locations: Newington, Willimantic and Stamford. Ben Zachs, Fine Fettles chief operating officer, said the company, which is based in Connecticut, has consulted with local traffic authorities about its opening day plans in each location. The dispensary also has hired LAZ Parking to manage the parking lots. Zachs said he expects some lines outside Fine Fettle shops Tuesday, but he also hopes some of the crunch is alleviated by a system of reservations and appointments the company is asking patrons to use. The system was rolled out Monday. We think were able to mitigate some of the line issues because people will come in like its a restaurant reservation rather than just like everyone piling in at once, Zach said. Zachs said walk-ups will be accommodated with patrons placing orders and then returning for pick-up in an available time slot. The shop is, however, leaving a few early appointments open for people who camp out. We think theres a cultural element, that being someone who wants to be first in line, Zachs said. So that they can have their picture in the newspaper or whatever it might be for being the first [recreational] cannabis sale in the state of Connecticut, which is a pretty cool, exciting event. Fine Fettle is preparing for a lot of demand, with between eight and 11 check-out registers at each of the three locations, which he considers overstaffed but necessary for the first day of sales. Were preparing for a lot of demand but we dont actually know what the demand is going to be, Zachs said. I think Mike Tyson said it best. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. So, were trying to plan out for all the punches. Kate Nelson, senior vice president of Acreage, which owns the Botanist in Montville, said she believes Tuesdays opening will go smoothly. Weve been working with the city over the last few weeks to really make sure that this is as painless an experience as possible for our guests and for the city as well, she said. So we actually have a shuttle service thats running from a few locations. The shuttles will run from the center of Montville and from the Walgreens at 601 Route 32, she said. Weve also been coordinating with the local authorities, Nelson said. We had both the state police and the Montville police on site today and kind of running through our plan. And I think were in good shape. Our teams done a phenomenal job. She said there will be a heated tent outside where people can talk to staff and drink coffee, espresso and cappuccino. The celebratory atmosphere will be enhanced by ribbon cuttings, swag bags and, at RISE in Branford (formerly Bluepoint Wellness), a steel drum band, according to Rosie Mattio, spokeswoman for RISE owner Green Thumb Industries, which owns 77 dispensaries across the country. Were anticipating a pretty celebratory morning, she said. Mattio said in addition to RISEs parking lot at 471 E. Main St. customers can park at All Pets Club across Business Park Drive from the dispensary. Louis Gonzalez, general manager of All Pets Club, said RISEs customers are limited to one area, though: Not the middle parking or to the right. Just the left corner. Steve Mazeika, spokesman for Verano, which owns Zen Leaf Meriden, said, parking at our dispensary is, of course, not unlimited, but there is spillover parking next door at the former Garys Glass store, a former head shop. Were hoping that we can accommodate as many people as possible, Mazeika said. Weve been talking with the local Meriden police about traffic management and security and well be working cooperatively with them throughout the day just to make sure that everythings safe and as smooth as possible, he said. Ray Pantalena of Affinity Health & Wellness in New Haven said police will be on hand to direct traffic on busy Whalley Avenue. He said he has 30 parking spaces. I wish I had 200, he said. Two other stores that were given the go-ahead to open Tuesday will open at later dates. This industry is going to create more than 10,000 jobs over the next couple of years, and hundreds of millions in new revenue that will be reinvested in the communities most hard hit by the war on drugs, said Adam Wood, president of the Connecticut Cannabis Chamber of Commerce in a Monday release. Today is historic, but the real story is about the benefits to come that will transform lives and communities, he said. While medical customers can buy up to 5 ounces of cannabis, or its equivalent, per month, adult-use customers will be limited to a quarter ounce per transaction. There is no enforced limit on the number of transactions a person can make, however. Each store has been retrofitted with separate cash registers to accommodate recreational sales while not interfering with medical marijuana customers. Revenue from fees and taxes from cannabis sales are to be invested in those communities and future dispensaries will be operated by social equity partners who come from those areas. The economic opportunity being unlocked today is historic on a statewide level, said Dan Glissman, co-founder of the cannabis chamber. While there are still regulatory questions to be worked out, the work done to bring this day to fruition is remarkable. Ed Stannard can be reached at estannard@courant.com. Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com. On New Years Day, a 500-person mob assembled in the village of Gorra, a small community in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, and summoned the towns Christians. After about 15 people arrived, the Hindu extremist crowd attacked. Aytu Ram Dhruw, a local Christian in his late 20s, heard the news from an injured friend who told him they needed immediate medical attention. About 20 of us quickly rushed to the village to carry them to the hospital and met the mob on our way while entering the village. The mob caught us and began to assault us, Dhruw said. While most of the young people outran the mob, Dhruws father Bahadur, along with three others, were tracked down. They beat my father and three others with sticks, legs, fists, bricks, and stones until they all fell unconscious, Dhruw said. While Dhruw and his friends managed to take the victims to the hospital, Dhruw had to release his father from the hospital the same night when two of the assailants identified him in the hospital and threatened to call the mob on them again. We did not return to our village since that day, Dhurw said. The attack on Gorras Christians is far from an isolated incident. Weeks of coordinated attacks on tribal Christians in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh have left nearly 1,500 people homeless and traumatized. Right-wing Hindu residents in the Bastar division of the state have chased Christians from their homes and vandalized and demolished their houses and churches, enraged that their neighbors have refused to reject their faith. Image: Courtesy of Salim Hakku Accusing us of following a foreign religion, and leaving the tribal culture, they gave us a choice either to recant our faith or leave our homes and our village, never to return, said Dhruw. While Indias tribal communities have already faced centuries of discrimination and marginalization, Christian tribals suffer additional ostracization. Nearly 400 incidents of violence against Christians have been documented by the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum (CCF) in the past three years. Even before the violence began to escalate in earnest starting, a 2021 report from the Religious Liberty Commission of Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) documented that Chhattisgarh already had the second highest number of persecution incidents of Christians after Uttar Pradesh, the countrys most populous state. In Bastar, this aggression came to a head in November, when Hindu right-wing groups organized mahapanchayats (regional council meetings) and began ruling and passing measures designed to evict Christians from their communities. The councils banned Christians from worshiping within their own homes, prevented pastors from visiting Christian families in the village, and forbade local believers from carrying out their rituals like weddings or burying their dead in the village. They also restricted Christians from buying or selling goods and from working. These meetings were held in all the villages from time to time, and we [tribal Christians] were pressured to recant our faith, said Dhruw. We told them that we are on the Correct Way, and we cannot leave this Way; our lives have changed. But they refused to listen, and then by November they began to assault Christians in various villages. In recent weeks, Christians have been called before their respective village councils and given the option of either recanting their faith or leaving the village. Some gave in to the pressure and renounced their Christian faith, while those who did not were assaulted and forced to leave the village immediately, said Salim Hakku, who pastors in the Bastar district. The timing of these expulsions has meant that those fleeing have had to contend with harsh cold weather. At times, theyve had to beg the government for shelter, and Christian organizations have been the only parties to provide food, clothing, and basic necessities. And at the advice of the police, the Christian tribals also had to forgo Christmas and New Years gatherings. Several matters were reported to the police time and again. No action was taken by them, which has resulted in the series of attacks against the Christian community, said CCF chairman Arun Pannalal in a press conference on January 4. The police have not only neglected our complaints, but they have also encouraged the attackers and we have evidence of this. Though the anti-Christian violence is by and large projected as a reaction of non-Christian tribals against their Christian tribal neighbors, the authorities admit that the attacks seem to be orchestrated by outsiders. Locals blame prime minister Narendra Modis Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu extremist organization, for inciting the attacks. Two local BJP leaders have been arrested in connection with various incidents of violence against the Christian community. Although such acts are interpreted as isolated attacks, in reality they are orchestrated attempts to malign the Christian community. It is understood to be the continuation of a series of attacks against Christians in Chhattisgarh state in recent years, said Asir Ebenezer, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches in India, in a statement. The increase in violence against Christians all over India especially among the economically weaker sections of the society exposes the persecution meant to cleanse a particular religious community from all spaces. EFI hand delivered a letter to Bhupesh Baghel, the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, right before Christmas. After the meeting, Baghel tweeted that the government had taken action and that nobody was above the law. But Christian leaders say that because the attacks continue, much more help is still desired. The government must demonstrate the political will to protect the states social fabric and intervene to end violence against Christian tribals in Bastar, said Pannalal. Jack Hayford, the Foursquare Church leader who taught evangelicals that God is enthroned in the praises of his people, died on Sunday at the age of 88. Hayford was the longtime pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California; the author of Majesty and more than 500 other praise and worship songs; and the fourth president of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. He regularly led weeklong seminars for pastors that expanded and shaped evangelicals view of worship. He convinced a wide range of people not only to occasionally raise their hands while praying and accept glossolalia as a special prayer language but also, more importantly, to see worship as central to the work of the church. Worship has often been misunderstood as the musical prelude, Hayford wrote, rather than the means by which we, as the people of God, invite the dominion of his kingdom to be established on earth. Psalm 22:3 says that the king of kings is literally enthroned in our praises. Wherever Gods people come together to worship, we become a habitation for his presence. Hayford was a Pentecostal bridge-builder and a pastor to pastors who did much to promote charismatic renewal practices. Even people who had historically been skeptical of Pentecostalism were drawn to Hayford. I think pastors sense in him what they are longing to be, Lloyd Ogilvie, a Presbyterian minister who worked closely with Hayford, said in 1989. He is rooted in historic Christianity, has the fire and dynamism of a charismatic, understands the relevance of social responsibility, and can mobilize individuals. You dont usually find those qualities combined in one person. CT once billed him the Pentecostal gold standard, citing Charisma Media founder Stephen Strang, who said, Pastor Jack would fall into a category of statesman almost without peer. Hayford was born in Los Angeles in 1934, the eldest child of Jack Hayford Sr. and Dolores Farnsworth Hayford. His parents were not Christians and didnt turn to prayer when infant Jack developed a condition in the tendons of his neck that could have been fatal. A Farnsworth cousin, however, walked into a Foursquare church in Long Beach, California, knowing the Pentecostal denomination founded by Aimee Semple McPherson believed in miracles and that one of the four squares of the gospel that the church taught was healing. The cousin gave the church a note with Hayfords name and diagnosis and asked the people there to pray. They said they would. The next day, my parents began to notice that things had changed, Hayford said, sharing his testimony 80 years later. Within the next few days, the doctor said, This baby is well. There is nothing wrong with him. And not only did the doctor declare me well, he refused to take the money from my parents for the few payments he was going to charge, because, he said, I had nothing to do with the healing of this baby. This has to have been something God did. Hayfords parents praised God for the healing. A year later, they went to the same church and went forward to accept Jesus as the congregation sang, Whoever Will May Come. Jack Hayford Sr. quit church a short time later, however, when he overheard two women commenting on his smoking habit. He stayed away from church for a decade. Dolores Hayford would not go to church without her husband, but she did attend Bible studies (eventually becoming a Bible teacher herself) and insisted her children attend Sunday school. As the family moved around, young Jack was sent to Quaker, Methodist, Presbyterian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and Foursquare churches. Hayford personally accepted Jesus at age 10. He discerned a call to ministry in high school but doubted his call as his teachers pushed him to go to a state school to study science or journalism or both. At the last moment, with the encouragement of a Lutheran teacher, Hayford decided to go to Bible school instead of a state college. He returned to Southern California and enrolled at the Foursquare Churchs L.I.F.E. Bible College. He met and married Anna Smith at college. Both became ministers in the Foursquare Church and worked with the national denominations youth department until 1969, when the Hayfords became pastors of a congregation in Van Nuys. The church had been one of the first Foursquare churches, but by the late 60s it was dwindling and could only claim regular attendance of about 25. The place felt suffocating, and Hayford wondered, for a while, if he had made a terrible mistake. Then he was moved to cleanse the church with praise. As I walked through the sanctuary, he later recalled, I would be saying, Praise Your Name, Jesus, Hallelujah, Lord! and I would clap my handsPraise Your Name, oh Jesus, HallelujahI would literally sing the words, clapping my hands. I was conscious of challenging something in the atmosphere of that place. Hayford did that for more than a year until, one Sunday, the church started to change and the spirit of the place felt different, like there was air to breathe again. After that it started to grow. Hayford became convinced of the centrality of worship in the life of the church. He also had a change of heart toward non-Pentecostals, which would prove critical throughout the rest of his ministry. Hayford described it as a revelation. He was sitting at a stoplight near the Church on the Way and saw a Baptist church on the corner. He felt God tell him to pray for the church and felt an overwhelming love for the Baptists. Then a few days later, he saw a thriving Catholic congregation and felt himself get jealous of the church. He asked God why he would allow a church that was wrong about important things to flourish. He felt God respond, Why would I not be happy with a place where every morning the testimony of the blood of my Son is raised from the altar? Hayford committed to building bridges from the Pentecostal church to other Christians, and connecting with them whenever possible to praise God. Hayfords church grew to about 10,000 in weekly attendance by the end of the 1980s. His influenced reached beyond Van Nuys with his books, involvement in Promise Keepers and other parachurch organizations, and speaking engagements at worship conferences. In A History of Contemporary Praise & Worship, scholars Lester Ruth and Lim Swee Hong say Hayford became the most well-known teacher of praise and worship theology and practice, introducing many to the Pentecostal liturgy that flowed from congregational singing to spoken praise, prayer in spontaneously created small groups, and biblical instruction, all aimed at the adoration of God. Hayfords ideas about worship may have spread furthest, however, with his most popular song, Majesty. From 1989 to 1994, the song was sung more in American churches than any other, according to Christian Copyright Licensing International data. It remained in the top 10 into the early 2000s. Majesty has also been published in 34 hymnals, including Baptist, Anglican, and African Methodist Episcopal publications. So exalt, lift up on high the Name of Jesus, the song says. Magnify, come glorify, Christ Jesus the King. / Majesty, worship His Majesty. / Jesus who died, now glorified, King of all kings! Hayford wrote the song while vacationing in England. He and his wife, Anna, visited Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. That inspired Hayford to think about the kingdom authority of Christians. He thought about how Jesus came not only to forgive sins but also to help humanity reestablish its royal relationship with the King of Kings. Majesty is also a statement of the fact that our worship, when begotten in spirit and in truth, can align us with His Throne in such a way that His Kingdom authority flows to usto overflow us, free us, and channel through us, Hayford wrote. Hayford also exercised a growing earthly authority among Pentecostals and evangelicals. In 1997, he launched a TV series on Trinity Broadcasting Network called Teach Us to Pray, and a few years later started a radio series. In 1996, he started The Kings College and Seminary in Los Angeles, which included the School of Pastoral Nurture, offering popular intensive courses to pastors once a month for more than a decade. Hayford twice declined nomination to be president of the Foursquare Church but was finally persuaded to accept the position in 2004 when the previous president, Paul Risser, was forced to resign after losing $15 million in two fraudulent investment schemes. Risser had been brought in to replace John Holland, who also lost money in what the church deemed a severe failure at managing according to policies. Hayford led the denomination out of scandal, restructured leadership, and established a financial foundation for the denomination. As a pastor to pastors beyond the Foursquare Church, Hayford also agreed to help restore a number of disgraced men to ministry. He was part of the team who agreed in 2007 to work with Ted Haggard, the National Association of Evangelicals president who confessed to buying methamphetamine from a male prostitute. He has an ability to take pastors who are burned out or frustrated or whatever, said one of the board members at Haggards church, to take someone going through something as difficult as Ted Haggards situation, and deal with what needs to be done. Haggard abandoned the restoration process after a year. He was accused of sexually abusing several young men at his new church in 2022. Hayford, for his part, cautioned church leaders not to rely too much on formal accountability structures. A fruitful ministry had to be grounded in prayer and fellowship with Jesus, regular Bible study, personal purity, and self-discipline. A ministers relationship to God, he said, was the only sure safeguard. Ultimately, he told CT, its the only thing that will make me accountable to anyone elsemy wife, my congregation, even myself. Randy Remington, the current president of the Foursquare Church, said Hayford was one of the great leaders in the history of the denomination. In our Foursquare family, we retired his jersey, so to speak. There will never be another Jack Hayford, Remington told Charisma. Pastor Jack was a Kingdom ambassador whose influence transcended denominational, generational and global boundaries. Hayford was predeceased by his wife, Anna, who died in 2017. He is survived by his second wife, Valarie, and four children: Rebecca, Jack III, Mark, and Christa. The Foursquare Church is planning an online memorial service. [ This article is also available in Portugues. ] Despite the short-term upheaval COVID-19 caused among American churches, the pandemics long-term effect on worship attendance patterns was minimal, according to a study released Thursday by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the University of Chicago. The biggest exception to that trend occurred among young adults, whose church attendance took a major hit. Rather than completely upending established patterns, the pandemic accelerated ongoing trends in religious change, wrote study authors Lindsay Witt-Swanson, Jennifer Benz, and Daniel Cox. Young people, those who are single, and self-identified liberals ceased attending religious services at all at much higher rates than other Americans did. Even before the pandemic, these groups were experiencing the most dramatic declines in religious membership, practice, and identity. Two-thirds (68%) of Americans reported the same level of church attendance both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet pandemic-accelerated declines among some groups left US church attendance down overall. Before the pandemic, 75 percent of Americans reported attending religious services at least monthly. By spring 2022, that figure dropped to 68 percent attending at least monthly. Those findings were drawn from the 2022 American Religious Benchmark Survey, which polled 9,425 Americans by phone and online between February and April 2022. To help researchers focus on pandemic-driven changes, the study included only individuals who had registered their religious affiliations and church attendance patterns in a previous survey between 2018 and March 2020. Young adults (ages 1829) reported the greatest change in religious attendance following the pandemic. Forty-two percent registered different levels of church attendance than they had previously. Just 35 percent of Americans ages 3049 reported changed attendance, as did 28 percent among those ages 5064 and 25 percent among those 65 and older. Over the pandemic, Americans across all age groups were more apt to attend less frequently than to attend more frequently. Thirty percent of young adults dropped attendance after the pandemic, compared with 12 percent who upped it. Twenty-four percent of Americans 3049 decreased their attendance, while 11 percent increased it. Among adults 5064, 19 percent decreased while 9 percent increased. The decrease and increase among Americans 65 and older were 16 percent and 9 percent, respectively. COVID-19 may not have been the only factor driving young adults away from church. According to a Gallup poll released in December, American religion already was trending in that direction. More than a third of Americans surveyed said they have stopped attending religious services regularly in their lifetimes. Thirty-one percent said they attend services weekly or nearly weekly now, but 67 percent reported attending with that frequency when there were growing up. Those findings are consistent with prior Gallup research documenting steep declines in US religiosity in recent decades, the polling organization stated. The latest American Religious Benchmark Survey dovetailed with previous research at many points, but the pandemics unique impact on the young appeared to be a departure from some previous findings. CT reported in January 2022 that older and younger Americans both were more likely than middle-aged Americans to have experienced attendance drops during the pandemic. Now senior adults apparently have come back to church even though their younger counterparts have not. According to the new survey, fewer Americans ages 65 and older changed their pre-COVID-19 church attendance patterns than any other group. Single adults and self-identified liberals decreased their church attendance significantly as well. Before the pandemic, 30 percent of adults who had never married said they never attended religious services. That jumped to 44 percent by spring 2022. Among married adults, the percentage jumped from 22 percent to 28 percent. While 31 percent of liberals never attended church before the pandemic, 46 percent said they didnt attend in spring 2022. That compares with 14 percent of conservatives before the pandemic and 20 percent after. Attendance declines following COVID-19 affected some religious groups more than others. Mormons, white evangelicals, and white Catholics experienced relatively stable worship attendance, with more than 70 percent of each group (including 80 percent of Mormons) reporting no change in their frequency of worship attendance following the pandemic. The rate was lower among Black Protestants and Hispanic Catholics. Just 61 percent from each of those groups reported the same level of religious attendance before and after the pandemic. Across all groups, nominal religious adherents were more affected by the pandemic than their highly committed counterparts. Before COVID-19, 26 percent of Americans said they attended religious services at least once per week. That figure dropped just two percentage points to 24 percent by spring 2022. In contrast, the number of Americans who reported never attending religious services increased eight percentage points over the same time period (25% to 33%). At least in terms of religious attendance, the pandemic appears to have pushed out those who had maintained the weakest commitments to regular attendance, the studys authors wrote. While church attendance patterns changed over the course of the pandemic, religious affiliations remained stable. The percentage of Americans identifying as religiously unaffiliated (25%) was identical before and after the pandemic, as were the percentages identifying as white evangelical Christians (14%), white Catholics (10%), Black Protestants (9%), and Jewish (1%). A few affiliations declined by one percentage point during the pandemic: white mainline Christians (17% vs. 16%), Hispanic Catholics (6% vs. 5%), and Mormons (2% vs. 1%). Thats hopeful news, says Cox, AEIs senior fellow in polling and public opinion. It means religious groups have an opportunity to reconnect with people who continue to identify with a religious tradition despite their lack of participation. These are the people who havent completely separated, Cox told Religion News Service. But reaching them will require being hyper-intentional about inviting the uninvolved to attend and serve, said Scott Thumma, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford International University. What happened in the pandemic is that all of us were huddling in the basement, while a tornado was going over our heads, he told RNS. Now everyone has come out of the basement and everything is completely different. Now we have to be intentionally creative. David Roach is a freelance reporter for CT and pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama. Archaeologists demand more scrutiny of sensationalized discoveries in Israel Leading Israeli archaeologists and researchers have decried what they perceive as a lack of oversight amid a series of archaeological discoveries, including recent announcements from a professor claiming to have deciphered historic Bible-era inscriptions. Over 30 academics recently signed an open letter emphasizing the need for peer reviews and publishing findings "scientifically" before making public announcements to the press about archaeological discoveries. The letter doesn't name specific researchers but follows a series of announcements from Gershon Galil. The professor emeritus of biblical studies and the former chairman of the University of Haifa's Jewish history department claims to have deciphered several inscriptions, including one that contains the name of the biblical Judean King Hezekiah. "While we all recognize that one can inform the press of finds before publication (and many of us do this, including myself), the main point was that if one claims that finds are sensational and groundbreaking, they should be fully published academically, before going public with sensational claims," Professor Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, who signed the letter, told The Christian Post in an emailed statement. "Otherwise, there is no way to ascertain that these claims have basis. That is how things should be done in all scientific research." CP also reached out to the University of Haifa but did not receive a response by press time. The letter, published on Dec. 24, is signed by researchers from various Israeli institutions criticizing the presentation of several archaeological finds identified as "game-changers" in the press and on social media before the discoveries were subject to a peer review. Experts from several institutions signed the letter, including Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. "As is clear to anyone dealing with science and research, one of the foundations of all research and discovery is that results must go through a process of peer review prior to publication, to check for quality, suggest improvements and comments, and in some cases, reject a suggestion," the letter reads. "Without this process, research is conducted without proper checks and balances," the letter continues. "In addition, research colleagues (in this case archaeologists and historians) cannot properly ascertain, and if need be, disagree, with these claims." The experts further stress the need for a "full presentation, with high-quality illustrations, of these finds in scientific publications, even long after the initial public notification" before posting finds on social media or making pronouncements to the press. Galil told The Times of Israel that the letter was written by "bitter" and "jealous" colleagues with an axe to grind. In a separate statement, however, Maeir, director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, said that researchers would be allowed to claim anything if they didn't have to follow the standards of proof described in the letter. As The Christian Post previously reported, Galil claimed that he and a fellow archaeologist Eli Shukron had deciphered an inscription containing the name of Judean King Hezekiah. Galil said that the inscription summarizes the first 17 years of Hezekiah's reign and his accomplishments described in 2 Kings 20 in the Bible. "This is an extremely important discovery that changes [some basic assumptions of] research, since until today it was commonly accepted that the kings of Israel and Judah, unlike the kings of the ancient Middle East, did not make themselves royal inscriptions and monuments to commemorate their achievements," Galil said. He also asserted that the inscriptions "support the claim that scriptures in the book of Kings are based on texts originating from chronicles and royal inscriptions and that the Bible reflects historical reality and not imagination." When asked by The Times of Israel to provide high-resolution photos of the inscription, Galil initially promised to provide RTI images before claiming that an unnamed publisher would not allow him to publish them. Galil's images of the inscriptions are either hand-drawn inscriptions or have too low of a resolution for academics to read. However, Galil claims this is untrue, stating that he and his team took photographs in the field, and others are free to take their own pictures if they're having trouble viewing his. Professor Matthew Morgenstern of Tel Aviv University's Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages found this assertion "unusual," according to The Times of Israel. "It is customary that the scholar who makes the claim also provides the clear evidence for it," Morgenstern said. While Galil insisted that several renowned researchers have examined his newly deciphered inscription, he did not provide any names. Instead, he promised that the names would be revealed in his upcoming book, The Inscriptions of Hezekiah King of Judah. Another series of Galil discoveries that have been called into question include the Mt. Ebel curse tablet and the Jerusalem governor tablet. The curse tablet is reportedly the earliest Hebrew text that would prove the Israelites were literate upon entering the Holy Land. The other table was reportedly used in a voodoo ceremony to curse Jerusalem's governor, which, if true, would be one of the earliest inscriptions discovered to date in Jerusalem. However, these discoveries have also been published without peer review or high-resolution photography. Atheists refute claims abortion bans violate religious freedom Atheist pro-life advocates are pushing back against lawsuits alleging that state abortion bans and restrictions violate religious freedom and promote a Christian definition of life, saying that the right to practice one's faith does not justify "human rights violations." As several states have moved to ban or restrict abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer, some lawsuits contend those laws promote a sectarian view of when life begins. Monica Snyder, who serves as executive director of Secular Pro-Life, an organization comprised of atheists and agnostics, told The Christian Post that the belief that a zygote is the first stage of life for human organisms "is not a religious belief." "It's a biological fact," she said. "You don't need to be religious to recognize biological facts, and you don't need to be religious to believe all humans are morally valuable." In Indiana, five women and the organization Hoosier Jews for Choice argue that the state's ban passed in August outlawing nearly all abortion violates the 2015 Indian Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by former Vice President Mike Pence when he was the state's governor. In December, a judge issued a preliminary injunction against the law finding that it "substantially burdens" religious exercise. In another lawsuit in Kentucky, three Jewish women claim that the state's abortion ban violates their religious freedom and alleges that the legislature "imposed sectarian theology." As of Oct. 26, the complaint has been removed in federal court as the Kentucky Supreme Court considers other lawsuits challenging the ban. According to the Brennan Center for Center Justice, 34 lawsuits have been filed against abortion bans in 19 states, with 31 pending at trial or appellate levels. Jewish nurse practitioner Cara Berg Raunick argues that Indiana lawmakers are imposing a "Christian definition" of life on her by asserting it begins at conception. "That is a religious and values-based comment," Berg Raunick said in a Dec. 27 statement to The Associated Press. "A fetus is a potential life, and that is worthy of great respect and is not to be taken lightly, but it does not supersede the life and health of the mother, period." Presenting a hypothetical, the pro-life atheist Snyder questioned whether society would have to allow elective third-trimester abortions in the name of religious freedom if someone's faith claimed that life doesn't begin until the first breath. "Historically, some societies believed neonates aren't 'children' until they're named, or fed, or baptized. Would we have to allow infanticide prior to those rituals in the name of religious freedom?" she asked. "No, of course not." "Freedom of religion is important, but it doesn't justify human rights violations. Abortion violates human rights by killing human beings," Snyder asserted. "Freedom of religion doesn't justify it." Kelsey Hazzard, an atheist attorney and the founder of Secular Pro-Life, echoed these thoughts. "Religious freedom has its limits, and the death of a child lies beyond that limit," she wrote. "The American legal system has encountered an analogous issue: may Jehovah's Witnesses condemn their medically fragile sons and daughters to death because they believe that blood transfusions are sinful?" "No one doubts the sincerity of that religious belief, but the answer is no: the child's right to life takes precedence," Hazzard continued. "Likewise, the right to life must take precedence over religious, unscientific beliefs about ensoulment at birth." During an October conference hosted by the pro-life group Rehumanize International, Hazzard presented an analysis of the litigation challenging abortion restrictions because such bans violate the right to religious freedom. The attorney asserted that religious liberty claims do not take precedence over a child's well-being, citing various legal cases to support her point. One of the cases Hazzard cited was Prince v. Massachusetts, a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a Massachusetts regulation prohibiting children of a particular age group from selling newspapers in public places. Sarah Prince challenged the law that convicted her for taking her 9-year-old niece to sell Jehovah's Witness literature. Writing the opinion for the 5-4 majority, Justice Wiley B. Rutledge asserted that past cases established that parents and children have a right to exercise religion, but this was not absolute, citing compulsory vaccination laws as proof. "Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow that they are free in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children," Rutledge wrote. Another case Hazzard cites in her speech is the 1961 New Jersey case Hoener v. Bertinato, where the unborn child of two Jehovah's Witnesses required a blood transfusion due to RH compatibility. Most Jehovah's Witnesses hold the religious conviction that human beings should not use another creature's blood to sustain their lives. While the court acknowledged the sincerity of the parents' religious objections, it ruled that it was in the state's interest to preserve the unborn child's welfare and "its right to survive." The court stated that "an unborn child is a distinct biological entity from the time of conception, and many branches of the law afford the unborn child protection throughout the period of gestation." "The most important consideration, however, is that the viability distinction has no relevance to the injustice of denying recovery for harm which can be proved to have resulted from the wrongful act of another." Hazzard contends that protection for the unborn is "finally being restored" following the Supreme Court overturning Roe in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling in June. She said abortion proponents are "free" to believe that life does not begin at fertilization based on religious convictions. However, the right to religious freedom does not mean parents are free to make a "martyr" of their child. According to Hazzard, the government has a "compelling interest" in preserving life by preventing abortions. Berg Raunick and Hoosier Jews for Choice did not respond to CP's request for comment by press time. Christian woman tied to a tree, beaten by village leaders in Mexico A Christian woman who suffered severe internal injuries after being tied to a tree and beaten by traditionalist Catholic elders in her village in Mexicos Hidalgo State is now hospitalized in critical condition. Police have made no arrests, according to a report. The victim, identified as Maria Concepcion Hernandez Hernandez from the Great Commission Baptist Church in the community of Rancho Nuevo in Huejutla de los Reyes Municipality, was attacked on Dec. 21 by a group of people, all belonging to the Roman Catholic majority in the village, the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported last week. Immediately before the attack, the bells of the local Roman Catholic church were ringing, CSW continued. She was visiting her land as a neighbor had asked her to remove two trees because the local authorities had prohibited members of the religious minority from accessing or using their land for cultivating crops, the group said. The pastor of the womans church, Rogelio Hernandez Baltazar, was also detained for two hours after he sought to intervene to stop the attack, and threatened by the same authorities who declared they will not allow the victims body to be buried in the village if she does not recover from her injuries. The pastor and other villagers are prohibited from meeting her, the group said, adding that no arrests had been made despite complaints having been filed with the Hidalgo State Human Rights Commission and the Hidalgo State Prosecutor's Office. The attackers have been identified as Benito Rocha, Fermin Hernandez Hernandez, Octaviano Gutierrez Hernandez, Margarito Gutierrez Hernandez, Francisco Wenses, and catechist Juan Hernandez Hernandez. The life of a woman hangs in the balance and a community is living in fear because, despite ample evidence of serious violations of freedom of religion or belief in Rancho Nuevo for more than seven years, the Mexican authorities have failed to intervene, CSWs Head of Advocacy, Anna Lee Stangl, said. Instead, Hidalgo State government officials, under the previous governor, have for years publicly denied the existence of cases of religious intolerance in the state, Stangl continued. This is not a one-off incident of Christian persecution in Mexico, which has risen due to drug cartel violence, persecution by traditionalist Catholics and violent discrimination by anti-Christian left-wing groups, Open Doors USA previously reported. In rural indigenous communities, anyone who turns away from traditional religious beliefs can face rejection and punishment in the form of fines, imprisonment, and forced displacement. Non-discrimination laws mean that any links between Christian faith and politics are placed under very strict legal scrutiny, says the ministry on its website. Unlike Christianity, traditionalist Catholicism relies on giving gifts to pagan gods in exchange for health, good fortune and protection from evil. They often participate in animal sacrifices to the gods and worship saints, incorporating practices from pagan Aztec beliefs. In areas controlled by criminal groups or drug cartels, young men are exposed to indoctrination and forced recruitment. Those who do not accept it for reasons of Christian faith or otherwise face threats, potential abduction and even death, says Open Doors USA. Families, too, are bribed and intimidated to force their children to obey the gangs. Church leaders are often victims of extortion because they are assumed to have access to church funds. Mexico also has the highest rate of human trafficking in the world, and women are easy targets for illegal armed groups to recruit or abduct. Last May, 16 indigenous Protestant Christian families in the southern state of Chiapas were pressured to pay illegal fines for the fourth consecutive year for not participating in a syncretic Roman Catholic festival that involves alcohol, CSW reported at the time. In September 2021, two evangelical families from the First Baptist Church in the La Mesa Limantitla area in Hidalgo states Huejutla de los Reyes Municipality were threatened with being cut off from essential services or expelled from the community if they continued to refuse to deny their faith and pay a fine illegally levied against them, CSW reported at the time. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott: Biden border visit a 'photo-op;' 'too little,' 'too late' Critics of the Biden administration's handling of the immigration crisis at the U.S. southern border say President Joe Bidens trip to Texas and Mexico amounted to a photo-op and expressed concern that the administrations policies will only exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. President Joe Biden visited the southwest border for the first time Sunday, as concerns grow about the high volume of illegal immigration negatively affecting U.S. citizens and border communities. Statistics compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol show there were 465,034 encounters between migrants and law enforcement officials at the southwest border in the first two months of fiscal year 2023, which began in October. By comparison, just 339,682 encounters occurred during the same period in fiscal year 2022. Bidens border visit occurred against the backdrop of his administrations efforts to abolish Title 42, which enables border officials to quickly turn away migrants seeking entry into the U.S. due to public health concerns posed by the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Title 42 to remain in place as the justices are slated to hear a case involving the matter later this year. The abandonment of Title 42 is expected to cause the number of illegal border crossings to increase to an even higher figure. The president announced his intention to visit the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a press conference last week. During the address, Biden laid out actions his administration was taking to address the surge at the U.S.-Mexico border, including the expansion of a parole program allowing Venezuelan migrants with sponsors in the U.S. to come to the country for two years and receive work permits as long as they pass a background check to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. The president predicted that expanding the parole program to three additional countries will substantially reduce the number of people attempting to cross the southwest border without going through the legal process. He contended that since the establishment of the existing parole program, the number of Venezuelans trying to enter America without going through a legal process has dropped dramatically from about 1,100 per day to less than 250 per day on average. When Biden arrived in El Paso, Gov. Greg Abbott gave him a letter declaring that your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late. Abbott added, Your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies. Hand-delivered a letter to President Biden today during his first visit to the border. His trip is billion too little & 2 years too late. Im calling on Biden to do his constitutional duty to protect our nation. pic.twitter.com/cy8xgh5EJ2 Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 8, 2023 Even the city you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your Administration wants to shield you from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis, he wrote. This chaos is a direct result of your failure to enforce the immigration laws that Congress enacted. Abbott elaborated on the consequences of mass illegal immigration at the southwest border, including the emboldening of the drug cartels engaged in trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings. He told the president when you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso, you have a job to do. The Texas governor urged Biden to comply with the many statutes mandating that various categories of aliens shall be detained, and end the practice of unlawfully paroling aliens en masse, stop sandbagging Title 42, aggressively prosecute illegal entry between ports of entry, and allow ICE to remove illegal immigrants in accordance with existing federal laws, immediately resume the construction of the border wall separating the U.S. from Mexico and designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., issued a statement of his own, characterizing Bidens visit to the border as a photo-op, suggesting that any calls for border security from the administration ring hollow as long as the president continues pushing for amnesty for millions of immigrants who have crossed into the U.S. illegally. McCarthy vowed that House Republicans will hold him and [Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro] Mayorkas accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history. Biden is making his first border visit of his lifea photo opwhile pushing for amnesty for millions of immigrants who have crossed into the US illegally. House Republicans will hold him and Mayorkas accountable for creating the most dangerous border crisis in American history. Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) January 8, 2023 Ahead of Bidens visit to the border, the Democratic mayor of El Paso declared a state of emergency, citing the impacts of the migrant surge on his city. Critics of the Biden administration previously attributed the rise in illegal border crossings, which began at the beginning of his presidency in 2021, to the abandonment of the Migrant Protection Protocols that required those seeking asylum in the U.S. to remain in Mexico while their asylum claims were adjudicated. During his speech last week, Biden touted the CBP ONE app, which enables migrants to schedule an appointment at a port of entry and make their asylum claim there without crossing the border unlawfully. Additionally, the White House released a fact sheet last week outlining additional actions the administration was taking to reduce illegal immigration at the southwest border. Specifically, the fact sheet proclaimed that ... individuals who attempt to enter the United States without permission, do not have a legal basis to remain, and cannot be expelled pursuant to Title 42 will be increasingly subject to expedited removal from their country of origin and subject to a five-year ban on reentry. DHS and DOJ are surging asylum officers and immigration judges to review asylum cases at the border more quickly with the aim of reducing initial processing times from months to days, the document added. The administration also intends to mobilize faith-based and nonprofit organizations supporting migrants, including those providing temporary shelter, food, and humanitarian assistance. Islamic State says jihadis killed 2 in attack on Nigerian church The Islamic State has reportedly claimed responsibility for an attack on a Nigerian church during worship service that killed two guards and injured three members. The terror group claimed the Oct. 16 attack on the Celestial Church of God in the Felele area of Lokoja on behalf of the Islamic State West Africa Province on Instagram last week, according to United States-based news agency Sahara Reporters. The report states that the attackers used automatic weapons. "After killing the two guards, the congregants dispersed immediately," the social media statement was quoted as reading. The statement didn't disclose if the attackers entered the church. The terror group's statement also boasted that the Islamic State carried out 15 "successful" attacks in Kogi state alone in 2022. Sources told The Daily Trust in October that perpetrators invaded the church at about 8 p.m. on Oct. 16, a Sunday evening. The gunmen shot at members inside the church. The sources said the members injured or killed in the incident were rushed to a nearby medical center. The attack marked the second time that a church was reportedly attacked in the Lokoja area within weeks. The Daily Trust reported that another church in the Fedele area occurred a few weeks beforehand. A local police information officer told the outlet that "two female members of the church were killed in the attack, while others are receiving treatment for gun wounds." The rise of Islamic extremism in Nigeria in the last decade-plus has caused millions to flee their homes and thousands of deaths. The United Nations estimates that there are over 3.1 million internally displaced persons in Nigeria as of June 2022, fleeing insurgency and other forms of violence. While ISWAP presents a significant threat across the northeast, factions of Boko Haram and the al-Qaeda affiliate Ansaru also operate in some regions. These groups target non-Muslim communities and Muslims who disagree with or oppose their interpretation of Islamic practice and tradition. The Council of Foreign Religions reports that the violence by Islamic extremist groups has been primarily contained in the Muslim north, especially Borno state. In the last year, a handful of attacks have targeted churches in central or southern Nigeria. Last June, around 40 people were killed and dozens injured in a bomb-and-gun attack at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo on Pentecost Sunday. Bishop Jude Arogundade of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ondo in southwestern Nigeria spoke with The Christian Post and said that the massacre "left the entire community broken" and the "entire diocese shattered." Last September, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warned that religious freedom is deteriorating in Nigeria because of rising violence by non-state actors and that "poor governance" was driving and aggravating that violence. "In recent years, nonstate actor violence has increased in most parts of Nigeria, and this violence has yielded devastating humanitarian and human rights consequences, including but not limited to violence based on religion and other violations of Nigerians' rights to freedom of religion or belief," USCIRF stated in a report on violence in Africa's most populous country. "Violence that infringes on freedom of religion or belief in Nigeria includes militant Islamist violence, identity-based violence at the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and geographic heritage, mob violence against individuals accused of blasphemy, and violence impacting worship," explained the congressionally mandated body of independent experts tasked with advising the federal government on religious freedom issues. Militant Islamist groups, including the ISWAP, Boko Haram and Ansaru, have political and ideological objectives, including overthrowing secular governance and enforcing a particular interpretation of Islam, USCIRF reports. Many have raised concerns about what they perceive as the government's inaction in holding terrorists accountable for the rising murders and kidnappings, which some groups warn have reached the level of genocide. Minnesota pastor left paralyzed after slipping on ice outside church After slipping on ice in front of his church in Minnesota, which left him partially paralyzed, 64-year-old Pastor David Kent recounted his devastating experience while showing faith in God as a healer. Took one slip, I was down on the ground. My hands, my arms, my legs were all paralyzed, Kent of Christian Life Center in Golden Valley told KSPT, recalling the Dec. 16 accident. I couldnt move, my hands were in the snow. I knew that wasnt good. The pastor, who broke his neck, was taken to North Memorial Health Hospital where surgeons operated on his spine and he remains paralyzed in his arms and legs. They said we need to do surgery quickly, because hes broken his C4 and C5, the pastors wife, Susan, told KSPT. They said spinal cord injuries have to have surgery within 24 hours and if they didnt do it fast, (the area) below the C5 could be damaged as well. Pastor Kent was walking down the street that is owned by the church to talk to some tree-trimming workers when he slipped, according to an online fundraiser for his treatment, which is likely to cost more than $350,000. According to CCX Media, the pastor has self-pay health insurance. It will be a long road ahead of rehabilitation, occupational therapy and physical therapy, to determine when/if he will regain feeling and movement in his body, the fundraiser says. The rehab may be slow and take months, even years. Rehab will also work with the family and David to gain as much independence as possible. The pastor told KSPT he remains optimistic. It may be a slow healing, but I believe he is going to walk again, his wife, Susan, was quoted as saying. I dont know how long it will take, I dont know how much rehab hell have to go through. But we have hope. Pastor Kent added, I wouldnt wish this on anybody. Definitely, its been an experience where I can say Ive been blessed because of all the people that have come alongside and been a strength to me. He told CCX Media, I serve a mighty big God. Hes able to do exceeding, abundantly, above all that were able to ask. So, I have total faith. My God is a healer. The required 90-day in-patient rehab will cost about $3,900 a day. After David completes hospital inpatient rehab, he will need outpatient therapy which will bring much additional medical equipment expenses. The pastors family says they typically would never ask for money from friends, family and the community. However, David has given so much of himself that we are now asking the community to give back. We do not have the resources required, but we know that anything is possible when we all band together. Sadie Robertson says Christians can't keep personal, spiritual lives separate, calls for repentance "Duck Dynasty" star Sadie Robertson Huff urged thousands gathered at Passion 2023 to repent if their spiritual lives dont align with their personal lives, stressing that Christians shouldn't be afraid to "shine their light" by preaching about God anywhere, whether in class or at work. The 25-year-old outspoken reality TV star, podcaster and social media influencer was among many prominent Christian figures who spoke to thousands gathered at the Passion 2023 conference in Atlanta last week. The event ran from last Tuesday to Thursday. She stressed that a Christian's spirituality or their relationship with Jesus shouldn't should not be separate from the life they lead outside of the church and should invite Jesus into every aspect of their life. The influencer stated that a Christian's relationship with Jesus shouldn't be hidden when they are in secular spaces and around those who do not believe in God. "If it's true that the spirit of God is living inside of us, we should have Passion moments in the grocery store, then we should have Passion moments every place we go, then revival really should happen," she said. "We say all the time we want revival to happen, 'God, bring revival.' I just wonder, why isn't it happening? I don't think it's because God is not doing His job. I think it's because we are not responding to ours." "Everywhere we go could be a place of miracles," she continued. "Everywhere we go is a moment to share the Good news. But I think in order for that to happen, it has to become personal to you." Robertson Huff encouraged the crowd to think of how they can turn their spheres of influence and the places they spend most of their time into areas of ministry. She pushed back against thoughts that churches and small groups are the only places ministry can happen. "I just want us to wake up to the idea that your truck, your finance class, your walks to school with your friends, your apartment, that is the place ministry should be happening the most," she said. "Why? Because you're there. How? Because the Spirit of God is living inside of you." "We have places where our spiritual life takes place, and we have places where our personal life takes place," she added. "Those two things don't really merge a lot of the time. But I think we have to get it out of our heads that those two things are different things, and they have to become one thing." She used the example of Jesus preaching from Peter's boat in Luke 5. Robertson Huff warned attendees that they shouldn't only talk about their spiritual lives when they are only around other Christians, stressing that a Christian's ministry is the glue that ties their spiritual life to their personal life. "Wherever I am is a place for ministry to happen. Because ministry is not waiting for you on a platform. And ministry is not a job position or a title. Ministry is who you are," she said. "And it's where you are. And it's what you do. No matter who you are, or where you are or what you do. Because you are a disciple of Christ, ministry is a full-time thing. Ministry is not a separate thing." For many Christians today, she said, their spiritual lives might contradict their personal lives because they are living in unrepentant sin. "Maybe you're afraid to fully surrender and fully ask for repentance because you're scared you're going to go back to it. But, the worst thing for you to do would be to try to go back to it alone," Robertson Huff advised. "The best thing you can do is say: 'Jesus, I need you to be a part of this side of my life because I don't have the power to break the addiction in my own strength. I need your Spirit," she added. "When things start to get personal with Jesus, I think repentance is a natural response. And many of you, it's starting to get so personal, it feels uncomfortable to let yourself go to that place." Robertson Huff led the crowd in a prayer of repentance as her sermon came to a close. "God, I thank you that Your Son died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins so that I can live with hope. Holy Spirit, I invite you into my life. Convict me in the areas that I try to go back to. God free me of my old self and help me to walk in my new self," she prayed. "God, I pray that people notice the change in me. I pray that people will ask me the question: 'what happened to you?' so that I can just speak Your name. God, my life will be to give you glory. My life will be for your name. My life will be a living testimony to the faithfulness of you, God. I will be a part of a generation that will bring revival to this earth." The Passion movement was launched in 1995 by pastor Louie Giglio of Passion City Church in Atlanta. This year's conference featured several Christian leaders and pastors, including Giglio, Jackie Hill Perry, Tim Tebow and others. Passion movement's ministry statement declares: "For us, what matters most is the name and renown of Jesus. We believe in this generation and are watching God use them to change the climate of faith around the globe." After fighting for money and opportunity for Hartford during 36 years in the state legislature, Sen. John W. Fonfara is now making a new move in his hometown: running for mayor. A lifelong Hartford resident, Fonfara has never strayed far from the city attending the local public schools in his youth and still living in the citys South End that has become his political power base. But with Mayor Luke Bronin stepping down, Fonfara sees a major opportunity. He said Monday that he would have supported Bronin for another four-year term because he has done a phenomenal job, but Bronin says that eight years of running the capital city is long enough. Whats driving me to this is the mayors job is direct, hands on, every day with 400 people behind you hopefully all rowing in the same direction to make Hartford better, Fonfara told The Courant in an extended interview. Unfortunately, the neighborhoods of Hartford struggle in some places with extreme poverty, lack of opportunity. Could I stay on as the state senator? Could I stay on as the chairman of the finance committee? Yeah. But I feel that I have this opportunity to transform our city. The goal and the objective is to provide opportunities to those families that are here. Recently elected to another two-year term, Fonfara does not need to step down because he is not up for re-election until 2024. He is expected to run against at least three other opponents in the Democratic primary in September. Fonfara ranks among the most influential legislators because he serves as co-chairman of the powerful tax-writing finance committee, and he is expected to play a key role in the coming months as Gov. Ned Lamont says he wants to enact a middle-class tax cut. The details are expected to be released in Lamonts budget address next month, and a final package is expected before the legislature adjourns in early June. A low-key lawmaker who does not seek headlines or rush in front of the television cameras, Fonfara is known for working behind the scenes at the state Capitol on complicated bills on issues like electricity prices and taxes. He said he developed his stoic personality from his mother, who turns 98 years old in three weeks. His father recently turned 99. At 67, Fonfara said he wants to turn around the entire mindset in the city and establish a new era of optimism in the region. You shouldnt have to move out of Hartford to get a better life, he said. People in Hartford currently do that. Its not that they want to leave Hartford. Many are born and raised here. Their families are here. Their house of worship is here. Their friends are here. But if they have children or if they feel that another place is safer or has greater opportunity, they seek higher ground. No one can blame them, but we have to compete for that person and we have to give them reasons to stay here. Fonfara added, This is a major tenet of mine in this effort we have to grow incomes in Hartford. I dont mean doing that by importing people. By raising incomes and opportunities for the residents who are here, particularly in those neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Its a very tall task, but the alternative for me is unacceptable. Were constantly exporting success stories. Constantly. And I want to reverse that. State Senator John Fonfara of Hartford, left, confers with Senate Democratic chief of staff Vinnie Mauro outside Fonfaras office as they discussed late-night negotiations that were taking place at the Capitol in recent years. They were discussing the tax package a key responsibility for Fonfara as co-chairman of the finance committee. Fonfara will be running against a growing field that includes former Sen. Eric Coleman, a longtime friend who once represented 40% of Hartford as Fonfara still represents the other 60%. He described Coleman as a dear friend who sat next to him for 20 years in the Senate circle and in the Democratic caucus room at the Capitol. I hope it is a contest of ideas on our visions of Hartford, Fonfara said. I would hope that people will look at our records. Im not going to be critical of anyone. This is too serious of a job. Fonfara also did not have any criticism of Hartford Land Bank President Arunan Arulampalam, who is also running in the crowded Democratic field. Nice guy. Smart guy, Fonfara said of Arulampalam. He came to me this past session to help him in his role with the Land Bank. The two Democrats worked together in securing millions of dollars for the Land Bank in an effort to help the city with increased home ownership and improved neighborhoods. He is also running against city council member Nick Lebron, a lifelong resident who was born in the citys North End and holds a masters degree from Trinity College. While he also represents Wethersfield, Fonfara represents a large swath of Hartford that stretches from the citys southern border and goes north to the SAND Elementary School on Main Street above Albany Avenue. He also represents downtown, Frog Hollow, and the area around the Colt building off Interstate 91 along the citys eastern border that stretches along the Connecticut River. A lobbyists pin on women With the political campaign starting, those who oppose Fonfara are recalling an incident that generated headlines in April 2018 when Fonfara apologized following a clash with a lobbyist at the Capitol. Arvia Walker, a lobbyist at Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, reported that Fonfara had noted that she was wearing a Stand with Black Women pin and responded, I need a stand with white men pin. Walker then said that she responded by saying, No you dont because the entire country stands with white men. To that, Fonfara replied, Youve been listening to propaganda You should walk in my shoes one day. Nearly five years later, Fonfara, who grew up in public housing in Hartford, now says that he learned lessons from that time and is grateful to Walker. That experience made me look inward to participate in a personal discovery which made me appreciate that its frankly aspirational to live in a colorblind society, but that assumes that every community is starting with the same advantages and has the same opportunities, he said. As difficult as it was to endure at the time, I know that its where my journey began a journey that helped me recognize and appreciate how much race still determines a person and a communitys opportunities in life. Its a journey that will never end. Another issue raised by detractors is that Fonfara owed more than $50,000 in federal taxes to the Internal Revenue Service that became public after a lien was filed at Hartford city hall for debts that were owed in 2008 and 2009. Fonfara said after the lien became public that it was related to a billboard company that he no longer owns and that he had successfully made arrangements with the IRS to pay off the debt. Clashes on energy committee For years, the legislatures energy committee was known for ongoing clashes and epic battles that even top legislators described as dysfunctional. At the center of it, Fonfara often his disagreed with his co-chairwoman, Rep. Vickie Nardello of Prospect. Nardello was generally seen as supporting more regulation of the utilities, while Fonfara often favored a free-market approach on various issues. They even disagreed on the size of the bills, with Nardello preferring smaller bills and Fonfara not opposed to complicated, 120-page bills in the final, frantic days of the legislation session. The two co-chairs admitted their clashes, but they also passed major legislation at the time. Nardello lost her House seat in November 2014, and then lost in a Senate race in 2018 to Republican Rob Sampson of Wolcott. The volatility cap Fonfara has become known at the Capitol as the father of the volatility cap a key provision in state law that prevents the legislature from spending excessive money from capital gains that are generated in boom years on Wall Street. The cap has been credited with helping create the largest surpluses in state history in recent years allowing billions of dollars to be transferred to the long-underfunded pension plans for state employees and teachers. If the economic patterns continue, the states rainy day fund could grow to $6.17 billion later this year, allowing $2.8 billion to be siphoned off for the pension funds. But Fonfara, who was the lead senator to introduce the idea years ago, said that others were involved in the budget deal of 2017 that was crafted by legislators without the input of then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. People give me credit on the volatility cap, but none of this would have happened without bipartisanship, Fonfara said. It would not have happened without [then-Senate Republican leader] Len Fasano, who was a statesman who stood up. Its a little lost art when we watch things at the national level these days, but he deserves as much credit for what happened as anybody. Sen. John Fonfara has been involved in key negotiations on numerous bills at the Capitol for years. Here, he is shown in July 2017, talking with Sen. Joan Hartley of Waterbury, a key Democratic swing voter on financial issues. Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com Enough with the fake friendships I have a friend who I used to be regularly involved with that now only sends me a text twice a year once on my birthday and another on my wedding anniversary. Nothing much, just a simple Happy and thats it. I absolutely hate getting them. Im sure youll call me petty, ask me what I did to spoil things, tell me I should be grateful that someone anyone takes the time to wish me well, and say that its how most people roll today where personal interactions are concerned. After all, we just dont have the time to really be involved in other peoples lives, do we? Plus, doesnt the Bible warn us that A man of too many friends comes to ruin (Prov 18:24)? Maybe its just the sigma male in me that bristles at superficial exchanges like these. But something tells me Im far from being alone in my position that there should be more to friendships than the Im-only-sending-you-this-because-you-came-up-on-my-digital-tickler-today type of interaction. Psychologist Kathleen Smith gives us the bad news when she writes, Whether we realize it or not, many of our relationships are built on a foundation of superficial chatter, mutual disdain for others, and anxious focus on those we love. I doubt thats what you want in a friendship; I know I dont. Smith goes on to say: Most of us dont want our relationships to stay stalled in surface-level conversations. We crave relationships where we can talk about our beliefs and experiences, even if they are different. We want to be honest about how were doing, and what we want, without the other person anxiously trying to fix us or edge away. But having this kind of relationship with our friends, much less our family, seems daunting. To make matters worse, we have the less-than-pure motivation some people have for being friends with us, which Pastor Tim Keller speaks about: It is disappointing to note that the vast majority of people only associate with us because they believe we can help them in some way. Not a pretty picture, huh? Proverbs 18:24 does indeed warn that those kinds of superficial friends can wreck us but then goes on to say that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Im betting its that type of friend we really want and, hopefully, desire to become to other people. The Hebrew word for friend in the Proverbs passage is ahab, or aheb, and is a very strong word that literally means lover. Its used elsewhere to describe Gods friendship with Abraham: Did You not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever? (2 Chron. 20:7) and Jonathans friendship with David: Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself (1 Sam. 18:1). Thats the kind of friend you and I both crave, but as Dr. Smith said, those kinds of relationships are becoming more difficult and rarer, in large part due to our current cultures social media conditioning that trains us to be aloof, uncaring, and self-centered. Such an attitude is bad enough when its aimed at other people, but its an eternal catastrophe when its directed at God. The superficial friendship you never want to have The God /Jesus is your friend sermonette, which bypasses repentance, obedience, self-denial, and a call to personal holiness is extraordinarily popular today because its laced with the same superficiality as our social media-induced fake acquaintance-making. God becomes another personality we attach to loosely and is looked upon in a how-do-I-benefit-from-you manner. That kind of affiliation ends up producing what the puritan Matthew Mead calls the almost Christian with the end result of that kind of relationship being tragic. We see Jesus describe it this way: Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness (Matt. 7:21-23). God forbid that happens to any one of us. To avoid that end, you and I both need to eschew not only the indifference-oriented and inauthentic relationship ways of which the world reeks but also the shallow and unsaving friendship with God that is taught today in too many pulpits. Instead, we want to have the kind of real, saving relationship with Jesus that Lazarus had. History tells us that after he was raised from the dead by Jesus, Lazarus traveled down the south coast of Cyprus to a city called Larnaca where he became the bishop of the church there. When archaeologists uncovered his sarcophagus on Larnaca over which a church now stands, they found an inscription whose ending line can hopefully describe us one day: Lazarus, Bishop of Larnaca Four days dead Friend of Jesus Why Mr. Rogers was better than Barney, but he'd be in big trouble today Not that long ago, culturally speaking, someone known throughout the world for being neighborly said some things that most likely would have gotten him fired today. And, believe it or not, he said these things on public television! Fred Rogers of "Mister Rogers Neighborhood"often performed songs he wrote to address issues that confused children or caused them to struggle. One of these songs, Everybodys Fancy, was featured in numerous episodes of his hit show from 1968 to 1991. He hoped to help children love and value their bodies and to respect other children, too. Rogers was, of course, completely unaware of the modern controversies over LGBTQ identities that would soon dominate the culture, but, in several lines of the song, he expressed truths that are no longer permitted to be said out loud. "Boys are boys from the beginning. Girls are girls right from the start. Everybodys fancy, everybodys fine. Your bodys fancy and so is mine. Only girls can grow up to be the mommies. Only boys can grow up to be the daddies." Can you imagine someone saying these things on PBS today? In fact, in a segment last year from the "Lets Learn" TV series, PBS stations across the country featured a drag queen who goes by the stage name Lil Miss Hot Mess singing lines from his book, The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish, to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round. Hot Mess is a grown man who dresses in flamboyant and exaggerated womens clothing and makeup, and then seeks an audience with children. The most obvious takeaway is that any trust previous generations of parents and kids had for public television was, long ago, squandered. A second takeaway is just how quickly some ideas have shifted from being unthinkable to unquestionable. Therefore, we should doubt anyone who tries to gaslight us into thinking were regressive bigots for believing male and female are realities built into human nature. Only a short time ago, some facts were considered so obvious and universally accepted that Mister Rogers could sing about them to children on a publicly funded medium, and no one thought anything whatsoever about gender dysphoria, transgender identity or drag queens when he did. Does that mean Fred Rogers was a bigot? Was he a transphobe? No. In fact, no one had ever heard of such accusations at the time. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, Rogers viewed the world in a noticeably Christian way. Though he didnt often discuss his faith publicly, his dedication to and concern for children was, in very real ways, Christ-like. For example, Rogers did not avoid difficult subjects if he believed kids needed to talk about them. So, he dealt with death, divorce, and racism, and he had a way of empathizing with the especially deep sorrow and confusion children can feel over such things. Everybodys Fancy was Rogers way of teaching children that they are fearfully and wonderfully made. For Rogers, that included talking about the human body as something good, as worth appreciating and caring for. Mister Rogers even taught children that one thing that made bodies special was that they were gendered, and that this gender had significance for who and what they would become in life. As he said, only boys can grow up to be daddies, and only girls can grow up to be mommies. In this, "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood" was unlike so many childrens shows that vaguely taught and sang about how everyone is special. Barney was not only irritating, it was gnostic. Mr. Rogers, at least in this song, had a robust applied creational theology. Thats not to say Mr. Rogers always got it right. It seems, for example, that his compassion eventually got in the way of clear thinking on sexuality and gender, though he kept his views quiet for the sake of avoiding controversy. Even so, his strong affirmation of the goodness and permanence of male and femaleand the fact that he generated no controversy for saying these thingsshould make us think. What he sang then is no less obviously true now, and its absurd to suggest that Mister Rogers was some hate-filled bigot for holding these views, as our president seemed to imply recently. No, its those who tell children that their fancy bodies may, in fact, be the wrong bodies and in need of social, chemical, or surgical alteration, who are living in the land of make-believe. Originally published at Breakpoint. Jackie Hill Perry warns Satan trying to destroy 'entire generation of Christians with witchcraft' Christian author Jackie Hill Perry said Wednesday that too many churches are giving Satan room to destroy and leading a generation of Christians to be more comfortable engaging with elements of witchcraft rather than engaging with the true power of the Holy Spirit. The 33-year-old ex-lesbian rapper, author, poet and Bible preacher was among many prominent Christian speakers who spoke at Passion 2023 conference in Atlanta this week. She warned that if ministry leaders dont lean on the Holy Spirit and the move of God, their ministry becomes ineffective. Perry told the thousands gathered for the three-day event held from Tuesday to Thursday that churches failing to acknowledge the power of the Holy Spirit can prevent Christians from being transformed through deliverance. The enemy is trying to destroy an entire generation of Christians with witchcraft. He wants us to consider alternative sources of power for joy, for peace [and] for a right mind, Perry warned midway through her sermon. I think some of the blame for that is the Church because we have been raised in churches that are more afraid of the Holy Spirit than they are of Harry Potter. The Gay Girl Good God author suggested some Christians are confused because they dont know how to approach the spiritual realm properly. I see why you're confused because you've seen people exegesis with the Spirit but not exercise with the Spirit. You've seen things in your room at night. You've seen things manifest in people. But, everyone explains it away as if we are not in a world with demons, in churches with demons, in conversations with people full of demons, including pastors, Perry said. Perry said a significant issue is that the prophets have been silenced within some churches. And so you get on TikTok, and you see [things such as] a psychic tell you that she could tell you your future," she said, pointing out one way many Christians are deceived today. "It's because they've muted the prophets in the Church. So you're going to the devil seeers instead of the Lord. "If God is the one who was and who is to come, that means He is already in the future now. So you don't need psychics full of a limited understanding of the future. You need the Lord. Don't play with the devil. She stated that the Lord gave the Church authority to trample over serpents, not to submit to them. If God is with you, so is His power. There is power in Gods presence, she said. Perry said that if church leaders continue to tiptoe around the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians may start to turn toward worldly things. I think we are tempted to draw power from some other sources than God as a means of creating what looks like ministry. When in fact, it was just manipulation bordering on witchcraft, Perry preached. A good sermon isn't powerful if the Spirit doesn't move. Good worship isn't powerful if the Spirit doesn't move. Yeah, they cry. Yeah, they lifted their hands, but were they delivered? Were they changed? Were they set free? Is their mind new or was it a motion? Everyone needs the Holy Spirit's power, Perry said, and Gods Spirit is ready and available for all Christians if they trust that they do have Gods presence. The effectiveness of your ministry is wholly dependent on God. And if it's wholly dependent on God, that means you need to be more dependent on God. We have folks who are Ph.D.s from seminary and second graders in prayer. God is with you. The good news is that you don't have to go too far to find Him, Perry said. The speaker stressed that for revival to be successful, God needs to move for people to respond. Conversion is a work of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit, spiritual understanding and the opening of the mind to understand Scripture is a work of the Holy Spirit, Perry continued. It does not matter how clever you are, how winsome you are, how interesting you are, or even how intellectual you are. All of those are useful insofar as the Holy Spirit moves. If God doesn't move, people will not respond. The Passion movement was launched in 1995 by Pastor Louie Giglio. This years conference featured several Christian thought leaders and pastors, including Tim Tebow, Sadie Robertson, Christine Caine and others. Passion movement's ministry statement declares: For us, what matters most is the name and renown of Jesus. We believe in this generation and are watching God use them to change the climate of faith around the globe. Journey founder Neal Schon raises alarm over Paula White-Cains access to bands bank accounts Televangelist's attorney says claims are 'nonsensical' Neal Schon, founding member and guitarist of the rock band Journey, is calling for the removal of Paula White-Cain, televangelist and spiritual advisor to former President Donald Trump, as an authorized signatory on the band's bank accounts, arguing that it violates an agreement he has with White-Cain's husband, Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain. A cease and desist letter sent to White-Cain dated Dec. 12, 2022, was reviewed by The Christian Post. Schon's attorney Mark Angert, a partner at the law firm Solomon Ward Seidenwurm & Smith, LLP, alleges that despite a mutual agreement between Schon and Cain "that the business of the band and the Journey Related Entities would be handled only by Mr. Schon and Mr. Cain as individuals," White-Cain's name "appears as an authorized signatory on the City National Bank accounts of Freedom JN LLC" in which Schon is a co-owner. "This is in direct contradiction of the parties' agreement and was done without the authorization of Mr. Schon. We demand that you take all necessary actions to remove your name from the City National Bank accounts of Freedom JN LLC and any other legal documents of all Journey Related Entities and provide the undersigned with documents demonstrating your removal," the letter to White-Cain reads. "We further demand that you immediately cease and desist and refrain in the future from inserting yourself in any business of the band and any legal entities used by the band as this contradicts the existing agreement between Mr. Schon and Mr. Cain," Angert added. A spokesperson for Schon noted in a statement to CP that Schon previously alleged that "Cain and Paula herself have been accessing the band's financial resources, including the Journey American Express account, and obscuring information, even to the point of blocking Schon's legitimate access to those accounts." Citing multiple media reports on White-Cain's history, Schon's spokesperson painted the televangelist as a "national level con artist" focused on gaining wealth and what it brings. "As with all aspects of her life, Paula's marriage to Cain is easily tied to access to wealth and the trappings thereof. Beyond the Christian cover for Paula's twisted aspirations for wealth and power Paula's outrageously exorbitant lifestyle has been showcased across the 'faith leader's' social media, including extravagant gifts attributed to Cain," the statement said. White was asked to provide the attorney with evidence of her removal from the City National Bank accounts of Freedom JN LLC and any other Journey-related entities by Dec. 27, 2022. Alan Gutman, Paula White-Cain's attorney, insists that "the entire claim" by Schon "is nonsensical." "Neal's attorney recommended Neal and Jonathan own their respective 50% interests in the band's operating entities through their personal trusts. Paula is a co-trustee of Jonathan's personal trust, therefore, Jonathan and Paula signed as the co-trustees of Jonathan's personal trust. But that never would have happened if Neal's lawyer had not recommenced it," Gutman said in a statement to CP on Wednesday. "And it was clearly described that they were acting as the co-trustees of Jonathan's personal trust at the time that Neal signed the documents. Critically, Neal never complained for two years. When Neal finally complained (and we do not need to explain the real reason why he started complaining, which had nothing to do with [the] fact that Paula was co-trustee of Jonathan's trust or listed on any papers), Jonathan offered to have his ownership interest transferred from his personal trust to him personally. While that offer would have resolved the issue, Neal refuses to cooperate in any resolution, once again demonstrating that the claim is entirely pretextual." When asked if White-Cain had responded directly to Schon's demand letter, it was alleged by Schon's camp that "Paula's attorney, Alan Gutman, wrote to Neal's attorney, Mark Angert, and threatened him." Responding to the claim from Schon's camp about the threats, Gutman's office provided a copy of his letter to Angert dated Dec. 16, 2022, which presented the same arguments he included in his initial statement to CP. "In sum, notwithstanding the fact it was Mr. Schon's counsel who created the problem, Mr. Cain has remained willing to amend the operating agreement and signature cards so that it is in his name as opposed to the interests assigned to his personal trust. It is your client who has obstructed those efforts," Gutman wrote. "He can hire new or different counsel, but it does not change the facts. If he has any legitimate interest in resolution, Mr. Schon can simply execute the revised Operating Agreement negotiated by his other attorney, Colin Rolfs. I implore you to learn the facts before further jeopardizing the band's relationship with CNB assuming you have not already destroyed it. If that happens, as noted above, your misguided actions will result in personal liability to your client," he added. In recent months Schon and Cain have been at odds over the use of the band's songs at political events. Schon recently served his bandmate with a cease-and-desist order after Cain performed "Don't Stop Believin'" for Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November with a backing "chorus" including Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Kari Lake. "Although Mr. Cain is free to express his personal beliefs and associations, when he does that on behalf of Journey or for the band, such conduct is extremely deleterious to the Journey brand as it polarizes the band's fans and outreach. Journey is not, and should not be, political," the order said, according to a Variety report. "Mr. Cain has no right to use Journey for politics. His politics should be his own personal business. He should not be capitalizing on Journey's brand to promote his personal political or religious agenda to the detriment of the band," it added, noting that it is a "harmful use of the brand." Black History Month: 8 historically significant African American churches Throughout the centuries of African American history, the Christian faith has been a central component of the culture and heritage of blacks in the United States. In times when African Americans were barred from voting or holding public office, churches served as the area of community influence and impact over the culture at large. Here are eight congregations, established at different times, places, and belonging to different denominations that hold great historical significance for a host of reasons, including influence over the broader culture, ties to prominent people, or tragic events. They include the main pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the first official black congregation in New York, and the home church of the first African American president of the United States. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next Catholic hospital can't refuse to remove uterus from trans-identified patient, judge rules A federal court ruled the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center broke the law by refusing to remove the uterus of a trans-identified patient due to the religious beliefs of the Institution, which is committed to Catholic principles while also being part of the public medical system. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah K. Chasanow ruled Friday that the hospital violated the Affordable Care Act and discriminated against plaintiff Jesse Hammons, a biological female diagnosed with gender dysphoria, by refusing to conduct a planned hysterectomy (removal of the womb) because it doesn't conduct those procedures to address gender dysphoria. The ruling acknowledged that St. Joseph's policy is guided by the National Catholic Bioethics Center's interpretation of Ethical and Religious Directives, which prohibits such procedures because they do not "conform to the true good of the human person, who is a body-soul union unalterably created male or female." Chasanow, a Clinton appointee, issued a summary judgment stating that the facility may not assert a defense based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because it receives federal funds. The hospital was purchased by the University of Maryland Medical System in 2012 with an agreement that the hospital would continue to "operate in a manner consistent with Catholic values and principles." The hospital also has to comply with a "'formal reporting mechanism' to ensure St. Joseph is held accountable for its 'Catholic identity.'" A representative of the Archdiocese of Baltimore serves on the hospital's board. In 2019, UMMS scheduled Hammons for a hysterectomy after a doctor "determined that a hysterectomy was the proper treatment" for gender dysphoria. The procedure was scheduled for January 2020. Hammons was later informed that the hospital could not perform the procedure because it was for "gender transition." Hammons rescheduled the surgery at another hospital after another round of pre-operative tests. The hysterectomy was completed in June 2020. The hospital and the UMMS are reviewing the judge's decision. "We dispute many of the conclusions that were reached in this decision and may be in a position to comment further after additional analysis of the ruling," a statement sent to The Christian Post by a UMMS spokesperson reads. "Legal disagreements aside, we sincerely wish the very best for Mr. Hammons and we support his efforts to seek the highest quality healthcare. We may disagree on certain technical, legal points but compassion for the patients we serve remains foundational to our work." The statement adds that the legal claim stems from a "surgeon mistakenly scheduling a procedure that could not be performed at UM SJMC." "Although our offer to perform gender affirming surgery at a different location was declined by Mr. Hammons, the University of Maryland Medical System remains committed to meeting the unique medical needs of transgender individuals and patients who are routinely scheduled by physicians for appointments and procedures at UMMS member organizations," the statement concludes. In a statement shared by the American Civil Liberties Union, Hammons called the ruling "a great win for myself and all transgender people." "All I wanted was for UMMS to treat my health care like anyone else's, and I'm glad the court recognized how unfair it was to turn me away," Hammons said. "I'm hopeful UMMS can change this harmful policy and help more transgender people access the care they need." The ruling in Maryland comes as other federal courts have prevented the Biden administration from enforcing on certain religious organizations a regulation requiring medical providers and health insurers to provide or cover gender transition surgeries. In December, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing finalized regulations pertaining to Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act against several Catholic organizations. That ruling followed an August decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding an order permanently blocking the administration from requiring Christian doctors and hospitals to perform gender-affirming procedures. The Biden administration didn't appeal the 5th Circuit decision blocking the federal mandate. "There are now two federal appellate decisions affirming these broad injunctions, blocking the government from forcing [medical providers] to perform or ensure gender transitions," Luke Goodrich, senior counsel of the religious freedom legal organization Becket Law, said during a conference call in December. "I think this is a very powerful precedent under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This is the same law that has protected religious minorities for over two decades now, also protected the Little Sisters of the Poor from the contraception mandate." Jack Hayford, pastor and writer of worship song Majesty, dies at age 88 Jack W. Hayford, a prominent pastor, author, seminary chancellor and the man who wrote the popular contemporary Christian worship song Majesty, has died at the age of 88. Jack Hayford Ministries posted an announcement on its Facebook page confirming that he died on Sunday evening at his home in Los Angeles, California. His family said he died peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of the morning, having eaten dinner with his wife, Valarie, and having spoken to one of his grandkids the evening before, stated the ministry. Today, we mourn his loss but celebrate the homecoming of a great leader in Gods kingdom. We know that this great servant and worshipper is now experiencing the greatest worship service of all. Responding to Hayford's passing, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, pastor and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, shared the late pastor's impact on his life. "I had the privilege of calling him a friend. He spoke into my life, always encouraging me to make room for the Holy Spirit," Rodriguez wrote on Facebook. "Pastor Jack did change the world. He demonstrated that the Spirit Empowered/Charismatic movement can be both prophetic and practical, innovative, and intelligent, anointed and artistic." Born in 1934 in Los Angeles, California, Hayford survived a bout with polio when he was a child and viewed his healing as a sign that he was meant to become a pastor. Hayford helped found The Kings University and Seminary in 1997, serving as its chancellor. He also served as the founding pastor of The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, California, for decades, and was the president of The Foursquare Church from 2004 to 2009. Hayford wrote several books and hundreds of songs, the most notable of which was the song Majesty, which was released in 1978 and has been recorded and performed numerous times. In an entry on his ministry website, Hayford explained that the inspiration for Majesty came when he and his first wife, Anna, were visiting the United Kingdom in 1977. While visiting many of the castles of the land, I began to sense the influence one might feel if raised as a child in such regal settings, Hayford recounted, adding that the sense of regal destiny pervades many of those sites and influences many of those people. So powerfully did the sense of Christ Jesus royalty, dignity, and majesty fill my heart; I seemed to feel something new of what it meant to be His! The accomplished triumph of His Cross has not only unlocked us from the chains of our own bondage and restored us to fellowship with the Father, but He has also unfolded to us a life of authority over sin and hell and raised us to partnership with Him in His Throne now! At the National Religious Broadcasters' 2014 Convention, Hayford was inducted into the Evangelical media organization's Hall of Fame for his televangelism career. "I think the challenge that we face is remembering that we are called to love one another, but also to serve the world with the Gospel," said Hayford in his acceptance speech. In 2017, Hayfords wife of more than 60 years, Anna, who had helped to lead The Church of the Way, died of stage four pancreatic cancer at the age of 83. Hayford later remarried. Hayford leaves behind his second wife, Valerie, four children, 11 grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. Pastor who fled war in Congo is shot dead, left like trash in Nashville A Nashville pastor who fled war in the Congo to find a better life in America was shot dead outside his apartment last Thursday and left like trash in the yard until a concerned neighbor called the police for help. A statement from the Nashville Metro Police Department which is investigating the murder said the body of Pastor Lubunga Lumenge, 30, was found by a passerby just before 7 a.m. in the grass just outside his apartment in the parking lot of Residences at Stonebrook Apartments. Residents at the complex report hearing a single gunshot at approximately 4 a.m. Semetta Simmons told News Channel 5 she discovered Lumenges body just steps from someone's patio door "just lying there and people were just walking past him like he was just trash in the yard." Thats when she said she was moved to call the police for help. Simmons, who lost a child to gun violence in Nashville, said she is just praying that the pastors family can find peace. "My prayers are with them. Just keep your head up, and Im so sorry that they had to experience this at the beginning of the year," she said. Friends and members of the Christian community in Nashville who knew Lumenge, who was a teacher in Tanzania where he first settled before coming to the U.S. after he fled the Democratic Republic of Congo, said he was a very active member of the Swahili Christian community. His death, according to Mto Biko who met Lumenge in church, is really devastating. Its really shocking, he told WKRN outside the pastors apartment. I was really devastated feeling like, is this real or am I just dreaming. Though he did not list a specific name for the church, Biko said Lumenge was an essential part of his faith community where he led a prayer team. He was a good person because he was someone who was really attached to the community and someone who was really willing to help other people and someone who was really concerned with other peoples problems or difficulties, Biko said. Hes originally from the Congo, but we all grew up in Tanzania after we fled the war in the Congo. He used to be a teacher back in Tanzania, and then, when he moved to the U.S., from what I know, in Dallas, he then started serving God in a church there in Dallas, he continued. In our community, its really shocking. We understand if somebody dies from sickness, we understand, he added. If somebody is shot, which is not part of our culture, we really, really feel bad and then devastated. Staffers at two major Nashville churches where Lumenge worshiped with his Swahili community remained tight-lipped about his passing when contacted by The Christian Post on Monday. David Johnson, an associate pastor at Grace Church of the Nazarene, said, Lubunga used to be a part of our church but they moved to a different location after a strain in the relationship between the Swahili ministry and Grace Church of the Nazarene which Johnson said he was not in a position to immediately discuss. He did acknowledge, however, that he was aware of Lumenges death. I found out about it just a couple of days ago. One of the other guys from the congregation contacted me and let me know about it, Johnson said. When asked how he felt about Lumenges death, he replied, of course I was concerned about it and sad about it. He further described Lumenge as very active in the Swahili ministry. Lil Cook, a ministry assistant at Woodmont Baptist Church that also operates a Swahili ministry, said Lumenge would come to events at the church where his brother-in-law, Useni Iweya, is a custodian but he had his own church which she did not name. He would come to events here but he was pastor at his own church, Cook said. We dont really know anything about it (murder). We were all just very sad for the family. Investigators are now urging anyone with information on Lumenges killing to call Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463. While he continues to pray for justice for his friend, Biko said he was confident that Lumenge must be gone to heaven. Texas mayor pleads for help as migrant COVID cases surge: 'A crisis the city did not create' The mayor of a Texas border town is pleading for help in responding to the immigration surge as an influx of positive COVID-19 cases flow across the border, leaving the town of McAllen overwhelmed. We finally need help, Mayor Javier Villalobos of McAllen, Texas, shared on Fox News The Ingraham Angle" last week, adding that politicians in Washington could change this with the stroke of a pen. People blame us sometimes here in the municipality and we tell them its outside of our jurisdiction, he shared. If you want to place blame, we know exactly where to do it and thats in Washington. And whether its the president, Congress, the Senate, whatever it is, theyre the ones who can take care of it. McAllen is a town of over 144,000 people located at the southern tip of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Watch the latest video at foxnews.com The lack of support from the White House and U.S. Congress places a heavy burden on local governments to contain the immigration surge, which puts a strain on their resources and workforce. At the very end, this is not our responsibility. We dont do this. We dont deal with immigration, the mayor of McAllen said. Villalobos also said the city is running out of money, and shared how the overflow of immigrants has led the city to set up emergency tents and issue an emergency disaster declaration. The declaration warned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection "is releasing an alarmingly substantial number of immigrants into the City, including individuals that are positive for COVID-19." The city of McAllen announced over 7,000 COVID-positive migrants had been released by CBP since mid-February, including over 1,500 COVID-positive immigrants released in the past week, Fox News reported. Immigrants released by CBP are sent to be tested by Catholic Charities, a third-party, and are asked to quarantine in a room if they test positive, according to Fox News. In its declaration, the city warned that nonprofits, including Catholic Charities' Humanitarian Respite Center, are "overwhelmed with the unanticipated influx of individuals and can no longer adequately feed, house, provide medical attention or otherwise accommodate the individuals being released into the City." The city said the "rapidly escalating" surge in immigration is developing a crisis bigger than the city can handle. "Despite the City of McAllen and its community partners best efforts, the sheer number of immigrants being released into the city has become a crisis: a crisis the City of McAllen did not create and has proactively tried to avoid for seven years," the city said in a statement. "This significant change increases the threat of COVID spread or other lawlessness within the city." Fox News Laura Ingraham asked the mayor if he had noticed a difference in the handling of immigration between the transition from former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden. Without trying to be political, the mayor said that six, seven, eight months ago, we did not have the issues we have now." "Its totally different, the mayor stressed. Biden has reversed many Trump-era immigration policies on the first day in office, including halting construction on the border wall. Many Republicans blame the new administration's border policies for the uptick in immigrants crossing the southern border in 2021. According to numbers released by the CBP, over 188,000 border enforcement encounters took place in June. In June 2019, the last year before the pandemic, there were over 104,000 border enforcement encounters. The year 2021 has seen the highest number of unlawful border crossings in over 20 years. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was tapped to be the border czar, has been criticized by Republicans for not being proactive in response to the border, instead focusing her efforts on the root causes in the countries of origin. Fears of COVID-19 surging because of an increase in immigrants testing positive and the introduction of the delta variant has sparked an order restricting some immigrants from crossing the border. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended an order last week restricting the introduction of certain immigrants coming from Canada and Mexico to protect public health and the spread of COVID-19 through Title 42 public health protections. In effect, the order means that the Biden administration will continue the Trump-era policy of quickly expelling migrants and asylum seekers from the U.S. to Mexico, CBS News reports. The order also includes an exemption for unaccompanied minors. "As part of the United States mitigation efforts in response to the rise in COVID-19 cases due to the delta variant, the Department of Homeland Security has begun to transport individuals expelled under Title 42 by plane to the Mexican interior," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Fox News on Friday. 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. Turkey plans to open its first-ever newly-built church in Istanbul The construction of the Mor Efrem Syriac Ancient Orthodox Church, the first-ever church built in the modern Republic of Turkey, is nearly complete and is expected to open within two months, the Istanbul Syriac Ancient Foundation has announced. The church's foundation was laid in February 2019 during a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbuls Yesilkoy district. Feverish work is being carried out to eliminate the last deficiencies to open the first-ever church of the Turkish republic, Daily Sabah quoted Sait Susin, the Foundation's president, as saying. The first floor will host the cultural hall for the congregation to gather and hold ceremonies such as baptisms, condolences and weddings, as well as other meetings and conferences, Susin explained. The ground floor will be for prayers and rituals, and will have a bishops living area, guest rooms and a parking lot, he added. Susin told Turkeys Anadolu Agency that the church cost about $4 million. He further explained that while there are churches from the Turkish Republic era, Mor Efrem Syriac Ancient Orthodox Church is the first church to be built from scratch in modern Turkey. They were built without official permission. It is the first time that a church has been officially built. This gives us great pride, he said. There was a need for a church in the Yesilkoy, Bakirkoy and Florya districts of Istanbul, where the Assyrian community is densely populated, Susin further said. Anadolu Agency previously reported that when completed, the church would serve about 17,000 Syriac Orthodox believers living in Istanbul. It suggested that the increase of the Syriac Christian minority in Turkey due to the Syrian civil war was one of the main reasons for Turkey agreeing to build a new church. Turkish authorities had previously set up a refugee camp reserved for Syriac Christians, hosting up to 4,000 people. Plans for the new church were first revealed in 2015, when Agence France Presse noted that the church would be the first one built since the end of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern republic in 1923. However, Christians have had strong religious freedom concerns during the administration of President Erdogan. Back in 2016, the government seized the last six remaining Christian churches in the war-torn southeastern city of Diyarbakir, declaring them state property. The decision caused outrage among the Armenian, Syriac and Chaldean communities and a number of church foundations, which threatened legal action. Last October, a Syriac monastery in southern Turkey reopened its doors to believers about 100 years after it was seized by the Turkish army and transformed into a military hospital before becoming a prison and warehouse. The Turkish army seized the monastery during World War I. The building was briefly returned to the Christian community after the war ended. But a few years later, the monastery was turned into a military hospital. It eventually became a prison and was later converted into a warehouse. Many Syriac Christians still speak Neo-Aramaic, a language that descended from the language spoken by Jesus. Christians have been living in southern Turkey since the first centuries of Christianity. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of Armenians, Greeks and other Christians were killed by Turkish authorities during World War I. Today, Syriac Christians comprise a tiny fraction of Turkey's population. In 2020, President Erdogan converted Istanbul's landmark and church-turned-museum, the Hagia Sophia, into a mosque. He also ordered another ancient Orthodox church, the Church of the Holy Saviour in Chora also known as the Kariye Museum to be turned into a mosque. Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, built in 537 A.D. as a Greek Orthodox church, was the seat of Eastern Christianity for 900 years before the city was seized in the 15th century by Sultan Mehmed II, who converted it into an Ottoman mosque. In 1934, modern Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, banned worship in Hagia Sophia and designated it as a museum. Originally built in the early fourth century by Constantine the Great, the Holy Saviour church was converted into the Kariye Mosque about 50 years after the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks. In 1945, the building was designated a museum by the Turkish government. The museum was opened for public display in 1958 after American art historians helped restore the original church's mosaics. Many believe Erdogan made the decision to turn the Hagai Sophia into a mosque as an attempt to gain support among his conservative base at a time when the opposition party had called for early elections. Kevin McCarthy elected speaker of the House on 15th vote Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California finally won the election for Speaker of the House of Representatives early Saturday morning after facing strong resistance from a contingent of conservative members of his party. McCarthy garnered enough votes on the 15th ballot to become House speaker, marking the first time since 1923 that a speakership election took more than one ballot. "My father always told me, 'It's not how you start, it's how you finish,'" McCarthy told House members for his first speech after winning the top House post. "And now, we need to finish strong for the American people." McCarthy directed some of his comments to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who the Democratic members of the lower house consistently supported through all 15 ballots. "There will be times we agree, and many times we will differ," McCarthy said to Jeffries. "I promise our debates will be passionate, but they will never be personal." McCarthy noted that "now, the hard work begins." Speaking directly to the nation, he declared that his "ultimate responsibility" is "to our country," not his party or Congress. "Two months ago, you voted for a new direction for our country," said McCarthy. "You embraced our commitment to America. And now, we're going to keep our commitment to you." Although McCarthy had been the favorite to win the speakership, he faced considerable opposition from a sizable minority of Republicans who believed he is not going to advance conservative policies or install much-needed changes to House rules. Notable critics included Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Chip Roy of Texas. McCarthy got a little over 200 votes on the first several ballots, which was well below the minimum number needed to secure the speakership. By Friday afternoon, after extensive behind-the-scenes conversations with Republican holdouts, McCarthy saw his vote count increase to 214 votes by the 13th ballot, finally passing Jeffries' usual 212 total. McCarthy finally prevailed on the 15th ballot with 216 votes, with six Republicans who had opposed him voting "present," which allowed the needed minimum number of votes to lower from the usual 218 requirement. "Look, the president has called this process an embarrassment, talking heads have labeled this chaos and a mess, and some would call it shambolic even, but it's called democracy," said Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina as he nominated McCarthy on the House floor, as reported by Politico. "We know it's messy. We know it's messy, but open and transparent debate is what sets us apart from authoritarian regimes." Newlywed Christian husband fatally shot by stray bullet as he slept with wife An Alabama church and its extended Christian family are now grappling with grief and trauma after one of its members, who got married last February, was fatally struck by a stray bullet while in bed with his wife on Wednesday morning. Huntsville Police Department investigators said 27-year-old Decatur Baptist Church member Andrew Gilliam was the victim of the shooting at the Sunlake at Edgewater apartments off Lakefront Drive around 3 a.m., WAAY reports. Officials say they found Gilliam with gunshot wounds when they got to the apartment, which he shares with his wife, Robin. He died from his injuries at Huntsville Hospital. Investigators have still not identified a suspect in the shooting but noted that two other apartments were fired upon, but no one else was injured. Authorities urge anyone with information that can help with the investigation to call 256-722-7100. Hours after Wednesday's shooting, members of Decatur Baptist Church came together for a prayer meeting where Lead Pastor Joe McKaig broke the news to those unaware of Gilliam's death, calling it "a random act of violence." "He was transported to Huntsville hospital where they performed surgery, but ultimately he succumbed to his injuries, and Andrew passed away. Tonight' he's with the Lord Jesus Christ," McKaig said during a broadcast of the prayer session on Facebook Live. "While we are terribly grief-stricken, he is fine. He is in the arms of his Savior. And more than fine, he is well." While Gilliam, an aerospace engineer, did not work at his church in any official capacity, his father, Jeff Gilliam, and mother, Terri Gilliam, are both employees there. A spokesperson told The Christian Post on Friday that Gilliam was very active in working with the youth. When asked how Gilliam's death hit him personally, having such a close relationship with the family, McKaig told CP on Friday that "the grief and sense of loss is incomprehensible." "Just the weight of it is beyond our ability, so we rest in God and trust in His word. And believe His word. We reject the lies of the enemy and believe the word of God that Andrew is in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is eternally saved. He isn't in any way lost. We know where he is, and we get to go be with him one day," he said. McKaig said he wants to make it clear that Gilliam "was a good man" and "he didn't bring this on himself." "He wasn't involved in any nefarious activity that would have caused this," he said. He further described Gilliam as a "quality individual" who was "very faithful and loyal to his wife" during an interview with WAAY. "Andrew was an outstanding young man who was very faithful and loyal to his wife. He was a loving son, grandson and son-in-law, and he's a quality individual," McKaig said. "This random act of violence was none of his doing, and we're all very, very grief-stricken to have lost him." McKaig also noted that Gilliam and his wife helped launch a new small group for young couples, "and they served faithfully." A wedding profile on The Knot shows that Andrew and Robin Gilliam wed on Feb. 13, 2021, and would have celebrated their second wedding anniversary next month. The couple was also planning on buying a home in Decatur, according to McKaig. "They were looking for a home and considering buying a home here in the Decatur area," he said. McKaig told WAAY that Gilliam worked for Qualis as an aerospace engineer, and he and his wife chose to live in Sunlake at Edgewater Apartments because it was only 15 minutes away from his job. "Tonight we weep with those that weep. We won't be looking for answers. We won't be seeking answers. We don't have answers and we don't necessarily need answers. We need God and certainly, Andrew's family needs God, so tonight we're going to pray," McKaig declared at the prayer vigil on Wednesday. He also urged members to pray, especially for Gilliam's widow. "I encourage you tonight to certainly pray for Robin, Andrew's wife of two years, almost two years. It would have been two years next month," the pastor said. "She not only is suffering the incredible grief of the loss of her husband, she also has experienced and incredibly traumatic event." Revelation 6: Persecution and the blood of the martyrs During the early years of Christian martyrdom, Christians fled by the thousands into underground caverns outside of Rome. There were nearly 600 miles of molelike tunnels and passageways where they hid. At least 10 generations of Christians were buried in the catacombs during approximately 300 years of persecution. The number of believers interred in the tunnels is unknown, but some archaeologists have estimated it to be between 1,750,000 and 4,000,000. Inscriptions of Holy Scripture are still visible on the catacomb walls. Perhaps the most frequent one is the sign of the fish. A particular inscription, however, summarizes what kept them from losing or abandoning their faith. It reads, The Word of God is not bound. Every believer in Christ is deeply indebted to the faithful witness of these Christ followers. As Tertullian said, The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Still, persecution and martyrdom, for Christs sake, are not simply a thing of the past. Far from it. According to the 2022 World Watch List (WWL) published by Open Doors International, which has supported persecuted Christians worldwide for over 60 years, nearly 360 million Christians, 1 in 7 globally, suffered discrimination and persecution for their Christian faith. As many as 5,898 were murdered for their profession of Christ up more than 23% from 2020. More than 5,000 churches were attacked or forced to shut their doors an increase of 13% during the same period. Moreover, as many as 6,000 Christians were arrested without trial up by 44% and 4,000 Christians were kidnapped up by nearly 124%. The persecution of Christians is growing even abounding. A new phenomenon in the land of religious liberty, America, hostility towards faithful followers of Christ is at a high never seen before. The Family Research Council (FRC), a national Christian public policy group, reported in December 2022 that there were over 400 acts of hostility against churches between January 2018 and September 2022. From January 2022 to September 2022, there were at least 57 pro-abortion attacks on churches, 342 occurrences of vandalism, 58 arson attacks or attempts, 12 gun-related incidents, 11 bomb threats, and 19 other incidences (assault, threats, interruption of worship services, etc.). Twenty incidents (4.76%) fell into more than one category. Tony Perkins, the head of FRC, said: As a former commissioner and chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Ive seen the warning signs of this gathering like clouds across the Atlantic. As the mainstream culture moves further and further away from a biblical worldview, Ive witnessed the hostility to moral truth creep closer to our shores. The West, once the safe haven of free speech and religion, is turning cold to our religious foundations that have helped us thrive. In Revelation 6:9-11, the Lamb of God (Jesus) opens the fifth seal of the scroll, revealing Gods plan for the world in the last days. Johns account reads: When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. They shouted to the Lord and said, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us? Then a white robe was given to each of them. And they were told to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers and sisters their fellow servants of Jesus who were to be martyred had joined them. Its not that there hasnt been Christian persecution and martyrdom throughout history. Christs letter to the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2 spoke to this issue. Nonetheless, what is described in chapter 6 is what Christ said would be like birth pangs (Matthew 24:8). In other words, as the end approaches, like a womans contractions grow in intensity before she gives birth, troubles like persecution and martyrdom will increase just before a new world under Christs lordship is born. Bradford Richardson of The Washington Times has said, Advocates who work to protect persecuted groups say there is a blind spot in the West concerning the plight faced by Christians around the world From the Coptics in Egypt and the house churches in China to the subversives in North Korea and the apostates in Pakistan, Christians are under fire on the international stage. This blind spot Richardson references, however, isnt limited to the West alone. Instead, its everywhere Christians are harassed. Sinclair B. Ferguson, in his commentary on Christs warning about persecution in The Sermon on the Mount, explains the reason: The world in which we live assumes that it will welcome Christians with open arms until the first time it meets the genuine article. Until then, it is ignorant of its real response to the Gospel. It assumes that it is well-disposed to Jesus Christ and God. But Scripture tells us otherwise: the world is in rebellion against God. Jesus said himself that if men persecuted him, they would also persecute his followers (John 15:20). He told them, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first (John 15:18). Christians are persecuted for the sake of righteousness because of their loyalty to Christ. Real loyalty to him creates friction in the hearts of those who only pay him lip service. Loyalty arouses their consciences and leaves them with only two alternatives: follow Christ, or silence him. Often their only way of silencing Christ is by silencing his servants. At the beginning of the Christian life, we need to grasp the reality of persecution. This awareness will save us from discouragement and disillusionment. We follow a crucified Savior. We should not think it strange if we ourselves encounter fiery trials (I Peter 4:12). Rather, we should learn to rejoice that we have been counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ (Acts 5:41). Ours is the kingdom of God. Worthy to suffer for the name of Christ there is no higher honor in the entire world. Why is this? Revelation 6 answers because its counted the same as a holy sacrifice to a Sovereign God. The martyrs lifes blood was violently poured out in obedience to God, and so they are seen under the altar, where they call out to him for retributive justice. When the first martyr, Abel, was murdered by his brother Cain, it was because the disobedient heart of Cain was pricked at his brothers virtuous example. At Abels death, God said to Cain, What have you done? Listen! Your brothers blood cries out to me from the ground! (Genesis 4:10). Jesus told a parable about upright people who suffered greatly at the hands of wicked persons whose only hope of justice was in God: Dont you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? (Luke 18:7) asked Jesus. I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! (v. 8). The prayer by the martyrs is not a call for vengeance, which would be unlike Jesus exemplar prayer for those who crucified him: Father, forgive them, for they dont know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). The martyrs prayer calls for God to hold unrepentant persecutors accountable for their murderous actions. They petition him to restore a disturbed equilibrium in the universe caused by their unwarranted deaths. Surely God will not wink at what was done or sweep the shedding of their righteous blood under the rug. No, he will not! To put it in the vernacular, the Lord answers them, saying payday is coming soon enough. But for now, they shall be given white robes symbols of purity, peace, and their deserved rest. They are to take ease a little longer until Gods plan is complete. Years ago, Dr. M.A. Thomas, a stupendous evangelist, and pastor responsible for planting numerous churches, schools, and orphanages throughout India, was threatened by a Hindu extremist. The Hindu man came to where Dr. Thomas resided, wielding a knife, and called for the great preacher to come outside so he could kill him. Dr. Thomas left the safety of locked doors, met the man in the street, ripped open his shirt, and challenged the Hindu radical to plant his knife in the middle of his chest. But before you do, said Dr. Thomas, you should know for every drop of my blood that falls to the ground, God will raise up a thousand more like me. At this, the militant Hindu ceased his threatening and walked away. Christians must prepare their hearts as much as possible for persecution and martyrdom. Every faithful Christian will not necessarily become a martyr, but everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12). The Bible says persecution and martyrdom will increase before Jesus returns to earth. It is a part of Gods strategy for giving this world to Christ to establish His Kingdom and live among His people. Moreover, anyone considering becoming a follower of Christ should count the cost (Luke 14:26-33). Salvation is free, but living for Jesus can be pricey. We must love the Giver more than his gifts. Yes, its still true after all these centuries, The Word of God is not bound. Nor shall it ever be! 3 major political issues Christians should track in the new year Its a new year in America (and around the world, of course). With a new year comes new hopes, new goals, and new challenges. For Christians, despite what new may come our way, we can be confident that we have the exact same God sitting on the throne of the universe, in control of all things. And included in all things are political things elections, Supreme Court cases, cultural battles, you name it. So along with settling on a Bible reading plan, making it back to the gym, and finally getting organized, here are three major political issues to put on your to track list for 2023: 1. Supreme court decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis If you are a regular reader of the Freedom Center, you will be well acquainted with this case. Christians should be tracking this because it is primarily about freedom of speech and religious liberty two fundamental pillars of our faith and practice of Christianity here in the United States. 303 Creative v. Elenis is a case about the freedom of speech of a website designer, Lorie Smith, but it is also one of the most critical cases related to religious liberty that the Supreme Court has considered for years. As the Freedom Center has explained, Smith, a devout Christian and the owner of 303 Creative, sued the state of Colorado over its Anti-Discrimination Act and whether or not she would be forced to create websites celebrating same-sex marriage against her religious beliefs. She lost at both the federal district and appellate levels before the Supreme Court agreed to take up her case. While it hasnt been quite as high profile, 303 Creative v. Elenis nearly mirrors Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, in which a Christian baker refused to custom-design products that violated his religious convictions. Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life, is arguing the case for 303 Creative and Lorie and, by extension, for people like you and me. They write, After realizing that Colorado was censoring her and after seeing Colorado use this same law to punish Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, she challenged the law to protect her freedom and her art studio." The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for 303 Creative in early December 2022. By all accounts, it appears to have gone well for Smith. The decision will most likely come down in June 2023. Christians should track this issue because a right ruling in 303 Creative will go a long way toward protecting and preserving our First Amendment freedoms to live as Christians in America. It would ensure that Christian business owners and other Christians in the public square arent coerced to participate in speech, content creation, or ceremonies, etc., that go against our biblical beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman (for just one example). This is, currently, the biggest Supreme Court case of 2023. If Lorie Smith and 303 Creative prevail, Christians will have great cause for rejoicing this summer 2. Pro-life efforts at the state level after Dobbs 2022 was an incredible, historic year for the pro-life movement at the federal level. On June 24, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in its entirety, along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey the two legal decisions that created the nationwide abortion regime that ruled in America over the last 50 years. That centralized regime is gone. The question of the legality of abortion has, for the time being, been returned to the states. Some states, like Texas, enacted bills that banned all abortions except in the case of life-threatening medical emergencies. As a result, LifeNews.com just reported, New data from the Texas health department shows abortions have dropped to 0 under the Texas abortion ban, saving as many as 5,700 babies from abortions. In states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas the state-level pro-life fight has gone well. But unfortunately, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, many other new pro-life ballot measures lost and horrific pro-abortion measures prevailed. I am confident that pro-lifers and Christians will make a better showing in 2023. LifeNews.com has a helpful and encouraging article outlining the 29 possible states that may ban abortion by the end of 2023. They set out three categories: 14 States Have Abortion Bans Enforced. 8 States are Fighting in Court to Save Their Abortion Ban. Other States with the Potential to Protect Babies from Abortions. Pay close attention to that last category, which includes Florida, Nebraska, North Carolina, Virginia, Alaska, Montana, and Kansas. If you live in those states make sure to get involved. Or consider the state-level work of End Abortion Now (EAN) and Action for Life (AFL). They are working on bans that begin at specific points during pregnancy and working to abolish abortion from the moment of conception, providing preborn people with the same rights and protections as people after birth. Again, if you live in a red state, or one of the states listed above that has the potential to ban abortion, make sure to be aware of any ballot measures or legislation related to protecting life, call your state representatives, and get out to vote! 3. The fight against transgender ideology and the war on children Finally, Christians need to continue tracking the fight to protect children from the horrors of transgender ideology, including medical treatments/surgeries that permanently damage childrens bodies, discussion about sexual orientation and gender ideology that confuse and sexualize children, and public school curricula and programs that seek to drive a wedge between children and their parents. Last year we saw Florida take the step to ban any conversation about sexual orientation and gender ideology in public school classrooms from kindergarten through 3rd grade. Other states will most certainly take similar actions this year. For example, a state legislator in Texas has introduced a bill that, if passed, would prohibit public schools in Texas from teaching gender identity and sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The bills sponsor, Jared Patterson, said, Parental rights are paramount to the safety and well-being of a child. Therefore, I filed HB 1155 to ensure no school teaches radical gender ideology to any child from K -8th grade, and where parents must review and sign off on any health-related services. Beyond working in their own state to elect conservative legislators and school board members that can prevent the transgender poison from being taught in public schools, Christians should also be active in contacting their members of Congress and pushing for similar legislation at the federal level. Whats more, Christians should pay close attention to legal efforts undertaken by de-transitioned youth to sue the gender clinics and doctors that provided them with gender-affirming care that has destroyed their bodies. For example, the Washington Examiner reports on the case of Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old woman, who is suing the doctors she claims coerced her into harmful gender transition procedures in the name of affirmation when she was just a child. If these types of lawsuits prevail, it will go a long way towards shutting down the truly barbaric gender clinics across our country, like the Boston Childrens Hospital and the Vanderbilt Medical Centers transgender clinic that Matt Walshs reporting helped close for the time being. Conclusion Our concern for these issues comes directly from biblical teaching on each one. While some issues may be complicated, these are not. The clear commands of the Christian faith, as found in the Bible, compel us as Christians to worship God rightly (Romans 12:1-12), protect life (Genesis 9, Psalm 139), and defend the creation-order reality of men and women (Genesis 1:27-28, Matthew 19:4). As you head into 2023, make sure to get educated and stay informed about how and where you, as a faithful follower of Christ, can play a political part in ensuring positive outcomes on preserving religious liberty, protecting unborn life, and stopping the transgender war on children. God will be glorified and our country will be better for it. Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center. Catholic priest murdered in Burkina Faso as country grapples with terrorism Unidentified armed men killed a 67-year-old Catholic priest in northwestern Burkina Faso, which is witnessing one of the fastest-growing displacement and protection crises globally due to terrorism and other challenges, according to the United Nations. Fr. Jacques Yaro Zerbo was assassinated on Dedougou-Gassan road in Soro village, which is situated in one of the most affected regions by terrorism, Boucle du Mouhoun, Catholic news agency Fides reported, citing a statement by the Bishop of Dedougou, Prosper Bonaventure K.Y. The gunmen took with them the vehicle of the Malian-born Catholic priest and his other belongings, ACI Africa reported. A priest from the Dedougou Diocese since 1986, Zerbo founded a youth re-education center in the Tougan region, which he later relocated to Dedougou because of terrorist attacks. Last June, at least 100 people were reportedly killed by an armed group in Seytanga district in northern Burkina Faso near the Niger border, where al Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated militants are conducting an insurgency. The attack was said to be among the deadliest since the insurgency in Burkina began in 2016, when there has been an increase in Islamic State fighters fleeing from the Middle East to Africa, leading to a sharp rise in extremism across the Sahel and other regions in Africa. In 2021, as many as 160 civilians were killed in an attack in the Yagha province of northeastern Burkina Faso. The rise of extremism in Burkina Faso has led to international concern as both Muslims and Christians continue to bear the brunt of Islamic extremism. Over 1.4 million people have fled their homes in search of safety making the situation in Burkina Faso one of the fastest-growing displacement and protection crises globally, UNHCR said. Displacement in Burkina Faso rose 1,200% in 2019, according to the U.N. According to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, Christians comprise just over 20% of Burkina Fasos population, while Muslims make up over 60%. In its Persecution Trends 2022 report, Release International said, The situation facing Christians in Burkina Faso is now similar to Nigeria, where terror groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province have killed thousands and displaced millions. In 2021, jihadis targeted Christians in the north of Burkina Faso, forcing churches to close and meet in secret, the report noted. The attacks ranged from bombings, killings, kidnappings and school burnings to assaults on religious leaders and places of worship. Release International had warned that pressure in the region was likely to continue in 2022, particularly following the drawdown of French troops in the area. Open Doors USA, which monitors persecution in over 60 countries, ranks Burkina Faso as the 32nd worst country regarding Christian persecution. The central government is very weak, particularly in the east of the country where Islamic law is informally implemented by groups who've gained control over these areas, Open Doors warned in a factsheet. Jihadist violence has been rapidly increasing in recent years, and extremists have exploited the government's weakness during the COVID-19 crisis to gain control of the country's infrastructure. Action for Children appoints CEO Childrens charity Action for Children has appointed Paul Carberry as its chief executive. He will take over Melanie Armstrong, who steps down after two years in post. Carberry is the charitys national director for Scotland and has been with the organisation for 30 years. Chair Sarika Patel said: Paul is well placed to take the organisation forward. He knows our charity well and has built up a huge wealth of experience across Childrens Services as National Director for Scotland and also as National Director for England. Patel added her thanks to outgoing CEO Armstrong for steering the charity through the pandemic and stabilising its finances at that period. Deafblind UK appoints chief executive Former Big C deputy Nikki Morris has been named chief executive of Deafblind UK. She succeeds Steve Conway, who has retired after four years in post. Morris joins from Age UK Camden where she was CEO. She was formerly at the Big C Cancer Charity where she was deputy chief executive and director of operations for almost seven years. On her appointment, she commented: We have a clear vision with exciting plans to deliver and a strong team. I look forward to playing my part in making the UK a more accessible and enjoyable place for all those affected by deafblindness. Royal Albert Hall appoints chief executive Royal Albert Hall has appointed James Ainscough as its chief executive. He will join in late spring and take over from Craig Hassall, who stepped down last month after over five years in post. Ainscough will join from Help Musicians, the music charity, where he is chief executive. He was formerly Royal Albert Halls director of finance and administration and then chief operating officer from 2008 to 2017. Ian McCulloch, president of the Royal Albert Hall said: James combines a passion for the promotion of music and cultural enlightenment with the vision and business skills required to lead the Hall through its next phase, applying financial prudence to extending our reach and our artistic ambitions. The Royal Albert Hall will benefit greatly from James experience, talent, enthusiasm and determination. We are delighted that he will soon be re-joining the team. New CEO for psychotherapy charity Elizabeth Balgobin has been named CEO of the Bowlby Centre, a charity that provides psychotherapy. Balgobin has been a freelance consultant on charity management for over 12 years. As an interim CEO, she has led charities like London Plus, Small Charities Coalition, ADVANCE Charity and more. Formerly, she was head of equality, diversity and inclusion at the Chartered Institute of Fundraising. She is currently a trustee of National Emergencies Trust. Siobhan Swinscoe, chair of the Bowlby Centre, said: "Elizabeths appointment will focus on strategic longer term aims to strengthen the Bowlby Centres reputation, to offer opportunities for ongoing contributions from our valued membership, to explore ways to benefit society through a lens of Attachment informed practices and provide a much-needed focus to the Blues Project and our financial model." Malaria No More UK announces chief executive Malaria No More UK has announced Dr Astrid Bonfield as its chief executive. She succeeds Martin Edlund, who held the role for 10 years. Bonfield has two decades of experience in the charity sector. She was a co-creator and chief executive of the Vision Catalyst Fund. Most recently she was CEO of the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. She was awarded a CBE in 2014 for her services to charity in the UK and abroad. Chair of the charity, Liz Sugg, said: [Bonfield] will bring a wealth of international experience and knowledge to this role at a crucial time in the fight against malaria as new and exciting innovations are developed and we work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing malaria globally by 90% by 2030. Sported chief executive steps down after four years The chief executive of Sported, Nicola Walker, will be stepping down this spring after four years in post. She leaves half-way through the sport charitys four-year strategy. It is now recruiting for a new leader via an open recruitment process, with applications closing on 1 February. New chair for Shaw Trust The Shaw Trust, a charity that supports people through care, wellbeing and skills development, has appointed Olly Benzecry as its new chair. He will succeed Sir Kenneth Olisa, who has been in the role for over nine years. Benzecry will take over the role in May. He is chair of Movement to Work, WithYouWithMe, and sits on the UKs Digital Economy Council and also the Corporate Development Boards of the National History Museum and Cancer Research UK. Chris Luck, chief executive of Shaw Trust, said: As CEO I am truly delighted that Olly is joining us as our new chair. Ollys passion, drive and empathy will enable us to continue to open the doors of those who make policy at national and local government level in order to create greater equality of opportunity for those who need our help, and for whom Shaw Trust is a lifeline. Ollys experience as a senior executive and leader at Accenture brings a wealth of strategic management and leadership to guide us forward. Charity Commission for Northern Ireland appoints chair and interim chief The Charity Commission for Northern Ireland has announced Gerard McCurdy as chief commissioner and chair of the charity regulator. McCurdy has been appointed until a permanent appointee is found. He has over 40 years experience working in a regulatory environment with food safety, public health and consumer protection. The position is remunerated with 15,300 for a commitment of five days per month. NLCF reappoints senior adviser The National Lottery Community Fund (NLCF) has appointed Shane Ryan as its senior adviser. The move sees Ryan, who received an MBE in this years New Year Honours, returning to the organisation where he will report to the chief executive and play a critical role in shaping how NLCF's grant strategy. Ryan re-joins NLCF from the Avast Foundation, where he was global executive director. His previous roles include deputy director and senior head of partnerships at NLCF and chief executive at charity Future Men. Fundraising Regulator appoints head of policy and more Paul Winyard has been appointed as the regulators new head of policy following an open recruitment process. Winyard first joined the regulator in April 2021 as its policy manager. Before this, he worked as NCVOs policy manager for almost four years. He has had experience working for charitable organisations like Compact Voice, which sat within NCVO, and Volunteering England. Lisa Caldwell has also been appointed the regulators board member for Northern Ireland. She joins from Belfast City Council where she is director of external affairs, communications and marketing. New grants manager for Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust Sutton Coldfield Charitable Trust, a charity that strives to enhance life for residents of the Midlands town, has appointed Clare Haines as its new grants manager. She takes over from David Cole, who is retiring after almost five years in post. Haines boasts 13 years experience in the grants and funding sector and has worked with the National Lottery Heritage Fund, North Warwickshire Borough Council and more. Her new role will see hew focus on assessing grant applications and preparing grant papers for consideration at the Trusts grant committee meetings. Tina Swani, chief executive, said: Were delighted to welcome Clare to the team and are sure she will take to the role brilliantly given her extensive experience and obvious passion for this vital work. Bank of England director appointed Fair Credit Charity trustee Joanne Fleming has been appointed a trustee of the Fair Credit Charity. She is head of strategy and change at the Bank of England. Other trustees who were appointed were Jonathan Moore, former chief executive of Stockport Credit Union, and Robbie Maverick, a digital project manager at the Teenage Cancer Trust. Trustees appointed to debt advice charity The Money Advice Trust has appointed new trustees and ambassadors. Sarah Desai has been appointed a trustee of the charity. She is director of reward for Sainsburys where she sets pay and benefits strategy for front line workers. Bim Afolami, the MP for Hitchin and Harpenden, has been appointed an ambassador of the charity. He is also a Commissioner on the Financial Inclusion Commission and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on financial markets and services. Christine Farnish has also been made an ambassador. Formerly, she was managing director for public policy at Barclays and consumer affairs director at the Financial Services Authority. Sir Ian Cheshire is former chief executive of Kingfisher plc and B&Q and has also been made an ambassador. Marine Technology Trust welcomes three trustees The marine charity has appointed three new trustees to its board. Rosalind Blazejczyk is a naval architect, founder and managing partner of Solis Marine Consultants. Dan Walker is deputy group chief scientist at Rio Tinto and a non-executive director of Ocean Infinity. Jake Anderson is group director of Longitude Engineering. British Nutrition Foundation appoints trustees The British Nutrition Foundation has appointed three new trustees to join its board. Sam Fulton is group director of corporate affairs and sustainability at Nomad Foods. She is a member of the corporate affairs working groups. Luke Stockill is senior director of Core Grocery, Asda. Paul Wheeler is corporate communications director for UK & Ireland at Kelloggs. New trustees for Royal Marsden Cancer Charity Andrew Fisher and Roger Gray have been appointed as trustees of the UK cancer charity. Fisher is chair of Rightmove plc, chair of Epidemic Sound and non-executive director of Marks and Spencer group plc. Gray has four decades worth of experience in investment management. He was formerly chief executive officer of USS Investment Management Limited and chief investment officer at Hermes. He is currently on Triagos advisory board. sign up to receive the Civil Society News daily bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector, Amberpet station house officer Peram Sudhakar. (Photo: DC) Hyderabad: Station house officers (SHOs) have recently been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, with an increasing number of complaints filed against them for various offences. Incidentally the Vanasthalipuram police have filed charges against the three SHOs. In the latest case, the Vanasthalipuram police registered a forgery and cheating against Amberpet SHO Peram Sudhakar and his associate Rajesh Goud for allegedly defrauding an NRI of Rs 55 lakh. Previously, two SHOs were booked in the same police station; one was dismissed in a rape and kidnapping case while the other was suspended for assaulting a Vanasthalipuram police constable while intoxicated. In the latest case, Vyajayanth, an NRI, filed a complaint against Sudhakar and his Goud, a suspended revenue department official, alleging that they had collected Rs 55 lakh from him in a land dispute involving a 10-acre plot of land in Kandukur village. According to the complaint, Goud tricked Vyajayanth by falsely claiming that he (Goud) would be appointed revenue divisional officer of Kandukur village and would help the NRI in settling the land dispute. The NRI claimed that he deposited Rs 55 lakh into the SHO's account but later discovered that the 10-acre land was registered in the name of someone else. He approached the Vanasthalipuram police on Sunday. The police registered a case under sections 420 and 465 of IPC (cheating and forgery) against Sudhakar and Rajesh. During the preliminary investigation, it was found that Sudhakar was involved in cheating the NRI, a police officer disclosed. Earlier, the Vanasthalipuram police booked cases against Marredpally SHO Koratla Nageswara Rao, who was dismissed from service on charges of attempt to murder, kidnap, and raping a woman in July. On November 10 last year, the Vanasthalipuram police booked cases against another SHO, Guntrapally Raju, under IPC Sections 353, 427, and 332 for assaulting a Vanasthalipuram police constable while intoxicated. He was later suspended. "We are waiting for the report from the Rachakonda police commissioner. Based on the report we can come to a conclusion about further action," C.V. Anand, city police commissioner, told Deccan Chronicle. (CNN) At least 40 people were killed Sunday and many others seriously injured in a bus crash in central Senegal, according to the country's president. "I am deeply saddened by today's tragic road accident in Gniby, where 40 people died and many were seriously injured. I send my heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and wish the injured a speedy recovery," President Macky Sall said in a tweet. The incident involved two buses that collided with one another, according to Radiodiffusion Television Senegalaise (RTS), the country's public broadcaster. The western African nation will observe three days of national mourning for the victims, starting on January 9, the president announced. The reason for the crash is as yet unknown. CNN has reached out to the Senegalese Transport Ministry for comment. Dakar will also call an inter-ministerial council on January 9 to discuss "firm measures" to ensure transport safety, according to Sall. This story was first published on CNN.com, "40 dead, many injured in Senegal bus crash, president says." Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) The Department of Energy (DOE) is now looking into a request seeking to extend the contract for the Malampaya Deep Water gas-to-power project in northwest Palawan, which expires in 2024. The request was filed in November last year, according to DOE. "As part of the procedure of DOE, we required them for some documentary submissions, we have also met with operator as authorized representative of the joint venture to establish new terms or conditions that may be applicable to the extended contract," DOE Undersecretary Alessandro Sales said. He added that talks are still being finalized with the joint venture partners regarding the potential extension of the contract. In November 2022, Prime Infra President and Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Lucci bared the consortium's plan to seek an extension of Service Contract 38. Other members of the consortium include UC38 LLC holding and PNOC Exploration Corp. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) After being sidelined by the pandemic for the past two years, the Philippine Circuit - an annual event organized by the Philippine Canine Club, Inc. showcasing some of the best purebred show dogs all over the world - returns to the Smart Araneta Coliseum. The long-awaited event will run from Jan. 12 to 15. During those four days, 15 prestigious shows will be staged, each offering its awards at stake. Specifically, the event is composed of the following: 1. Four (4) CACIB Shows with one doubling as a Crufts Qualifier Show, and one doubling as a Philippine Winner Show 2. Four (4) Asia Pacific Champion Shows 3. Four (4) South East Asia Champion Shows 4. Three (3) Philippine Derby Winner Shows which are integrated within the 3 CACIB Shows On its 8th edition, the Philippine Circuit has attracted the most number of entries since it started. There will be a total of 8,412 entries for this edition: 5,892 from the Philippines and 2,520 from 16 countries. Of the total foreign entries, 56% are from neighboring countries like Thailand, Korea, and Indonesia; 38% from Europe; and 6% from the United States. Heading the prestigious 17-man panel of international judges is Mr. Tamas Jakkel from Hungary, who is presently the president of the FCI or Federation Cynologique Internationale, the ruling organization for national kennel clubs in the world. This edition of the Philippine Circuit will be doubly interesting as it is the kick-off event for PCCI's 60th Anniversary celebration. During the event, the PCCI will launch its commemorative coffee table book, "60 Years of Purebred Dogs in the Philippines, the PCCI Legacy." This limited edition book showcases the purebred dogs that made their mark in the country and the various personalities that shaped the purebred dog fancy into what it is today. Another highlight during the event will be a short program that will formally introduce to the public the Philippine Forest Dog, or "Asong Gubat," which will hopefully be the first FCI-recognized dog breed from the Philippines. Carmakers confident of 2023 despite subsidy withdrawals 10:15, January 09, 2023 By LI FUSHENG ( China Daily Visitors inspect Xpeng's models in a shopping mall in Beijing in October. CHINA DAILY Annual sales set to rise with brands adopting new strategies to counter policy changes Carmakers in China have had to adapt their marketing steps in response to the government's withdrawal of the yearslong generous subsidies on new energy vehicles and the 50 percent off purchase tax on gasoline cars. The NEV subsidies, which were introduced in 2009 to stimulate the sector's development, were phased out completely by the end of 2022.This move has resulted in an increase of thousands of yuan in costs for carmakers. At least 15 companies including BYD, Chery and Changan as well as Volkswagen's two joint ventures FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC Volkswagen have raised the prices of their electric models from the start of the new year. In a statement on Dec 31, BYD announced that it will revise up the price tags of its models by 2,000 yuan ($291) to 6,000 yuan. "The revision will take effect from the first day of 2023. Those who have already put down the deposit are immune to the change," said BYD. Analysts said it is a reasonably predictable move for carmakers to raise prices as the generous subsidies are gone, which will help offset the resulting rise in their manufacturing costs. Xing Chongyang, an analyst at Caitong Securities, said the step will be applicable to companies whose products are popular, as they won't be worried that their potential customers will choose other brands instead. Some other popular carmakers have reacted differently. All the models at Xpeng, one of the leading electric carmakers in the country, have the same price tags in 2023 as in the past year. Xpeng sold more than 120,000 vehicles in 2022, up 23 percent from the previous year. State-owned carmaker Dongfeng's premium arm Voyah is offering subsidies of 30,000 yuan to those who purchase its vehicles by the end of the first quarter this year. Voyah has three models in the market, with their combined sales totaling 19,381 units in 2022. William Li, chairman and CEO of electric car startup Nio, said the first half of 2023, especially the first quarter, will be tough for carmakers, as some customers placed orders in late 2022 to be eligible for subsidies. But he is confident about the long-term prospects of the sector. He expects Nio to outsell Toyota's premium brand Lexus in China in 2023. That would require Nio to double its sales from 2022. Hozon, the best-selling Chinese EV startup, revealed a sales goal of 250,000 units for 2023, up from 152,000 units in 2022. Wu Zhixin, vice-president of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, estimates that NEV sales will grow to around 9 million units in 2023, up from an estimated 6.7 million units in 2022. He said the prospects are the result of a combination of factors, including the "unexpectedly high "growth rate in 2022, favorable policies for NEV drivers such as being exempt from the weekly ban day for gasoline cars, and a wider choice of available models. Both startups and established brands are coming up with new EVs. BMW said it will have 11 electric car models in the market in 2023. China's Aion, the NEV arm of State-owned GAC Group, unveiled its Hyper GT sedan, which it said would rival Tesla's Model 3. The expiration on Dec 31 of the 50 percent-off purchase tax for gasoline cars, which was put in place on June 1, has a wider effect on the vehicle market as gasoline cars still account for the absolute majority of vehicle sales. The purchase tax usually stands at 10 percent of a vehicle's sticker price, so the favorable policy meant saving 10,000 yuan for car buyers who bought a 200,000 yuan model in the second half of last year. Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the China Passenger Car Association, said the policy could have increased vehicle sales by around 2 million units in six months, with the combined tax cut totaling 60 billion yuan. Now that it has expired, some carmakers are paying out of their own pockets for car buyers in order to boost sales. Chinese carmaker Geely-owned Volvo said those who buy several of its models, including the XC90 and the XC60 SUVs, need to pay only 50 percent of the purchase tax. Cui expects China's vehicle sales to total 28 million units in 2023, up from an estimated 26.8 million units in 2022. The China Auto Dealers Association said the figure would hover between 28 million and 28.5 million units this year. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Waterworks employees of the GVMC and sanitary personnel resorted to a flash strike for a few hours on Monday (DC) VISHAKHAPATNAM: Waterworks employees of the GVMC and sanitary personnel resorted to a flash strike for a few hours on Monday demanding implementation of an agreement related to filling of death vacancies and a hike in the wages. The agitators disabled the water supply system by closing down the main pump station at the TSR Complex and from Gajuwaka to Gosthani from 5 am to 10 am. They also stopped water supply to the homes of the mayor and municipal commissioner. The strike ended after waterworks superintending engineer K.V.N. Ravi promised in writing that talks would be held on January 12. The workers resumed their work from 10.30 am. All the issues had been solved and wages hiked to Rs 18,000 recently. As for the filling of vacancies, discussions are on, Mayor Hari Venkatakumari said. The superintending engineer said while the waterworks department has 1,550 workers, only 60 of them went on the strike. They are demanding the filling up of death vacancies, which number only 16. We will talk things out on January 12, he told DC. CITU president R.S.K.V. Kumar said that, as per the GO, the skilled persons in waterworks should get Rs 21,500 per month, semi-skilled Rs 18,000 and unskilled Rs 13,000. But all the workers are being paid the lowest salary of Rs 13,000. Earlier, hundreds of workers from the sanitation, parks, malaria and veterinary departments were prevented from entering the collectorate to submit a memorandum. The leaders were bundled into vans and taken to the police barracks, where they were detained till the evening. Union leaders said the main demand was to fill 482 death vacancies as was promised in a resolution passed by the GVMC council in 2012. It was implemented till 2018 and then stalled. Recently, the collector issued a notification to fill the vacancies in the open category, they said. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) Of the over 900 full colonels and generals of the Philippine National Police (PNP), 3% to 4% allegedly have direct links to illegal drug trade, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Monday. "There are some intelligence reports, but we have to vet them very, very well according to the chief PNP (Rodolfo Azurin Jr.) it's about more or less, approximately 3% to 4%," Interior Sec. Benhur Abalos told CNN Philippines' The Source. He also said they have an initial list of the identities of the police officers suspected of having links to illegal drugs. The DILG secretary noted these people have been in office for a long time, and have money, power, and resources. RELATED: Abalos defends appeal for courtesy resignation of top PNP officers Abalos said the process has two parts, first is the evaluation of the 947 generals and full colonels to be done by a five-man panel that will include Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong. After this, a list will be submitted to the National Police Commission for further review. The whole process is seen to last for three months. If found guilty, the police officers may face criminal charges, Abalos said. There are also plans for those found guilty, but refuse to resign, he added. Abalos said those found innocent will continue with their service since their resignation will not be accepted. So far, around 500 of the 947 top police officers have tendered their resignations. The deadline for the submission is until the end of January, he noted. Abalos said the service of the PNP will continue amid his appeal for courtesy resignations among top officers, and that there is no leadership vacuum in the institution. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has named presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. as the new head of the Department of National Defense (DND). A statement from Presidential Communications Office OIC Cheloy Garafil on Monday confirmed that Sr. Usec. Jose Faustino Jr. has resigned from his post, and that Marcos offered Galvez the DND position. The Palace did not give a reason for Faustino's resignation. "It is with deep regret that the President has accepted the resignation of DND OIC Sr. Usec. Jose Faustino Jr. The President has offered the position of DND Secretary to Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. and he has accepted, the statement read. Faustino, who served as chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines until his retirement in Nov. 2021, was named by Marcos as DND OIC and formally took the post in July last year. The member of the Philippine Military Academy Maringal Class of 1988 could not be appointed secretary at the time because of the one-year ban on the appointment of retired military officers. Galvez, also a former AFP chief, served as Presidential Peace adviser and concurrent vaccine czar at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic under former President Rodrigo Duterte. He was commander of the Western Mindanao Command and led the AFP in the months-long battle in 2017 to liberate Marawi City from the Maute group and foreign militants. He is a member of the Philippine Military Academy's Sandiwa Class of 1985. Neither Galvez nor Faustino have released statements on the matter. Former Sen. Ping Lacson said Galvez was a "good choice" for DND chief. "Gen Galvez can provide the leadership that the defense establishment needs especially during the transition period of the implementation of the law on fixed term of generals holding key positions in the AFP," he said on Monday. Sen. Koko Pimentel, meanwhile, expressed concern about the appointment. "I have no idea why these developments are happening. I hope there are no serious reasons behind all of these developments," he said. This is a developing story. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) The Department of Information and Technology (DICT) logged a total of 16,150,926 million SIM registrants as of Monday. Based on records provided by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the total number is 9.56% of the 170 million SIMs nationwide, the DICT said in a statement. Heres the rundown of registered SIMs as of January 9: Smart Communications Inc. - 7,584,321 Globe Telecom Inc. - 7,137,764 DITO Telecommunity Corp.- 1,428,841 READ: Telcos: We are ready for SIM registration DICT Spokesperson and Undersecretary Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo also encouraged the public to register early and to be vigilant as they complete the registration process. We encourage all SIM subscribers who have not yet registered their SIMs to register already with their PTEs to ensure that their SIMs wont be deactivated, said Lamentillo. If there are glitches or technical issues during registration, please report these through hotline 1326. We also remind everyone to register only through the official platforms provided by the PTEs, she added. NTC earlier made clear that newly bought SIM cards cant be used without registration, and SIM cards that were not registered within the given time period will be deactivated. NTC added that telecommunications companies will set up registration booths to assist senior citizens and technology deprived individuals. READ: Explainer: What you need to know about the SIM registration law Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) Despite the cancellation of the traditional Traslacion for the third straight year, hundreds of thousands of devotees attended masses at the Quiapo Church for the Feast of the Black Nazarene on Monday. According to Quiapo Church Operation Centers estimate as of 12 m.n., around 587,235 devotees have been at the Quiapo Church where in-person masses are held hourly. Around 122,710 devotees were at the Quirino Grandstand to pay their respects to the Black Nazarene for the Pagpupugay, which replaced the traditional Pahalik or kissing of the image of the Black Nazarene. As of Monday morning, the celebration of the feast was orderly, Manila Police District (MPD) PBGen Andre Dizon told CNN Philippines New Day. On Sunday night, 88,000 devotees took part in the Walk of Faith procession, which replaced the Traslacion. The mass led by Manila Archbishop Jose Cardinal Advincula at midnight of Jan. 9 at the Quirino Grandstand, meanwhile, was attended by almost 200,000 devotees, Nazareno 2023 Technical Working Group Alex Irasga said in another interview. Considering there is no procession, there is no replica, no Pahalik, we noticed the devotees expressed their intense faith in spite of the lack of traditions in the celebrations, he added. Dizon said more devotees are expected to flock to the Quiapo Church and the Quirino Grandstand on Monday, the culmination day of the Feast of the Black Nazarene. He said 5,000 MPD personnel were deployed since the start of the celebration to ensure safety of the public. The devotees were also reminded to follow health protocols, like wearing of face mask and bringing of alcohol for sanitation, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Authorities also implemented liquor ban and gun ban, Dizon added. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) Ten human rights activists walked out the Quezon City Hall of Justice victorious on Monday, after they were acquitted of perjury. Leaders from Karapatan, Gabriela, and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) were cleared after government prosecutors failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the charges filed against them. Former National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon filed the perjury case in 2019 when the human rights defenders sought the Supreme Courts help for protection amid red-tagging and terror designation. Esperon alleged perjury was committed when they stated in their petition that the RMP is "duly registered as a non-stock, non-profit corporation under Philippine laws." According to him, the Securities and Exchange Commission already revoked RMPs Certificate of Registration for failure to submit the required General Information Sheets and Financial Statements from 1997 to 2003. In its ruling, the high court said the prosecution failed to establish beyond reasonable doubt that all accused made a willful and deliberate assertion of a falsehood. One of the acquitted groups said they would file cases against Esperon. "Sagutin nyo na lang po ang napakaraming kasong naka-file sa Ombudsman, at maghanda pa po kayo dahil marami pa po kaming ifa-file lalo na pagkatapos ng acquittal namin. Sorry, NSA Esperon, nasa panig namin ang katotohanan at hustisya," Cristina Palabay, Karapatan's secretary general, said after the decision was announced. [Translation: Just respond to the numerous cases filed with the Ombudsman, and be ready because we will file many more, especially after our acquittal. Sorry, NSA Esperon, but truth and justice are on our side.] Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) Although both chambers of Congress are in recess, the House Committee on Transportation will probe the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) New Years day technical breakdown tomorrow, which left thousands of passengers stranded. READ: NAIA operations struggle even as air traffic center resumes after New Years Day glitch On Tuesday morning, Jan. 10, the Department of Transportation (DOTR), the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), and government agencies relevant to the NAIA incident will brief the Transportation panel chaired by Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop on what went wrong, the House of Representatives website detailed. However, this briefing will not be a legislative inquiry as it was not initiated motu proprio through a majority vote by the panel members nor was it made through the referral of a House Resolution (HR). An inquiry in aid of legislation, one in which witnesses and resource persons are held under oath, is usually initiated through the filing of an HR or by the referral of a speech or inquiry demand to the appropriate panel, as per the House rules on inquiries. Meanwhile, Committee on Good Government and Accountability chairperson San Jose Del Monte Rep. Florida Robes filed HR 672 last Jan. 4 directing her committee to launch a legislative inquiry into the NAIA mess. Robes, also a member of the Transportation panel, was one of the affected passengers as she was on her way back to the Philippines when the NAIA incident took place. No date has been set for the Good Government and Accountability panels inquiry yet. Senior Deputy Minority Leader Northern Samar Rep. Paul Daza earlier urged both the House and the Senate to launch a joint legislative inquiry into the NAIA breakdown. The Senate Committee on Public Service, Civil Service, Government Reorganization, and Professional Regulation chaired by Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., and the Committee on Finance chaired by Senator Sonny Angara is scheduled to hold a joint-committee briefing into the NAIA mess on Thursday, Jan. 12. READ: Senate to probe NAIA New Year mess Both chambers of Congress adjourned session for the holidays last December. They will resume session on Jan. 23. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSa) on Monday cautioned the public against unburned rocket debris which is projected to fall in the northern part of the country after the launch of Chinas Long March 7A. In an advisory, PhilSa said the Chinese rocket was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan Island at 6 a.m., Philippine time. The agency warned that unburned debris from the rocket is projected to fall in two drop zones. The first drop zone area is approximately 79 kilometers (kms) from Burgos in Ilocos Norte and 121 kms from Dalupiri Island in the Babuyan Islands. Meanwhile, it said the second drop zone area is about 41 kms from Sta. Ana in Cagayan, 41 kms from Camiguin Island in the Babuyan Islands, and 47 kms from Babuyan Island. While not projected to fall on land features or inhabited areas, falling debris poses danger and potential risk to ships, aircraft, fishing boats, and other vessels that will pass through the drop zone, PhilSa said. It added that the debris may float around the area and wash toward nearby coasts. Additionally, the possibility of an uncontrolled re-entry to the atmosphere of the rockets upper stages returning from outer space cannot be ruled out at this time, the advisory read. The agency called on the public to inform local authorities if suspected debris is sighted. It also warned against retrieving or coming in close contact with these materials that may contain remnants of toxic substances, such as rocket fuel. PhilSa said that prior to the rocket launch, it released an advance notice to relevant government agencies and recommended the issuance of appropriate air and marine warnings. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Rodolfo Azurin Jr. is convinced that there is no destabilization plot in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). As far as the destabilization is concerned, I dont think there is one, Azurin said in a press briefing Monday. The police chief also clarified that the AFP B150 helicopter shown hovering over Camp Crame in a photo was only undergoing a regular maintenance check-up. I also talked to the newly installed chief of staff Sir Andres Centino last night, and he gave the assurance that the PNP and the AFP will work hand-in-hand in ensuring that the Marcos administration will be very stable, he added. Fake memo Over the weekend, a memorandum signed by Lt. Col. Dexter Ominga a ranking officer from the Cordillera Administrative Region Police Regional Office circulated online. In the memo, Azurin supposedly placed the entire PNP on full alert status due to the destabilization movements from AFP. Azurin denied such instructions and directed the Regional Director of Cordillera to look into the possible security lapses on the agencys document security. Definitely the appropriate charges as well as the consequences of the lapses, if theres any, will be meted to Police Colonel Dexter, the police chief said. In a Laging Handa briefing on Monday, PNP spokesperson PCol. Jean Fajardo also said they are already tracing the user who posted the false information on social media. Inumpisahan na ang PNP anti-cybercrime group para tukuyin kung sino ang source nitong social media posts kung saan napabalita na naka-full alert ang PNP dahil sa destabilization. Kung sino man ang mapapatunayan na nagkalat nitong misinformation na ito ay mananagot sa batas, she said. [Translation: The PNP anti-cybercrime group has been launched to identify the source of these social media posts where it was reported that the PNP is on full alert due to destabilization. Whoever can be proven to have spread this misinformation will be liable to the law.] Very normal Meanwhile, Azurin reiterated that PNPs heightened alert status is not in any way related to the alleged destabilization plot of AFP. Thats (alert status) very normal if theres change or turnover of command whether in PNP or in AFP, he said. Fajardo also said that the alert status was because of religious activities nationwide. Ang PNP ay naka-heightened alert hindi dahil may destabilization plot, pero dahil sa religious activities hindi lang sa Manila pero pati sa ibang rehiyon, she added. [Translation: The PNP is on heightened alert not because of a destabilization plot, but because of religious activities not only in Manila but also in other regions.] Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) A reduction in fuel prices will greet the motoring public starting Tuesday as oil companies announced a rollback. In separate advisories, Petro Gazz, Seaoil, and Cleanfuel said the per-liter prices of diesel and gasoline would be slashed by 2.80 and 0.75, respectively. Seaoil said the prices of kerosene would also be cut by 2.10. According to the oil monitoring report of the Department of Energy as of Jan. 3, the year-to-date per-liter increases stood at 17.80 for gasoline, 29.40 for diesel, and 24.35 for kerosene. Please refresh this page for updates. (CNN) Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been hospitalized, according to his wife Michelle Bolsonaro. He was admitted on Monday for abdominal discomfort related to injuries from a 2018 knife attack during a political rally, Michelle Bolsonaro wrote in a post on her official Instagram. An ally of the former president told CNN Brasil that the former President is hospitalized in the Orlando, Florida area, and that he had been feeling discomfort on Sunday night. The news comes as Brazil reels from Sundays political violence in capital Brasilia, which saw hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters storm the seats of power, trashing offices and drawing strong condemnation from the international community. Bolsonaro had already left Brazil for the United States on Dec. 30, according to CNN Brasil just two days before the inauguration of his successor, President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Five civil servants were authorized to accompany him to Miami between January 1 and 30, 2023. The former leader has been hospitalized several times over the years due to his injury. The stabbing incident took place during his 2018 campaign, as Bolsonaro was led through a crowd on the shoulders of supporters in Juiz de Fora, a city in the southern state of Minas Gerais. Bolsonaros son Flavio Bolsonaro tweeted at the time that his fathers wounds reached part of his liver, lung and intestine and that he lost a lot of blood. In January 2019, Bolsonaro underwent surgery to remove a colostomy bag fitted after he was stabbed. He was again hospitalized in July 2021 after feeling abdominal pain and suffering persistent hiccups for over than a week. This is a developing story. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been hospitalized, according to his wife" IT minister K.T. Rama Rao meets US Ambassador to India Beth Jones and US Consul General in Hyderabad Jennifer Larson on Monday. (Photo by arrangement) HYDERABAD: As the country's top recruiter of IT professionals, Hyderabad is the largest metro for those seeking technology jobs and has displaced Bengaluru to second place, IT minister K.T. Rama Rao said, as he encouraged tech industry captains to create jobs for the local youths by expanding their operations beyond Hyderabad to Tier II cities in Telangana. A quarter of the new jobs in the IT sector were created in Hyderabad, the minister said, citing last year's data. Of the 4,50,000 new jobs created in the IT sector, 1.57 lakh were in Hyderabad, while 1.46 lakh were in Bengaluru, pushing the once IT citadel to second place, he stated. At an interactive session with the IT industry hosted by the Hyderabad Software Enterprises Association (HYSEA) on Monday, Rama Rao attributed the outcomes achieved over the last eight years to the collective efforts of the IT department and the IT industry. Representatives from tech firms applauded heartily when the minister stated that the number of IT employees in Telangana had climbed from 3.23 lakh at the time of the state's formation in 2014 to 8.7 lakh currently, and that IT exports had increased from Rs 57,000 crore in 2014 to Rs 1.83 lakh crore now. "We all can take pride in these outcomes. The number of employees, employers who are looking at Hyderabad is growing. I believe that this is just the beginning," he remarked. Speaking of the 20 lakh IT jobs expected to be created in India over the next three years, the IT minister stated that the state government would continue to work closely with the industry to capitalise on the opportunity. In an effort to persuade IT businesses, Rama Rao remarked that Tier-II cities have emerged as new growth hubs due to robust infrastructure and plug-and-play facilities, making them sought-after destinations for IT/ITes investments. He appealed to the industry leaders to look beyond Hyderabad and expand their operations in Tier-II towns to balance economic growth, and urged them to point the state government to new opportunities, prospective investors. The minister mentioned Telangana's robust innovation ecosystem, which included T-Hub, WE HUB, Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), WASH Hub, T-Works, and others. He informed them that the B-Hub for Biotech and Life Sciences Industries was being planned and that T-Works would open this year. The IT minister urged the industry leaders to guide the state government in such a way that local youth acquire the bulk of job opportunities, while asserting that the Telangana government has been trying to explore how partnership between the industry and academia can be developed. Principal secretary of IT department Jayesh Ranjan, police commissioners of Cyberabad, Hyderabad, and Rachakonda Stephen Raveendra, C.V.Anand, and D.S. Chauhan, respectively, as well as N.V.S. Reddy, MD of Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL), HYSEA president Manisha Saboo, chief relations officers Amarnath Reddy Atmakuri, and others participated in the event. (CNN) President Joe Biden visited the US-Mexico border on Sunday for the first time as president, but he did not appear to see or meet with migrants, including during a trip to a migrant respite center. Biden spent several hours in El Paso in his first visit to the southern border as president, following growing outcry and criticism that he had not yet seen the crisis created by the record number of migrants trekking to the border first hand. But that brief visit appeared largely focused on enforcement issues and speaking with border enforcement personnel. Reporters on the ground did not see any migrants at the respite center during the president's visit there, nor along the motorcade routes throughout the afternoon. Asked to explain the thinking behind having Biden visit this specific center and ultimately not meeting or interacting with any migrants there, a senior administration official told CNN, "There just weren't any at the center when he arrived. Completely coincidental. They haven't had any today." Biden's visit was scheduled at a time when border crossings had already dropped drastically in El Paso. Still, CNN's Rosa Flores reported on Sunday that hundreds of migrants, including children, were living on the street after crossing into the United States in El Paso. And nearly 1,000 additional migrants were in federal custody in detention facilities in El Paso on Sunday, according to the City of El Paso's migrant dashboard. The trip came following relentless calls from Republicans who believe the trip is overdue. In addition to Republicans, some border-district Democrats in Congress and even Democratic mayors have criticized Biden for failing to address record levels of border crossings. Upon arriving, the president's motorcade drove along a highway that parallels the Rio Grande and the border. An iron-slatted fence with barbed wire at the top was to the left as the motorcade went down the highway. At a quick stop, Biden stood for several minutes along the iron fence separating the US and Mexico as he spoke with officers in green uniforms. The group then walked along the gravel road that abuts the fence. Biden responded to a few questions from reporters, saying that the government would provide every resource needed at the border. He then visited a migrant processing center, where he did not appear to meet with any migrants, but did discuss the work underway there with several different workers from that facility. Biden shook each person's hand and chatted quietly but reporters were unable to hear the exchange. Biden then observed kits containing socks, toothpaste and soap that are given to migrants. He asked if he could wave a wand to help the organizations, what they would look for and the answer appeared to be funding, but reporters covering the visit had trouble hearing him. A political liability With his visit to El Paso, Texas, on Sunday, Biden seized on an issue that's been a political liability for his administration after calling on Congress to overhaul the US immigration system to meet current needs. But the patchwork of policies put in place by the administration to manage the border so far has often put Biden at odds with his own allies who argue that the administration's approach is too enforcement heavy. "It's enraging and sad to see a Democratic administration make it harder for vulnerable people to seek asylum all because they're scared of angry MAGA voters on this issue," a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus told CNN, responding to the latest policy announcements. Biden meets Texan leaders at the border The president's flight was met by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a persistent critic of Biden and his administration for the federal response to migration on the US southern border. The Republican governor confirmed to reporters that he gave Biden a letter outlining what he described as "chaos" on the border. The letter, which has been published online by the governor's office, reiterates Abbott's previous criticisms, urges Biden to visit other border communities and includes five steps the Texas governor believes the Biden administration should take. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment on the letter. Biden told reporters he had not yet read the letter. Escobar, who represents El Paso, insisted that Biden's visit to the city would not serve solely as a photo opportunity for the president. "We've worked with the White House to make sure that all the folks who are actually doing the work on the ground day-to-day are the ones that the president will meet with," she said in an interview on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "He needs to hear about how over time, the challenges that we have faced as a country on immigration, on border issues, they have grown exponentially." She blamed the Trump-era public health rule known as Title 42 for the rise in border crossings. The restriction allows federal authorities to expel migrants quickly, citing the Covid-19 pandemic. Escobar predicted, based on her conversations with Department of Homeland Security officials, that the administration would eventually move toward the move punitive Title 8, which allows US authorities to process and remove migrants who do not have a legal basis to be in the country. "All of these executive branch efforts really are just temporary Band-Aids. Whether it's Title 8, whether it's Title 42, we need to make sure Congress acts," she said. "The administration, in the absence of any legislation from the Congress, has very few tools available." An urgent challenge Mass movement across the Western Hemisphere has posed an urgent challenge for Biden, who in his first few months in office faced a surge of unaccompanied migrant children at the border and later, the abrupt arrival of thousands of Haitian migrants. Since 2021, there have been more than 2.4 million arrests along the US-Mexico border, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. That includes people who have attempted to cross more than once. Many have also been turned away under Title 42. The arrival of thousands of migrants has strained border communities, including El Paso. The city has prided itself on being a welcoming place for migrants but has been overwhelmed in recent months with the sudden arrival of thousands of migrants, straining local resources and prompting pleas for federal assistance. Anxiety about the scheduled end of Title 42 prompted thousands of migrants in recent weeks to turn themselves in to border authorities or to cross into the United States illegally in a very short period. The policy was scheduled to lift last month, but a Supreme Court ruling kept the rule in place while legal challenges play out in court. Federal data shared with CNN indicates that migrant encounters in El Paso have dropped drastically since December, when thousands crossed on a daily basis. There have been less than 700 daily encounters on average over the last few days, compared to nearly 2,500 at its peak in December, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS said it deployed 100 additional personnel to the El Paso region in December, and this week, the department will open another temporary facility to process migrants. Shelters in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, have also seen a decrease in migrants, DHS said. Biden has said he wanted to wait until he knew an outcome in the Title 42 legal machinations before traveling to the border and accused Republicans calling for him to travel there of playing political games. "They haven't been serious about this at all," he said. Center of the debate El Paso has been at the center of the immigration debate dating back to the Trump administration, which piloted the controversial family separation policy in the region. While Biden has condemned Trump-era immigration policies, his own administration has wrestled with striking a balance between enforcement and holding up its humanitarian promises. In El Paso, Biden was faced with the history of his predecessor and the challenges he faces as the administration tries to stem the flow of mass migration in the hemisphere. In recent months, the El Paso sector has surpassed the Rio Grande Valley sector in migrant arrests. RGV has historically been one of the busiest sectors for border crossings. The El Paso sector patrols 268 miles of international border. Last November, border authorities encountered more than 53,000 migrants in the El Paso sector, according to the latest available data from US Customs and Border Protection. Last year, El Paso -- whose mayor, Leeser, is a Democrat -- began sending migrant buses to New York City, following in the footsteps of Republican governors, to try to get people to their destination and decongest the city. That effort has since stopped. Biden tries a new policy Ahead of Biden's border visit, the administration also announced plans to expand the policy and include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans while it remains in place. Title 42 has so far largely applied to migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Venezuela. The announcements Biden made Thursday reflect the administration's effort to prepare for the end of Title 42, along with putting in place programs to manage the surge of migrants that have coincided with the anticipated end of the rule. The administration will now accept up to 30,000 migrants per month from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela under a humanitarian parole program geared toward those nationalities. Those who do not come to the US under that program may be expelled to Mexico under Title 42. The announcement drew criticism from immigrant advocates and Democrats who argued the policies will put migrants who are seeking asylum in harm's way. "The expansion of Title 42 to include Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans is a broken promise," said Dylan Corbett, executive director of Hope Border Institute, in a statement. Hope Border Institute has been assisting migrants who have arrived in El Paso. "Border communities will continue to work hard to pick up the broken pieces of our nation's immigration system and show that our future lies not with expulsion and deportation, but with humanity and hope," he added. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus grilled top Biden officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, over the newly announced border policies in a call Thursday, according to two sources in attendance. Members felt blindsided by the new policies and frustrated with the lack of engagement prior to their rollout, the sources said. "It was really heated," one source said, adding that members were "livid" that the administration didn't consult with them ahead of time. The call included officials with the Department of Homeland Security and the White House. One of the sources of tension during the call was a new asylum regulation that could bar migrants who are seeking asylum in the United States from doing so if they passed through another country on their way to the US-Mexico border. The restrictions are reminiscent of limits rolled out during the Trump administration, though officials have rejected the comparison. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Biden makes tightly controlled visit to the southern border, his first as president." (CNN) China sent 28 warplanes across the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Sunday as Beijing conducted its first large-scale military exercises around the island this year, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said. The 28 People's Liberation Army (PLA) planes were among 57 spotted near Taiwan, the ministry said, adding they included J-10, J-11, J-16 and Su-30 fighters, H-6 bombers, three drones and an early warning and reconnaissance aircraft. Taiwan tasked aircraft, naval vessels and land-based missile systems to respond to the Chinese activities, the ministry said. A map provided by the ministry showed PLA aircraft crossing the median line in seven places from north to south and flying through Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) south of the island, then turning slightly north to the east of the line. A statement from the PLA's Eastern Theater Command said its forces engaged in combat drills around Taiwan on Sunday. "The exercise focused on land strikes, sea assaults and other subjects, aiming to test the troops' joint combat capability and resolutely counter the collusive and provocative acts of the external forces and the 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces," according to a statement posted on the state-run China Military Online. China's ruling Communist Party views Taiwan a democratically governed island of 24 million as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it. It has long vowed to "reunify" the island with the Chinese mainland, by force if necessary. The combat exercise follows a similar one on December 25, in which the PLA sent 47 aircraft across the median line of the Taiwan Strait out of a total 71 that were spotted around the island, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry. US warship transits Taiwan Strait China's military drills Sunday came three days after a US Navy destroyer transited the Taiwan Strait in a "freedom of navigation" operation, the first such voyage reported by the US Navy this year. The USS Chung-Hoon "transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state," a US 7th Fleet statement said, adding that its route "demonstrates the United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific." China said it monitored the movement of the US warship and that all its movements were "under control." A story in the state-run Global Times tabloid said the PLA would intensify its drills around Taiwan if provocations from outside forces and "Taiwan independence" forces continue. The Global Times story cited the US destroyer's transit of the Taiwan Strait and a potential $180 million US arms sale to Taiwan approved by the Biden administration on December 28. The sale of vehicle-launched anti-tank munition-laying systems "serves U.S. national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient's continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability," a US State Department statement said. Washington has long provided arms to Taiwan under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act, which says the US will provide the island with the means to defend itself. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Chinese military stages large-scale military exercises around Taiwan." (CNN) Ukrainian officials on Sunday dismissed Moscow's claim that a large number of Kyiv's soldiers were killed in a Russian attack last week in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine. "This is nonsense," Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesman for Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told CNN, in response to the Russian claim. A CNN team on the ground has seen no indication of any massive casualties in the area. There is no unusual activity in and around Kramatorsk, including in the vicinity of the city morgue, the team reported. A Reuters reporter in Kramtorsk also reported no signs of a significant Russian strike on two college dormitories that Russia claimed had been housing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers. "There were no obvious signs that soldiers had been living there and no sign of bodies or traces of blood," the Reuters report said. Kramatorsk's mayor said there had been no casualties, according to Reuters. Earlier, Russia claimed that more than 600 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a Russian strike in Kramatorsk carried out in "retaliation" over the Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Makiivka last week, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry. The Makiivka strike took place just after midnight on New Year's Day, targeting a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region, according to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts. At least 89 Russian soldiers were killed a rare Russian admission of a high death toll. The Ukrainian military reported even higher figures, initially claiming up to around 400 Russian soldiers were killed. CNN cannot independently verify either side's reported death toll. In either case, the strike marked one of the deadliest episodes of the conflict for Moscow's forces. A rare public blame game broke out between the Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders and military experts in the aftermath of the strike, after Moscow appeared to blame its own soldiers' use of cell phones. The Russian Defense Ministry said "the main cause" of the Makiivka strike was the widespread use of cell phones by Russian soldiers, "contrary to the ban," which allowed Ukraine to "track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers' locations." But that account was angrily dismissed by an influential military blogger and implicitly contradicted by the leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine, pointing to discord in the Russian command over Moscow's response to the attack. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Kyiv dismisses Russia's claim hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers killed in Kramatorsk attack." (CNN) Prince Harry told CBS' 60 Minutes Sunday he hasn't spoken with his brother, Prince William, "for quite a while," in the second of two major interviews ahead of the publication of his memoir, "Spare" on Monday. The Duke of Sussex told Anderson Cooper he doesn't "currently" speak with the Prince of Wales, "but I look forward to us being able to find peace," he said. It follows an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby, ahead of what is likely to be an explosive week for the British royals with the release of Harry's memoirs. The interviews address a wide range of topics from the death of Prince Harry's mother, the Princess of Wales, his frustration towards the British press, the treatment of his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and the subsequent fallout with his family since his marriage. Buckingham Palace has repeatedly declined to comment on the contents of Prince Harry's forthcoming memoir. In the interview and in excerpts from his memoir shared by ITV, the Duke of Sussex addressed how strife in his family has been fueled by the relationship between Buckingham Palace and media outlets. "We're not just talking about family relationships, we're talking about an antagonist, which is the British press, specifically the tabloids who want to create as much conflict as possible," Prince Harry told Bradby. "The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict." He also stated that the "leaking" and "planting" of "a royal source" to the press "is not an unknown person, it is the palace specifically briefing the press, but covering their tracks by being unnamed." Prince Harry added that he thinks "that's pretty shocking to people. Especially when you realize how many palace sources, palace insiders, senior palace officials, how many quotes are being attributed to those people, some of the most heinous, horrible things have been said about me and my wife, completely condoned by the palace because it's coming from the palace, and those journalists have literally been spoon-fed that narrative without ever coming to us, without ever seeing or questioning the other side." He spoke about how his mother was hunted by paparazzi, recalling the traumatic night his father told him Princess Diana had died from injuries sustained in a car crash. "I don't want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don't want my children to have a life without a mother or a father," Prince Harry said in the interview. The Duke of Sussex also talked about his decision to write the book, saying, "thirty-eight years of having my story told by so many different people, with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to tell own my story and be able to tell it for myself. I'm actually really grateful that I've had the opportunity to tell my story because it's my story to tell." Prince Harry pointed out that he has tried over the last six years to resolve his concerns with his family privately. "It never needed to get to this point. I have had conversations, I have written letters, I have written emails, and everything is just, 'No, you, this is not what's happening. You, you are imagining it,'" he said. "That's really hard to take. And if it had stopped, by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this would have turned out differently. It's hard." The duke said he wants "reconciliation but first there needs to be some accountability," with respect to his family. "You can't just continue to say to me that I'm delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up, because I was genuinely terrified about what is going to happen to me," he said. "And then we have a 12-month transition period and everyone doubles. My wife shares her experience. And instead of backing off, both the institution and the tabloid media in the UK, both doubled down," he added. Still, the duke said, "forgiveness is 100 percent a possibility," during the interview. "There's probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will go, how could you ever forgive your family for what they have done? People have already said that to me. And I said forgiveness is 100% a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don't recognize them, as much as they probably don't recognize me," Prince Harry said. On Monday, the duke's interview with "Good Morning America" co-anchor Michael Strahan will air on the ABC show, followed in the evening by a half-hour special on ABC News Live. And to top things off, the duke will make an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" hours after his book is released on Tuesday. With that all to come before the public is even able to get their hands on book, one has to wonder if there will be any revelations left to read. For days now, leaks from the upcoming tome have sparked headlines around the world. It is now known the duke has made a slew of damaging accusations against the British royal family in "Spare" after several outlets obtained early copies of the book before the weekend. CNN has not seen a copy of the book but has requested an advance copy from the publisher Penguin Random House. Perhaps the most incendiary revelation to emerge was Prince Harry's claim of a scuffle with the Prince of Wales during an argument over his wife, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2019, as he described while reading in an excerpt of his memoir on air on Sunday. Prince Harry said his brother never tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan, but expressed some concerns and told him, "'This is going be really hard for you,'" Prince Harry recalled during his interview. "I still to this day don't truly understand which part of what he was talking about," Prince Harry continued. "Maybe he predicted what the British press's reaction was going to be." His relationship with Prince William is just one of a series of incredibly candid accounts of life as the "spare heir" in his memoir. The book's title of "Spare" -- a reference to a nickname the duke lived with while growing up. Prince Harry's version of events also tackles his final moments with the late Queen Elizabeth II, his attempts to seek closure after his mother's death, and other deeply personal conversations with members of "The Firm." One part of the book that is seeing some backlash is his reported remarks on killing 25 Taliban fighters during his time in the British Army in Afghanistan. In addition to disclosing the figure, the duke is also quoted as describing the insurgents as "chess pieces" taken off the board rather than people, according to UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph. Prince Harry's comments have prompted criticism from some British security and military figures -- and an angry rebuke from the Taliban. Before publicity ramped up around the duke's book, the Sussexes had previously opened up about the challenges and hardships of royal life in their Netflix docuseries and to Oprah Winfrey. In both those royal exposes, the couple outlined their acrimonious split with the House of Windsor and blamed the media for invasive, unrelenting coverage, particularly of Meghan. The Sussexes announced in 2020 that they were stepping away from their roles as senior royals and planned to work towards becoming "financially independent." The following year, the palace confirmed the couple had agreed with Queen Elizabeth II that they were not returning as working members of the royal family. In the recent six-part Netflix documentary, Prince Harry didn't hold back when he blamed the press for placing undue stress on his wife, saying it led to her having a miscarriage and suffering suicidal thoughts. Meghan said she wanted to go somewhere for help but claimed she wasn't allowed to because of the optics on the institution, without specifying who she believed stopped her. She made similar comments in her explosive 2021 interview with Winfrey. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Prince Harry says 'heinous, horrible' stories have been 'spoon-fed' to press from the palace." 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. State Rep. Julie McCluskie is taking the reins of the Colorado House of Representatives as the chamber enters a historic period of Democratic leadership. After the November election flipped five seats from red to blue, the House now has a 46-19 Democrat-Republican split. This supermajority is likely the largest Democratic advantage in state history and makes legislation backed by the chambers Democrats veto-proof from the governor. This comes as the state Senate also increased its Democratic representation in November, achieving a 23-12 party split. McCluskie, D-Dillon, was nominated by her caucus to serve as House speaker for the upcoming legislative session. This will be McCluskies first time assuming the top position in the House, though the third-term representative has experience chairing numerous committees, including the Joint Budget Committee the most powerful committee in the Legislature responsible for the states annual budget. Colorado Politics sat down with McCluskie to discuss her plans for leading the House when the states 74th General Assembly convenes on Jan. 9. Fast Facts Age? 58 Family? Married to husband for 36 years with two children, ages 29 and 24. Favorite song? I can see clearly now by Johnny Nash. Something about you most people dont know? I secretly want to be a goat farmer. My grandparents were farmers, my parents were farmers and, at some point, I want to return to those roots. Colorado Politics: What does the role of House speaker mean to you and what are your personal leadership goals? Julie McCluskie: I am deeply honored to have received the confidence and support of my colleagues to serve in this role. I have been privileged to be a part of our Joint Budget Committee these past few years and to chair the Joint Budget Committee. This felt like a strong next step in that progression of serving the needs of the caucus and certainly the needs of my constituents and our state. My goals as leader are to ensure the integrity of the institution and to lead with respect for the diverse voices, lived experiences, talent and expertise that all of our members will bring to this work. It is truly my hope that, in my time as speaker, we are able to move Colorado forward, address the needs of the people that we serve and make sure that everyone in this state gets to live their own version of the Colorado dream. CP: What are your top policy priorities for the upcoming legislative session? JM: We need to continue to address the challenges that working people and families are facing around affordability. I talk about affordability as a three-legged stool: housing, health care and child care. When a family or a working person can't deal with those specific expenses, it creates a burden and an inability to thrive. I also think our state, as we return to what may be a new normal following the global pandemic, is ready to get back to and dig in on the threats we are facing with climate change and drought. Most specifically, the dire crisis that we're facing on the waterfront. It is time for us to lean in and be a leader for the upper and lower basin states that are part of the Colorado River Compact and be a leader in water policy. And then, of course, wildfire and forest health. We've seen such devastation with recent wildfires, destruction of property and life in ways that I don't think we could have ever imagined just a few short years ago. On the environmental front and dealing with those threats, I think water and wildfire will be priorities. I would also lift up the air quality challenges that we are facing as a state. We did some good work last year, but that will continue to be a priority for us. I also spent more than 12 years in public schools and am deeply committed to making sure that we work toward better funding for our public education system overall and for our higher education system, as well. CP: With the recent mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, there's been a lot of talk about pursuing gun control legislation this year. Where are you on that? JM: That is one area that our caucus and membership are still discussing. I don't know that I have anything very specific, but I think it's fair to say that gun violence prevention is a priority and has been a priority for this state. We've already passed, beginning in 2013, some fundamental first steps in gun safety legislation. I anticipate those conversations to continue. I think it's certainly the conversation of the day given the recent Club Q shooting, but the state has a devastating legacy when it comes to gun violence and there's clearly more work to do. CP: Ive also heard rumors about revisiting some bills from last year, including expanding or editing the Reproductive Health Equity Act and the Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Bill. Do you have any thoughts on those issues? JM: I can speak specifically to RHEA. It certainly isn't uncommon for us to revisit policies that we have passed previously, a chance for us to improve upon or clarify or add to policies that we've passed. The Reproductive Health Equity Act is unique in that we were able to protect a woman's right to choose when it comes to abortion and reproductive healthcare. Since passing RHEA, discussions have evolved because of what other states are pursuing or what they are now enshrining in statute. So, in response to that, I certainly think that members of our caucus will look at being sure we continue to honor the rights of women and providers, making sure those services can be available to those in our state and those that may visit our state. While I dont have specifics, we will try to make sure that we have done all we can to protect a woman's right to choose and that we're thoughtful about any risks providers might face as well. CP: Looking back at the November election, your party was incredibly successful. Democrats now have a 69-31 majority across the legislature and a supermajority in the House. How does that feel? Were you expecting this kind of blowout victory? JM: As I've talked with many of us who were successful in the election, we looked to the hard work of not only candidates, but the constituents who believe in the work we've been doing and acknowledge that we have accomplished many of the goals and promises we made over these past four years. This election was a testament that Colorado is moving in the right direction. Has the pandemic been hard? Yes. Has the economic turbulence that followed been challenging? Yes. But we've made smart, thoughtful investments in affordable housing, behavioral healthcare, workforce revitalization. We focused our budget efforts on protecting safety net services and taking care of the most vulnerable in our state. This election is a vote of confidence that we should continue serving because we've been delivering on what our constituents expect. Additionally, those who are newly elected and will be serving their first term, they were able to communicate and share their values and focus on our accomplishments in that same way. So, I certainly think it is an affirmation of the good work that's been accomplished and a belief in the agenda and values that we have brought forward for our great state. CP: How is the increased Democratic control going to impact the session, particularly regarding bipartisanship and working across the aisle? JM: I would point to how I have served these past four years. That is, always with a lens of bipartisanship, of recognizing that no singular party has all the right answers. When we work together and consider diverse perspectives, we strengthen policy and better meet the needs of our constituents. I have often commented that there's a bit of magic on the Western Slope because Republicans and Democrats, both in the House and the Senate, work very well together to problem-solve first and put partisanship second. We have tried to address some of the thorniest issues facing the people in this state and have done so with great success. The Reinsurance Program is an example of a policy that came forward. I worked closely with Sen. Bob Rankin, Sen. Kerry Donovan and Rep. Janice Rich. The four of us, Democrats and Republicans, brought forward a policy that has now saved Coloradans millions of dollars on their health insurance premiums. That is the type of leadership and direction that I will continue to carry. I will continue to lead with the expectation that we are committed to all voices and all perspectives to craft the best policy for the state. CP: After the election, the legislature is also now majority women for the first time and has unprecedented LGBTQ+ and POC representation. Though, you recently caught some flak for your committee chair appointments being all white. Tell me about that and about what this caucus diversity means to you. JM: First of all, it is a testament to Colorado's independent nature that we are the second state in the nation to be a majority women legislature. I am absolutely delighted that all three leadership positions in the House are filled by women, as well as women of color. I am excited with the diversity of backgrounds, lived experience, race, gender, LGBTQ status in our caucus. You will see that reflected in our leadership team. This leadership team will really do a nice job of highlighting and elevating the concerns of different communities from around the state. I am also really proud of the fact that when we look at our chairs and vice chairs, we have five members of color serving in vice chair positions. We have a number of returning members who are pursuing new career interests. Because of that, they took themselves out of the running for chairships. So, while I thank them for their leadership and service, as we look to current incumbents who may have the experience to be chairing committees, we're also looking to build our bench and make sure that we continue to lift up those voices of all members. CP: Were going to see a lot of new lawmakers next session and a lot of big senior members leaving office. Ive heard this will be a record number of new House representatives. How do you feel about that, any concerns? JM: I'm incredibly excited about the new fresh energy that I see on both sides of the aisle with our newly electeds. I don't know the exact percentage, but our chief clerk told me that it's one of the largest new classes that he has ever seen in his time here at the House. I think that's terrific. Its a chance for us to revisit what some of our norms and systems are around orientation, helping get new members up to speed quickly and hearing their voices in what works for them and how we can get better at the day-to-day of this job. I also think it really opens up an opportunity for us to invigorate some of the work that we have been doing because we'll have those fresh perspectives and fresh questions about why we do things a certain way. But I'm incredibly excited about it and really look forward to getting to work with this new group. Leer en espanol It is a beautiful tradition to begin each year by wishing loved ones, friends and strangers a trip around the sun full of happiness, health, prosperity, and peace. These are the wishes we send to you this year, dear readers, regardless of what religious, ideological or economic differences may set us apart. But the work of achieving these hopes and desires, and of ensuring they extend to our communities, requires the cooperation and support of all of us. It requires concrete action, more than mere expressions of good will. We have insisted in recent years on the need for citizens to take ownership over their public spaces: that we not just limit our participation in political life to social media, or to turning out at the polls every two or three years. Central Americas new governments have shut down mechanisms of accountability while tightening their grip on democracys neck, for their own benefit, and plundering the public coffers for personal gain. They have taken control of the judiciary and are now advancing, all of them, in their efforts to further limit our constitutional rights, and to use the mechanisms of state power to guarantee impunity, persecute their critics, and continue dismantling our public institutions. The case of Nicaragua is enough to demonstrate the damage that a small group in power can do to an entire country. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have turned Nicaragua into a fiefdom, where everything works according to the will and for the benefit of those who govern, and not, as democracies require, of those who are governed. In every election, Daniel Ortega waves the old banners of the Left, promising more equality, more solidarity and more ferocity in his struggle against the enemies of the people. Just to be sure, during the last election he imprisoned all preliminary opposition candidates. Ortegas behavior in power directly contradicts his every proclamation. His country continues to be one of the poorest in the continent, and its citizens enjoy fewer and fewer rights. The wealth that Nicaragua accumulates flows directly to the presidential family and the businessmen complicit with the dictatorship, while the countrys prisons fill with political prisoners and the entire judicial apparatus functions not on the basis of laws, but on the whims of the Ortega family. Nicaragua continues to be the regional extreme, but it serves as a guiding star for the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, which are advancing at an alarming rate toward a similar end a system in which the state serves only to protect the welfare of a select few. In El Salvador, the economy is in serious trouble, mainly due to government indebtedness, disastrous public policy, the failed Bitcoin project that has cost Salvadorans millions in losses, and rampant corruption. The looting of state coffers during the almost four years that Bukele and his family circle have been in power has no comparable precedent it is worse than under the very governments the president positions himself against, as he claims to set a new example of honest and incorruptible leadership. In terms of corruption, this government is only different from previous ones in that it has stolen even more, has fewer checks and balances on its power, and has eliminated state mechanisms for prosecuting the corrupt. Despite the particularities of the political phenomenon embodied in the figure of Bukele, and despite the fact that he enjoys the highest approval rating of any president in the continent, his authoritarian drift, the corruption in his administration, and his destruction of the rule of law all necessary for him to remain, unconstitutionally, in power have isolated El Salvador internationally, not only from traditional allies like the United States and Europe, but also from the broader community of Latin American democracies. A regime that is opaque, corrupt, and an enemy of the rule of law presents a serious threat to the rights of its citizens. It threatens the right to justice, the right to transparency and accountability, the right to freedom of expression, and the right to live in a country governed by a body of laws rather than the whims of those in power. In Honduras, the departure from the presidency of Juan Orlando Hernandez, who now faces drug trafficking charges in the United States, promised the beginning of a new era of hope for our neighbor to the north. But the Zelaya family, with Xiomara in the presidency and Mel commanding from the rearguard, has instead decided to follow in Bukeles footsteps, formally and informally incorporating the entire presidential family into government, declaring a state of exception, and carrying out military sieges across the country. In neighboring Guatemala, it is not one person or one family, but rather the old economic groups, narco-politics, and the military who have retaken control of the state apparatus, now that the UN-backed anti-impunity commission, CICIG, is no longer in their way. The judiciary is once again at the disposal of these groups; meanwhile, citizen organizations those who led the street protests that culminated in the fall of President Otto Perez Molina in 2015 and ushered in the Guatemalan Spring have been dismantled, with many of their members forced into exile. Ongoing corruption scandals and the impunity that accompanies them only show how easy it is for thieves, when they eliminate regulations on public spending and take control of the judicial apparatus, to avoid paying any consequences. These omens do not bode well for a region that has already suffered so much, whose people have struggled so hard, for so many decades, to build a more prosperous and equitable society. But it is precisely in the hands of those people where the only imaginable way out of this grave situation now lies. We need citizens who are critical, who make demands, who speak out, and who assume that the state belongs to everyone, not just the powerful groups and mafias that control their countries. We need citizens who self-organize and intervene more forcefully in the public debate. This is our hope for the new year: that the citizenry is stronger, more critical, more powerful, more organized, more visible. Without this, democracies are not viable, and the destiny of a territorys people is determined by whichever despot is in power. Central American history has given us sufficient, and sufficiently painful, lessons on why that scenario is undesirable. The other scenario, the desirable one, is citizen power. Your power. Happy New Year. 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 (Posted Jan. 9, 2022) By Kristy Zurbrick, Madison Editor A new format for a long-standing event will celebrate not only the performing arts but also the visual arts. The Madison County Arts Councils (MCAC) annual Young Artist Showcase is back for the first time since 2020. This time, in addition to musical performances by local youths, the showcase will include announcement of the winners of the Kurt Lattimer Aspiring Artist Award and a reception. Entrants artwork will be on display. The event will take place at 3 p.m. Jan. 22 at First United Methodist Church of London, 52 N. Main St. Admission is free. A freewill offering will be taken at the door. This marks the start of a new partnership between MCAC and organizers of the Aspiring Artist Award. The Aspiring Artist Award is an art contest open to Madison County high school seniors. Each year, all entrants are invited to a reception. Winners earn cash prizes. Kim Lattimer Reeder, one of the contests founders and the mother of the person for whom the contest is named, said family and friends have been great about donating money for prizes, the reception, and other costs over the years. As the contest has progressed, she said she has been looking for additional financial support. Grants are one avenue, she said, but many organizations require applicants to have non-profit status or affiliation with a non-profit. Valerie Peart, an MCAC member and organizer of this years Young Artist Showcase, connected with Reeder to help make that happen. Under MCACs non-profit umbrella, the Aspiring Artist Award program can now apply for grants. For this years contest, the Ohio Arts Council matched the programs fundraising efforts dollar for dollar, presenting the program with $2,800 to help with expenses. Peart and Reeder are excited about the new partnership between their arts programs. We fit together in a way that benefits each other, Peart said. Both local organizations reward and celebrate students involved in the arts, and the art contest gives MCAC, whose focus has been primarily the performing arts, more of a presence in the visual arts in the community. I think its going to be an awesome event, Reeder said about the upcoming showcase and reception. The Jan. 22 event will start with musical performances by youths from Madison-Plains, London, and West Jefferson schools, as well as students from Tolles Career & Technical Center. London Elementarys youth choir and the Treble Tones, a community childrens choir, also will perform. Audience members can expect a mix of vocal and instrumental numbers featuring everything from classical pieces to musical theater numbers. Peart said the showcase gives young performers an outlet to show off their talents and mingle with youths from outside their usual circles who share similar interests. It also gives parents and the community an opportunity to see and enjoy what local students can do. The prize announcements and reception for the Aspiring Artist Award program will follow the musical performances. The art contest includes two new categories this yeardigital art (anything generated on a computer) and three-dimensional art (stained glass, mosaics, and ceramics). The third category is paintings/drawings. Theres still time for Madison County seniors to submit entries for the art contest. The deadline is 12 p.m. Jan. 21. Entries can be dropped off at First United Methodist Church of London as follows: Jan. 16-18, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. and 1-3 p.m.; Jan. 19, 9 a.m.-12 p.m., 1-3 p.m., and 4-6 p.m.; and Jan. 21, 10 a.m.-12 p.m. For more information, visit aspiringartistaward.com. For more information, visit aspiringartistaward.com. TikTok, the viral app resident on millions of devices, was recently banned from executive branch devices in the United States, as set out in in the recent Omnibus Bill signed by President Joe Biden. The Omnibus Bill, as detailed in CSO Onlines overview, highlighted that the legislation required the Office of Management and Budget in consultation with the administrator of general services, the director of CISA, the director of national intelligence, and the secretary of defense, to develop within two months standards and guidelines for executive agencies requiring the apps removal. Duly noted was the action taken by the House of Representatives, which immediately voted to ban the app from the phones of House members and staff amid protestations from TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance. The federal government is not alone. State government TikTok bans State governments have also stepped up and have acted or plan to take action to ban TikTok from official devices, including: Tennessee: Governor Bill Lee banned TikTok in December 2022. Texas: Governor Greg Abbott on December 7, 2022. Indiana: Banned by the Indiana Office of Technology on December 7, 2022. Utah: Banned by Governor Spencer Cox on December 12, 2022 Its important to note that this is not just a US versus ByteDance/China dance. The UK has warned government entities of the risk associated with TikTok, which has resulted in the closure of TikTok accounts within Parliament. Swedens Sveriges Television has asked employees to delete the app from their work phones due to safety concerns. India, which has a track record of banning Chinese applications from devices for national security reasons, continues to do so. In 2020, India banned TikTok and a number of additional apps of Chinese origin, citing national security concerns. An action they had previously taken in 2018 when 40 apps were banned by India. Universities banning TikTok In addition, a number of universities, hubs of research and development where the future is often seen up close, have banned TikTok from their devices and network access. University of Oklahoma Langston University Oklahoma State University University of Central Oklahoma Northwestern Oklahoma State University Boise State University Idaho State University Auburn University Universities within Oklahoma were directed by the governors office to banish TikTok from their networks, as the governor noted: Maintaining the cybersecurity of state government is necessary to continue to serve and protect Oklahoma citizens and we will not participate in helping the Chinese Communist Party gain access to government information. TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter was quoted by CNET as taking exception with the bans by universities as based on unfounded falsehoods" about the app that won't advance cybersecurity. Oberwetter also called the schools policies rushed and said they'd have unintended consequences when it comes to recruiting students, sharing information, and building various student communities. CIFUS continues to review The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) review should continue, and if TikToks Project Texas has legs and will successfully demonstrate the separation of US user data from the rest of the globe, perhaps a rethink will be in order. It would seem a very high bar, however, given that less than six months ago we noted here on CSO Online that Internet 2.0, an Australian cybersecurity firm, had produced the pointedly titled Its Their Word Against Their Source Code TikTok Report. Their research showed that the app does indeed connect to China and requests almost complete access to the contents of the phone while the app is in use. That data includes calendar, contact lists, and photos. TikTok can and has collected user data Furthermore, there was also the recent revelation that TikTok had indeed used its platform to monitor Forbes journalists. TikToks claim that an internal investigation discovered that individuals misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data, is doing nothing to help TikToks position that they wont and cant monitor individual users, as clearly it is technologically possible. National security threat In early December 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray called out TikTok as a national security threat and highlighted how the app could be used by China to shape the content seen by users. In other words, as a funnel for Chinese propaganda into the United States. He also observed, in much the same way as noted above, how China could use the app to harvest information, which he characterized as more traditional espionage. Is TikTok touching your users and network? With nations banning TikTok from their infrastructure and devices, universities attempting to protect the PII and intellectual property within their ecosystems, and the national security concerns highlighted, every CISO must be asking the question: What could TikTok harvest from our users devices that would put our entity at risk? If the answer to that question is I dont know, then perhaps a bit of research is in order to quantify the risk, if any. If the answer is our intellectual property, information on network configuration, personal information on our employees, email archives one employee at a time, and calendar and contact data of every employee who uses TikTok, then perhaps a discussion should be had on why TikTok is allowed on corporate devices that touch corporate infrastructure. Im blessed By Dr. Robert Owens web posted January 9, 2023 When asked by the Barna Group, Do we have a personal responsibility to share our faith with others? most Christians answer, Yes. 100% of Evangelicals and 73% of born-again Christians said yes. When this conviction is put into practice however, the numbers shift downward. Only 69% of Evangelicals and 52% of born-again Christians say they actually did share the Gospel at least once this past year to someone with different beliefs in the hope that they might accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. Born again Christians were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as born again. Being classified as born again is not dependent upon church or denominational affiliation or involvement. Evangelicals meet the born-again criteria described above plus seven other conditions. Those include: saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance, the denominational affiliation of the church attended, or self-identification. Many people have a hard time sharing their faith in Christ. They feel as if they dont want to be perceived as pushy. Possibly theyre afraid to speak to strangers or they dont know how to get a conversation to a place where speaking about faith might be appropriate. Heres an easy, comfortable way that my wife introduced me to many years ago. In America a common greeting is, Hi howre you doing? Most people arent really concerned with how were doing its just a greeting. However, when someone asks us a question, were free to answer it and its a natural and comfortable thing to do. Whenever Im asked Americas greeting Hi howre you doing? I answer, Im blessed. The reactions are very interesting. Some just give a quizzical look. Some say, You are? which is another question. And as in the initial situation answering a question is an easy natural thing to do. Ill answer, You are? with something like I am and I wont accept anything less. Sometimes people will answer with another question something like, Why are you blessed? and this opens the door for easily speaking about Jesus gave it to me and the world cant take it away or some other friendly answer that leads directly to speaking of Jesus. Not often but occasionally, it leads to an actual chance to share the hope of the Gospel. If nothing else, it opens the door to speak the name of Jesus in public. And you never know who might be listening and what the sound of that Name may have in the ripple effect of reality. Sometimes our initial response of Im blessed is met with, I am too. This opens a door for fellowship with a fellow believer and the collateral opportunity for others to hear people who arent afraid to share their faith in public and another opportunity to speak the Name of Jesus into the air of a world that needs him. This type of conversational evangelism is reflected in one T-shirt I have. It says, Im Blessed and then under that large headline it offers an answer to anyone who might ask why, You better ask Jesus. Its also reflected in the words to an old song from the hills of Missouri: Im Blessed and I know that I am since Jesus took control of my life. Im blessed and I know that I am since He gave to me a new life. Im blessed and if you happen to ask how I am my friend. Im Blessed, Im Blessed, Im Blessed For any of us who find it hard to get started with sharing the good news of the Gospel with others why not give, Im blessed, a try since we are. Then get ready to walk through any doors God decides to open. This is an excerpt from the book Faith by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available from Amazon in paperback or kindle at Amazon. Home STORY LINK Pound Canadian Dollar Exchange Rate News: GBP/CAD Wavered amid Oil Price Rally Canadian Dollar (CAD) Supported by Surging Oil Prices Pound (GBP) Undermined by Downbeat Economic Outlook GBP/CAD Exchange Rate Forecast: Prolonged Industrial Action to Sink Sterling? Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues: The Canadian Dollar (CAD) enjoyed moderate success to open the week with a spike in oil prices. The commodity-linked Loonie saw a boost in demand as China rolled back their strict Covid measures, bolstering demand for oil. A 3% jump from the opening levels, WTI crude traded around $76 a barrel on improving demand expectations.Coming off the back of winding down numerous anti-Covid measures, Beijing have announced the reopening of their borders after almost three years of travel restrictions. The worlds second largest economy is expected to recover almost 75% of its domestic tourism revenue from its pre-Covid levels. Ralph Hamers, Chief Executive at UBS, commented:The ending of the zero-COVID policy is going to have a major positive impact on domestic spending. We believe there is a lot of opportunity for those committed to investing in China.A return to normality in China could see a vastly improved global market sentiment, boosting riskier currencies such as the Canadian Dollar. As the manufacturing capital of the world, the increased demand for oil could see the Loonie strengthen.Meanwhile, the Pound (GBP) struggled for much demand in the face of mounting economic pressures. The Resolution Foundation warned that further drops in living standards are to be expected in the coming year.The poverty organisation has warned that a 2000 drop in incomes is to be expected as the cost-of-living crisis deepens. An estimated drop of 7% in living standards over two years is set to be worse than the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, which declined by 5% between 2020 and 2012. The report added:When combined with a weak recovery from 2024 onwards, (it) would leave typical household incomes still below pre-pandemic levels even by 2027-28.Looking ahead, the Pound Canadian Dollar exchange rate could trade on market sentiment in lieu of major economic data. After another failed round of negotiations between union leaders and ministers have left further strikes on the table. Onay Kasab, Unites National Lead Officer, left the meeting with Health Secretary Steve Barclay unhappy with the outcome:Unfortunately, the government have missed yet another opportunity to put this right. We came here in good faith. What they want to talk about is productivity.Our members are working 18-hour shifts. How you become more productive with that I do not know.Without an end in sight, the UK economy will be left under pressure from persistent industrial action.Meanwhile, Canadian Dollar investors will be keeping a close eye on developments in China. If WTI crude can maintain their rally, the Loonie could remain elevated. However, troubling headlines from Chinas surging Covid cases could dampen moods. 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 Canadian Dollar Forecasts Senior Palestinian official Hussein al-Sheikh lost his status as a possible successor to Mahmoud Abbas By Yoni Ben Menachem web posted January 9, 2023 Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (right) sitting with his purported successor, Hussein Al-Sheikh PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas convened a meeting of senior Fatah leaders on December 31, 2022, to discuss the publication of the recording of his close associate Hussein al-Sheikh in which he uttered sharp criticism of the PA chairman and even cursed him as the son of 66 whores. Al-Sheikh did not deny in the meeting the words that were heard in the recording leaked to Shehab, the news agency of Hamas. The meeting dealt with the deep disputes in the Fatah movement, and it was agreed to hold another meeting on the subject. Al-Sheikh briefed his close associates that the publication of the recording will not harm his relationship with the head of the Palestinian Authority, but senior Fatah officials say that a deep crisis has arisen between the two and Abbas is giving Hussein al-Sheikh the cold shoulder. The rare recording is still causing a stir on the Palestinian street. The Palestinians are witnessing the continuation of the struggles at the top of the Fatah movement over the question of who will be Abbas successor. The main loser from the leaking of the recording is Hussein al-Sheikh himself. Fatah sources say that his big mouth has harmed him greatly and his chances to be Abbas successor are close to zero. The main beneficiaries of the release of the tape are senior Fatah officials Jabril Rajoub, Mahmoud al-Aloul, Majed Faraj, and Mohammad Dahlan, who was expelled from the Fatah movement but seeks to return after Abbas demise. Another beneficiary is senior Fatah member Tawfik al-Tirawi, an opponent of Hussein al-Sheikh who is suspected of having leaked documents from a committee that investigated the circumstances of Yasser Arafats death. The files indicated that Mahmoud Abbas had a great interest in getting rid of Arafat. Fatah sources claim that al-Sheikh is the one who convinced Abbas to take sanctions against al-Tirawi. Hussein al-Sheikh lost his position as the right-hand man of the head of the Palestinian Authority and his possible successor, sources in the Fatah movement say. Apparently, senior Fatah officials conducted a sting operation to secretly record Hussein al-Sheikh about two months ago and leaked the recording to Hamas for publication. The episode may not be the end of the affair, and soon more recordings of Fatah officials will be leaked to the press. Abbas is quite satisfied with what happened: there are many senior Fatah officials around him and their dependence on him only increases because they lust for power. He is taking advantage of a divide and rule method to achieve his goals. Abbas told his close associates that he had never designated Hussein al-Sheikh as his successor and that the successor would only be chosen as part of general elections in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hussein al-Sheikhs relations with his political ally Majed Faraj were also ruined, and Faraj tends to support Mahmoud al-Aloul as the successor of Abbas. Security officials in Israel and the CIA are worried about the developments. Hussein al-Sheikh, who was accepted by them as a possible successor, lost his status, and the battle of succession became even more complicated. As things stand now, there will be no escape from choosing a successor to Abbas through elections. This means a bloody struggle on the ground between the various militias of Fatah and also the likely possibility that the Hamas-supported candidate who wins the elections will be elected president of the Palestinian Authority. Fatah Secretary General Jabril Rajoub called on Fatah activists this week to unite and put aside their differences. There are now talks between senior Fatah officials about dividing Abbas powers into three positions that will be temporarily filled by Fatah officials until the elections are held for the presidency. Al-Sheikh will continue to serve as the secretary-general of the PLOs executive committee and also minister of civil affairs, thus maintaining the relationship with Israel and the American administration, but he is considered burned by Abbas and on the Palestinian street. The succession battle in the PA is far from over, and more troubling struggles at the top of Fatah are expected. Yoni Ben Menachem, a veteran Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel Radio and Television, is a senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center. He served as Director General and Chief Editor of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. Home GBP/USD - Prices, Charts, and Analysis US ISM data suggest the US economy is contracting. GBP/USD rallies but Sterling is not the driver of the move. Recommended by Nick Cawley Download our brand new Q1 GBP guide Get My Guide Economic activity in the services sector contracted in December for the first time since May 2020, according to the Institute for Supply Management, suggesting that recessionary pressures are building in the US. The report, released last Friday, showed the headline figure fall to 49.6 from a prior 56.5, while business activity fell by 10 points to 54.7. The numbers suggest the US economy is heading for, or may even be in, a recession in the early part of 2023. Fridays weaker-than-expected ISM data, and lower average hourly wage growth seen in the latest US Jobs Report, hit the US dollar hard. The greenback just failed to make a fresh multi-month low but remains weak with little short-term support seen on the daily chart. US Dollar Currency Index January 9, 2023 For all central bank policy decision dates see the DailyFX Central Bank Calendar Recommended by Nick Cawley How to Trade GBP/USD Get My Guide The US dollar sell-off is noticeable in a wide range of US pairs including cable (GBP/USD). The pair has rallied from a Friday low around 1.1850 to a current level of 1.2160 with Sterling in the passenger seat while the greenback drives the move. The British Pound is trying to move higher in itself today but the economic backdrop remains neutral to negative as the UK government struggles to control a raft of strikes currently hitting the country. The UK now needs to solve the current wave of industrial action otherwise the current small bid in Sterling will quickly evaporate. After Fridays US dollar sell-off, cable is now back above all three moving averages and a confirmation of this move in the next couple of days may well set the pair up for another leg higher. With little in the way of UK economic news until the end of the week, it looks likely that the US dollar will continue to be in charge of cable. GBP/USD Daily Price Chart January 9, 2023 Charts via TradingView Retail Trader Bias Is Mixed GBP/USD Mixed Data provided by of clients are net long. of clients are net short. Change in Longs Shorts OI Daily -12% 8% -1% Weekly 3% -6% -3% Retail trader data show 45.45% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.20 to 1.The number of traders net-long is 6.28% higher than yesterday and 7.70% lower from last week, while the number of traders net-short is 0.65% lower than yesterday and 10.60% higher from last week. We typically take a contrarian view to crowd sentiment, and the fact traders are net-short suggests GBP/USD prices may continue to rise. Positioning is less net-short than yesterday but more net-short from last week. The combination of current sentiment and recent changes gives us a further mixed GBP/USD trading bias. What is your view on the British Pound bullish or bearish?? You can let us know via the form at the end of this piece or you can contact the author via Twitter @nickcawley1. If the Queen Consort Camilla is 'dangerous' and a 'dragon' for working with the British free Press to improve her reputation, then Prince Harry and Meghan are themselves dragon slayers. We've now had to sit through hours of a grim fantasy created by the embittered Sussexes, most recently outlined in painful softball interviews by their BFF Tom Bradby on ITV in the UK and woke US media allies Anderson Cooper on CBS and Michael Strahan on ABC. The fairy tale goes that this selfless and altruistic couple were forced to smash relations with their British royal relatives and flee the country because of a vicious briefing campaign launched against them, even seeing the Press conspire with the institution and senior members of the Royal Family to drive out such a popular pair. That narrative is deranged. DAN WOOTTON: We've now had to sit through hours of a grim fantasy created by the embittered Sussexes, most recently outlined in painful softball interviews by their BFF Tom Bradby on ITV in the UK and woke US media allies Anderson Cooper on CBS and Michael Strahan on ABC DAN WOOTTON: It's a hypocritical invented account designed by snivelling Harry and fake Meghan to avoid taking any account for their own behaviour, including credible claims of bullying against staff by the American diva It's a hypocritical invented account designed by snivelling Harry and fake Meghan to avoid taking any account for their own behaviour, including credible claims of bullying against staff by the American diva. Well, I've had enough of media figures tiptoeing around what we all know are falsehoods. If Harry and Meghan claim briefing the tabloid Press is some sort of unforgivable 'crime' undertaken by Charles, Camilla, William and Kate, then they are just as guilty. DAN WOOTTON: I've had enough of media figures tiptoeing around what we all know are falsehoods How do I know? Well, I was on the receiving end of such briefings by the Sussexes' own communications team during my years covering Meghan's time in the Royal Family as I broke a series of now infamous scoops, from Tiaragate, the bitter rivalry between Kate and Meghan, and, ultimately, Megxit. That won't surprise anyone in the media; it's literally the job of some courtiers to work with journalists who have discovered legitimate stories in the public interest about the monarchy, a publicly funded institution that should be held accountable by the fourth estate. In fact, this shouldn't even be a story. But Harry has criminalised these so-called 'briefings and leaks' in his words 'getting in bed with the devil' to such an extent that he's prepared to blow up his own relationship with his loyal brother in such a vicious fashion that it feels highly relevant that he was just as 'guilty'. I had loads of phone conversations with staff of the Sussexes, where I was provided with their side of the story in order to balance revelations that, let's be honest about it, usually made them look bad. For example, when I revealed the couple had hired their third nanny in just six weeks, their team explained to me the 'first nanny was a night nurse' and they didn't want to 'take any risks getting this decision right'. Or when I told how Meghan had made the highly unusual decision to sign a big money book deal while still a working member of the Royal Family, the couple's team told me her first tome would 'absolutely not be some sort of tell-all about her life in the royal family.' Oh, how times change. DAN WOOTTON: Harry has criminalised these so-called 'briefings and leaks' in his words 'getting in bed with the devil' to such an extent that he's prepared to blow up his own relationship with his loyal brother in such a vicious fashion that it feels highly relevant that he was just as 'guilty' Harry says he and Meghan will never move back to the UK Advertisement I even worked closely with Harry and Meghan's staff before revealing their controversial decision to Megxit in January 2020, giving the couple a week's notice before publication and including their official briefing expressing frustration they were 'not central to the future plan' of the monarchy following the release of an official picture of the Queen with Charles, William and George. That's the professional way of working as a journalist; seeking both sides of the story as you ascertain the truth. We don't like talking about this sort of thing no one wants to know how the sausage is made and protecting our confidential sources is something I'm prepared to go to jail to do. But my profession and Britain's free Press itself is now under attack. Prince Harry wants to paint the media as an evil force stoking culture wars and trying to divide Britain. I'd argue he's far more responsible for that. Like the farcical suggestion to Bradby last night that he and Meghan hadn't used their Oprah Winfrey interview to suggest the Royal Family was racist, despite the fact they did just that with incendiary and unproven claims about a so-called 'royal racist' asking about their unborn baby's skin colour. Meanwhile, thanks to their Netflix reality show, we now know that Meghan's team of Hollywood advisers and close friends were working with the US tabloid media, including People magazine, to brief and leak positive stories about the couple exactly the thing they say they're so angry about the royals doing in the UK. And in the new TV interviews and the painfully personal book Spare, which is finally released tomorrow after a torrent of TMI headlines, Harry invades the privacy of his relatives in ways the British media would never be able to justify. He has proudly leaked the words that a grief-stricken and devastated King Charles uttered to his sons in private in the moments after burying his father Prince Philip and even grossly commented on speculation about whether his brother William is circumcised. It feels like Harry and Meghan would much rather live in a country like North Korea, Russia or China where journalists are not free to hold public figures accountable. DAN WOOTTON: Prince Harry wants to paint the media as an evil force stoking culture wars and trying to divide Britain. I'd argue he's far more responsible for that Harry's underlying threat that his relationship with Charles and William is over unless they apologise and pledge to never work with journalists again is both unrealistic, naive and somewhat chilling. It's also worth looking at how Harry's argument blaming the media for influencing how senior royals, especially William, felt about Meghan simply doesn't add up. In last night's interviews, the Duke has now admitted that William and Kate simply never got on with Meghan from the start, thanks to a personality clash that he hinted could be down to their different backgrounds. Well, the media, and therefore the public too, had no idea about those ructions until I first revealed Meghan and Kate had fallen out about the way the actress was said to be rudely speaking to staff at Kensington Palace in an exclusive in November 2018. By the way, at the time courtiers working for William and Kate strongly denied the story to try and keep the peace with the Sussexes, making a mockery of Harry's claim they were negatively briefing against Meghan. Harry's suggestion that William and Kate's opinion was dictated by negative tabloid headlines about Meghan is therefore ridiculous because at the time when they got to know each other the coverage was almost universally positive. As Harry has now himself confirmed, the couples had already fallen out. While it may be hard for Harry to accept, the Prince and Princess of Wales made their own judgements about Meghan being 'difficult, rude and abrasive' after countless personal meetings and apparently seeing first-hand the way the Duchess of Sussex reduced staff to tears. They didn't have to wait months for the media reports to emerge; rightly or wrongly, their mind was seemingly already made up. These are just some of the many inconvenient truths that have been exposed during Harry and Meghan's pitiful and spiteful campaign against their own flesh and blood, which has ironically made them unpopular public figures on both sides of the Atlantic. Harry claims his ultimate goal is to reform the Press. It's not; he wants to control it. Because the bloke is more than happy to share the most intimate details of his family's life to favoured outlets or organisations like Netflix or Random House for multi-million dollar paydays. But when a newspaper or broadcaster questions the rank hypocrisy of his climate change campaigning, for example, while being regular users of carbon spewing private jets, he wants them silenced and shut down. Enough is enough it's time for even the woke media to stop giving the Duke of Delusion an easy ride and realise the damage he is causing to democracy with his falsehoods, distortions and deranged attacks designed to cause further damage to freedom of the Press in Britain. Be honest, how much would you pay for a ticket to hear Theresa May give a speech? A fiver? A tenner? What if they threw in a rubber chicken breast and half a bottle of Algerian paint stripper? Any takers? Thought not. Frankly, if Mother Theresa was giving a speech in my living room, I'd find an excuse to be upstairs washing what's left of my hair these days. Are people really queuing round the block to listen to May's pearls of wisdom? Are people really queuing round the block to listen to May's pearls of wisdom? It's certainly not my idea of a night out It's certainly not my idea of a night out. As the late, great Peter Cook once told David Frost when he was invited to dinner with Air Miles Andy and Sarah Ferguson: I've consulted my diary and I appear to be watching television that evening. I'd rather have a root canal than sit through 45 minutes of Mother Theresa's greatest hits, from 'Brexit means Brexit' to, er, actually I can't think of any others. So I'm astonished to learn some organisations are prepared to shovel shedloads of cash in her direction in exchange for a short speech. For instance, May was paid 107,600 by the World Travel and Tourism Council for a talk at a conference in Riyadh. Why? What special insight does she have into the travel business? For that kind of money, you'd expect her to perform the dance of the seven veils, as a basis for negotiation. She could always reprise her Dancing Queen routine from the Tory Conference. That would be good for a giggle. They do say politics is showbiz for ugly people. Not that I'd be so ungallant as to describe Theresa as ugly. But if she'd chosen a career in showbiz, rather than politics, she'd have been lucky to rise much above knife-thrower's assistant. The pinnacle of her success may have amounted to being placed in a box twice nightly and sawn in half by a Tommy Cooper wannabe. It would certainly have been a great deal more entertaining than her thoughts on matters of state. But as the legendary showman P.T. Barnum once observed: There's a sucker born every minute. How else to explain a Californian company bunging May more than 400,000 for a series of six speeches? Still, good luck to her. It all appears to be legal and above board. And if businessmen with more money than sense want to pay politicians for making speeches, that's their affair. Nice work if you can get it. Boris is already coining it on the after-dinner circuit, and is poised quickly to pass the 2.5 million Mother Theresa has made from speaking engagements since she left Downing Street. Fair play to him. At least Boris is good value, although I'm told he churns out the same old schtick every time. And, believe me, this after-dinner lark isn't easy. Back in the dim and distant, when I did a bit of TV, I got a call from my agent asking what I was doing that Friday night. Having a curry, I probably replied. Did I fancy doing an after-dinner for the London Rubber Company, purveyors of prophylactics, instead? Not particularly. How does eight grand sound? Where do I have to be? Big mistake. When I got there, most of the guests were already half-cut. It was the fag-end of a week-long sales conference and they just wanted to go home. On the top table, I found myself sitting next to a female director of the company. In a light-hearted attempt to break the ice, I asked her who tested the recently introduced range of flavoured condoms, which had begun to appear on sale in pub toilets. We all do, she said. Apparently they had weekly tasting sessions. Malibu flavour was particularly popular, she explained. 'Do you do cheese and onion?' I asked. No call for it, she replied with a straight face. From that moment on, I knew I was doomed to die a death. Start the car! I've never been tempted again. Leave it to the professionals, of whom there are many superb speakers. You might have thought that speech-making was all part of a politician's job description. But if someone's stupid enough to pay them a small fortune to do it, I guess it's just one of the perks. No harm done. Far more sinister are the vast sums ladled in the direction of politicians for nothing in particular. Those presumably seeking influence are prepared to shower MPs with everything from free holidays to sizeable cash donations. A joint investigation by Sky News and the Westminster website Tortoise Media has revealed that three prominent Labour MPs have between them received 345,217 from an outfit called MPM Connect. Sky's heckler-in-chief Sam Coates even took time off from shouting 'When are you going to resign, minister?' to travel beyond the Bubble to the company's registered address in Hertfordshire. The woman who answered the door had never heard of MPM. Turns out it's an investment vehicle run by a Labour-supporting businessman. But that still doesn't explain what the money is for and what he expects to gain from it. Nor why he'd choose out of the goodness of his heart to give 184,317 of his English pounds to the Shadow Home Secretary Pixie Balls-Cooper. Perhaps it's so she can build an extension to accommodate all those Syrian refugees she promised to take in. The same benefactor has also given 100,000 to former South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis and 60,900 to Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Why? And what does he want in return for his generosity? It may well be that his donations are pure altruism. But that can't always be said for the largesse laid on for politicians elsewhere, especially overseas. Tortoise Media investigators also discovered the extent of foreign trips enjoyed by Members of Parliament and their spouses. If Theresa May had chosen a career in showbiz, rather than politics, she'd have been lucky to rise much above knife-thrower's assistant Highest-flyer is Tory MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale David Morris, who has taken 29 foreign jollies, 13 of them with his partner and parliamentary assistant Emma Smith. Countries they've visited include Gibraltar, Turkey and Armenia. The cost of all this is estimated at over 66,000. In the process, Morris has acquired Prince Andrew's 'Air Miles' nickname. Of course, many MPs' overseas jaunts are perfectly legitimate. Others, not so much. A report which disappeared under the radar over Christmas revealed that some MPs treat these 'fact-finding' missions about as seriously as a Jolly Boys Outing to Margate. Another investigation by the website Politico claimed MPs and peers have used all-party trips abroad for sex tourism and heavy drinking. One ex-minister is said to have asked for the address of the nearest brothel when he landed in South-East Asia. A Labour MP is reported to have a particular fondness for Russian girls, another for Chinese women. On one trip, MPs arrived to find hot and cold running prostitutes already waiting in their rooms. Say what you like about Mother Theresa, but you can't imagine her asking the way to the nearest knocking shop next time she's invited to address a room full of tech tycoons in San Diego. Let's hope that after bunging her 100 grand they think they're getting their money's worth. Maybe she and Boris should team up and start treading the boards together. I'd pay good money to watch him saw her in half. But over the years, I've heard her speak more times than I care to remember. And, frankly, I wouldn't give you tuppence for it. Why RINOs are RINOs By Rachel Alexander web posted January 9, 2023 A lot of scrutiny is on Maricopa County's RINO leadership due to the botched 2022 midterm election, where four Democrats strangely allegedly won Arizona's top races despite three of them being well behind in the polls. The Maricopa County Supervisors and Recorder have adamantly defended the integrity of the electoral process, despite hundreds of thousands of misdemeanors and countless anomalies which all coincidentally happened to favor Democrats, violating the Law of Large Numbers. RINOs always declare that they side with Democrats out of "principles," and attack conservatives for the exact same reasons the left does; the usual vague claims that they're offensive, too extreme and unelectable. But their assertion of being principled is a smokescreen. Ever notice how RINOs are always well off, well networked and have been around a long time as GOP establishment? It comes down to follow the money and who they know, but they're too dishonest to admit it. Much of politics comes down to funding, and since most people in politics don't earn a lot of money, they are dependent upon Republican millionaires and billionaires. This includes all kinds of ventures in politics, not just running for office. Nonprofits and think tanks, media, even Republican Party operations are often funded by quirky billionaires with their own agendas, usually tied to protecting their money. Businesses are so heavily regulated by the government now that they can no longer be considered purely private actors. They receive subsidies and tax breaks in exchange for complying with woke policies. The Human Resources departments of corporations have long lists of rules and regulations they must comply with. Over half the workplace is employed by big business. So any money from wealthy businessmen comes with strings attached. When it comes to the Maricopa County Supervisors, much of their funding comes from the real estate industry. If you look at their campaign finance reports, it's a who's who of the homebuilder, developer and other wealthy related interests. Many previous supervisors have come from that industry, contributing to why they developed a reputation as RINOs. One of the most notorious was former Supervisor Don Stapley, whose ties to convicted felon and developer Conley Wolfswinkel caused even progressive publications like the Phoenix New Times to criticize him. Wolfswinkel received $1.4 million from taxpayers over the stress of being investigated in 2013, yet when litigation from another shady land deal finally came to a close in 2018, he was ordered to pay $72 million. Supervisor Bill Gates is a member of the State Bar of Arizona, so with all the conservative election attorneys targeted with bar complaints around the country, it was clear why he came out loudly denouncing any election integrity efforts. That Bar has a reputation for going after conservative attorneys worse than any other state bar in the country. Gates also serves on the board of multiple nonprofits. A second election-fraud denying supervisor who is brand-new to the board, Thomas Galvin, is an attorney as well. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer is another member of the Bar. He apparently wanted to impress the Bar so much with his stance asserting there is no voter disenfranchisement that he started a PAC for GOP election fraud deniers. The Bar doesn't care that it appears to violate ethical rules by supporting candidates in elections he oversees as Recorder, what some legal experts say is a conflict of interest. Kari Lake could not find election attorneys to represent her suing over the botched election because they were too terrified of the Bar. In contrast, the left was represented by the most powerful progressive election attorneys in the country like Marc Elias. He proudly champions opposing election integrity lawsuits around the country. Supervisor Clint Hickman comes from Hickman's Family Farms, the largest egg producer in the southwest. Supervisor Jack Sellers serves on the GPEC International Leadership Council, where he's taken trips to China to help attract investment specifically from China's Jiangsu Province and their Z Corridor, making inroads with solar and renewable energy companies. GPAC is tied to multiple woke companies. The big money behind these corporations doesn't want to disturb the status quo on issues like illegal immigration, since many of these companies employ illegal immigrants, which caused a real rift in Maricopa County several years ago. When someone has been active in politics for years, they inevitably become friends with powerful, charismatic people who influence their viewpoints. This is how the late Sen. John McCain became so influential in Arizona. Many were threatened by him. He threatened me three times, and one time he was successful, because he threatened the career of someone I worked for, so I had to capitulate and remove a lot of my writing. RINOs are almost all wealthy, and they don't want to lose that wealth. They have families to support and a lot to lose, unlike the rest of us deplorables who mostly come from the middle class. The RINOs' behavior becomes a real problem when they cruelly smear principled people. Like the left, they don't just limit their attacks to the fringe right, it now encompasses anyone who dares to take on the woke mob, whether Donald Trump or Elon Musk. Instead of being honest and admitting they have a financial or personal interest affecting their viewpoint, they destroy the reputations and careers of others. This takes place within the legal system as well. Judges pretend to be objective, but legal insiders know they frequently write their opinions to fit their predisposed outcomes. No one ever talks about this, however, since most of the people who are aware of this - attorneys - are prohibited by ethical rules from criticizing judges. Most state bars are mandatory and have adopted those rules, a double whammy since not only does that infringe upon free speech, but being forced to join a state bar in order to practice law - like a union - violates right-to-work laws in the states that have them. So the next time a RINO gets all high and mighty talking about principles, follow the money and connections. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative . She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, Enter Stage Right and other publications. Home The true object of Prince Harry's anger is the Press and in particular the tabloid Press. In his ITV interview with Tom Bradby on Sunday evening, he called it the 'devil'. That is a very disturbing way to describe newspapers in a free society. In some cultures, devils are thought of as phenomena that must be hunted down and extirpated. Harry may not actually want to kill off the Press, but he told Bradby that he wants to 'change' and 'police' it. He claimed the media are 'at the epicentre of so many of the problems across the UK where people are suffering [and] I'm going to try and make a difference'. Should we be worried? Does a somewhat confused and intellectually undistinguished 38-year-old man living 6,000 miles away in California really present a threat to a free Press? The true object of Prince Harry's anger is the Press and in particular the tabloid Press. In his ITV interview with Tom Bradby on Sunday evening, he called it the 'devil' It hardly seems likely. Yet I believe that Harry's attitude towards newspapers illuminates him. His narcissistic outpourings may have served to reduce his band of supporters, but there are still some young people who revere him as a progressive force. They see him and Meghan as rebels eager to take on vested interests and the Establishment, and to champion important causes close to their hearts, such as climate change or anti-racism. I see him differently. For me, Prince Harry is an entitled and exceptionally privileged person, some of whose views would have been regarded as standard by the most odious 18th-century aristocrat. His attacks on a free Press fall into this category. In his visceral hatred of newspapers which speak their own minds, and his desire to curb them, he reveals himself as a deeply illiberal figure. These are views one associates with tyrants who can't bear freedom. Do I overstate the case? Perhaps, but only slightly. Prince Harry does not, of course, carry the ideological baggage of your average despot. Nor do I suggest that he yearns to lock up thousands of people. Nevertheless, his attitudes towards the media are profoundly undemocratic. What amazes me is how utterly misguided his analysis (if that is not too elevated a word to describe his venomous ramblings) of the media really is. One might at least respect him as an iconoclast if he hadn't so spectacularly grasped the wrong end of the stick. For his theory as unveiled to Bradby, and elaborated in his book, is that the Royal Family and the tabloid Press are symbiotic. He informed Bradby that some royals have decided to 'get in the bed with the devil'. According to Harry, they and newspapers have concocted a 'distorted narrative' about him and Meghan, whom they have literally driven from our shores. During the ITV interview, he didn't supply a single example of this allegedly abominable behaviour, and an emollient Tom Bradby only pressed him weakly. Harry may not actually want to kill off the Press, but he told Bradby that he wants to 'change' and 'police' it Prince Harry did disclose that, in his mind, the chief conspirator with the tabloids has been Queen Consort Camilla. In an interview with the American journalist Anderson Cooper, he outrageously described Camilla as a 'villain' who has 'traded information' in an attempt to rehabilitate her image. It is true that for several years following the death of Harry's mother, Diana, in 1997, Camilla often got unfavourable coverage in many newspapers, which reflected public opinion at the time. She was depicted as the mistress who had undermined Charles's marriage to Diana. Yet after a few years, Camilla's treatment by most titles gradually improved. Harry puts this down to a relationship that she was supposedly cultivating with the Press. He told Bradby: 'Stories began to appear everywhere, in all the papers, about her private conversation with Willie, stories that contained pinpoint accurate details, none of which had come from Willie, of course. 'They could only have been leaked by the one other person present.' Namely, Camilla. Prince Harry did disclose that, in his mind, the chief conspirator with the tabloids has been Queen Consort Camilla. Pictured: King Charles III, Camilla, the Queen Consort, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II It doesn't occur to Prince Harry that newspapers became more sympathetic to Camilla Parker-Bowles, as she then was, mainly because they recognised her as a good sport who didn't attempt to justify her past misbehaviour, and was moreover plainly in love with Charles. As for Harry's allegation that Camilla leaked stories to the Press, in one instance it can be disproved. A story of her first amicable meeting with Prince William appeared in the Sun newspaper after a personal assistant had told her husband, who unwisely gossiped with someone connected to the Murdoch empire. The assistant resigned. I daresay some members of the Royal Family have passed stories to the Press through their courtiers over the years, but it is absurd and naive to infer that this was part of an orchestrated attempt to destabilise Harry and Meghan. Royals are not puppets of the Press, since if they have any sense they realise they can be biffed as well as praised. The wise ones know how to take the rough with the smooth. If only the over-touchy Harry and Meghan had learned something from Camilla's pragmatism. Harry claimed the media are 'at the epicentre of so many of the problems across the UK where people are suffering [and] I'm going to try and make a difference'. Pictured: Prince Harry's memoir Spare As for the newspapers, it is ludicrous to suppose that they enter a collective pact not to criticise their supposed collaborators within the Royal Family. On any day, one paper will have praised Prince Charles, as he was, while another criticised him. The same newspaper may pat him on the back one month, and chastise him the next. Prince Harry and Meghan have produced an outlandish theory about the alleged connivance of royals to explain what they regard as unfavourable treatment by the Press though, in fact, before their 2018 wedding, and for many months afterwards, they enjoyed almost ecstatic coverage. Whether as a result of paranoia or straightforward wrong-headedness, Harry has demonised members of his family and misrepresented the Press, and on the basis of his cockeyed theories he wants newspapers to be made to conform to his values. That smacks of tyranny. Naturally, I don't dispute that newspapers may have occasionally been unfair to the over-sensitive couple. A recent example was Jeremy Clarkson's stupid fantasy in the Sun about Meghan being 'made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain'. That was terrible, and the paper has rightly apologised. But this was an aberration in the mainstream Press, which Harry conveniently conflates with social media, often a sewer of nastiness. He claims, without offering any evidence, that such unpleasantness is inspired by newspapers. If only Harry and Meghan had learned, as most royals have, to enjoy the praise, and disregard the barbs. As King Charles told Harry, if you don't like newspapers, you don't have to read them. Intermittent disapproval is the inescapable lot of every public figure. The politician Enoch Powell (who was right about some things) once wisely said that 'politicians complaining about the Press are like sailors complaining about the sea'. So it is with royals. Harry and Meghan can't understand this. Like the vainest type of celebrity, they want to be depicted entirely on their own terms, and cannot bear any interference with an image of perfection. So Prince Harry would like to muzzle the Press. His is the illiberal voice of power. I doubt it has occurred to him that if he bans the Press, he will have to ban himself, since he is infinitely ruder, and less respectful of his family's privacy, than any newspaper has ever been. SHOPPING Contains affiliated content. Products featured in this Mail Best article are selected by our shopping writers. If you make a purchase using links on this page, Dailymail.co.uk will earn an affiliate commission. Click here for more information. According to hundreds of rave Amazon testimonies, there's nothing plusher or more luxurious than sleeping on a down pillow, and if you're looking to reap the rewards for yourself, then this live deal is one not to miss. 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A former Delta Air Lines flight attendant has opened up about some of her most memorable celebrity encounters and given each star a rating for their behavior in the skies. Kat Kamalani, 32, opted for a career change after the Covid pandemic struck and is now based in Hawaii. She reveals in a TikTok video, which has recently resurfaced, the four A-listers she encountered during her six-year stint as part of the cabin crew. The avid traveler said she looked after Kim Kardashian on a red-eye from Los Angeles to New York and she was 'seriously so sweet,' but committed a flying faux pas by going to 'the lavatory with no shoes on.' Despite Kim's hygiene fail, Kat decided to still give her 10 out of 10 for her sweetness. Kat Kamalani, 32, worked as a flight attendant for six years before the pandemic struck But former Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley didn't rank so high on Kat's scale for her picky eating and drinking habits during a seven-hour flight. Kat said of her: 'She was flying from New York to London, smells amazing [and] looks photoshopped in real life. [But she] didn't eat one thing from the aircraft or drink one thing... she only bought her [own] spring water.' The British beauty scored an eight out of 10. Despite Rosie expressing a lack of interest in the inflight food and beverage service, Kate said she was at least 'kind.' Like Kim Kardashian, Kat described Saved By The Bell actress Elizabeth Berkley as 'so frickin' sweet.' She recalled, before awarding the blonde a decisive 10 out of 10: 'It was kind of crazy with her and her kid and the nanny but she was so kind... just like an angel.' While mixed martial arts fans would have been excited about the next passenger, Kat said she had no idea who UFC champion Conor McGregor was. The globetrotter reveals in a TikTok video four A-listers she encountered during her six-year stint as part of the cabin crew, including Kim Kardashian and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Kat had no idea who UFC champion Conor McGregor (left) was, but Saved By The Bell actress Elizabeth Berkley (right) was more of a familiar face She said before each flight the staff were told during a briefing if there was going to be a government official or celebrity on board. When she was told Conor would need looking after, she said she 'didn't even know who he was' and had to call up her husband for more information on the Irish star. While he might have been famous, Kat said the fighter 'didn't speak' to any of the crew so for this reason she punched some points off, and gave him a seven out of 10. After leaving the aviation industry, Kat turned her attention to social media, where she now has more than 196,000 followers on Instagram and over 960,000 on TikTok. The mother-of-two regularly creates content detailing her new life in Hawaii with her husband, how she keeps fit as a mom and about her past life as a flight attendant. If you enjoyed reading this article... Secrets of the skies: American Airlines pilot reveals fascinating details about airplane travel - from where to sit to avoid turbulence to captains making a whopping $300,000 A YEAR 'You're so discriminatory!' 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Blanchett plays the titular character who is fictional, however after reading about the film Marin claims there are 'superficial aspects' about the protagonist which she recognised from her own life. Claiming the film's play on 'pseudo-reality' was 'slightly dangerous' she added viewers might not be able to distinguish the difference between true portrayals and fictional aspects. Her criticism follows confusion over the true basis for the film after the production company clarified its protagonist Lydia Tar was a fictional character (despite having her own Wikipedia page for a short time). Speaking to the Sunday Times, Alsop slammed the presentation of Tar as an 'untouchable genius' and a narcissist who berates and humiliates others around her. In one scene, Blanchett's character mocks a young male student with whom she disagrees, and throughout the film, uses her sexuality to manipulate and control her assistant. For the real-life conductor, her rise up the ranks has not been easy and has taken a lot of hard work - and to this day she remains one of the only female conductors of top orchestras around the world. World famous female conductor Marin Alsop (pictured) has criticised Blanchett's antiheroine character for playing up to 'dangerous' stereotypes about both conductors and women in leadership positions Cate Blanchett (pictured) plays conductor, composer and author Lydia Tar, in new psychological thriller American-born Alsop was the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize for conducting and was the first person to be awarded the MacArthur Fellowship. Currently working as music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, she studied at Yale University and Julliard School of music. In the recent interview, Alsop revealed how misogyny had dogged her throughout her career as she ascended the ranks of the musical world. Reflecting on her struggle to achieve success as a woman in a male-dominated industry, Alsop described herself as an 'optimist' while also a 'realist'. She said: 'Ive seen progress and then regression many, many times.' In 2002, she set up her own fellowship for female conductors, the Taki Alsop programme. Cate Blanchett (pictured) plays a controlling, abusive, exploitative narcissist of an antiheroine in the new film According to the New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe, Blanchett's Tar is 'clearly based' partly on Alsop (pictured) 'My original motivation was probably to try and equalise the playing field a little bit. But it has become much more about being a resource for each other, a community,' she said, adding it had become something of a 'network'. Alsop's work to create a supportive community of women within the space is perhaps why she is so angry about Blanchett's portrayal of a female conductor in Tar. The character of Lydia Tar dismisses the idea of all-female fellowships, arguing they are not needed in an age of gender equality. She said the filmmakers had been given an opportunity to portray a woman in a role they rarely assume in real life and, instead of making her inspiring, she accused them of turning her into 'an abuser'. Adding the character of Lydia Tar was 'heartbreaking', she argued it could lead people to question the suitability of women taking leading positions in society. Although the film portrays a fictional character, Alsop's name is reportedly mentioned within the first 30 minutes - and New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe has asserted that the movie is 'clearly' based on the real-life conductor. Another source of confusion comes from the fact the movie is filmed in a documentary/drama style and stars several musicians who appear as themselves. Alsop noted several similarities between herself and Tar, including that they were both protegees of Leonard Bernstein, are both lesbians and both teach at music conservatoires. However, Alsop insists she has had no involvement in the production of Tar. When Alsop first heard about the film, she said she had concerns over the portrayal of the female conductor. 'Once I saw it I was no longer concerned, I was offended: I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian,' she said. Tar is in cinemas from Friday 13th January. Read More: 'It was a joy': Cate Blanchett reveals she learned how to play the piano and speak German for new role in Tar as she stops by Good Morning America Cate Blanchett plays celebrated composer facing #MeToo allegations in mysterious trailer for psychological drama TAR 'I'd kept them from a previous movie': Cate Blanchett hilariously reveals she wore her own fake teeth and wig in Don't Look Up since Covid prevented her from having make-up artist Prince Harry credited the use of psychedelic drugs with helping him deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' he felt after the tragic death of his mom, Princess Diana. The Duke of Sussex, 38, spoke out about his past drug use during an explosive new sit down interview with 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday, and he called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997. While Harry was only 12 when Diana tragically died in a car accident, he admitted in his upcoming book, Spare, that he struggled to come to grips with her sudden passing. Now he has shared more details about his mother's death with 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper, explaining that he only cried once over his mother's death - when her coffin was put in the ground - and that he was plagued with guilt over feeling like he was not being emotional enough over her passing for years. Prince Harry admitted to using psychedelic drugs to deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' he felt after the tragic death of his mom, Princess Diana The Duke of Sussex, 38, spoke out about his past drug use during an interview with 60 Minutes, and he called the drugs his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997 While Harry (seen at her funeral) was only 12 when Diana died in a car accident, he admitted in his upcoming book, Spare, that he struggled to come to grips with her sudden passing Now, Harry (seen with Diana in 1987) admitted he only cried once over his mother's death - and said he was plagued with guilt over feeling like he was not being emotional enough But the former royal said using psychedelics when he got older ultimately 'cleared away the idea' that he needed be sad to prove he 'missed' his mom. What is ayahuasca? According to Healthline, ayahuasca is a plant-based psychedelic made from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub along with the stalks of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. 'This drink was used for spiritual and religious purposes by ancient Amazonian tribes and is still used as a sacred beverage by some religious communities in Brazil and North America, including the Santo Daime,' it explained. 'The main ingredients of Ayahuasca - Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis -both have hallucinogenic properties. 'When combined, these two plants form a powerful psychedelic brew that affects the central nervous system, leading to an altered state of consciousness that can include hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, and euphoria.' Advertisement 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,' he said during the one-hour tell-all interview. 'But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. 'For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that ... I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.' Harry explained during the sit down that he believes he didn't cry over Diana's death because he had 'refused to accept that she was gone.' He added that there was a huge 'weight on his chest' that he 'felt for so many years' over not shedding more tears - and that he even tried watching videos of her to bring forth his emotions. 'I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum,' he added. 'And sometimes I watched videos online.' In his memoir, Spare, which released in Spain last week and will premiere worldwide on January 10, Harry explained that he sought help from a therapist seven years ago, and that he ultimately decided to try psychedelics to help him come to terms with the pain from losing his mother - and he wrote that they allowed him to see 'the truth' and 'redefine' reality. He explained that the drugs also helped him to discover 'another reality,' and even after they wore off, he said he saw a world that was 'twice as beautiful.' He recalled one time that he took magic mushrooms at a party in 2016 and began to hallucinate that a garbage can was talking to him. Prince Harry said he tried traditional therapy as well as experimental treatments like psychedelics to heal the pain from his mothers death. For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield [of] the misery of loss, he tells Anderson Cooper. https://t.co/kIq3TIGe10 pic.twitter.com/ArfgVpeB57 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 9, 2023 But the former royal (seen in 10`6) said using psychedelics seven years ago ultimately 'cleared away the idea' that he needed be sad to prove he 'missed' his mom 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,' Harry (seen in 2004) said. 'But if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, these things have a way of working as a medicine' 'They cleared away this idea that I had that ... I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her,' Harry (seen in 2012) said. 'When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy' 'Beside the toilet was a round silver bin, the kind with a foot pedal to open the lid. I stared at the bin. It stared back. Then it became... a head,' he wrote, according to The Sun. 'I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin. I laughed, turned away, took a p**s. 'Now the loo became a head too. The bowl was its gaping maw, the hinges of the seat were its piercing silver eyes. It said, "Aaah."' Elsewhere in his memoir, Harry also admitted to also smoking cannabis and using cocaine as a teen, and claimed he was once dragged into an office and questioned by a member of the Royal Household staff over the potential use of illegal drugs. He said the grilling took place during the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002, when he was 17, after a journalist asked Buckingham Palace about his illicit habits. 'Of course I had been doing cocaine around this time,' he said. 'At someones country house during a hunting weekend, Id been offered a line, and Id done a few more since. 'It wasnt much fun, and it didnt make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me. 'But it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Feel. Different. I was a deeply unhappy 17-year-old willing to try almost anything that would alter the status quo. That was what I told myself anyway.' Harry (left) explained during the sit down interview with Anderson Cooper (right) that he believes he didn't cry over Diana's death because he had 'refused to accept that she was gone' Elsewhere in his memoir, Harry (seen in 2002, at age 17) admitted to using cocaine during his teen years, stating that he did drugs because he wanted to 'feel different' Harry (seen in 2009) said cocaine 'wasnt much fun,' and described himself as a 'deeply unhappy 17-year-old willing to try almost anything that would alter the status quo' Harry previously opened up about using a bizarre therapy method known as EMDR - which uses hand taps and eye movements - to 'process bad memories' According to Healthline, ayahuasca - a plant-based South American drug that's usually brewed into a tea - is made from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub along with the stalks of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. Celebrities who have confessed to using ayahuasca Aaron Rodgers Chelsea Handler Will Smith Megan Fox Lindsay Lohan Sting Penn Badgley Miley Cyrus Paul Simon Tori Amons Ricki Lake Robin Quivers Josh Radnor Terrance Howard Chris Robinson Michelle Rodriguez James Scott Susan Sarandon William Burroughs Bren Lee Ron White Jim Carrey Advertisement 'This drink was used for spiritual and religious purposes by ancient Amazonian tribes and is still used as a sacred beverage by some religious communities in Brazil and North America, including the Santo Daime,' it explained. 'The main ingredients of ayahuasca - Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria viridis -both have hallucinogenic properties. 'When combined, these two plants form a powerful psychedelic brew that affects the central nervous system, leading to an altered state of consciousness that can include hallucinations, out-of-body experiences, and euphoria.' Other celebrities who have admitted to using the drug include Aaron Rodgers, Julia Fox, Chelsea Handler, Will Smith, Megan Fox, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, and Susan Sarandon, among others. As for magic mushrooms, they include an ingredient called psilocybin - a hallucinogenic chemical that can cause feelings of euphoria and sensory distortion, according to Medical News Today. Harry previously opened up about using a bizarre therapy method known as EMDR - which uses hand taps and eye movements - to 'process bad memories.' The principle of EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, is that the mind can heal from trauma by using external stimuli to help the brain process the traumatic experience and facilitate healing. It has a host of other celebrity fans, including Mel B and Jameela Jamil. During a segment with psychotherapist Sanja Oakley on Apple TV+ in May 2021, called The Me You Can't See, Harry demonstrated the process by closing his eyes and tapping his chest. 'EMDR is always something that I've wanted to try and that was one of the varieties of different forms of healing or curing that I was willing to experiment with,' he told Oprah about it. 'And I never would have been open to that had I not put in the work and the therapy that I've done over the years.' Prince Harry has claimed that he was 'not invited' on the plane that the rest of the royals took to Balmoral to see the Queen before her death - as he opened up about the final moments he spent with her. The Duke of Sussex, 38, was back in the UK with his wife, Meghan Markle, for a slew of charity events last September when his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II's health suddenly declined on September 8. The Queen died later that day - but when reports started to circulate that Harry didn't arrive to the castle until more than two hours after her passing, while the rest of the family got there before her death - many were left to wonder why he came so late. Now, during an explosive new interview with 60 Minutes, the royal has claimed that his delayed arrival was the fault of his family members - saying that he was not included in their travel plans, despite the fact that there was plenty of room for him on the plane that they all flew on to get to Balmoral. Prince Harry has revealed that he was 'not invited' on the plane that the rest of the royals took to Balmoral to see the Queen before her death The Duke of Sussex, 38, was back in the UK with his wife, Meghan Markle (seen on September 5), for charity work - when his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth's health declined on September 8 The Queen died later that day - but Harry reportedly didn't arrive to the castle until more than two hours after her passing. He is seen arriving in Balmoral Now, during an explosive new interview with 60 Minutes, the royal claimed that he came hours later than the rest of the family because he was not included in their travel plans He told host Anderson Cooper that he texted his brother, Prince William, 40, to see how he and his wife, Kate Middleton, 41, were going to get to the estate, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but that he was never given the flight details. 'I asked my brother - I said, "What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?"' he recalled. Harry told host Anderson Cooper that he texted his brother, Prince William, 40, to see how he and his wife, Kate Middleton, 41, were going to get to the estate, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but that he was never given the flight details 'And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.' 'You were not invited on that plane?' Anderson asked him, to which Harry replied, 'I was not invited.' Prince William, Prince Edward and his wife, Sophie, and Prince Andrew were seen arriving together on a private plane. William's wife, Kate, appeared to stay in Windsor as she was photographed picking up her kids in England later that day. Harry ultimately flew to Scotland alone - and by the time he got to Balmoral, the Queen had sadly passed away at age 96. However, Harry said he spent 'some time with her alone saying goodbye,' adding that he was 'really happy' because she could now be with her husband, Prince Philip, who died one year earlier - in April 2021. 'I walked into the hall, and my aunt was there to greet me,' he remembered of his arrival at Balmoral. 'And she asked me if I wanted to see her. 'I asked my brother, "How are you getting up there?"' Harry (seen with William two days after the Queen's death) recalled. 'A couple of hours later, the family was on a plane together' Prince William is seen getting off the plane (circled left) in Scotland, followed by Edward and Sophie (pictured center), and finally Prince Andrew (pictured right) Harry (seen arriving in Balmoral) ultimately flew alone and by the time he got to Balmoral, the Queen had sadly passed away at age 96. Harry (seen with Meghan and the Queen in 2018) said he spent 'some time with her alone saying goodbye,' adding that he was 'really happy shed finished life' 'I thought about it for about five seconds, thinking, "Is this a good idea?" And I was, like, "You know what? You can do this. You need to say goodbye." 'So I went upstairs, took my jacket off and walked in and just spent some time with her alone. He also claimed in his upcoming memoir, Spare (seen) that his father, King Charles III, 74, that his wife, Meghan, 41, was not welcome at the castle on the day the Queen died 'She was in her bedroom. I was actually really happy for her because shed finished life. She'd completed life. 'And her husband was waiting for her. And the two of them are buried together.' In a separate interview with Tom Bradby on ITV yesterday, Harry said his family members had a 'horrible reaction' to the Queen's death. 'The day that she died was just a really, really horrible reaction from my family members,' he stated. 'And then by all accounts, well certainly from what I saw and what other people probably experienced, was they were on the back foot and then the briefings and the leaking and the planting. 'I was like "We're here to celebrate the life of granny and to mourn her loss, can we come together as a family?" But I don't know how we collectively - how we change that.' He also reportedly claimed in his upcoming memoir, Spare, which released in Spain last week and will premiere worldwide on January 10, that his father, King Charles III, 74, said that his wife, Meghan, 41, was not welcome at the castle on the day the Queen died. Prince Harry has hinted that he and his wife, Meghan Markle will never give up their royal titles, while brazenly asking 'what difference it would make'. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they were stepping away from the monarchy and moving to America in early 2020 - many people called for them to give up their royal titles. Those cries have become increasingly louder in the years since, during which Harry and Meghan have both launched multiple attacks on the royal family, beginning with their incendiary Oprah interview - and continuing with further TV appearances, a Netflix documentary, and the release of Harry's bombshell memoir, which he has been promoting in a series of on-air interviews. More than two years later, a poll revealed in December that 98 per cent of participants still want the pair to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles - especially amid the couple's bombshell Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which premiered last month and included several explosive accusations about their time as royals. But now, the Prince, 38, has addressed the burning question surrounding his and his wife's royal titles during a new, tell-all interview with 60 Minutes - suggesting that the pair will not ever relinquish their status as Duke and Duchess because he doesn't believe it would 'make a difference'. Prince Harry has hinted that he and his wife, Meghan Markle (seen in 2017) will never give up their royal titles The Prince, 38, addressed the burning question surrounding his and his wife's royal titles during a new, tell-all interview with 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday When asked by host Anderson Cooper (left) about why he and Meghan haven't renounced their titles, Prince Harry (right) fired back, 'And what difference would that make?' Anderson Cooper asked: 'Why not renounce your titles as Duke and Duchess?' Prince Harry fired back: 'And what difference would that make?' Anderson said: 'One of the criticisms that you've received is that okay, fine, you wanna move to California, you wanna step back from the institutional role. Why be so public? Why reveal conversations you've had with your father or with your brother? You say you tried to do this privately.' Harry retorted: 'Every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. 'You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it's just a motto. And it doesn't really hold.' The couple first made the shocking announcement that they were going to step back from their royal duties on January 8, 2020. At the time, they wrote in a joint statement that they had reached the decision after 'many months of reflection and internal discussions.' They said they wanted to 'work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.' 'We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honor our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages,' the statement continued. 'This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.' When the couple (seen in 2020) announced that they were stepping away from the monarchy and moving to America in early 2020 - many people called for them to give up their royal titles A recent poll revealed in December that 98 per cent of participants sill want the pair to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles People want them to give up their titles amid the couple's bombshell Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which premiered last month and included several explosive accusations At the time, Norman Baker, a former Liberal Democrat MP and a Home Office minister in the coalition government, said they should give up their titles in a scathing interview, stating, 'You can't be one foot in, one foot out.' 'You are either a member of the royal family or you are not,' he told Express. Just over a year later, in February 2021, Harry and Meghan announced that they were permanently stepping down as royals and moving to California full-time, where they purchased a $14 million mansion in Montecito. Harry(seen in 2017) said in the doc that he told his father, King Charles II, that he and Meghan were willing to relinquish their titles during discussions surrounding their plan to move to America One month later, the pair sat down with Oprah for a two-hour, tell-all conversation - during which, they alleged that someone in the royal family voiced concerns over their son, Archie's skin color before his birth and that Meghan had suicidal thoughts while she was pregnant, but that she was told by the Palace that she couldn't 'get help' because 'it wouldn't be good for the institution.' After the interview aired, palace aides called on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to give up their titles once again. 'The Duke of Sussex has now spent a significant amount of time emphasizing that he's no different to anyone else and attacking the institution which he says has caused him so much pain,' a senior courtier told The Mail on Sunday. 'There is a growing feeling that if you dislike the institution that much, you shouldn't have the titles. 'They should just become Harry and Meghan. And if they refuse to do that, they have to explain why not.' In their recent Netflix doc, the couple made more shocking statements - like that the couple were victims of 'institutional gaslighting' and that the royals would lie to protect his older brother, Prince William. Anderson pointed out during 60 Minutes that 'one of the criticisms' that the pair has received is that they 'want to step back from the institutional role' but still want to 'be so public' 'Every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife,' Harry stated Harry also said in the series that he told his father, King Charles II, that he and Meghan were willing to relinquish their titles during discussions surrounding their plan to move to America. Following its premiere, a poll by YouGov, carried out for The Times, revealed that 44 per cent of participants said that Prince Harry and Meghan should have their titles removed, while 32 per cent thought not. A separate poll for Mail+ resulted in 98 per cent of 9,700 people stating that they wanted the royal couple to lose their titles. Royal expert and biographer Robert Jobson said afterwards: 'Harry claims in his Netflix docuseries he offered to give up his title Duke of Sussex. 'Given his and his wife's distaste for our constitutional monarchy, surely it is time for the Crown to accept his offer. The title was given in anticipation of service to the Crown and country.' It was also reported last month that Members of Parliament have been trying to get a bill passed that would give the Privy Council the power to downgrade Prince Harry and Meghan's status, with the Isle of Wight MP accusing the Sussexes of 'monetizing misery' and using their titles to rake in $121 million-plus from corporate deals. To change the royal couple's status, legislation would have to amend the 1917 Titles Deprivation Act that was used to remove honors such as peerages from enemies who supported German aggression in the First World War. He said it 'healed him' and gave him a 'purpose larger than himself' Now, he said during 60 minutes that the position was his 'calling' He revealed in his book that he killed 25 Taliban fighters during that time During his second tour in 2012, he served as an apache helicopter pilot The Duke of Sussex, 38, served in the Army for 10 years, undertaking two tours Prince Harry said his military career 'saved him' after the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, by helping him 'turn his pain into purpose' - after he revealed he killed 25 Taliban fighters. The Duke of Sussex, 38, served in the Army for 10 years in total, rising to the rank of Captain and undertaking two tours of Afghanistan. During the second tour, he spent four months as an apache helicopter pilot - from September 2012 to January 2013. Now, during his explosive tell-all interview with 60 Minutes, which premiered on Sunday, the former royal called the position his 'calling' and said it 'healed' him following the 'shock' he experienced over the sudden loss of his mom - by giving him a 'purpose larger than himself.' Prince Harry said his military career 'saved him' after the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana, by helping him 'turn his pain into purpose' in a new interview with 60 Minutes The Duke of Sussex, 38, served in the Army for 10 years in total , rising to the rank of Captain and undertaking two tours of Afghanistan. He is seen in 2008 During the second tour, he spent four months as an apache helicopter pilot - from September 2012 to January 2013. He is seen in January 2013 Now, during his explosive tell-all interview with 60 Minutes, the former royal called the position his 'calling' and said it 'healed' him following the 'shock' he experienced over the sudden loss of his mom. Him and Diana are seen in 1987 'My military career saved me in many regards,' he told host Anderson Cooper. 'It got me out of the spotlight from the UK press. 'I was able to focus on a purpose larger than myself - to be wearing the same uniform as everybody else, to feel normal for the first time in my life, and accomplish some of the biggest challenges that I ever had.' Harry explained that he 'didn't get a pass for being a prince,' and that he had to work just as hard as everyone else. 'There's no prince autopilot button you can press and just wiff - takes you away,' he joked. The 38-year-old added that he was a 'really good candidate for the military' because he was a 'young man in his 20s' who was 'suffering from shock.' He continued: 'But then I was in the front seat of an Apache shooting it, flying it, monitoring four radios simultaneously, and being there to save and help anybody that was on the ground with a radio screaming, "We need support, we need air support." That was my calling. I felt healing from that weirdly.' While Harry joined the military in 2004, he said the war really started for him years earlier - when his mom tragically passed away after getting into a car accident in 1997. Harry (seen in 2008) explained that he 'didn't get a pass for being a prince,' and that he had to work just as hard as everyone else The 38-year-old added that he was a 'really good candidate for the military' because he was a 'young man in his 20s' who was 'suffering from shock' He said he began 'living his life on adrenaline' from the moment she died, and that he spent years 'fighting himself' as well as the 'British press.' 'I had a huge amount of frustration and blame towards the British press for their part in it,' he stated. 'It was obvious to us as kids - the British press part in our mothers misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily, I never expressed to anybody.' Harry's admissions come just days after he revealed that he killed 25 people during his second tour. He spoke out about it in his memoir, Spare, which released in Spain last week and will premiere worldwide on January 10. In the book, he wrote that 'you can't kill people if you see them as people' and said he instead saw them as 'chess pieces removed from the board' or as 'bad guys eliminated.' The prince was first deployed to Helmand province as a forward air controller in 2007 after three years of training, but his first tour of duty was cut short when an Australian magazine broke a media embargo by mistake. However, he returned in 2012 with the Ministry of Defence publicizing his second deployment on the understanding that the media would allow him to get on with the job at hand. After he learned to fly Apache helicopters, Harry was deployed to Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan in 2012, where he stayed for 20 weeks. During his 2012 tour, Harry helped provide helicopter support to the International Security Assistance Force and Afghan forces operating throughout Helmand province. While Harry (seen with Princess Anne in 2008) joined the military in 2004, he said the war really started for him years earlier - when his mom tragically passed away in 1997 He said he began 'living his life on adrenaline' from the moment she died, and that he spent years 'fighting himself' as well as the 'British press.' He is seen in Afghanistan in 2008 Harry's admissions come just days after he revealed that he killed 25 people during his second tour in his memoir, Spare. He is pictured above during his time in the military In the book, he wrote that 'you can't kill people if you see them as people' and said he instead saw them as 'chess pieces removed from the board' or as 'bad guys eliminated' His comments were condemned as a 'terrible mistake' by the grieving father of one of his Afghanistan comrades, who killed himself after returning home. Harry is seen in 2009 Based out of Camp Bastion, 662 Squadron Army Air Corps, to which he belonged, flew more than a hundred deliberate missions over 2,500 flying hours, providing surveillance, deterrence and, when required, close combat attack capabilities as well as escort duties for other aircraft. Admiral Lord West, former head of the Navy, told the Sunday Mirror afterwards that the Invictus Games could be under threat of terror attacks following his admission. 'The Invictus Games is very much labeled to him and so I would have thought the threat level there will definitely be higher,' the Admiral said. 'There will be serious security issues because of what he said. The Taliban will be reading it thinking there's this prince calling us all chess pieces and is quite happy about killing us. 'And there will be a lot of people, I am sure, in Islamic State and other terrorist organizations, who will think this is something which should be avenged.' The Duke of Sussex is the founder of the Invictus Games, an international sporting competition for wounded military veterans that was launched in 2014. His comments were also condemned as a 'terrible mistake' by the grieving father of one of his Afghanistan comrades, who killed himself after returning home. Derek Hunt, whose son Nathan served as a bomb-disposal expert with Harry's unit in 2008, said: 'A lot of soldiers and veterans will find his comments about killing very upsetting and perhaps [they] may even trigger some people into having flashbacks of their time in combat.' Prince Harry is 'spiralling' out of control and has become 'self destructive' with his bombshell interviews and shocking new book, experts have claimed. The Duke of Sussex, 38, has sat down for multiple bombshell interviews in a publicity blitz for his memoir Spare, including chatting with ITV's Tom Bradby and CBS' Anderson Cooper. During the intricate interviews, the royal discussed his relationship with both his brother Prince William and his stepmother Camilla in intimate detail, saying the Queen Consort 'plotted' to marry his father. Experts have now revealed how the royal is 'exhibiting self destructive behaviour' which could be a result of PTSD, and 'projecting anger and bitterness' from grief over his mother's death onto his adult years. Prince Harry is 'spiralling' out of control and has become 'self destructive' with his bombshell interviews and shocking new book, experts have claimed 'DELUDED' DUKE 'IS SPIRALLING' Appearing on Lorraine this morning, former Army Colonel Phillip Ingram discussed his own experience of PTSD - and suggested the Duke may be suffering from a similar disorder, without even realising it. He said: 'I think he's exhibiting self destructive behavior as a wider part of suffering PTSD. 'I'm doing that not as a clinician, but I've suffered that. You put things out that are designed to shock. 'He won't realise that's what he's doing. It will shock, it will attack. People should just listen to what he's saying, and not amplify it.' Appearing on Lorraine this morning, former Army Colonel Phillip Ingram discussed his own experience of PTSD - and suggested the Duke may be suffering from a similar disorder, without even realising it Former Army Colonel Phillip Ingram said Prince Harry is 'on a spiral' and he 'doesn't realise he is ill' or 'suffering' He went on to say he believed the Duke is 'on a spiral', saying: 'It will end up one of two ways, he will do something and suddenly realise this is not me, I need proper help. Or something more horrible will happen.' What is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events. People with PTSD often suffer nightmares and flashbacks to the traumatic event and can experience insomnia and an inability to concentrate. Symptoms are often severe enough to have a serious impact on the persons day-to-day life, and can emerge straight after the traumatic event or years later. PTSD is thought to affect about 1 in every 3 people who have a traumatic experience, and was first documented in the First World War in soldiers with shell shock. People who are worried they have PTSD should visit their GP, who could recommend a course of psychotherapy or anti-depressants. Combat Stress operate a 24-hour helpline for veterans, which can be reached on 0800 138 1619. Advertisement He went on to say that he recognised certain behaviours from the Duke as 'flashbacks' to his own PTSD . He said: 'I do think that he is probably suffering PTSD, we're seeing it. When I was suffering, a lot of every close friends couldn't tell. It's like an actor on a stage. But people don't know what's going on behind that. 'He doesn't realise he's ill. The last person to see that he's ill is the person suffering.' Meanwhile royal expert Jennie Bond commented: 'I feel incredibly sorry for him. Watching 90 minutes of Harry on television, I still found him likeable. 'I have huge sympathy for what he went through, obviously everyone does. There were still glimmers of the old Harry, here and there. 'But then, he suffers from what I honestly think is near delusion in his damaged state against the press.' 'Everything is the fault of the press and he is so vitriolic about it, he just cannot seem to move on from that, and it' understandable given his mother's death. I understand that. 'But so much of what he said conflicted and contradictory. He allowed his family to be hung out to dry on an accusation of racism, which Harry says now he never says and wasn't true. 'That's in my view, unforgivable. 'He seems a little bit deluded about the fact he wants to save the UK from the evil, evil press and if there's a reconciliation between himself and the family, that will ripple through the world and bring peace to the world. 'Some extraordinary thoughts are coming out of that youngish man's head.' 'I thought he and William were close. I don't think it's quite right that he has given away so much of William's private thoughts, feelings and torment. 'William has chosen to deal with his mother's death privately, Harry has chosen a different way but when Harry says, this is my story to tell...that's fine Harry, but you've also told everyone else's stories. 'I don't think that is the correct way to go about it.' 'We were told by the palace, he was fine, he was the mischievous one. he wasn't fine, he was never fine. He wasn't that fine in childhood and after his mother died, he was not fine.' MASKS GRIEF ABOUT DIANA Meanwhile body language expert Judi James said the Duke appeared to be 'masking' his grief about Diana, who pointed out how his eyes rolled upwards in a 'cut off' gesture Speaking about his mother's death in the ITV clip, Harry recalled how he was 'unable to show any emotion' in public after her fatal car crash in 1997, and that he had only shed tears when she was buried. He also spoke of feeling 'some guilt' as he greeted crowds who gathered to pay their respects to his mother outside Kensington Palace. Experts have revealed how the Duke appears to show a complex level of painful grief surrounding his mother Diana's death. Psychotherapist Liz Ritchie said the interviews indicated a 'clear' demonstration of 'complex grief.' She aid: 'This has precipitated Harrys need, rightly or wrongly, to tell all, including the trivial fraternal scuffles, his early sexual experiences and the ill-advised revelations about his time in combat in Afghanistan. ITV INTERVIEW BECAME 'POLITICAL' Body language expert Judi James said that there were times during Prince Harry's 90-minute chat with ITV when it 'took on the look of a political interview'. She told MailOnline: 'There were times when Harrys interviews took on the look of a political interview, with Harry using body language and verbal swerve techniques to either try to close a line of questioning down or to move to a different viewpoint or topic.' Advertisement 'Grief is a very subjective experience and can become complicated if the painful emotions are not processed and can become long lasting and severe. 'Harry reported that after his mother died he refused to believe it and thought that she was in hiding and would come back. 'This suggests the presence of intense emotional pain related to the loss of his mother, making it very difficult to process these painful emotions and leaving Harry with feelings of anger, bitterness and sorrow which he is now projecting in his adult years. 'Harrys grief is unresolved and his mother memory is a constant presence in his life.' 'Harry is relentlessly unforgiving about having to walk behind his mothers coffin in front of the world at such a young age. 'As well as the role the press had to play in the death of his mother. This clearly damaged the young Prince and whatever our thoughts, both William and Harry have suffered an incalculable loss.' 'I believe that Harry sharing his mental health struggles deserves compassion, yet it is understandable that many loyal to the Monarchy will feel that Harry and Megan deserve only criticism. 'It could also be seen that Harry is using his new found freedom to purge and confess all, after a lifetime of imposed secrecy and repression. 'In the process his perceived betrayal could potentially destroy the relationship between his father and brother as well as alienating him from his birth right.' Meanwhile body language expert Judi James described how Harry tried to show a 'signal of bravado', but was likely masking grief. She said: ' Harrys body language when he talks about his mothers death and his reactions and feelings at the time suggest a disassociation, as though it is still too raw and painful to fully immerse himself in the narrative. 'He starts by using an incongruent signal. His eyes move to the side and he performs a very weak smile that is applied like a signal of bravado. This is often a sign that someone is masking, i.e. concealing their pain or their grief. 'His eyes then roll upward in a cut-off ritual and here we get to glimpse the pain as his mouth stretches in a horizontal grimace that reveals his lower teeth, like a wince of physical pain. 'But then he seems to adopt an outsiders view, almost as though he is a commentator on his own documentary. His left hand moves in a conductors gesture to suggest control as he switches away from the first person as though talking about someone else. The two people most loved by her were unable to show any emotion sounds as though he is looking in at these two tragic boys rather than immersing himself and identifying with his young self and, again, the suggestion is that it is still too raw for him to deal with. HARRY DISPLAYED RESENTMENT WHILE DISCUSSING CAMILLA During the ITV interview, Prince Harry appeared to grow 'defensive' of his comments about his stepmother Camilla, according to Judi During the ITV interview, Harry addresses a number of topic covered in the book, including his consumption of cocaine a 'few' times during his wilder party years and his relationship and his sensational accusation towards Camilla of plotting to marry Charles. In Spare, the Duke claims that he and his brother William 'begged' the then-Prince of Wales not to remarry after Princess Diana's death, fearing that she would be their 'wicked stepmother'. Body language expert Judi told MailOnline that Harry displayed examples of 'anger and resentment' when talking about the Queen Consort. She said: 'Harrys body language signals are contradictory when he talks of his father. 'His voice drops and his features soften but he also seems to prep physically for a challenge or confrontation, despite telling how he has already opened up to his dad and gained the apology he seems to have been craving. During the interview, Judi pointed out the Duke appeared near tearful, sucking his lips in at one stage 'At times he looks tearful but his mantra: "I love my father. I love my brother. I love my family", sounds like an unemotional recitation. 'The phrase "certain members of my family" prompts signals of anger and resentment. 'He sucks his lips in, and describes how they "decided to get into bed with the devil" using precision gestures to signal righteousness and correctness. His "killer" accusation here comes through a mime. Using one hand for his family and the other for the tabloid media he presses one hand on top of the other. 'With Camilla Harry is a welter of conflicting signalling.' 'He acts out anger when Tom suggests he has been scathing about her but his hand lands on his hip in a partial splay gesture of aggressive arousal or defensiveness. 'His positive comments skid up towards a but... as he sniffs and bristles before swerving politically again to get off this more specific target.' DUKE WAS 'DISPLEASED' WITH QUESTIONS Judi explained that the Duke appeared 'displeased' with the line of questioning taken in the ITV interviews, using a 'hard stare' with a 'mouth clamp' Judi explained that the Duke appeared 'displeased' with the line of questioning taken in the ITV interviews. Judi explained: 'There were frequent uses of the 'one sniff' signal. This was like a tell in poker and quickly seemed to establish itself as a hint he was not keen on the question. 'It looked like a simple gesture but it could have had different purposes for Harry.' 'Firstly it can be a hint of mild disgust. But it also created an excuse for a cut-off ritual when he brought one hand up to touch his face by rubbing his nose. 'A gesture like this is often use to hide the face or part of it which would suggest discomfort at that point and a need to hide his feelings or suppress his words. 'The small hard sniff can also be a bit of a wake-up ritual too. It pulls a little burst of air into the body which alerts the brain. 'An animal will sniff the air when it senses danger and this could be Harry alerting his brain that a difficult topic was being raised. 'Harry also used a very familiar royal gesture when he was displeased with the question though. 'He seems to have inherited the rather hard stare that his grandmother was said to use famously and Harry would often team it with a mouth clamp to suggest "subject closed".' APPEARED 'INDIGNANT' OVER DRUG USE Ms James says Harry showed signs of appearing 'indignant' when having to address his cocaine consumption in the ITV clip Judi pointed out how Harry's hands 'spin in mid-air' while discussing smoking cannabis and boozing In his autobiography, Harry describes smoking cannabis and boozing - but he revealed for the first time how he was offered a line of cocaine during a hunting weekend. Admitting that he lied to the Royal Household staff during his interrogation, Harry says taking cocaine 'wasn't much fun' and did it partly to be different and because he was a 'seventeen-year-old willing to try almost anything that would upset the established order'. Ms James says Harry showed signs of appearing 'indignant' when having to address his cocaine consumption in the ITV clip. She added: 'Tom brings up the subject of drugs with understandable signals of awkwardness and embarrassment, raising his brows, tilting his head and almost requesting non-verbal permission.' 'However once he is on the subject he becomes a terrier with a bone between its teeth. 'Harrys response is that of a politician, both verbally and non-verbally. He adopts a confident pose and holds it apart from a suggesting in the straightening of his torso that he is bracing himself, instead of looking ashamed or apologetic, to appear to be bristling with righteousness and indignation. Tom asks whether a "class A drug" was not in the publics interest and Harry performs a political swerve, repeating the words "what is a matter of public interest" to lead the attention off the drugs and onto a diversion, which is "the relationship between the institution and the tabloid media". 'His lower jaw jut signals resentment and anger and his hands spin in mid-air in a bout of his leadership style emphatic rituals.' 'UNCOMFORTABLE' OVER RIFT WITH WILL The Duke of Sussex, 38, has sat down with ITV's Tom Bradby as part of a publicity blitz for his new bombshell memoir Spare In the book, Harry claims his brother William invoked their mother's memory during an argument over his interview with Oprah. The duke wrote that William got heated as they spoke after the funeral of their grandfather Prince Philip in 2021. Harry claims he was trying to address bullying allegations made against Meghan, before alleging that William was 'really steaming' and grasped at him as he tried to walk away. Ms James says Harry showed 'evasiveness' and 'discomfort' when discussing the rift with his brother in the ITV interview. Prince Harry pictured with his brother Prince William and father Prince Charles at the funeral of Princess Diana She added: 'Tom Bradbury uses a first person role-play technique when quizzing Harry about William. He adopts the role, body language and the words of William, acting out potential bewilderment and a sense that Harry has betrayed him. 'Its a powerful technique that can be aimed at prodding the interviewee to reply in kind or to produce a more realistic response. Role-play like this might look a bit overkill but in an emotional situation it can often trigger reactions that normal questioning cant. 'Harry becomes very guarded here though, making it sound like a political interview. He performs a cut-off ritual, bringing one hand up to his nose. This can often show a desire to want to cover or conceal the mouth or part of the face, which in turn can look evasive.' Ms James continues: 'When Tom says in role as William How could you do this to me? Harry squirms to avoid playing ball. 'His eyes move to the right and also upward. Avoidance of eye contact like this can also hint at discomfort or evasiveness. 'When Tom presses it further, asking about invading the privacy of your nearest and dearest Harry touches his nose and sniffs, hiding what looks like an angry or pained grimace. His answers become less direct and more political as he says William might say a lot of things rather than make more specific speculations. Read more: Harry takes a flamethrower to family relations and crosses King Charles' 'red line' with searing attack on Camilla: Prince brands Queen Consort 'dangerous' and a 'villain' with 'plot' to marry his father in Tom Bradby and CBS interviews Harry suggests he and Meghan will NEVER give up their royal titles after Anderson Cooper asked why they don't renounce them and live privately during explosive 60 Minutes interview: Prince blasts 'what difference would that make?' Royal family were horrible to him on the day the Queen died, Harry claims in score-settling ITV interview While his latest round of TV interviews were laden with yet more jibes at the royal family, it was perhaps surprising to hear Prince Harry's warm words for Lady Susan Hussey, who last month was embroiled in a high profile race row. Revealing that his wife Meghan thinks Prince William's godmother, who was lady-in-waiting to the late Queen, is 'great', the Duke declared: 'I love Susan Hussey', even though she resigned from her honorary role at Buckingham Palace after repeatedly asking black charity boss Ngozi Fulani where she came from. However, Lady Susan met with Ms Fulani in December to apologise and Prince Harry said she was delighted by their reconciliation, hailing it as the standard he wants to see from the rest of the royal family. This is despite reports Lady Susan's role as a mentor to Meghan when she first joined the royal family failed to off the ground, and rumours that the older woman said the couple's marriage would 'end in tears' for The Firm. The Duke of Sussex said he and his wife Meghan Markle, pictured in Windsor, last September, 'love' his brother's godmother Lady Susan Hussey. But comments she's made about the couple suggest she might feel differently about them The Duke told Tom Bradby: 'All we've ever asked for in the last - certainly the last few years - is some accountability. 'And I'm very happy for Ngozi Fulani to be invited into the palace to sit down with Lady Susan Hussey and to reconcile, because Meghan and I love Susan Hussey. (Meghan) thinks she's great. 'And I also know that what she meant - she never meant any harm at all. 'But the response from the British press, and from people online because of the stories that they wrote was horrendous.' Lady Susan Hussey, 83, Prince William's godmother and one of Queen Consort Camilla's closest aides, resigned from her honorary role at Buckingham Palace after asking Ms Fulani where she came from. However, she met with Ms Fulani in December to apologise, pictured His backing comes in contrast to his brother, Prince William, whose spokesman condemned as 'unacceptable' the comments made by Lady Susan in the wake of the furore. Having been a loyal aide to the Queen for decades, and the godmother of his elder brother, Prince William, Lady Hussey has been a constant presence in the life of Prince Harry. Lady Susan was actually one of the senior royal aides who were tasked with helping Meghan Markle 'acclimatise' to her royal role in 2018, several royal experts revealed in 2022. In former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown's book The Palace Papers, the author claims that the Queen offered Meghan 'the ear of her most senior lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey' as well as communications aide Sam Cohen 'to support the new Duchesss learning curve.' A source also claimed in 2021 that Lady Susan and other ladies-in-waiting met Harry and Meghan and their team for tea at Kensington Palace to introduce themselves. However, the expert went on to say that there was an immense generational divide between the two women. Pictured from left to right: Prince Harry, King Constantine, Princess Diana, Lady Susan Hussey, Prince William, Princess Alexandra, King Charles, the Duchess of Westminster, The Queen and Lord Romsey present in Windsor Castle's White drawing room on the occasion of Prince William's confirmation in March 1997 Tina wrote: 'The glaring but unspoken problem was that none of these experienced Palace hands were women of colour. 'As for the lady-in-waiting the Queen had offered for support, what on earth did the eighty-year-old Lady Susan Hussey have of use for a thirty-eight-year-old biracial American actress trying to navigate the treacherous Palace system?' she asked. The royal expert and author went on to say that Prince Harry's own mother, Princess Diana, 'couldn't stand' Lady Susan Hussey, who had also been tasked with teaching her the ropes of royal ropes back in the 1980s. And while Harry appeared supportive of his brother's godmother in last night's interview, it appears she may not have been as generous about him. In his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors, which was released earlier this year, the investigative author Tom Bower claimed Lady Susan had a premonition that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's marriage would 'end in tears' for The Firm. A few months before the couple's wedding in May 2018, the lady-in-waiting reportedly attended a lunch with theatre executives where conversation turned to Meghan's future royal patronages. Lady Susan Hussey was one of the Queen's closest aides and was retained by King Charles as 'lady of the household' after the late Monarch's death in September last year (pictured at a Service of Thanksgiving in 2016 at Westminster Abbey) The expert alleges: 'While discussing the possibility that Meghan might become linked with the National Theatre after the wedding, Hussey became unexpectedly serious about the couples future. 'That will all end in tears, she is alleged to have warned. Mark my words. Lady Susan, who was married to former chairman of the BBCs board of governors, Marmaduke Hussey, enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Queen Elizabeth. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Lady Susan was part of the 'HMS Bubble' at Windsor Castle, which only included a small teams of trusted aides that lived with the late Monarch and the Duke of Edinburgh. In April 2021, she was chosen to accompany the Queen alone in her car as she was driven to the funeral of Prince Philip of Edinburgh in Windsor. As the late Monarch's lady-in-waiting she was deeply involved in Palace life, and attended several events Prince Harry and Prince William would have had to attend in their teenage years as well as in their adult lives. So key was Lady Susan's role in the royal household that King Charles kept her on as Lady of the Household after the death of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Read more: Prince Harry says taking psychedelic DRUGS helped him deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' of Princess Diana's death - revealing he used magic mushrooms and ayahuasca as 'medicine' to 'clear the misery of loss' Prince Harry says flying Apache helicopters and 'shooting' enemies from the skies helped to 'heal' trauma of Diana's death and turned his 'pain into purpose' - after revealing in Spare that he killed 25 Taliban fighters Prince Harry claims he was 'not invited' to travel on plane to Balmoral with William and other royals to say goodbye to the Queen before she died - despite 'asking his brother for plans' - as he opens up about his final moments with his grandmother 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. Duke of Sussex blasted members of his family overnight in series of interviews King Charles and Camilla have shared their best wishes with Kate Middleton King Charles and Camilla have shared their best wishes with the Princess of Wales as she marks her 41st birthday today - as Prince Harry released a series of bombshell interviews overnight. The Duke of Sussex, 38, sat down with Tom Bradby for a primetime television interview as part of a publicity blitz for his controversial memoir Spare before joining Anderson Cooper for a shocking interview on CBS. In a series of bombshells twisting the knife on his closest family members, Harry claimed royals sought to protect their own reputation 'to the detriment' of him and Meghan and that they were 'complicit' in their 'pain and suffering'. As the world was left reeling over the interviews this morning, the official Royal Family's social media channels shared a birthday wish for the Princess, posting: 'Wishing the Princess of Wales a very happy birthday.' King Charles and Camilla have shared their best wishes with the Princess of Wales as she marks her 41st birthday today - as Prince Harry released a series of bombshell interviews overnight Meanwhile royal fans were also quick to share their birthday messages with the Princess of Wales, posting a host of supportive tweets online. One commented: 'I can't believe Harry is doing this to Kate on the eve of her birthday...' Another wrote: 'Prince Harry: I love Kate! Also Harry: I'm releasing this book on your birthday darling.' A third added: 'Harry can't be trusted. Just imagine if he had a sister and spoke about her body like he has his brother. 'As far as I'm concerned, he is no royal to me. 'Happy birthday to Kate - and we know why the interview was today.' Other fans flooded social media with snaps of the Princess, sharing their best wishes with the royal today. One wrote: 'My role model. Let's focus on this cutie. Tomorrow is her birthday so let's show her extra love and support!' Charles and Camilla were quick to share a birthday message with the Princess as she marks the big day today Royal fans were quick to flood social media with support for Kate, following Harry's bombshell interviews overnight Another commented: 'Happy birthday to the Princess of Wales! Kate is the best thing that happened to the British Royal Family in this century.' A third added: 'Let's celebrate Catherine, the Princess of Wales and the style icon she is today is her birthday. Like this tweet as a way of wishing her a happy birthday. We love Kate.' 'Today is our Princess of Wales' birthday. I hope William and Kate have a lovely day today and hope William, George, Charlotte and Louis spoil Catherine. Happy birthday my princess.' 'Happy birthday to Kate Middleton,' another wrote. 'She turns 41 today and please help her wish and celebrate her big day.' As the world was left reeling over the interviews this morning, the official Royal Family's social media channels shared a birthday wish for the Princess In the interviews last night, Harry described a fractious relationship between his wife and Kate, while also addressing the rift with his brother and his sensational accusation towards Camilla of plotting to marry Charles. But social media has exploded amid the bombshell interview, with claims of 'hypocrisy' over Harry's desire for his family to reach out privately when he is publicly discussing behind closed doors conversations. One user tweeted: 'Harry literally turning the British Monarchy into an episode of The Kardashian's. This is cringe.' Another said: 'If you want communication with your family to be private, why are you doing this interview?! So contradictory. Prince Harry twisted the knife on family members with a series of bombshells during the interview Prince Harry sat down last night for a number of primetime interviews to promote his memoir, Spare A third added: 'He wants any future conversation to stay private but is sitting here telling us what other "private" conversations they have had.' A fourth tweeted: 'I've never heard such hypocritical, delusional, self-serving, narcissistic ramblings in my life!! 'He's actually said that he 'hopes' his family can respect HIS privacy whilst talking incessantly about THEM to the world's press! KNOWING they cannot respond!' During the 90-minute interview, Harry also suggested that senior royals helped to 'trash' his and Meghan's reputations, forcing them to move to California, and have 'shown no willingness to reconcile'. But he sensationally conceded that his family were not racist, although he believes them guilty of 'unconscious bias'. He also backed the Queen's former lady in waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, who was embroiled in a toxic race row last month, saying she 'never meant any harm'. Harry was not paid for tonight's interview, which saw him alternate between answering questions from Bradby and reading sections of his memoir. The duke also claimed that his brother William and sister-in-law Kate's 'stereotyping' of his wife Meghan meant she was not welcomed as a member of the Royal Family. He said that there was a 'lot of stereotyping' of Meghan after she was introduced to the Royal Family, because she is an 'American actress, divorced, biracial', adding that even he was 'guilty' of it. Harry and Bradby joked about how, after he introduced Meghan to his family, he discovered his family were fans of Suits, the show that she starred in during her time as an actress. But he said it was 'fair' to say that, according to Bradby, 'almost from the get-go it's just that they don't get on.' Harry also suggested his family has avoided accountability 'on a lot of things' during his 90-minute sit-down. Published extracts include an alleged physical altercation between William and Harry and details of the feud between Meghan and Kate. He also writes how he and William begged King Charles not to marry the now Queen consort Camilla, who he feared could become their 'wicked stepmother', before suggesting she had plotted to take the crown and leaked stories to the press. Read more: Harry is accused of turning the Royal Family 'into an episode of the Kardashians' as social media explodes at ITV interview - questioning why the Duke is calling for his privacy in tell-all chat William is 'dignified and unbelievably loyal' say friends, who claim future king will keep his silence despite Harry's ongoing bombshell revelations Prince Harry claims William wasn't keen on a public 'walkabout' before his wedding to Meghan - and cancelled plans to stay with him the night before The 'devastated' Prince of Wales 'cannot forgive' Prince Harry for the things he has written in his new book, Spare, a royal expert has claimed. The Duke of Sussex, in his bombshell memoir, details how Prince William was 'shouting' and 'really steaming' when he grasped at him during the dispute in front of then-Prince Charles following the funeral of their grandfather, Prince Philip. Elsewhere, Harry claims in his book that a 'piping hot' William once injured him by pushing him onto a dog bowl on the kitchen floor of his cottage home in the grounds of Kensington Palace in 2019. Vanity Fair's Katie Nicholl told Page Six that, per her sources: 'Williams privately seething and devastated by what Harry has done....[the royals] have been taken aback by the level of detail and just how far Harry has gone in all of this.' The 'devastated' Prince of Wales 'cannot forgive' Prince Harry for the things he has written in his new book, Spare, a royal expert has claimed She added that she doesn't believe a reconciliation will be found for the brothers. Katie added: 'It really feels like a line has been crossed.' Prince William's friends referred to the future king as a 'sitting duck', saying Prince Harry knows his brother knows won't respond to the bombshell accusations made in Spare. Despite Prince Harry's explosive Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan, the Netflix documentary and now inflamed memoir Spare, Prince William's friends, according to The Sunday Times, say he will continue to keep his silence. The Duke of Sussex, in his bombshell memoir has shared intimate details about his relationship with the Prince of Wales - before offering further comment in a series of interviews publicizing the book So far, William has not responded to the accusations because, as a friend of William explained, revenge is not he rolls as he is 'dignified and unbelievably loyal.' The friend, in question, told The Sunday Times: 'It's cruel, cowardly and so sad for William to keep taking the punches. He's keeping quiet for the good of his family and the country.' They explained that he is contemplating Harry's explosive 416 pages of revelations, he is anxious and sad, but concentrating on his family and making sure they are okay. The friend went out to state: 'He's handling it so well on the outside - inside he's burning.' This was reiterated to the publication by another friend who described how the Prince of Wales will be going through a range of emotions and will be thinking strategically and weighing up his personal feeling against the institutional reaction. Prince Harry sat down last night for a number of primetime interviews to promote his memoir, Spare His companion detailed William's desire to follow his grandmother's example, and so the institutional response could win over his personal feelings, 'but he is staunchly protective of his own family, and he's not just going to roll over.' It comes as the Duke launched an extraordinary publicity blitz for his new memoir, in which he accused his family of being 'complicit' in the 'pain and suffering' inflicted on his wife and compared them to 'abusers'. In a bombshell interview to plug his memoir, he suggested they helped to 'trash' his and Meghan's reputations, forcing them to move to California, and have 'shown no willingness to reconcile'. The Duke dramatically suggests other senior royals had sought to burnish their reputation 'to the detriment' of him and Meghan The prince's astonishing claims came in a 90-minute discussion with ITV presenter and old friend Tom Bradby. While he accused his family of 'getting in bed with the devil', he conceded they were not racist, although he believes them guilty of 'unconscious bias'. Harry backed the Queen's former lady in waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, who was embroiled in a toxic race row last month, saying she 'never meant any harm'. Harry was not paid for Sunday night's interview, which saw him alternate between answering questions from Bradby and reading sections from his memoir. In a later interview with CBS's Anderson Cooper in the US, Harry also had harsh words for Camilla, who he accused of being a 'villain' who 'needed to rehabilitate her image'. He added that she was 'dangerous' and leaking stories to the media in a bid to get the crown. Harry added that his brother William 'raised some concerns' about his marriage to Meghan before their wedding in May 2018. He said: 'He never tried to dissuade me from marrying Meghan, but he aired some concerns very early, and said 'this is going to be really hard for you' and I still to this day don't truly understand which part of what he was talking about. 'Maybe he predicted what the British press's reaction was going to be.' Kate and Meghan did not get on from day one, while 'stereotyping' prevented the American actress from being properly welcomed into the royal family, Harry said. The Duke said that there was a 'lot of stereotyping' of Meghan after she was introduced to the Royal Family, because she is an 'American actress, divorced, biracial', adding that even he was 'guilty' of it. Harry and Bradby joked about how, after he introduced Meghan to his family, he discovered his family were fans of Suits, the show that she starred in during her time as an actress. But he said it was 'fair' to say that, according to Bradby, 'almost from the get-go it's just that they don't get on.' Asked why that was, he said: 'Lots of lots of different reasons but I look, as I again detail a lot, I had put a lot of hope in the idea that, you know, it'd be William and Kate and me and whoever. 'I thought the you know, the four of us would, you know, bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together, um, which I did a lot as the third wheel to them, um, which was fun at times but also, I guess slightly awkward at times as well. 'But um yeah, I think I don't think they were ever expecting me to get or to become to get into a relationship with with someone like Meghan who had, you know, a very successful career. He added: 'There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning.' He said the 'stereotyping' of Meghan, in part by William and Kate, was causing a 'barrier' to his family, preventing them from 'welcoming her in.' Asked what he meant, he said: 'Well, American actress, divorced, biracial, there's there's all different parts to that and what that can mean but if you are, like a lot of my family do, if you are reading the press, the British tabloids, [Yeah] at the same time as living the life, then there is a tendency where you could actually end up living in the tabloid bubble rather than the actual reality.' Read more: Harry is accused of turning the Royal Family 'into an episode of the Kardashians' as social media explodes at ITV interview - questioning why the Duke is calling for his privacy in tell-all chat William is 'dignified and unbelievably loyal' say friends, who claim future king will keep his silence despite Harry's ongoing bombshell revelations Prince Harry claims William wasn't keen on a public 'walkabout' before his wedding to Meghan - and cancelled plans to stay with him the night before As tricky as it can be to pick out an outfit for a friend's wedding, there's one golden style rule most guests have to obey: avoid anything remotely bridal at all costs. So with this in mind, it's hardly surprising that a full-length, lace dress a US woman recently wore to her brother's wedding has sparked debate online. Earlier this month, the anonymous woman posted a photo of the lace frock she had bought for her sibling's recent nuptials in the hopes of selling it for $1,500 [1,230]. The dress - which was hanging up against a wooden display cabinet - has a plunging V-neck cut and bodice covered in applique flowers. The full-length dress has plunging V-neck cut and a bodice covered in applique flowers. After spotting it on Facebook, a Reddit user shared the dress with other members of the forum On top of this, the A-line dress' voluminous skirt was made up of several layers of lace. After spotting it on social media, a resident who lived nearby then posted a screenshot of the dress on Reddit's Wedding Shaming forum. Inviting others to comment on the frock, the woman wrote: 'Saw this on Marketplace, it looks an awful lot like a wedding dress...' The post has racked up over 160 comments since it was shared over the weekend - but despite the Reddit user's blatant disapproval, others members of the forum took the sister of the groom's side in the matter. The dress sparked debate among Reddit members - with some arguing that it was 'completely appropriate' wedding guest attire Acknowledging that it looked bridal, one replied: 'We don't know anything about the wedding. It could have been completely appropriate.' Another added: 'Looks vaguely purple to me. Depending on the theme of the wedding it could have been perfectly appropriate. I've been to one.' Jumping to the woman's defence, a third said: 'Looks like it belongs to someone from the bridal party, not exactly the brides dress though.' 'Thats not white! Mauve, pink and purple,' a fourth argued. 'Floral applique and layered skirt.' 'Everything else aside, I didnt even spend that much money on my wedding dress,' a fifth said. 'Id never spend $1500 on a dress for my siblings wedding!' Read More: Royal weddings galore! 2023 is shaping up to be THE year for high society nuptials - with Princess Diana's niece and Princess Alexandra of Luxembourg among the brides-to-be Bartender admits she 'ruined a wedding' by quitting during the reception because guests were so rude What wedding guests REALLY want: Bride-to-be who 'doesn't want to waste money' is told to skip the favours and cake and cut down on formal photos - but providing plenty of hearty food is a must Advertisement Talk about a room with a view. Perched 1,300 feet in the air on the side of a mountain in Peru's Sacred Valley, there's an accommodation option catering to real thrill-seekers. The Skylodge Adventure Suites, which is listed on Airbnb for $450 per night, comprises three transparent pods which are attached to the rock via strong cables. To get to the quirky guesthouse, travelers must get harnessed up and climb a demanding route decked out with steep stairs, ladders and steel cables and to descend there are six ziplines to whizz down. The Skylodge Adventure Suites, which is listed on Airbnb for $450 per night, comprises three transparent pods which are attached to the rock via strong cables To get to the quirky guesthouse, travelers must get harnessed up and climb a demanding route decked out with steep stairs, ladders and steel cables and to descend there are six ziplines to whizz down In terms of space, each lodge serves up four beds, a dining area and a bathroom complete with a dry toilet and sink behind a private wall Photos reveal the breathtaking views the pods offer, with a gaping valley running below Poll Are YOU brave enough to spend a night in the pods? Yes No Are YOU brave enough to spend a night in the pods? Yes 66 votes No 192 votes Now share your opinion Photos reveal the breathtaking views the pods offer, with a gaping valley running below. In terms of space, each lodge serves up four beds, a dining area and a bathroom complete with a dry toilet and sink behind a private wall. There are no showers so guests are instructed to bring their own personal hygiene items. As there is no heating, travelers are also told to wear warm clothes, with the coldest months running from June to August. The lofty hotel first opened in 2013 as the world's first hanging lodge and it has proved popular with daredevil travelers since. The bathrooms also serve up stunning views thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows As there is no heating, travelers are told to wear warm clothes, with the coldest months running from June to August All stays at the Skylodge include transportation from Cuzco, dinner with wine, breakfast and the necessary climbing equipment to get there and professional guides. It has a 4.9 rating out of 5 on Airbnb with guests deeming it as a 'must-do' experience. Emily, who stayed there in November 2022, wrote: 'Absolutely incredible experience. Completely unique and totally worth it. 'Definitely one of the coolest things I have ever done.' While Greg described the Skylodge as a 'a combination of incredible views, adrenaline inducing activities, and great food' following his stay in October 2022. The lofty hotel first opened in 2013 as the world's first hanging lodge and it has proved popular with daredevil travelers since The lodge has a 4.9 rating out of 5 on Airbnb with guests deeming it as a 'must-do' experience All stays at the Skylodge include transportation from Cuzco, dinner with wine, breakfast and the necessary climbing equipment to get there and professional guides However Laura, who checked into the lodge in 2019 with her boyfriend, warned that this spot isn't for the faint-hearted. She explained: 'I'm not a natural climber and haven't done anything like this before but wanted to push myself to do something scary and once in a lifetime. And that's exactly what it was. '[Spending] 1 hour 40 minutes climbing a mountain face was the hardest and scariest thing I've ever done... but overall the most rewarding. The zip lines down are so much fun though. 'I was so glad to have my boyfriend who does climbing get me through it.' For those who need to calm their nerves following their sky-high stay there is an open-air spa on the way back down the mountain complete with hot tubs and treatment huts. If you enjoyed reading this article... 'Kim Kardashian went to the toilet with NO SHOES and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley ate nothing for seven hours': Ex-Delta flight attendant reveals what celebrities are REALLY like in the skies 'You're so discriminatory!' Couple on a Southwest flight sparks yet ANOTHER furious airplane etiquette scandal after blocking off row of three seats so they could critique fellow passengers and select a 'cool' person to join them You've been using sunscreen wrong your whole life: Brand shocks thousands after revealing how many pumps you should be applying The latest round of Prince Harry's TV interviews aired last night and MailOnline has analysed which topics he spoke about the most, with the press, media and tabloids being mentioned more than 60 times in total. Promoting his tell-all memoir Spare, the Duke sat down with ITV's Tom Bradby to discuss claims made in the book about relationships with the royals and the press. Prince Harry attacked his closest family in the bombshell interview, describing the 'sibling rivalry' with his brother Prince William - whose name he brought up 25 times - culminating in a supposed physical fight at Nottingham Cottage when the heir to the throne 'attacked' him. The breakdown of relationships with loved ones was prominent throughout the interview - with 'family' being said by the duke 52 times. Prince Harry mentioned the 'press' almost 40 times across his two interviews with ITV and CBS last night He described that the 'stereotyping' of Meghan, in part by William and his wife Kate, was causing a 'barrier' to his family, preventing them from 'welcoming her in.' The duke reserved much of his fury for the 'press', mentioning the term almost 40 time across his two interviews. He claims the British press damaged his relationship with his brother and played a major part in Princess Diana's death, saying to Tom Bradby that he and his brother were told 'the result wouldn't have been the same' if the paparazzi were not present at the time of his mother's crash. Resentment for the media extended to British tabloids - who he specifically mentioned 12 times - and he said that members of the royal family had 'decided to get in the bed with the devil' for using them to 'rehabilitate their image'. What did Harry talk about most in his ITV and CBS interviews? Family = 52 Press = 39 (including 24 mentions of the 'British press) William = 25 Wife = 19 Brother = 17 Mother = 16 Father = 15 Tabloid = 12 Palace = 12 Media = 11 Hope = 9 Kate = 9 Beard = 9 My story = 8 Unconscious bias = 8 Mummy = 8 Peace = 8 Paparazzi = 8 Institution = 7 Truth = 7 Reconciliation = 6 Racist = 5 Racism = 4 Camilla = 3 Stepmother = 3 Therapy = 1 British media = 1 Advertisement Speaking to Tom Bradby, the duke accused William and Kate of 'stereotyping' Meghan The Duke of Sussex called stepmother Camilla a 'villain' and 'dangerous' in his interview on CBS with Anderson Cooper The duke took aim at his stepmother Camilla during his interview with Anderson Cooper on US broadcaster CBS's 60 Minutes, branding her 'the villain' and 'dangerous'. He said said the Queen Consort was content with bodies - including his - being 'left in the street' as she tried to rehabilitate her image after her long affair with King Charles while he was married to Diana. Prince Harry also denied that he had accused the royal family of racism in a previous interview with Oprah Winfrey, during which it was suggested that the family were 'concerned' about the colour of his and Meghan's baby's skin. The duke insisted the comments made about Archie's skin colour were 'unconscious bias' - which he mentioned eight times during his ITV interview. The word 'beard' was also said nine times by the duke, as he recalled asking the Queen if he could keep his beard for his wedding as it acted as 'a shield to my anxiety', while William had been told to shave his off. f you enjoyed this story... 'Devastated' Prince William has been 'taken aback by the level of detail' and 'how far Prince Harry has gone in all this', royal expert claims Prince Harry says he 'loves' Lady Susan Hussey despite Queen's lady-in-waiting 'warning that his marriage to Meghan would end in tears' for the royal family Heir vs hair! Royal fans poke fun at Prince of Wales for being 'jealous' that Prince Harry got to keep his beard for his wedding - after he had to shave stubble that 'ladies swooned over' A bizarre new comedy coming to ITVX this month will have a stellar line up of some of the world's most famous people including Idris Elba and Harry Kane - but all is not as it seems. As viewers watch Nicki Minaj and Tom Holland sharing a sofa wearing hot pink velour tracksuits and argue with their neighbours including rapper Stormzy, they will actually be looking at deep fake imitations of the real people. Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, created by Spencer Jones and Barney Francis, will show some of these hugely famous people living on the same street as they argue over petty issues that often cause neighbours to butt heads. The comedy, which will air on ITV's new streaming service on 26 January, will present the AI-generated famous faces, who have a 'spot-on' likeness to their real counterparts, to an audience in the UK's first ever deepfake comedy. The so-called 'deepfake' phenomenon uses AI technology to manipulate videos and audio in a way that replicates real life. While in this context, the use of the technology is described as 'silly' by its creators, concerns have been raised in the past about how deepfakes have been used to generate child sexual abuse videos and revenge porn, as well as political hoaxes. In November, an amendment was made to the government's Online Safety Bill which stated using deepfake technology to make pornographic images and footage of people without their consent would be made illegal. Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, which uses deepfake, AI technology to replicate real famous people including Greta Thunberg (pictured) will come to ITV's new streaming service ITVX at the end of this month - and despite concerns around the ethics of the premise, the show's creators insist it's just 'silly' Deep Fake Neighbour Wars uses AI technology to replicate famous people including Idris Elba and Kim Kardashian (pictured) to present them as 'everyday' people The Ministry of Justice said a raft of changes to the law would better protect victims from having their intimate images shared without their consent. At the time, justice secretary Dominic Raab said: 'We must do more to protect women and girls, from people who take or manipulate intimate photos in order to hound or humiliate them. 'Our changes will give police and prosecutors the powers they need to bring these cowards to justice and safeguard women and girls from such vile abuse.' Despite potential concerns over the ethics of creating AI versions of very famous people, the show's creators told the Guardian they were not concerned about the content of their programme. Jones told the newspaper: 'Everything is silly. If you turn us on halfway through, and think that the real Harry Kane has really had his patio tile cracked by Stormzy, you might need to have a little look at yourself.' Describing the characters as 'heroes', he added the purpose of the show was to '[reimagine] them with everyday problems' - and argues that one of the most common and universal problems people have is irritating neighbours. Speaking about the origin of the show, Jones, who was already dabbling in deepfake technology, said he was approached by production company Tiger Aspects after some of his work in the field had gone viral after the Sheffield international documentary festival. Among the high-profile celebrities recreated in the comedy are Nicki Minaj and Spiderman's Tom Holland (pictured) Spencer Jones, the show's co-creator, insists the comedy does not deal with serious subjects and makes it clear the figures are not real (pictured: 'Stormzy', 'Harry Kane') He claims the production company asked if he could use the technology for longer projects, and so he began mocking up deepfake versions of the famous faces - albeit with different lifestyles. Among his characters are an ever-so-slightly overweight Idris Elba (a stark contrast from the real-life toned heartthrob) and a mumsy-looking Kim Kardashian. One actress on the show, Katia Kvinge, plays several different roles including environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg - and she argued there are benefits to not showing her face in her appearances. She said: 'One morning before work, I was so tired. But then I was like: "Oh, its fine, my face isnt on camera today."' To ensure viewers are not left confused by the deepfake technology, the end of each episode shows the false faces falling away from the faces of each character so the actor's real identity can be seen and it is clear the episode has been a simulation. However, when the actors are in their roles, they have to take steps to ensure the AI effect looks as real as possible. Francis explained the performers can't make too sudden or jolting movements as it would stop the AI from sticking - which took Kvinge time to get used to. Other things that put a spanner in the AI technology included filming in the rain and making exaggerated facial expressions. Read more: Meeting your partner's family for the first time can be an extremely awkward and uncomfortable situation, which is probably amplified when they are the Royal Family. Prince Harry has revealed that the Duchess of Sussex, 41, went into meeting his relatives, somewhat unprepared. The Duke of Sussex, 38, has recalled the moment when Meghan Markle met his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II for the first time and mistook Prince Andrew for her assistant. Writing in his Memoir Spare, which hit the shelves on Monday, Harry has documented his wife's first meeting with the Queen at the Royal Lodge, in October 2016. In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry has recalled the first time that Meghan Markle (left) met his grandmother The Queen (right) at the Royal Lodge in 2016 He wrote: After a moment Meg asked me something about the Queen's assistant. I asked who she was talking about. '"That man holding the purse. That man who walked her to the door. That wasn't her assistant? Who was it?"' Harry quickly prompted her that it was in fact his uncle and told Meghan: 'That was her second son. Andrew.' He wrote: 'She definitely hadn't googled us.' The Duke of Sussex recalls how Meghan initially believed that Prince Andrew (left) was the Queen's assistant Harry (right) quickly corrected his beau, telling her that it wasn't an assistant but the Queen's 'second son. Andrew' (left) This isn't the first time that the Duchess of Sussex's knowledge of the Royal Family has been analysed. During the couple's Netflix docu-series, which aired last month a giggling Meghan appeared to mock her own efforts at following royal protocol as she recounted the 'surreal' moment she first met the Queen - performing a deeply exaggerated curtsey in front of awkward-looking husband, Prince Harry. The Duchess of Sussex compared the first encounter with Her Majesty to a lowbrow themed dinner at America's 'Medieval Times'. Recounting the 'intense' moment, she performed a deep curtsey as husband Harry watched on, stone-faced, before he glanced off camera appearing awkward. The pair then chuckled afterwards. During the couple's docu-series Meghan giggled about her first meeting with The Queen and performed an exaggerated curtsey in front of awkward-looking husband, Prince Harry The Duchess of Sussex compared the first encounter with Her Majesty to a lowbrow themed dinner at America's 'Medieval Times' During the Netflix series Meghan appeared to mock her own efforts at following royal protocol as she recounted the 'surreal' moment she first met the Queen Meghan met the Queen for the first time during a lunch at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, shortly after her and the Duke revealed they were dating, in 2016. But she said the whole occasion felt like an antiquated banquet at Medieval Times, a family dinner theater in the US featuring staged medieval-style games, sword-fighting, and jousting. The Queen was the first senior member of the Royal Family that Meghan met after she and Prince Harry announced their relationship in 2016. 'She had no idea what it all consisted of,' Harry told the docu-series, as he sat with his arm around his wife. 'So it was a bit of a shock to the system for her.' Harry wrote in his memoir that Meghan clearly hadn't goggled the Royal Family before meeting The Queen and Prince Andrew (both pictured) Grinning, Meghan added: 'I mean. it's surreal. There wasn't like some big moment of "Now you're gonna meet my grandmother". 'I didn't know I was going to meet her until moments before. We were in the car and we were going to the Royal Lodge for lunch, and he [Harry] was like, "Oh, my grandmother is here, she's gonna be there after church.". 'I remember we were in the car, driving and he's [Harry] like, "You know how to curtsy, right?". And I just thought it was a joke.' The Duke continued: 'How do you explain that to people? How do you explain that you bow to your grandmother? And that you would need to curtsy, especially to an American. That's weird.' Meghan revealed in the docu-series that she didn't know that she was going to meet The Queen and thought that Harry was joking when he told her she would have to curtsey Meghan then tells the documentary: 'Now I'm starting to realise this is a big deal. I mean, Americans will understand this. We have Medieval Times dinner and tournament. It was like that. Like, I curtsied as though I was like... "Pleasure to meet you your Majesty." 'It was so intense. And then when she left, Eugenie and Jack and Fergie say "you did great!". Thanks. I didn't know what I was doing.' READ MORE: Prince Harry claims the Queen 'knew how hard it was' for him but hints the late Monarch was not 'in a position' to change his and Meghan's role in the royal family Prince Harry's 'ambushes' on Royal Family 'harmed frail Queen's health in last year of her life', sources close to late monarch say 'People have had plenty of reasons to complain about us... sex crimes weren't one of them': Prince Harry becomes first royal to publicly address Prince Andrew's links to Jeffrey Epstein with reference to 'shameful scandal' in biography Johnny Depp's hotshot former lawyer Camille Vasquez became an internet sensation while representing the actor during his trial against ex-wife Amber Heard - and now the legal pro is turning that social media fame into her own on-screen career after landing a job at NBC. Just seven months after Vasquez, 38, helped land a victory for the actor, 59, in his highly publicized $100 million defamation case against his ex-wife Heard, 36, the lawyer has made her debut in a new role: an on-air legal analyst for the popular TV network. Depp and Heard's battle in court was one of the most covered trials in history - and the attorney was quickly propelled into the spotlight for her involvement in the case. She was wildly popular among social media users - becoming an online sensation and earning an army of her own fans, thanks to her bold behavior in the courtroom and her personal chemistry with her famous client. Johnny Depp's former lawyer Camille Vasquez is now working at NBC as a legal analyst - after multiple networks reportedly fought to try to get her on their team Vasquez made her first appearance on the network this morning during a segment on the Today Show, in which she discussed the recent Idaho college student murders Host Hoda Kotb introduced her as 'NBC News' legal analyst,' before asking Vasquez about her thoughts on how social media and internet sleuths might affect the case Students are returning to the University of Idaho for a new semester with many relieved that a suspect in the killings of their four classmates is in custody.@stephgosk and Camille Vasquez share the latest details, discuss the social media impact on the case, and more. pic.twitter.com/kYjTeKBost TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 9, 2023 After it concluded in June of last year - Depp was awarded $15 million in punitive and compensatory damages - the Hollywood Reporter claimed that at least three national news divisions inquired about her coming on board as an analyst or contributor. Now, she has officially joined NBC, and made her first appearance on the network this morning during a segment on the Today Show, in which she discussed the recent Idaho college student murders. Host Hoda Kotb introduced her as 'NBC News' legal analyst,' before asking Vasquez about her thoughts on how social media and internet sleuths might affect the case - something she is pretty familiar with following the attention that the Depp and Heard case received. 'This has become something that really captivated the country,' she said of the death of four young women who were killed in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022. 'And so people want to talk about the evidence, they want to talk about the human impact. 'I think it can be helpful to investigators, they pleaded to the public and asked for information about the [murder suspect Brian Kohbergers] white [car], but it could also be harmful, when you start naming someone.' NBC then confirmed her hiring in a Tweet, writing, 'New: Camille Vasquez joins @NBCNews as a legal analyst.' Vasquez is reportedly still a partner at law firm Brown Rudnick, where she serves as co-chair of it's brand and reputation management group. Vaquez was born in July 1984 to parents Leonel and Marilia Vasquez, who are of Colombian descent. They live in a $1 million home in Buena Park, according to public records. Seven months after Vasquez, 38, helped land a victory for the actor, 59, in his highly publicized $100 million defamation case against, Amber Heard, 36, the lawyer has landed a new gig Vasquez (seen on the Today show) is reportedly still a partner at law firm Brown Rudnick, where she serves as co-chair of it's brand and reputation management group Camille said in the segment that the public could be 'helpful' in gathering info about Idaho suspect Brian Kohberger (seen), but also 'harmful' if they name the wrong person Her father once owned a UPS Store in Anaheim, however, the location has been a FedEx store for the past 10 years, an employee previously told DailyMail.com. Vasquez graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in arts, communications and political science in 2006, Newsweek reported. The fluent Spanish speaker went to Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles from 2007 to 2010 and worked at one law firm before joining her current practice, Brown Rudnick LLP, as an associate. She focuses on 'plaintiff-side defamation suits, with additional experience litigating contract disputes, business-related torts, and employment-related claims,' according to her bio on the law firm's website. She's also listed as having 'extensive experience handling parallel reputation management and crisis communications issues arising from these engagements.' She does not have any public social media profiles. During the trial, many fans started to wonder if romantic feelings had developed between Depp and Vasquez, after they noticed a slew of flirty interactions between the two - including whispering in each other's ears, giggling together, and sharing coy smirks with one another. Rumors of a budding romance were fueled after a video of the Pirates of the Caribbean star helping the lawyer untangle her iPhone charger went viral on TikTok. He was also spotted pulling out her chair for her. However, body language expert Judi James explained exclusively to DailyMail.com at the time that the amorous moments between them were most likely not due to a secret affair, but instead, were all part of a plan to make Depp seem like a 'romantic hero.' She said that linking Depp to a 'fresh, smart, fragrant, and confident-looking woman' would 'destroy' Heard's recount of their toxic relationship. Vaquez was born in July 1984 to parents Leonel and Marilia Vasquez (pictured), who are of Colombian descent. They live in a $1 million home in Buena Park, according to public records Vasquez graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in arts, communications and political science in 2006. She is pictured left with her mother and sister Fans started to wonder if romantic feelings had developed between Depp and Vasquez during the trial, after they noticed a slew of flirty interactions between the two Some people on social media have also pointed out that Vasquez appeared to be wearing an engagement or wedding ring during her court appearances, but since she keeps her personal life so private, it's unclear whether or not she's in a relationship. However, body language expert Judi James explained that the amorous moments between them are most likely part of a plan to make Depp seem like a 'romantic hero' In addition to her rumored relationship with Depp, Vasquez gained immense attention after she cross-examined Heard on the stand, with some fans claiming that she 'annihilated' and 'obliterated' the star with her fierce questions. Vasquez said to Heard during the cross examination: 'Your lies have been exposed to the world multiple times?' to which Heard responded, 'I haven't lied about anything.' Vasquez pressed Heard on many of her inconsistencies and accusations, and she even became short with Heard when she started to talk to the jury at one point. 'There is no question pending so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make an argument to the jury. It's inappropriate,' Vasquez snapped at Heard. 'Camille Vasquez is definitely one of the best lawyers Ive ever seen. Shes absolutely annihilating Amber heard. OMG,' wrote one person on Twitter afterwards. In addition to her rumored relationship with Depp, Vasquez gained immense attention after she cross-examined Heard on the stand Vasquez (pictured during her cross-examination) became short with Heard at one point, telling her, 'I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make an argument to the jury. It's inappropriate' Vasquez was wildly popular among social media users - becoming an online sensation and earning an army of her own fans, thanks to her bold behavior in the courtroom 'That was an obliteration,' agreed someone else. 'Camille Vasquez, you queen.' Another added, 'This is what a real strong independent woman looks like. Camilles intelligence and talent is so inspiring for women everywhere. She is a true example of strength facing evil.' 'Iconic. No matter the outcome, Camille, you did Johnny and ACTUAL victims of domestic violence well. Take a bow my queen,' someone else said. 'Camille Vasquez gave Johnny Depp the voice he never had against Amber Heards vicious claims. You can tell how much she feels for him and how much she wants justice for him,' gushed a different user. A sixth tweet read, 'Camille Vasquez did not come to play. She came to exact justice. Watching her is a win for all women. #CamilleVasquez I feel powerful watching her work. She is a beast!' Heard was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages out of the $100million she was seeking in her countersuit against her ex-husband. She was awarded zero dollars in punitive damages. Despite the jury awarding Depp $15 million in total, the judge reduced the $5 million in punitive damages from that amount to the Virginia maximum of $350,000, meaning he should receive $8.35 million in total after paying Heard $2 million. Prince Harry was 'determined to trash the Princess of Wales' reputation' and 'challenge the public's view of the poised mother-of-three', a royal expert has claimed. During his ITV interview with Tom Bradby last night, the Duke of Sussex, 38, recounted an awkward meeting that took place in summer 2018 in Kensington Palace between him, Meghan Markle and the Prince and Princess of Wales. The father-of-two claims they had organised to meet in an attempt to clear the air following a series of disagreements, including Meghan commenting on Kate's 'baby brain', which William labelled 'rude'. Later on, the Duke describes how Kate was gripping the edges of her leather chair so tightly that her 'fingers turned white'. Prince Harry is 'determined to trash the Princess of Wales' poised reputation', the Daily Mail's Diary Editor Richard Eden has claimed. Pictured: the sisters-in-law in December 2018 Commenting on Prince Harry's latest television interview, the Daily Mail's Diary Editor Richard Eden said the royal appeared 'determined to change views' of his sister-in-law and 'trash her reputation'. The expert said: 'What came across was Harry's desire to change the image that we have of Catherine. We have this image of her being very poised, elegant, calm. 'But no no, he was saying she was so angry that she was gripping the edge of the furniture so hard that her knuckles were going white.' Elsewhere in his memoir, Prince Harry alleges that William 'attacked' him over his relationship with the former Suits actress in the grounds of Kensington Palace. Prince Harry told Tom Bradby that the Princess of Wales was among members of the Royal Family who 'stereotyped' his wife Meghan Markle when they first started dating The expert added: 'He also makes it sound like Catherine wanted to strangle Meghan! It's really dramatic stuff.' During the ITV interview, Prince Harry opened up about his family's initial reaction to his relationship with Meghan Markle in an interview with his friend Tom Bradby. Although the Duke claims the Prince and Princess of Wales were 'religious viewers' of Suits, he agreed with Tom Bradby that it was 'fair' to say that his family 'didn't get on' with his wife 'almost from the get-go'. He explained: 'There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening, that I was guilty of as well, at the beginning.' He said the 'stereotyping' of Meghan, in part by William and Kate, was causing a 'barrier' to his family, preventing them from 'welcoming her in.' Prince Harry said the Royal Family 'weren't expecting him to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan Markle' in his new interview. Pictured: the couples in November 2018 At first, the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the newly engaged couple were dubbed the 'Fab Four' by the British press. However, Prince Harry said during his ITV interview that it was a challenge adding Meghan into the dynamic he already shared with William and Kate. When asked why Meghan 'didn't get on' with his family from the 'get-go-', he explained: 'Lots of lots of different reasons but I look, as I again detail a lot, I had put a lot of hope in the idea that, you know, it'd be William and Kate and me and whoever. 'I thought the you know, the four of us would, you know, bring me and William closer together, we could go out and do work together, um, which I did a lot as the third wheel to them, um, which was fun at times but also, I guess slightly awkward at times as well. 'But um yeah, I think I don't think they were ever expecting me to get or to become to get into a relationship with with someone like Meghan who had, you know, a very successful career.' The Princess of Wales and Duchess of Cambridge pictured attending the Wimbledon women's singles final together in 2019 Bridesmaid dress-gate! How reports of Kate and Meghan arguing ahead of wedding unfolded May 2018 - Meghan Markle and Prince Harry tie the knot in St George's Chapel in Windsor The bridesmaids, including Jessica Mulroney's daughter Ivy and Princess Charlotte, have bare legs November 2018 - The Telegraph's royal editor Camilla Tominey wrote she had 'spoken to two separate sources who claim Kate was left in tears following a bridesmaids dress fitting for Princess Charlotte'. May 2020 - Tatler reports the two argued over protocol around young bridesmaids' tights March 2021 - Meghan confirms there was a disagreement in her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview but says the Duchess of Cambridge actually made her cry. Royal expert Katie Nicholl says Kate 'never wanted' reports of a rift to come out in the press and has found the situation 'mortifying' January 2023: Harry's memoirs reveals new rifts between the Sussexes and the Wales' Advertisement What's more, Prince Harry backed up Meghan Markle's claim that her sister-in-law made her cry ahead of their May 2018 wedding in his memoir. In October 2018, it was reported that a conflict over Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid dress had left Kate in tears. One unnamed friend claimed Kate wanted to follow 'protocol', with the bridesmaids, including Charlotte, then three, wearing tights but Meghan disagreed. In his book Revenge, Tom Bower claimed unnamed sources told him the Duchess of Cambridge and Duchess of Sussex disagreed over the length of Princess Charlotte's hemline and the fit of her dress. He also claimed Meghan's 'insistence' was 'supported' by bridesmaid Jessica Mulroney, adding: 'Some would say that Meghan compared Ivy [Mulroney's daughter] favourably against Charlotte'. The Duchess of Sussex later disagreed in her bombshell Oprah Winfrey interview, claiming it was the other way around and adding: 'She [Kate] was upset about something, but she owned it, and she apologised. And she brought me flowers'. Asking Harry about Kate and Meghan's disagreement, Tom Bradby said: 'Your version of it in this book is it was the other way round, Meghan was the one left in tears, Kate came round the next day with flowers to apologise and youre careful to say theres a witness.' In response, Prince Harry admitted that 'tensions were high' at the time and blasted the Palace for not issuing a statement regarding the story. He continued: 'They were more than happy to put out statements for less volatile things. My understanding is the reason they didnt want to come out and say it wasnt true would therefore lead to Well if it wasnt that, was it the other way round? When in fact you didnt need to confess that it was the other way round. Right, tensions were high.' Shortly before Harry and Meghan quit the Royal Family in January 2020, the Duke of Sussex alleged the Prince of Wales grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the floor, shattering a dog bowl with his back. The furious row allegedly broke out in the kitchen of his London home, Nottingham Cottage, in the grounds of Kensington Palace in 2019. William is said to have branded Meghan 'difficult', 'rude' and 'abrasive' and insisted he was trying to help his younger brother during a meeting about 'the whole rolling catastrophe' of their failing relationship and Harry's rows with the Press. When they began arguing about Meghan, Harry claims William was not being rational, leading to a shouting match (Pictured: Harry and William arrive to hold a vigil in honour of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Hall in September last year) Harry accused his brother of 'parroting the Press narrative' about his American wife before a screaming match ensued, ending in a physical altercation, the book claims. He says he gave the heir to the throne a glass of water and said: 'Willy, I can't speak to you when you're like this'. Describing what he claims happened next, and insisting he was scared, the former soldier said: 'He set down the water, called me another name, then came at me. It all happened so fast. So very fast. He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor. I landed on the dog's bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me. I lay there for a moment, dazed, then got to my feet and told him to get out'. Harry claims that William had then urged him to fight back, saying that is what would happen when they scrapped as children. But the duke claims he refused, claiming that William left and then returned 'looking regretful, and apologised'. William then 'turned and called back: "You don't need to tell Meg about this".' Harry claims he said: 'You mean that you attacked me?', to which William replied: 'I didn't attack you, Harold'. Harry says that the first person he spoke to about it was his therapist, on the phone. But he claims Meghan would see the cuts 'scrapes and bruises' on his back from the dog bowl. He claims his wife 'wasn't that surprised, and wasn't all that angry. She was terribly sad'. Read More: Will there be any way back for Harry and Charles after his searing attack on Camilla? Prince branded Queen Consort 'dangerous' and accused her of plot to marry his father in Tom Bradby sit down despite King 'warning him criticising his wife was a red line' Harry suggests he and Meghan will NEVER give up their royal titles after Anderson Cooper asked why they don't renounce them and live privately during explosive 60 Minutes interview: Prince blasts 'what difference would that make?' Royal family were horrible to him on the day the Queen died, Harry claims in score-settling ITV interview Trump has been outspoken in criticism of Meghan, 41, and Harry over the years He says the meeting took place ahead of the November 2016 election Harry, 38, says the Queen then 'asked Meg what she thought of Donald Trump' Recalling Meghan's first meeting with his grandmother, Harry revealed topics of their conversation - which began with the trading of pleasantries about church Prince Harry says his grandmother the Queen asked Meghan Markle about her opinions on Donald Trump during their very first meeting in 2016. The Duke of Sussex, 38, recalled the first-ever chat between his grandmother and his then-girlfriend in his explosive new memoir Spare, claiming that Her Majesty 'asked Meg what she thought of' Trump - who was, at the time, preparing to take part in the 2016 Presidential Election, which he ultimately won. While members of the British family are typically meant to remain politically neutral in public - and cannot vote in elections in the UK - Harry claims that his grandmother couldn't help but inquire as to what Meghan really thought about the then-Republican candidate. However, Harry states that his now-wife, 41, ultimately chose to avoid sharing her opinion, writing that he 'thought politics a no-win game' so 'changed the subject to Canada', where she was living at the time. 'It was all very pleasant,' the Duke said of the exchange, which took place three years before the Queen's first official meeting with Trump in 2019. 'Granny even asked Meg what she thought of Donald Trump. (This was just before the November 2016 election, so everyone in the world seemed to be thinking and talking about the Republican candidate.) Prince Harry says his grandmother the Queen asked Meghan Markle (seen in 2018) to share her thoughts on Donald Trump during their first-ever meeting in 2016 The 38-year-old says the meeting took place shortly before the 2016 election - three years before the Queen met Trump in person - and 'everyone seemed to be talking about him' 'Meg thought politics a no-win game, so she changed the subject to Canada.' While Meghan may have balked at the thought of sharing her political views with the Queen, in the years since that first meeting, Trump has been incredibly outspoken in his criticism of her and Harry, slamming the Duchess in a November 2021 interview for 'disrespecting' the Monarch. Speaking to British politician Nigel Farage in an on-air interview, Trump admitted that he had never been a 'fan' of Meghan, who he believed had used Prince Harry. He said: 'I'm not a fan of hers. I wasn't from day one. I think Harry has been used horribly and I think some day he will regret it. I think Harry's been used and been used terribly. I think it's ruined his relationship with his family, and it hurts the Queen.' Speaking of the duchess, he added: 'I think she's been very disrespectful to the Queen, who's such a great woman, such a great person, a historic person. I think she's very disrespectful to the Royal Family and most importantly to the Queen.' He also said that Meghan was 'very inappropriate' when asked by Mr Farage about claims she used her royal title to meddle in US politics, by writing on the Sussexes' headed paper to lobby Congress members on issues such as paternity leave. 'She is trying to do things that I think are very inappropriate,' he said. Harry does not reveal how the then-Suits star pivoted the conversation - however he noted that the Queen was confused when Meghan brought up Canada, and asked: 'I thought you were American.' Upon learning that Meghan was indeed American but that she had been living in Toronto for seven years while filming the legal drama Suits, Harry says his grandmother 'looked pleased', particularly because Canada is part of the Commonwealth. The meeting - Harry says - lasted about 20 minutes, before the Queen had to leave, having originally started with the group exchanged pleasantries about Her Majesty's church service earlier that day and Meghan's visit to the UK. The Duke says that both his cousin, Princess Eugenie, and her now-husband Jack Brooksbank were present, recalling his annoyance that another man, who turned out to be a friend of Eugenie's mother Fergie, was also in attendance for 'one of the most consequential moments of his life'. According to Harry, Meghan, now 41, 'thought politics a no-win game' so she 'changed the subject to Canada', where she was living when she and the Duke began dating - and where they made their first official appearance together in 2017 (pictured) Politics has certainly proven to be a no-win topic for the Sussexes since they relocated to the US. The pair have waded into politics on both sides of the Atlantic numerous times since their quit the royal family - who are expected to remain politically neutral in public. The pair have been met with furious criticism on a number of occasions for weighing in on several hot-button topics, including the right to abortion. Meghan has never publicly aligned herself with the Democratic party, however her outspoken political views are very much in keeping with those held by the left. She has previously spoken out to slam the Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe v. Wade - and in November 2021 it was revealed that Meghan had been cold calling Republican Senators on their private numbers in order to lobby for paid paternity leave - a move that was met with backlash in the US and the UK. Then, in June, Meghan once again dived into the political pool when she spoke out against the Roe v. Wade reversal during a conversation with friend and activist Gloria Steinem, 88, and journalist Jessica Yellin for Vogue. The Duchess of Sussex said all men need to join women in the fight to protect abortion rights, adding that Harry is a feminist, and he reacted with anger to the Supreme Court's decision. She said: 'My husband and I talked about that a lot over the past few days. He's a feminist too' and in an intervention that will be widely perceived to be pro-Democrat, she said: 'We have to channel that fear into action. We can start this November in the midterms. We have to vote, every time'. She also hinted at the time that she was planning to make a trip to Washington, D.C. in order to join the protests against the Supreme Court ruling - although it is unclear whether she actually made the journey. Texas man is accused of killing his estranged wife, as he pretended to be a random burglar but was recognized by his daughter. Texas Man Accused of Slaying Estranged Wife In Georgetown, Texas, Ricardo Quinones, 38, is said to be accused of shooting dead his estranged wife one day after Christmas, reported Meaww. According to the police, they found the dead body of 31-year-old Lindsey Quinones in her house last Tuesday, January 3. Based on the court document, the wife was chained to the bed and shot in the face by the spouse. Sources say that Quinones had forcefully entered the wife's home, where he killed her. But their teenage daughter escaped through the bedroom window, noted People. While waiting outside the house, the police alleged that they had been trying to negotiate with Quinones when they heard two shots fired and went in there. Quinones was able to escape, but a few hours later, he was discovered in Columbus. Based on the 911 complaint, his 13-year-old daughter told investigators that when she woke up on Tuesday when she was sleeping with her mother, he was wearing all-black garments, a ski mask, glinting a flashlight into her face. Even with his face covered to conceal his identity, the daughter was able to know him by his voice, said the affidavit. Next, the woman was dragged from the bed, mentioned Yahoo. The wife told her daughter to listen to her dad, implying that the police should be contacted without becoming too obvious. Read Also: Russia-Ukraine War: China's Xi Jinping 'Eager' To End War, Will Emphasize Peace to Vladimir Putin, Claims Expert Teenage Daughter of Texas Man identifies Him as Killer The young girl asserted she had seen her dad tie up her mom with cords and realized he had a knife in his pocket, as shown in the sworn statement. She afterward made her way out of the house through a room window, where she was encountered by police officers who stormed in just after having heard two gunshots at about three in the morning, as said by CBS Austin. The affidavit states that Quinones had told his wife that he would stab her and strike her with the gun. He attempted to cut the ropes of Whitman's legs, but he cut them accidentally, which caused bleeding. A state trooper had informed the Fayette County Sheriff's Office that the person of interest and his car were seen going westbound along the I-10. The suspect was later caught at about 11 am. According to KXAN, a parking lot in Columbus, the sheriff's office reported on Facebook. He allegedly told authorities that it didn't matter anymore; he was going to prison anyway because he went mad in the morning. The murder weapon was in the truck. The suspect is currently being held at the Williamson County Jail on Thursday with a $1 million bail. The prison sentence for murder can range from five to 99 years. A Texas man who shot his estranged wife was recognized by his daughter, and he will be tried in court. Related Article: [Video] New York Cop Gets Suspended After Repeatedly Punching Teen Girl While Trying To Stop After-School Brawl @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The Cut branded Prince Harry's upcoming memoir, Spare, as 'pure chaos' while mocking his 'frostbitten penis' and 'shrooms trip' in a scathing Instagram post. The statement from New York Magazine's The Cut comes just five months after Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, posed on the cover of the magazine and sat down with it for a rare, intimate interview - in which she spoke openly about her time as a royal as well as her and Harry's decision to leave the monarchy, After it came out in August, Meghan received fierce fury over her comments, and later admitted that she had been to 'open' and 'trusting' with the interviewer, and that she originally intended to only discuss her and Harry's upcoming projects. Now, The Cut has slammed Harry's new book, which is set to premiere on January 10, however, numerous excerpts leaked last week after it was accidentally released early in Spain. The Cut branded Prince Harry's upcoming memoir, Spare, as 'pure chaos' while mocking his 'frostbitten penis' and 'shrooms trip' in a scathing Instagram post While sharing an article in which it discussed many of the shocking revelations made by Harry, 38, in the tome, the outlet posted a picture to Instagram that said, 'Spare is pure chaos' It is unfortunately unclear what the caption of The Cut's post said when it was first posted, but underneath the current one you can see that it has since been edited British actress Jameela Jamil, who left an angry comment defending Prince Harry, hinted that the publication called the book 'unhinged' in its original caption While sharing an article in which it discussed many of the shocking revelations made by Harry, 38, in the tome, the outlet posted a picture of the Duke of Sussex to Instagram on Sunday, which had the words 'Spare is pure chaos' written across the top in bold letters. The caption reads, 'There's TMI and then there's whatever is happening here. A shrooms trip at Courtney Cox's house? Blaming William & Kate for his infamous Nazi Halloween costume? Frostbitten penis? 'There's TMI and then there's whatever is happening here,' the current caption reads. 'Prince Harry's new book, Spare, is full of wild claims and revelations' 'Prince Harry's new book, Spare, is full of wild claims and revelations. Preview some leaked highlights from the upcoming memoir at the link in bio.' British actress Jameela Jamil left an angry comment defending Prince Harry, and clapped back at the publication for its jarring review in the comment section. It is unfortunately unclear what the caption said when it was first posted, but it appears that it was edited - and she hinted that the publication may have called the book 'unhinged' in its original caption. 'Is it unhinged, or is it a genius way to get all your skeletons out the closet so that nobody has anything to threaten/embarrass you with because you owned it and got paid $40 million for it?' she asked. 'After six years of smear campaigns, maybe it's more empowering to share on your own terms.' Some people, however, agreed with The Cut and criticized Harry. 'For someone who said they craved privacy for their family, neither can stop plastering all their private info everywhere. I guess all the millions are worth it?' said another person. Someone else simply wrote, 'Shut up Harry,' while a different user commented, 'This man needs some help... He brings no truth but more chaos.' The statement from New York Magazine's The Cut comes just five months after Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, posed on the cover of the publication She also sat down with the outlet for a rare, intimate interview - in which she spoke openly about her time as a royal as well as her and Harry's decision to leave the monarchy After it came out in August, Meghan received fierce fury over her comments, and later admitted that she had been to 'open' and 'trusting' with the interviewer Other Instagram users bashed The Cut for scrutinizing the book in the comment section, with one person writing, 'Putting up flashy tidbit headlines without context is... Irresponsible and reminds me of the media negativity hes spoken about. Im personally very excited to read this book.' 'Can you actually read the damn book and then comment versus judging it by the cherry picked sections the rota has chosen to scream about?' asked someone else. 'The very media that Harry is critical of... Wonder why there is nothing a about his love for his wife or kids? 'The media doesnt want to highlight that stuff that is likely in the book. Critical thinking is really lacking.' 'Let him tell his truths,' urged another commenter, while a fourth added, 'I think sharing his side of the story has been a long time in the works, probably before he got married. Im here for it, and more power to him.' In his book, Harry made a series of explosive admissions, including that he did cocaine as a teen, killed 25 Taliban fighters during his time in the military, and that it was his brother, Prince William, and his wife, Kate Middleton, who encouraged him to wear his infamous Nazi costume to a party in 2005. Some people, however, agreed with The Cut and criticized Harry, with one person calling him 'really desperate to say in the limelight' Several Instagram users sided with Jameela and bashed The Cut for scrutinizing Harry's book in the comment section of its recent post He also claimed that William, 40, once physically attacked him during a 2019 altercation regarding his wife, Meghan, 41. He said his older brother called the former actress 'difficult,' 'rude,' and 'abrasive,' before things turned physical. 'He grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and he knocked me to the floor,' he reportedly wrote. 'I landed on the dogs bowl, which cracked under my back, the pieces cutting into me.' In addition to his new memoir, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex released a six-part Netflix docuseries, entitled Harry & Meghan, last month, and it contained a slew of other bombshell accusations about their time as royals. In her cover story with The Cut last August, Meghan discussed 'healing' and learning to 'feel free' again after she and Harry decided to step away from the monarchy and move to American in 2020. 'Just by existing, we were upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy. So we go, "OK, fine, lets get out of here. Happy to,"' she said. She also said that what she and Prince Harry asked for before cutting ties with the royals was not 'reinventing the wheel.' The outlet claimed that the mother-of-two then listed a 'handful of princes and princesses and dukes who have the very arrangement they wanted,' although none of those royals were named in the article. In his book, Harry made a series of explosive admissions, including that he did cocaine as a teen and that he killed 25 Taliban fighters during his time in the military He also claimed that his brother, Prince William (seen together in September), 40, once physically attacked him during a 2019 altercation regarding his wife, Meghan, 41 At the time, Harry and Meghan were in the midst of making the Netflix series, and the Suits star also spoke out about why they decided to chronic their journey in the doc. 'The piece of my life I havent been able to share, that people havent been able to see, is our love story,' she explained, before reciting a line from the speech she gave at her wedding to Harry: 'Resounding knowing that, above all, love wins.' 'I hope that is the sentiment that people feel when they see any of the content or the projects that we are working on.' Afterwards, Meghan faced backlash online after readers 'found [the interview] to be snarky,' according to Variety writer Matt Donnelly. Meghan then admitted that she was too 'trusting and open' with the writer and said it was only ever meant to focus on her podcast, Archetypes, as well as her and Harry's other projects - rather than their time in the royal family. 'The [New York] story was intended to support Archetypes and focus on our projects,' she said to Variety. 'Ive had some time to reflect on it. Part of me is just really trusting, really open thats how I move in the world.' The Duchess of Sussex added that she doesn't want to lose the 'trusting' part of herself, stating that she can 'survive' the controversy. 'I have to remember that I dont ever want to become so jaded that that piece of me goes away. So despite any of those things? Onward. I can survive it,' she said. Pathology experts are urging Australians to make it their new year's resolution to focus on their health and get five specific - and often overlooked - tests in 2023. They include a cervical screening test, liver function test, type 2 diabetes test, bowel cancer screening and a prostate specific antigen test. Pathology Awareness Australia says the 'easiest resolution to keep' could drastically increase the chance of successfully treating any potential conditions. Pathology experts are urging Australians to make it their new year resolutions to get five specific pathology tests in 2023 (stock image) Experts recommend arranging the five pathology tests, where relevant, and discussing your risk factors and symptoms as a priority at your next doctors visit. 'Pathology testing is with Australians from cradle to grave. A person's first pathology test may take place just minutes after they are born,' the experts said. 'Tests can pick up on health concerns early when they are at their most treatable.' 1. Cervical Screening Test (CST) The first test to prioritise is a cervical screening test which looks for the Human Papillomavirus, a virus known to cause most cervical cancers. Since July 2022, patients in Australia can carry out self-collection of samples for the test, meaning they no longer need their GP or nurse to insert a speculum to collect the cervical sample. Anyone who has been in sexual contact with someone with the virus is at risk of contracting the symptomless condition. People with a cervix aged 25-74 are recommended to have a cervical screening test every five years. 'Young people who have been vaccinated are not protected against every type of HPV so still need to be tested.' 'Australians need to be aware that prevention of cervical cancer requires regular screening as well as HPV vaccination for those who are eligible,' Professor Marion Saville said. Australian cervical cancer aware organisation 'Get Papped' recently made a crowd-source directory of all the doctors in Australia who made patients feel comfortable during the test. 2. Liver Function Test (LFT) This test detects substances in the blood that are produced by liver cells when they are damaged. Some common symptoms for liver disease include jaundiced skin, dark urine, abdominal pain and swelling in the legs and ankles. Anyone with symptoms should get tested. Lifestyle factors like increased alcohol consumption and reduced exercise can have a negative impact on liver health. The liver as integral part of the body, anyone with symptoms should get tested for potential liver issues 3. HbA1c (type 2 diabetes test) This test can diagnose and help to monitor type 2 diabetes, and it is particularly important for those over 35 to consider the test. Risk factors for this condition includes age, weight and activity level. If a person is over 35, has a waist circumference over 100cm, and exercises less than two and a half hours a week, it is recommended to consider this test. Diabetes can have negatives effects on the kidneys, heart, and eyes, but symptoms may not show for years. This test can diagnose and help to monitor type 2 diabetes, and it is particularly important for those over 35 to speak to their doctor about when they should be having this test and how often (stock image) 4. Bowel Cancer Screening Australians can carry out this test at home in five minutes using with the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program. This disease has a 90% treatment success rate if caught early so it is recommended that those aged 50+ participate in the programme every two years. Changes in bowel habits, stool consistency and blood in the stool can be symptoms of the disease. 'For some, bowel cancer will have minimal symptoms until late in the disease, making early diagnosis without a screening test difficult, Dr Nick Musgrave, Anatomical Pathologist advised. Australians can now carry out this test at home in five minutes using with the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program 5. Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) Test This type of cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia so early detection is vital. In Australia, it is recommended for men to have a PSA blood test every two years from age 50 to age 70. Difficulty with urination is a tell tale sign of the condition. For those with a higher risk, such as those with a family history, regular testing can start earlier. Prostate cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia so early detection is vital. Difficulty with urination is a tell tale sign of the condition A newly-single man has unleashed on 'already taken' women he says are 'sliding into his DMs' and sending flirty messages on Instagram. Jay Ingram, 33, from the Gold Coast, said he was 'shocked' to find many of the women he had been exchanging flirtatious messages with were 'already in a committed relationship' in a rant posted to his Instagram story. The luxury car dealership owner said it was his 'New Year's resolution' to expose the unfaithful women by sharing their couple's photos with himself photoshopped into his public social media page. Jay Ingram (pictured), from the Gold Coast, has made a pledge to expose the women he says are flirting with him online but are 'already in a committed relationship' Jay told The Bulletin he has been single for six months following a 12-year relationship and grew up in rural New Zealand where 'everyone knew each other's business'. 'If you did something wrong there, everyone knew. On the Gold Coast you can get away with a lot of s*** without being called out,' he said. 'I was actually raised with morals.' In an impassioned Instagram story Jay said he noticed something unusual about the photos on the profiles of the women he was talking to online. He shared images of himself superimposed into the women's' couple photos after going on an impassioned rant on in public Instagram story 'You know what I realised over Christmas break? When a lot of you females were posting stories with your mans underneath the Christmas tree in your matching pyjamas and all this couple goals s***, you were actually in my inbox, at the same time and for a couple of months,' Jay said. 'And it's not just one or two, it's like a lot.' The businessman told his followers to 'stay tuned' as he was going to name the culprits in a series of posts. 'If you did something wrong there, everyone knew. On the Gold Coast you can get away with a lot of s*** without being called out,' he said 'If ya got a man and you message me shady s***. Ima photoshop myself into your couple photos and post them,' Jay wrote in another post. He shared an image of himself superimposed into a couple's picture next to the Christmas tree captioned: 'Merry Christmas from us'. Jay posted another of him pretending to cuddle a couple in front of the Sydney Opera House and a third sitting next to a pair perched on a cliff. Jay, who has been single for six months after getting out of a 12-year relationship, insisted the posts about the women were 'legit' but 'light-hearted' It's unclear whether Jay's claims about the women are true as he didn't share any screenshots of the messages he said he received. Jay insisted the posts about the women were 'legit' but 'light-hearted'. 'Infidelity is not a fun thing to happen to anyone,' he added. He said navigating single life is different to the last time he was on the dating scene as he didn't have a smart phone and 'Tinder didn't exist'. Others say people are warning against it so they can retain their 'secret spot' However, locals have warned that the destination isn't as perfect as it may seem Minnamurra River has been compared to the Whitsundays in Queensland Travellers are raving about a tropical water sport destination in New South Wales Travellers are flocking to an idyllic destination less than an hour from Sydney after a tourist compared it to the Whitsundays - but not everyone agrees. Nat Explores uploaded a TikTok video that showed the crystal waters and lush greenery at Minnamurra River, a popular water sport destination in Kiama on the South Coast of New South Wales. 'POV: Driving one hour 45 minutes from Sydney and feeling like you're at the Whitsundays,' she wrote. The photogenic location is well-known for crystal blue waters, scenic coastal walks, and the nearby Rangoon island which is well-loved by whale watchers. Scroll down for video Travellers are flocking to Minnamurra River (pictured) after one tourist compared it to the Whitsundays The photogenic location is a popular water sport destination in Kiama, on the South Coast of New South Wales. It's under two hours from Sydney and is well-known for crystal blue waters, scenic coastal walks, and the nearby Rangoon island which is well-loved by whale watchers But locals and visitors were quick to comment on the woman's post, warning that the estuary is not as perfect as it seems in pictures 'Sorry but that's nothing like the Whitsundays,' one man said. 'Hahaha enjoy the bullsharks and I've even seen thrasher sharks in there. I'm a local and it's enter at your own risk,' another commented. Watersport fans rave about the destination for kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding and fishing. The tropical oasis is less than a two hour drive from Sydney and is adored for its peace and tranquility 'Nice long river, great place to spend a day on the water exploring and fishing. Heaps of places to pull up for a picnic. Very peaceful area that I find myself returning to all year round,' one man wrote. 'Great place to go for water sports, or just a great view while walking or exercising around. Walking to the river is enjoyable. Clean and secure area,' a woman said. 'Our favourite place to go, so beautiful,' another wrote. Watersport fans rave about the destination for kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding and fishing However, not everyone agrees the river is similar to the Whitsundays, and some locals are even warning adventurers not to visit for a holiday However, several people believe the warnings are simply from locals who don't want the destination to become a tourist hub. 'Locals don't want people going here just saying,' one woman said. 'Nooooo dont tell everyone,' another local wrote. 'Been to a few nice places like this in south Sydney but I rather keep most of them quiet as I dont want it crowded like Sydney,' a man commented. Moderna will hike up the price of its Covid shot five-fold to match its rival Pfizer's, DailyMail.com can reveal. CEO Stephane Bancel said the cost of Moderna's Covid vaccine will be 'going up a little bit' to be priced in the 'same ballpark' as Pfizer's when it goes on the open market this year. Americans can expect to pay around $130 for Moderna's vaccine, which is estimated to cost just $1.18 to make, representing a 10,000 percent markup. The vaccine is currently sold for around $26 a dose. Moderna - which turned an estimated $39bn in profit last year - benefitted from a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded support package for designing and testing its Covid shot as part of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed. Moderna's CEO Stephane Bancel revealed his company would jack up the price of its Covid shot five times to match it's competitor Pfizer's offering of $110-130 per vaccine Mr Bancel told DailyMail.com: 'It's [the price] going up a little bit because the previous price was massively discounted... we got help from the US Government. 'When we did the first contract with the US, we proposed an offer to them [with] a big discount.' He added: In the US it's $26 now. That was the discounted price, it's going to go up. Pfizer said theyre going to price it between $110 and $130. Wed want to be the same ballpark as that. Pfizer was heavily criticized when it announced in October plans to raise the price of its shot to $130 later this year. Moderna had previously considered raising the commercial price to between $82 and $100 per dose. Mr Bancel appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Saturday, where he spoke to president of Jefferson Health Dr Stephen Klasko about Moderna's joint venture with drug giant Merck to create personalized cancer vaccines Covid vaccines have been free to Americans regardless of insurance status during the pandemic. This is thanks to Operation Warp Speed, which was adopted in the early weeks of the pandemic to accelerate the development of Covid vaccines and treatments. The Trump administration shelled out more than $12 billion to biotech companies including Moderna, Janssen, and Novavax to compress the timeline for a viable vaccine. Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotech startup, inked several contracts with the federal government totaling more than $2.4 billion in the first year of the pandemic. In July 2022, the US government awarded a $1.74 billion agreement to secure more than 65 million additional doses of Moderna's Covid vaccine, bringing the total number of shots procured to more than 560 million. When those run out, the negotiation of the cost of vaccines will soon be down to insurance companies and private purchasers - in the absence of the federal government buying up additional doses at a reasonable price. The subsidized shots have thus far been free for all Americans regardless of whether they have health insurance. And while insured Americans likely won't see a difference when they go to get the shots, those without coverage will be saddled with a high price. Insurance premiums will cover the price hike, meaning Americans will not actually pay out-of-pocket, but it will still push up premiums all around. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of 2023 premium filings showed that some insurers expect the commercialization of vaccines to push up premium costs across the board. And those costs could continue to put upward pressure on premiums for years to come. Mr Bancel's comments confirmed lawmakers' fears that Pfizer's price hike would prompt other Covid shot makers to also raise their price. Democrats Sen Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts and Sen-elect Representative Peter Welch of Vermont accused Pfizer of 'unseemly profiteering' and 'pure and deadly greed' in a scathing letter to its CEO Albert Bourla last month, and urged him to change course. Unlike Moderna, Pfizer and its partner company BioNTech did not accept federal money to fuel research and development of a covid vaccine. Still, that is not to say that Pfizer did not receive backing from the US government. Mr Bancel, whose net worth is $5.7 billion, told DailyMail.com Moderna's Covid shots will be priced in the 'same ballpark' as rival vaccine maker Pfizer Pfizer-BioNTech had inked a two-billion-dollar agreement early on with the government to provide 100 million doses of its vaccine when it was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. The Trump administration proceeded to buy millions more doses in the months that followed. Moderna was forecasted to rake in between $18 and $19billion each of the past two years from Covid vaccine contracts, a massive increase from 2020 when it brought in $803million. Meanwhile, its competitor Pfizer was forecasted to rake in over $100billion in revenue last year, and brought in $81.2billion in 2021. These figures well clear the $40 billion per year it was earning the years prior. The Biden Administrations Covid funding is running dry. Congress has balked at White House requests to bolster federal money for new vaccines, research and development, treatments, and test supplies. The federal government has spent a staggering $30billion on Covid vaccines since the first ones became available in late December 2020, purchasing a total of 1.2 billion doses of Pfizer and Moderna shots combined. Included in that total is the cost of developing and mass-producing the bivalent vaccines that target the original and omicron strains of Covid. Those boosters, though, have been met with less-than-stellar enthusiasm. Less than 14 percent of eligible Americans five and older have gotten a bivalent booster, compared to 73 percent who completed the original two-shot regimen. Public health authorities have struggled to rally support around the latest booster shot as the population becomes increasingly fatigued with all things Covid. The Biden administration doubled down on its efforts to encourage apathetic Americans to get the booster, announcing a six-week blitz in November aimed at 'reaching seniors and the communities that Covid hardest hit through making it more convenient to get vaccinated and increasing awareness through paid media.' It comes after Pfizer forecasted up to $15bn in annual revenue by 2030 from its shots. Mr Bancel made the comments at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Saturday, where he discussed Moderna's joint venture with drug giant Merck to create personalized cancer vaccines. It comes as UK ministers plan to test travellers from China for dangerous strains Almost 90 per cent of people in one Covid-battered Chinese province have now caught the virus, officials have claimed, as the country battles an unprecedented surge in cases. Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission for central Henan province, told a press conference that 'as of January 6, 2023, the province's Covid infection rate is 89.0 per cent'. With a population of 99.4million, the figures suggest about 88.5million people in Henan may now have been infected. No10 has already brought back travel restrictions for passengers from the Chinese mainland because of the huge wave of cases blighting the nation. Experts fear the crisis, triggered by Beijing finally abandoning its controversial 'zero-Covid' policy, could spawn dangerous new variants. A woman with Covid symptoms receives an intravenous drip while on a ventilator at a hospital in Fuyang, in China's Anhui province Kan Quancheng, director of the health commission for central Henan province, told a press conference that 'as of January 6, 2023, the province's Covid infection rate is 89.0 percent' Until last month's change in direction, which followed nationwide protests over the brutal regime, China had relied on an aggressive whack-a-mole strategy. Cities were plunged into lockdown for a handful of Covid cases, in order to contain the virus. But this left the country with barely any natural immunity, unlike Western nations which opened up in early 2022. Experts say the knock-on effect of the hermit strategy, combined with low vaccination levels across China, is behind the sudden rise. Travellers from China who test positive for Covid will NOT have to self-isolate despite fears country's virus chaos may spawn new doomsday variant after wake-up call of the 'Kraken' XBB A passenger arriving from China is tested for Covid at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Sunday Advertisement Discussing the Covid situation in Henan, Kan said visits to fever clinics peaked on December 19. There was a 'continuous downward trend' after that. He did not, however, specify a timeline for when all the infections happened. China has repeatedly been accused of under-reporting its cases throughout the pandemic and withholding virus samples. Beijing's actions have sparked concerns that any new variant that emerges could be allowed to go under the radar and spread across the world. Fears of another explosion in Covid cases are high since the discovery of the XBB.1.5 'Kraken' strain. Despite the huge Covid wave, which has overwhelmed hospitals and morgues in the country, Beijing is determined to press on with its reopening. Yesterday it lifted mandatory quarantine for all international arrivals and opened its border with Hong Kong. Infections are expected to soar as the country celebrates Lunar New Year later this month, with millions expected to travel from big cities to visit vulnerable older relatives in the countryside. Official data showed last week that just 120,000 people have been infected and 30 died since China relaxed Covid curbs in early December. But with Beijing having last month narrowed the definition of Covid deaths and mass testing no longer compulsory, its data is no longer reflective of the true scale of the outbreak. Countries including the US, Canada, Italy, Spain and France have all brought in travel restrictions to deal with the threat of potential doomsday variants from China. In Britain, passengers travelling from China now need a negative Covid test, taken no more than two days before, to enter. But they will not be forced to test on arrival. The Our World in Data graph shows the daily confirmed Covid cases in China. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention stopped reporting daily cases in December, without providing a reason Family members look after their elderly relatives with Covid at a hospital in Fuyang, Anhui Some travellers from China will also be tested for dangerous Covid variants. And even if passengers do take them and test positive, they will not have to self-isolate, the Transport Secretary admitted last week. The new travel restrictions were first announced on December 30 because of fears China's outbreak could introduce a deadly strain in the UK. In other related news... Indirect flights from China will be covered by Covid testing rules which kick in TOMORROW after warnings travellers could undermine policy with Hong Kong 'loophole' Covid testing rules for China arrivals start on THURSDAY but ministers face backlash as positive cases will NOT be forced to self-isolate - despite fears country's virus chaos may spawn new doomsday variant after wake-up call of the 'Kraken' XBB Why there's NO reason to panic about new Covid variant XBB.1.5: Extremely infectious strain is NOT more likely to kill or hospitalize patients, experts say Prince Harry was today accused of 'trying to justify his drug-taking' after he revealed psychedelics helped him cope with the tragic death of his mother, Princess Diana. The Duke of Sussex, 38, claimed he used substances like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms as 'medicine' to deal with the grief he felt in the wake of her passing in 1997. He claimed they 'cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss'. Research suggests psilocybin, the active chemical in 'shrooms', could help people with depression, when taken under the watchful eye of medics. But experts told MailOnline Harry's claims are based on 'flimsy notions of therapeutic value', given much of the drug-taking described in his book Spare was recreational. Prince Harry admitted to using psychedelic drugs to deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' he felt after the tragic death of his mom, Princess Diana The Duke of Sussex , 38, claimed he used psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms (pictured) as 'medicine' after the death of his mother Princess Diana in 1997 Ayahuasca is a drink made by boiling together vine stems along with leaves from a chacruna shrub both native to the Amazonia region WHAT ARE PSILOCYBIN AND AYAHUASCA AND CAN THEY TREAT DEPRESSION OR GRIEF? Psilocybin is a chemical found in several species of psilocybe mushrooms, known as 'magic mushrooms' or 'shrooms'. Researchers, led by Oxford University's Dr Guy Goodwin, created a synthetic version of psilocybin. They say it works by stimulating a receptor in the brain called 5-HT2A in an unusual way. This triggers a clinical state that is 'best described as a waking dream' that users can remember afterwards. It also releases a surge of dopamine which is involved in mood regulation. Glutamate, a neurotransmitter, is also released. This puts the brain in a more flexible state, 'opening a therapeutic window of opportunity', the team say. This can lead to positive changes in the mind of people suffering treatment-resistant depression. Meanwhile, ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink that is illegal in the US and UK but widely used by tribal societies in the Amazon basin. Shamans consider ayahuasca a 'wisdom' plant that allows an entry into the spiritual world, and it was recognized as such by the government of Peru in 2008. It can cause hallucinations that are similar to the effects of LSD or magic mushrooms. They last for two hours and are 'usually pleasurable' but can cause panic and horrifying flashbacks. The negative emotional effects from taking ayahuasca can last for days, and make it especially dangerous for people with mental health problems. It can also raise blood pressure and heart rate and may harm those with a pre-existing heart condition. It contains the compound N,N-Dymethyltriptamine (DMT) which is one of the world's most powerful known hallucinogens. Similar to psilocybin, DMT has demonstrated its ability to increase connectivity between different brain networks. Advertisement Professor Edzard Ernst, a world-renowned expert in alternative medicines, from the University of Exeter, said to claim the drugs work as a medicine amounts amount to 'wishful thinking'. He said: 'There is precious little evidence for his assumption to be true. 'More likely he is merely trying to justify his drug-taking with flimsy notions of therapeutic value.' Possession or selling of magic mushrooms, or any fungus containing psilocybin is illegal in the UK, but taking either is technically not. They are a class A drug and possession can result in up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine or both. Supplying someone else can result in a life sentence, an unlimited fine or both. Both are illegal in most of US states but have been fully decriminalised in Oregon and partially in Colorado, when under medical supervision. Psilocybin is thought to help against depression by stimulating a receptor in the brain called 5-HT2A in an unusual way. This triggers a clinical state that is 'best described as a waking dream' that users can remember afterwards, researchers have said. It also releases a surge of dopamine which is involved in mood regulation and a neurotransmitter, called glutamate. This puts the brain in a more flexible state, 'opening a therapeutic window of opportunity', according to the scientists. This can lead to positive changes in the mind of people suffering treatment-resistant depression. Meanwhile, ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drink made by boiling together vine stems along with leaves from a chacruna shrub both native to the Amazonia region. It is legal in most Latin American countries but is illegal to prepare, distribute or possess in the UK. It is illegal in the US unless for religious use. The psychedelic brew contains the compound N,N-Dymethyltriptamine (DMT), which is one of the world's most powerful known hallucinogens. DMT is also a class A drug in Britain, with the same potential punishments attached to it as psilocybin. Experts have warned of its potentially deadly consequences after earlier this month it was revealed a young artist suffered a mental breakdown and took her own life after taking ayahuasca. Similar to psilocybin, DMT has demonstrated its ability to increase connectivity between different brain networks. But Professor Andrew McIntosh, a psychiatrist at the University of Edinburgh, said there is 'no good evidence' for using either drug for treating grief itself. He told MailOnline: 'There is early evidence for psychedelics for the management of treatment resistant depression depression that has not responded to at least two antidepressants given at high doses over a long period but no good evidence that it might be helpful for the treatment of grief. 'The use of psychedelics is still very much at the early research stage. 'I dont think anyone is seriously considering their routine use outside of a clinical trial for people with resistant depression. 'Im not aware of anyone who is proposing their use in people who have been bereaved. 'There are a small handful of case reports online where they have been used in individual people with bereavement. 'It would be very risky to argue, based on those studies, that psychedelics should be used in the health service as they provide weak evidence that they would benefit people more generally and they may also be associated with significant harms.' 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,' Harry (seen in 2004) said. 'But if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, these things have a way of working as a medicine' Prince Harry, pictured here leaving Bouijis in South Kensington in 2006, claims he was confronted by a talking bin during a bad mushroom trip Artist, 32, took her own life after drinking hallucinogenic 'tea' in trendy shamanic healing ritual at 620-a-head retreat, inquest hears Kate Hyatt, pictured, took her own life after taking part in shamanic healing ritual on a three-day retreat in Worcestershire Advertisement Professor David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London who has studied psychedelics use in mental health treatment and is founder of UK charity Drug Science, said the evidence on how effective either drug is is 'complicated'. But the former Government drug advisor warned patients suffering with depression or grief should never take the drugs outside of a trial. He told MailOnline: 'There are now many trials showing the efficacy of psilocybin - the active ingredient in magic mushrooms in depression. 'And several for ayahuasca too and they can work after just a single dose. 'Our studies use psilocybin and ayahuasca in clinical settings and we do not encourage self-medication.' Other experts are more optimistic about the drugs still. Dr Steve Taylor, a psychologist at Leeds Beckett University and author of The Leap: The Psychology of Spiritual Awakening, said some trials show the drugs can be more effective than antidepressants. He told MailOnline: 'There is a lot of research showing that psychedelic substances can have a therapeutic effect, helping people who are suffering from depression, grief and other psychological issues. 'Recent research has shown that they can be more effective than standard treatments, such as conventional anti-depressants. 'They seem to work by revealing a wider vision of reality, providing people with a glimpse of meaning that provides them with hope and optimism. 'Depression is often the result of constant rumination that immerses people in their own mental worlds psychedelics take people outside that, giving them a sense of connection, a feeling that they are part of a larger network of meaning.' He added: 'Of course, this doesn't mean that they should be used indiscriminately it's really important for psychedelic therapy to take place in a safe, therapeutic setting.' Researchers, led by Oxford University's Dr Guy Goodwin, created a synthetic version of psilocybin. They say it works by stimulating a receptor in the brain called 5-HT2A in an unusual way. This triggers a clinical state that is 'best described as a waking dream' that users can remember afterwards. It also releases a surge of dopamine which is involved in mood regulation. Glutamate, a neurotransmitter, is also released. This puts the brain in a more flexible state, 'opening a therapeutic window of opportunity', the team say. This can lead to positive changes in the mind of people suffering treatment-resistant depression How microdosing has been leapt upon by silicon valley Microdosing taking very small amounts of psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD is becoming more popular in Britain's middle classes, according to a survey. The practice was first brought into vogue by tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, who started taking tiny amounts of the drugs to help improve creativity and focus. It has been touted by celebrities including Joe Rogan and involves taking between 5 to 10 per cent of a normal dose of the drug. These doses are usually not potent enough to cause hallucinations. Instead, they are reported to heighten alertness, energy and creativity. Microdosing LSD also purportedly enhances overall well-being, helping to reduce stress and anxiety while improving sleep and leading to healthier habits. Although a widely reported phenomenon in the media, the lack of scientific studies on microdosing makes the prevalence near impossible to estimate. Reports suggest that what started off as an underground practice in Silicon Valley may be spreading rapidly to other workplaces. And in the Covid pandemic, it even became popular in parents stuck at home in suburbia during lockdowns. The Global Drug Survey 2021 suggested people shifted away from taking large doses of drugs recreationally, to trying microdosing instead. Advertisement Despite the conflicting evidence, Harry said the drugs worked 'as a medicine' for his feelings of 'loss and trauma'. He was only 12 when Diana tragically died in a car accident and he admitted that he struggled to come to grips with her sudden passing in Spare. In an interview last night, he revealed he only cried once over his mother's death when her coffin was put in the ground. He said he was plagued with guilt over feeling like he was not being emotional enough over her passing for years. But the former royal said using psychedelics when he got older ultimately 'cleared away the idea' that he needed be sad to prove he 'missed' his mother. 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,' he said during during an explosive new sit down interview with 60 Minutes. 'But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. 'For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that... I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.' Despite not specifically recommending the drugs recreationally, in the book, and ambiguously insisting they should be done with the 'right people', Harry described one of his hallucinogenic trips while taking mushrooms at a party. He wrote: 'Beside the toilet was a round silver bin, the kind with a foot pedal to open the lid. 'I stared at the bin. It stared back. Then it became... a head. I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin. I laughed, turned away, took a p***.' MPs last week slammed the Prince for glorifying dangerous drugs ahead of the Government's fresh crackdown on recreational use in the middle classes, which is set to be launched. A minister told the Daily Telegraph: 'His comments are grossly irresponsible in that they seek to justify and promote drug use, are an embarrassment to himself and are in parts incoherent psychobabble. 'I hope and expect that people will simply ignore the nonsense he has come up with.' David Sidwick, Dorset police and crime commissioner, described the comments as 'extremely unhelpful'. He said: 'As a role model, it is deeply disappointing. It is this tacit acknowledgement that its use is okay by people who should know better which is part of the problem.' Nurses are protesting over pay and staffing shortages on units Thousands of nurses walked out of Mount Sinai and Montefiore-run hospitals A patients' rights group has warned a nursing strike in New York City could cause potentially-fatal medical errors. More than 7,000 nurses at two major hospitals in Manhattan and the Bronx hit the picket line today over pay and staff shortages. The move forced the Mount Sinai and Montefiore hospitals to cancel surgeries and shift critically ill individuals including 13 fragile newborns to other units. Caitlin Donovan, a senior director at the National Patient Advocacy Foundation, warned there would likely be more 'medical errors' due to the strike. She added that it was 'never ideal' to move critically ill patients, because of the strain it placed on the body. One chronically ill woman Sierra Romero, 25 had surgery to remove a painful abscess in her abdomen canceled just 30 minutes before it was due to take place at Mount Sinai hospital. Thousands of nurses have taken to the picket line in protest over pay and staffing shortages at Mount Sinai Medical Center on Manhattan and Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Pictured: Nurses protesting early this morning outside Mount Sinai Sierra Romero, 25, (pictured) had her surgery at Mount Sinai hospital canceled just 30 minutes before it was due to take place because of the strikes Ms Romero told DailyMail.com: 'I was told to keep preparing just in case. I got a call from my doctor last night, and he said no food or drink after midnight just in case we are able to do the surgery. 'But he called again at 6.30am and he said, "So sorry, we can't do it. We will talk to you as soon as we have nurses and we can reschedule". 'They are not even able to reschedule because they don't even know what nursing will look like next week. My surgery was scheduled for 7am today!' Ms Romero has crohn's disease, a chronic condition which means her bowel is inflamed and tissue is swollen in her digestive tract. By delaying her surgery, she said it had raised concerns that her abscess could become infected which would make treatment more complicated. Thousands of nurses went on strike today and joined the picket line in New York City. One was pictured clutching a pizza that read 'patients over pepperoni' while another had a picture of Marie Antoinette with the phrase 'let them eat pizza'. The pizzas reference parties thrown for nurses when they complain about too much work Pizza-themed protest signs were aplenty at the Monday morning protest, referencing the pizza parties thrown for nurses when they complain too much at work An inflatable rat is seen amongst NYSNA nurses as they strike on Monday in protest over pay and staffing Ms Donovan said more patients could suffer disruption to their care, if the strikes are not 'resolved as quickly as possible'. 'We already know vulnerable patients including cancer patients and babies had to be moved from one hospital to another, and that is never ideal,' she said. 'Moving them subjects them to exposure to germs raising the risk of an infection. It can also stress the body itself.' Patient, 25: Surgery canceled half-an-hour before it was due A Mount Sinai patient had her surgery canceled just 30 minutes before it was due to take place this morning. Sierra Romero, 25, was scheduled to have an abscess in her colon drained and polyps removed during an operation at 7am this morning. But after the strike went ahead doctors called to cancel the procedure, saying they could not reschedule it because they 'don't even know what nurses they will have next week'. Ms Romero suffers from Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that causes swelling of the tissue in your digestive tract. It leaves her doubled with pain every day that feels like 'glass shards' are inside her. She told DailyMail.com: 'I got the date for the operation about two months ago, after being diagnosed two years ago. 'I got a call last night from my doctor to say no food or drink after midnight just in case they are able to do the surgery. 'He called at 6.30am today to say "so sorry, we can't do it. We will talk to you as soon as we have nurses and we can reschedule". 'I am really upset by this, because I really need this surgery. 'But I stand with the nurses, I think they are being really restricted. 'I have been hospitalized many times and my nurses don't have time for me.' She added: 'Mount Sinai has a lot of money, they just don't want to give it to the nurses.' Advertisement She added: 'We also have very high rates of medical errors in the US causing about 100,000 deaths a year. '[This could rise] as new nurses coming in might not be as familiar with the patients themselves, and wards might be very short staffed. 'We worry about this for patients. We just hope that the strike is resolved as quickly as possible.' More and more nurses have been going on strike across the US in recent years as their employment contracts expire, citing disputes over pay and working conditions. To head off the strikes in New York, hospital executives had offered a 19.1 percent pay rise over three years as well as $51,000 in cash compensation and $19,500 in medical payment benefits. Bosses also promised to hire more nurses, including another 170 at Montefiore alone. But nurses rejected the proposals in talks that went down to the wire last night, and took to the picket lines today. Neither side appears ready to return to the negotiating table at present. The New York City Nurses Association released a statement last night where it accused hospital executives of 'creating this crisis by failing to hire, train and retrain nurses while at the same time treating themselves to extravagant compensation packages'. Mount Sinai hospitals, on the other hand, reportedly handed fliers to those at the picket lines this morning accusing nurses of 'reckless behavior' and abandoning patients at their bedsides. In the days before the strike, medics started moving critically ill patients to other units that would not be affected by the action. They also discharged all the patients for whom it was safe to do so. From today doctors have also begun canceling surgeries, and telling patients these will be rescheduled. Cancer and heart patients are affected by the cancellations, with some being sent to other hospitals for treatment. Nurses who took to the picket lines this morning brandished signs saying nurses 'care about the community' and 'we demand safe staff to patient ratios'. Some protesters also wielded a sign saying 'patients over pepperoni', and a picture of the French Queen Marie Antoinette with the phrase 'let them eat Pizza', in reference to pizza parties thrown for staff when they complain over working conditions. One nurse also dressed as a rat. Hospitals in New York City were already under strain because of the 'tripledemic' of Covid, flu and RSV, which had seen mounting patient numbers in their hospitals. There are also concerns over the 'kraken' variant XBB.1.5, of Covid, with New York City being one of the emerging hotspots. Another patient affected by the strikes at Montefiore hospital also urged officials to get back around the negotiating table on twitter. She wrote: 'I was asked to go to my appointment today that I have waited over four months for. 'It first got rescheduled for a telephone visit, and just got canceled this morning. 'Hire more nurses! They are overworked and have been working nonstop, especially through Covid and now our "tripledemic".' New York State's Governor Kathy Hochul and the mayor Eric Adams have called on both sides to resolve the strike. Fears about the 'Kraken' Covid variant might be overblown, experts warned today as data showed it's not spreading as quickly as first feared. XBB.1.5 a spin-off of Omicron is thought to be the most transmissible strain yet. Its emergence stoked concerns that it was getting through vaccine-induced immunity after it triggered a 'stunning increase' in cases in the US, where it was first detected. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American agency in charge of tackling the virus, has now downgraded its estimates of how many infections are being caused by the variant. XBB.1.5 a spin-off of Omicron is thought to be the most transmissible strain yet. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American agency in charge of tackling the virus, has now downgraded its estimates of how many infections are being caused by the variant (from 41 per cent to 18 per cent in the week to December 31 Latest data show XBB.1.5 made up just 18.3 per cent of Covid cases in the US in the week ending December 31 (second right column, dark blue) Previously, 41 per cent of infections were reported as XBB.1.5 in the week (far right column, dark blue) How dangerous is XBB.1.5? Is it already the dominant Covid strain? And do the jabs still work? Everything you need to know about 'the Kraken' as new variant starts sweeping the UK A highly contagious Covid strain has emerged and is already behind one in 25 cases in the UK, data suggests Advertisement Latest data show the variant made up just 18.3 per cent of cases in the week ending December 31. Previously, 41 per cent of infections were estimated to be caused by XBB.1.5 in the week. Professor Paul Hunter, a public health expert at the University of East Anglia, told MailOnline: 'CDC's estimate of the rate of growth of XBB.1.5 looks like being too high. 'They have downgraded their estimate of the percentage of all infections due for week ending 31st December from 40.5 per cent to just 18.3 per cent in that same week.' Professor Hunter admitted it was 'still growing' but insisted the situation is a 'lot less scary than it seemed a few days ago'. Despite the overestimation, the latest CDC figures do show XBB.1.5 infections are making up a greater proportion of all cases now. Some 27.6 per cent of Covid cases sequenced in the week ending January 7 were caused by the variant. It remains the only sub-variant increasing in prevalence in the US. But, like in the UK, the data only reflects a faction of the actual cases being seen. Professor Hunter said: 'Certainly the very, very rapid growth that was suggested last week doesnt appear to be the case. 'To a large extent, the rate of growth of an infection is a reasonable indicator of the eventual height of the curve (the peak number of infections). So very rapid growth early on leads to many more infections at the peak. 'But looking at more recent data it does appear the rate of growth in the US seems to be slowing quite a bit. 'But sequencing results in most recent weeks are often quite uncertain as it can take up to three weeks for positives to be sequenced. Also surveillance systems over holiday periods are particularly flaky.' He added: 'So at present XBB.1.5 doesnt look as though it will cause a big a problem as many felt last week. 'But give it another week when we shall be a good two weeks out of the holiday period and we can start to have more confidence in the surveillance data again.' Cases are estimated to have doubled during December, just as the XBB.1.5 'Kraken' variant began to sweep Britain. Analysts say almost three million people had the virus in the festive week Figures from the Sanger Institute, one of the UK's largest Covid surveillance centres, shows 4 per cent of cases in the week to December 17 were caused by XBB.1.5 (shown in purple, bottom right corner) The graph shows the weekly hospital admissions per 100,000 people for Covid (red) and flu (blue). UK Health Security Agency surveillance figures showed Covid admissions fell from 12 to 11 per 100,000 people, while admissions fell to 8 per 100,000 in the week to January 1 NHS data shows an average of 995 Covid patients were admitted to hospitals across England in the week to January 2. The figures suggest that the number of people seeking NHS care due to the virus, on average, peaked just before Christmas and has been trending downwards since December 17 marked the first time XBB.1.5 was listed on the institute's virus dashboard, which is updated weekly Poll Do YOU think ill people should wear face masks on public transport? Yes No Undecided Do YOU think ill people should wear face masks on public transport? Yes 7837 votes No 8588 votes Undecided 285 votes Now share your opinion XBB.1.5 has gained mutations, including F486P, which help it to bypass Covid-fighting antibodies that were generated in response to vaccination or previous infection. Another change S486P is thought to improve its ability to bind to cells. Figures from the Sanger Institute, one of the UK's largest Covid surveillance centres, shows 4 per cent of cases in the week to December 17 the latest date data are available for were caused by XBB.1.5. It is the first time the strain has been listed on the institute's virus dashboard, which is updated weekly. The strain is a mutated version of Omicron XBB, which was first detected in India in August. XBB, which is a merger of variants BJ.1 and BA.2.75, caused cases to quadruple in just one month in some nations. Latest UK figures suggest one in 20 people were infected with Covid over the Christmas break. Cases are estimated to have doubled during December, just as XBB.1.5 began to sweep Britain. Analysts say almost three million people had the virus in the festive week, mirroring levels seen during the summer when experts wanted the return of pandemic-era restrictions like masks. Experts fear the strain, thought to be the most transmissible yet, will accelerate the UK's winter wave and put the ailing NHS under even more pressure in the weeks ahead. The ailing health service is already being hammered by its worst influenza outbreak in a decade. Winter pressures have triggered fresh calls for a return of measures to protect the NHS. In other health news... Striking NHS union warn it's unlikely January walk-outs will be abandoned after 'insulting' talks - as union chief warns junior doctors could demand MORE than 26% Almost 90% of people in one Covid-battered Chinese province have now caught virus, officials claim as nation battles cataclysmic wave Do YOU think ill Brits should wear face masks on public transport? Vote here and tell us why... Never before, or since, have I been so petrified. Pure evil was stalking me across our living room. I backed away rapidly, but became trapped against a sofa by the sinister force. Racked with terror, I screamed so hard that my ribs broke. Chunks of bone began to tumble from my mouth. As a young philosophy student in the early 1980s, I had already taken the psychedelic drug LSD several times. Dabbling with hallucinogens seemed a normal part of university life. My LSD experiences had ranged from deeply reflective to hilariously exhilarating. But the abruptly traumatic acid trip I endured that night rattled me to my mental foundations. At the time, I quelled my terror by sitting for hours in the dark in front of a comforting gas fire. But for the following three months, I felt profoundly disturbed. Now Prince Harry has admitted using psychedelics magic mushrooms, psilocybin (the active component of magic mushrooms) and ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic from the leaves of a shrub in an attempt to help him heal the grief and trauma he felt after the death of his mother Somehow Id acquired a subliminal notion that the malevolent power had inhabited me. Rationally, I knew this to be nonsense. Nonetheless, the idea haunted me that summer. Mercifully, my strange psychological symptoms faded within a few months until they were almost forgotten. But not so completely forgotten that I ever took LSD again. Did you know? In 2004, eight studies with the keywords psychedelic and mental health were published in reputable scientific journals. In 2021, there were 168. Source: Report produced in collaboration with the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency and other bodies The psychedelics as medicine industry is currently worth around 540 million worldwide, according to the most recent analysis. (Produced in collaboration with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and other bodies) Advertisement How things have changed. Psychedelic drugs such as LSD, magic mushrooms, ketamine and ecstasy (or MDMA) are now being touted by some British psychiatrists as a respectable new therapeutic answer for mental illnesses such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse or addiction. And now Prince Harry has admitted using psychedelics magic mushrooms, psilocybin (the active component of magic mushrooms) and ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic from the leaves of a shrub in an attempt to help him heal the grief and trauma he felt after the death of his mother. I would never recommend people to do this recreationally, he said during an interview on U.S. TV on Sunday night. But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. For me, they cleared the windscreen . . . the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that . . . I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When, in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy. British therapists are investigating the use of hallucinogenic drugs to treat mental illnesses. For example, psychiatrists at the Maudsley Hospital in London are conducting a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-funded trial into the use of magic mushrooms for treatment-resistant depression. And psychiatrists at Kings College London are carrying out trials of MDMA on former servicemen suffering with PTSD to see if it will alleviate their symptoms. Meanwhile, private company Awakn Life Sciences, which has clinics in Bristol and London, is developing therapies using ketamine to treat addictions and eating and anxiety disorders. Ketamine is used clinically as an anaesthetic, sedative and painkiller. It is also taken as an illegal psychedelic drug (according to a press report, when he was 17 Harry admitted hed tried this drug). In all these studies, the drugs are used alongside psychotherapy. Scientists claim hallucinatory experiences induced by the drugs can alter peoples habitual thinking patterns, serving as a catalyst for making psychotherapy work. Rick Doblin, founder of California-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, previously told Good Health: Its not the drug doing the therapeutic work, its the psychotherapy. The drug makes therapy more effective, reducing patients fear-based responses to traumatic memories. It gives them a ense of safety. Enthusiasts also claim that brain scans demonstrate that people undergoing psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy show less activity afterwards in areas of their brains associated with depression. There are, however, concerns that the brain scans used for these studies functional MRI produce unreliable results. British therapists are investigating the use of hallucinogenic drugs to treat mental illnesses. For example, psychiatrists at the Maudsley Hospital in London are conducting a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-funded trial into the use of magic mushrooms for treatment-resistant depression [File photo] And the bigger question is whether psychologically vulnerable people should be exposed to the risk of psychotic hallucinations so profoundly terrifying that they render them even more traumatised than before and possibly leave them permanently harmed? LSD has been notoriously blamed for the tragic psychosis that dogged Syd Barrett, the founding genius behind the British rock group Pink Floyd. He split from his bandmates in 1968 after experiencing a psychedelically induced psychotic breakdown. Afterwards, he lived as a mentally frail recluse until his death 38 years later, aged 60. According to the UK drug information charity Frank: LSD may have serious, longer-term implications for someone who has a history of mental health problems. It may also be responsible for setting off a mental health problem that had previously gone unnoticed. Supporters of psychedelic therapy, however, argue that bad trips are rare, and even when they do occur they often provide challenging personal insights that fuel healthy psychological growth. David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, is a leading exponent of psychedelic therapies. He told Good Health: Our research studies covering several hundred people who took hallucinogens have not resulted in any bad trips, except for a patient on LSD who had one when they were inside an MRI machine having their brain monitored. Proponents also point to the presence of a therapist in the trials, during the entire time the patient is under the influence of hallucinatory drugs. In February 2022, Professor Nutt co-authored a review of research, in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, which said that bad trips (or challenging experiences, as he refers to them) are often positive . . . and the risks of psychotic episodes or overdose are rare. The research paper claimed that psychedelic drugs have an unwarrantedly bad reputation and argued many albeit not all of the persistent negative perceptions of psychological risks are unsupported by the currently available scientific evidence. Professor Nutt has a controversial history regarding psychedelics, stemming from when he was the Governments top drugs adviser. He was sacked as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in October 2009 after saying that ecstasy and LSD are less dangerous than alcohol. Now he is commercially involved in developing psychedelic drugs as psychiatric therapies. Last year, he was appointed chief research officer of Awakn Life Sciences, to lead the companys neuroscience research into developing psychedelic compounds to treat people with serious addictions to alcohol and other drugs. Other investigators, however, fear that psychiatrists are rushing to adopt psychedelics without properly exploring the extent and danger of bad trips. Jules Evans, an honorary research fellow at Queen Mary University of London, told Good Health: We are not paying attention to the risks of psychedelics. Some peoples bad experiences can worsen their mental health, lasting for weeks, months or years. Medicine is not even yet sure how to treat sufferers of bad trips, he says. Despite the first scientific paper on psychedelics being published back in the 1880s, and despite 3 billion in investment in psychedelic companies, there is still no research on what helps people who have difficult experiences. We just dont know, he adds. To fill this gap, Jules Evans has launched a research project with the University of Greenwich, Imperial College London and University College London, to understand the difficulties people have encountered when they have taken psychedelic drugs. He was inspired by his own experience of taking LSD at the age of 18, in the mid-1990s. It took me a few years to recover, he says. I took the drug at a rave. I felt badly paranoid and did not have anyone who could reassure or support me. It was a very scary experience, even though nothing scary was happening in reality. As a consequence, Jules Evans, now in his mid-40s, began to suffer from panic attacks, nightmares and dissociation. Its frightening when you still dont feel well weeks after, he says. You seriously question whether you will ever return to normal. Jules Evans attempted to cope in what he calls a very English fashion he didnt discuss his problem with anyone and instead tried to bury the experience. It was the wrong thing to do, he says. Slowly, through my university years, I developed PTSD and social anxiety, but was not diagnosed for that until after I had graduated. In his early 20s, he finally discussed the problems with his parents, who recommended that he see psychiatrists. Psychiatrists had little knowledge and no practical help, he says. Eventually, what worked was finding a support group for people with social anxiety that used cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) as a coping aid. I was the only one there with post-psychedelic problems, he says. Since then, Ive found other people who have found the CBT approach useful after bad trips. But this is only anecdotal evidence and the common lack of awareness about bad trips still persists among psychedelic experimenters and mental-health professionals, says Jules Evans. He fears this means the drugs will be prescribed without any real understanding of what the safety nets might be. This comes as emerging evidence shows that significant numbers of people can suffer lasting mental disturbance from psychedelics. A study of international research published last November in the journal PLoS Global Public Health, led by Dr Daniel Perkins, co-founder of the Medicinal Psychedelics Research Network at the University of Melbourne, reported that survey data from more than 10,800 people whod tried the South American herbal psychedelic, ayahuasca one of the ones Harry took shows that more than 6 per cent later needed professional mental-health support to cope with traumatic bad trips. Despite such disturbingly high numbers, a Canadian psychedelic drug firm, Filament Health, announced the same month that it has created a pill form of the powerful hallucinogen, which is traditionally consumed as a tea. Ben Lightburn, the companys CEO, says he hopes the pill will be approved in the U.S. for medical use, if drug trials scheduled for next year on patients with PTSD or depression prove successful. Other worrying evidence about the consequences of bad trips was reported in 2016 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology by investigators at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, who surveyed more than 1,900 people who had suffered bad trips after taking hallucinogenic psilocybin, which Prince Harry has also taken. Researchers found that among those who had suffered bad trips more than a year previously, some 8 per cent had needed treatment for enduring symptoms, such as persistent psychosis or suicidal thoughts. Such levels of trauma are potentially an underestimate, says Jules Evans. It seems from all the early evidence that up to 15 per cent of people who take psychedelic drugs may have difficult experiences that might require self-care, peer support or professional support, he warns. But there is little research on longer-term issues. Instead, people suffering psychological effects of bad trips are often left consulting inadequate or even damaging therapists, he claims. You can go to a psychiatrist who may not understand the issues and label your symptoms as the onset of schizophrenic psychosis I was told it was just adolescence. Or you may enter the wacky world of spiritual healing and get shamans telling you theres a demon inside you, or its about your wrongdoing in a past life. Jules Evans stresses hes not against the idea of using psychedelics as therapy, if the approach is proven to be safe and effective. We do need to explore new psychiatric treatments, he says. But the field is surrounded by naive and reckless enthusiasm. We need to keep this field honest and report difficult experiences, and keep it within properly regulated and safe clinical trials. I wouldnt want to take a medicine where theres, say, a one-in-ten risk of problems, and where you dont know the nature of the risk or how to deal with it, he adds. Professor Nutt, meanwhile, maintains that the risks of psychotic episodes from taking psychedelics are rare and only reported in individual cases. Nevertheless he agrees that therapists must exercise caution first and foremost. The risks need to be minimised by careful patient selection and preparation, he says. Jules Evans is currently trying to gather a properly comprehensive survey of peoples problems with bad trips, as well what remedies have then helped them, whether those be therapy, medication or self-care. Hes running an online survey (go to challengingpsychedelic experiences.com) and is about to conduct hour-long interviews with around 50 of the people who have already filled in the survey, with the aim of publishing the findings later this year. Although Jules Evans says that psychedelic bad trips can trigger persistent mental illness in some people (which may perhaps have emerged regardless), he adds that, thankfully it seems from our evidence that in most cases the after-effects wear off over time. But Dr Max Pemberton, an NHS psychiatrist and Daily Mail columnist, warns that: While the psychological ill-effects of bad trips are usually self-limiting, they can cause life-long problems in people who are susceptible to psychosis, and can lead to long-term psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia. He adds: Ive seen patients in their 60s and 70s with schizophrenia who dabbled in hallucinogens in their 20s and believe that they caused their lasting psychiatric problems. Patients in the current research trials are very carefully screened and monitored, and I havent heard of any bad-trip problems arising from them, he adds. My fear, however, is that news of clinical trials may encourage other people to try these drugs informally, illegally and perilously. Prince Harrys blundering into this area may only increase the danger further. In related news.... Could 400 glasses with subtitles help if you're hard of hearing? ADRIAN MONTI asks the experts for their views on a selection of products When pain and bloating are a sign theres too much fungus in your gut: DR MEGAN ROSSI reveals the fungi on our bodies have a significant impact Why a gout pill could cut high blood pressure and boost your sex life: How food like red meat and beer can push up uric acid levels Americans remember the horrific Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot after Brazilian residents who support former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the nation's Congress and the presidential palace. The rioters breached security barriers on Sunday that were set up by the Armed Forces, gaining access to key buildings for the three branches of government. These include the congressional building, the Supreme Court, and the Planalto Presidential Palace. Brazilians Storm Congress and Presidential Palace Images shared by Brazilian media showed massive crowds in the capital of Brasilia walking up a ramp that led to the congressional building. That was where they reached the Green Room, which was located outside of the lower House of Congress' chamber, said Interim Senate President Veneziano do Rogo. Make no mistake: rather than exporting democracy, the US exported this. Donald Trump inspired this. If we want to fix the model we have set, we now have to model accountability. Every day that goes by without DOJ indicting Trump, we risk more of this. https://t.co/TjzZpdpyRi Ian Bassin (@ianbassin) January 8, 2023 Several other media outlets showed supporters of the former president entering the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. They were also the locations where arrivals of anti-riot police and the Brazilian Armed Forces were observed. i take one day off and brazil is doing the shittiest jan 6 reenactment ? hasanabi (@hasanthehun) January 8, 2023 Inside the areas, protesters used furniture to build barricades to prevent law enforcement personnel from gaining access. After rioters attempted to set fire to the carpet of the floor of the Congress building, the automatic sprinkler system activated and flooded the area, as per CNN. The attacks in the Brazilian parliament not only remind me of January 6 in the USA but also the attempted storm on the German parliament 2 years ago. And it is always the same circle of people. Right-wing/Anti-Vaxx/Pro-Russian. #Brazil #Germany #Jan6 pic.twitter.com/ANjopGjaFO (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) January 8, 2023 There were also other videos that showed protesters inside the building taking gifts received from international delegations and destroying artwork. The situation comes roughly a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who defeated Bolsonaro in an Oct. 30 run-off election. The former president's administration previously said that it would not be cooperating with the transition of power. However, the far-right leader has stopped short of conceding his election loss to Lula da Silva and left the country to travel to the United States. Bolsonaro's supporters have camped out in the Capital since the former president's trip to the U.S. Due to the continued presence of the former president's supporters, Justice Minister Flavio Dino authorized the Armed Forces to set up barriers and guard the congressional building on Saturday. Read Also: Iran: EU Condemns Execution of Karate Champion, Children's Coach In Connection With Anti-Government Protests Casting Doubt on the Election Results According to the New York Times, on the ground, soldiers entered the presidential offices while two helicopters had personnel who fired rubber bullets and tear-gas canisters at the unruly crowd of protesters. Local authorities also reported that police have already arrested roughly 150 people in relation to the riot. Lula da Silva said that Bolsonaro's questioning of the country's election's legitimacy had "triggered" the assault. The newly-elected president was in Sao Paulo when the riots occurred and had signed an emergency decree that allowed the federal government to intervene and implement "any measures necessary" to restore order to the nation. Lula da Silva has condemned the demonstrations and said that the government would work on holding the people responsible accountable for their actions. He added, "We will find out who these vandals are, and they will be brought down with the full force of the law." In a statement, the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said that law enforcement personnel were focused on containing the situation. In a Twitter post, he said that he "vehemently repudiates" the "anti-democratic acts" and called for a judicial response, DW News reported. Related Article: Rishi Sunak Under Fire Over Planned Anti-Strike Laws That Allows Employers To Sack Striking Workers @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. I have received a letter from HMRC and think it may be trying to tell me that I have underpaid my tax. I have two properties that I rent out and I'm fairly certain I have paid my tax correctly - and have been doing so for years. At first I thought it was a scam. But having double checked, I can see that it definitely isn't fraudulent. The letter begins as follows: 'We are writing to you because you are, or have been, a landlord who lets property. Our reader has received a letter from HMRC which they think suggests they may not have told the tax authority about all of their rental income 'Our information shows that you have put a deposit in a 'Tenancy Deposit Scheme'. We have compared this information with what you have told us on your Self Assessment (SA) tax return for the year ending 5 April 2021. 'Our comparison suggests you may not have told us about all of your rental income.' So does this mean HMRC is now using data from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme as a tool to target landlords who they suspect to have underpaid tax on their rental income? And do I actually owe anything or has this letter been sent out to all landlords? Ed Magnus of This is Money replies: First and foremost, it's great that you checked to see if it was a scam. Fraudsters are constantly attempting to mimic HMRC in a bid to fool people. It's always worth cross-referencing any letter you receive from HMRC with any previous communication you have on file. It's also worth checking any postal or website addresses included within the letter, as well as any phone numbers. Compare these against the official numbers as shown on the HMRC website. HMRC's main contact details can be found on its website. Although it doesn't list all of the numbers it might share with someone in a letter. You may also want to add 'Do not trust caller ID' on phones as numbers can be spoofed. If in doubt, you can contact HMRC directly to double check - just make sure you use an email address or phone number from its official contact list. URLs starting with www.gov.uk will always direct to official Government department websites. It's also important to remember that no HMRC letter, email or text will offer unexpected tax rebates or refunds. Could it be a scam? It's always worth cross referencing any letter you receive from HMRC with any previous communication you have on file As for the letter you received, it appears to be genuine. HMRC is indeed using a database obtained from the Tenancy Deposit Scheme to contact landlords about paying the correct amount of tax. It forms part of HMRC's Let Property Campaign, launched in 2013, which encourages buy-to-let landlords to voluntarily disclose any undeclared rental income and offers an opportunity to address any previous errors. According to analysis by the accountancy firm UHY Ross Brooke, the campaign generated an additional 17.7m in tax revenue last year. Any landlord that makes a full and voluntary disclosure in these circumstances can usually expect a lower penalty than HMRC would normally charge if the tax authority were to raise an enquiry or compliance check itself. The Tenancy Deposit Scheme is one of three Government-approved deposit schemes in England and Wales that hold the deposits of tenants for the duration of their tenancies. The other two are called the Deposit Protection Service and My Deposits. In Scotland and Northern Ireland there are separate deposit schemes. The Tenancy Deposit Scheme data simply tells HMRC which customers have received rental deposits and therefore in all likelihood will have also received rental income. However, that's about as far as it goes. The data does not provide HMRC with an actual snapshot of how much rent has been received by each landlord. The letter should be deemed as an educational prompt for those who rent out property, to ensure previous tax returns are correct. Although the letter seems alarming, HMRC says it isn't intended to accuse anyone of deliberately evading tax. >> What's in store for UK buy-to-let landlords in 2023? It might seem alarming, but HMRC says its letter is simply a reminder for landlords who may owe tax to make sure their affairs are up to date The same letter to landlords also tells them they might owe HMRC capital gains tax if they recently sold a rental property. Once again this is a prompt rather than an accusation of any tax evasion. The scheme is one tool HMRC has for identifying landlords. It can also use data from council tax bills, the Land Registry and estate agent listings. What does HMRC say? We contacted HMRC to double check whether landlords receiving these letters are indeed suspected of tax evasion. An HMRC spokesperson replied: 'This is routine activity - we believe our customers want to pay the right amount of tax and so we take steps to help those that are not doing so to put that right. 'The Let Property Campaign is an opportunity for landlords who owe tax through letting out residential property, in the UK or abroad, to get up to date with their tax affairs in a simple, straightforward way and take advantage of the best possible terms. 'These letters are a reminder for landlords who may owe tax to make sure their affairs are up to date and to make sure they know what income they need to declare when completing their returns. 'There is no mention in the letters that they are suspected of tax evasion. These letters are not a formal compliance check into a customer's tax return.' How to take part in the Let Property Campaign To take part in the Let Property Campaign landlords need to get in touch with HMRC. They will then need to disclose any income, gains, tax and duties they have not previously told it about. Landlords will also need to make a formal offer stating what they believe it is fair for them to pay, and help HMRC as much as they can if it asks them for more information When assessing the reduced penalty offer, HMRC will take account of the level to which they have helped its enquiries and the accuracy of the information provided. What's in it for landlords? If you have paid less tax than you should due to misunderstanding the rules or deliberately avoiding paying the right amount, it is better to come to HMRC and admit any inaccuracies rather than waiting until HMRC uncovers those errors. There is no disclosure 'window' requiring you to disclose what you owe by a specific date, but landlords risk higher penalties if they become subject to a full enquiry and have not already notified an intention to disclose. When landlords make a disclosure they can tell HMRC how much penalty they believe they should pay. What they pay will depend on why they have failed to disclose their income. If they have deliberately kept information from HMRC they'll pay a higher penalty than if they have simply made a mistake. HMRC's Let Property Campaign encourages buy-to-let investors to voluntarily disclose any undeclared rental income They may not have to pay any penalty at all, but if they do it is likely to be lower than it would be if HMRC found out they had not paid enough tax of its own accord. If they cannot afford to pay what they owe in one lump sum, depending on their circumstances, they'll be able to spread their payments. If they completed previous tax returns, but made careless mistakes when declaring their income, they only pay for a maximum of six years no matter how many years they're behind with their tax affairs. However, if they do not come forward and HMRC finds later that they're behind with their tax, it may be harder to convince them that it was simply a mistake. The law allows HMRC to go back up to 20 years and in serious cases HMRC may carry out a criminal investigation. What if undisclosed rental income is kept secret? Landlords who fail to disclose their rental income may feel confident that they will get away with it. However, dodging the taxman may come back to bite them. If HMRC suspects landlords have not declared all their rental income it can carry out compliance checks or enquiries. Any landlords involved will not then be able to make use of the opportunity offered as part of the Let Property Campaign, and will usually be charged higher penalties. The penalties could be up to 100 per cent of the unpaid liabilities, or up to 200 per cent for offshore-related income. In extreme cases HMRC may consider the instigation of a criminal investigation, in line with its criminal investigation policy. AstraZeneca has agreed to acquire pharmaceutical group CinCor Pharma in a deal worth a potential $1.8billion (1.5billion) to enhance its heart and kidney drugs portfolio. The biotechnology giant said that it would spend around $1.3billion, or $26 per share, upfront to take over the Massachusetts-based business, representing a premium of 121 per cent to the stock's closing price last Friday. A further $10 per share will be paid out to investors depending on a particular regulatory submission for Baxdrostat, a blood pressure and cardiorenal condition treatment. Takeover: AstraZeneca has agreed to acquire Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical group CinCor Pharma in a deal worth a potential $1.8billion In early November, the results of a phase two trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that the drug notably reduced hypertension among patients resistant to other medicines. It achieved this by limiting the development of aldosterone, a hormone used to regulate a body's salt content, in a subject's urine and blood. However, results from a separate study published three weeks later found that Baxdrostat did not significantly lower blood pressure when measured against a placebo. This caused CinCor's shares to plummet by nearly half in one day. They remain just over a quarter below the company's initial public offering price of $16 per share in January 2022. In total, London-listed AstraZeneca's bid for CinCor is worth approximately 206 per cent of the latter's closing share price on Friday. Another two Baxdrostat trials are currently taking place, while a further Phase III investigation is set to begin sometime during the first half of this year. AstraZeneca said it would eventually hope to combine the drug with Farxiga, one of its most popular-selling medicines and commonly used to treat Type 2 diabetes and heart failure. Mene Pangalos, the firm's executive vice-president of biopharmaceuticals research and development, said: 'Acquiring CinCor supports our commitment to cardiorenal disease and further strengthens our pipeline with baxdrostat. 'Excess levels of aldosterone are associated with hypertension and several cardiorenal diseases, including chronic kidney disease and coronary artery disease and being able to effectively reduce this would offer a much-needed treatment option for these patients.' AstraZeneca shares were 0.4 per cent lower at 11,736p just before trading closed on Monday, although their value has grown by about 41 per cent in the past 12 months. The FTSE 100 group's latest deal comes at the start of the JP Morgan Healthcare conference in California, the world's biggest annual healthcare investment industry gathering, which is being held in-person for the first time in three years. Analysts are predicting a flurry of pharmaceutical sector deals in 2023, given the relative underperformance of many biotech shares over the past year. Victoria Scholar, Interactive Investor's head of investment, added that with the poorer global economic outlook, 'investors are more risk averse, looking towards defensive sectors such as pharmaceuticals to weather the downturn.' Mr Weaver tragically died on January 1, with his wife Hannah by his bedside An elderly man who was found stuck in a tree after four days missing in the bush has tragically died in hospital. Ronald Weaver, 79, was reported missing in Wahroonga on Sydney's north shore on December 27, triggering an urgent search and an emotional appeal from his wife. Mr Weaver was stuck found in a fork of a tree at about 11.30am on December 30 only a few hundred metres from the local State Emergency Service headquarters in North Wahroonga. Mr Weaver was freed from the tree trunk and treated by paramedics before being taken to Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital. He was severely dehydrated after spending four days in rough terrain, and as a result, suffered from serious kidney issues. Ronald Weaver (pictured), 79, has tragically died in hospital, days after being miraculously found after four days in dense bushland in Wahroonga Mr Weaver was found in a fork of a tree at about 11.30am on December 30 only a few hundred metres from his local SES headquarters near North Wahroonga (pictured) Sadly, Mr Weaver later succumbed to health issues, dying in hospital on January 1. He was laid to rest at the Macquarie Park cemetery on Friday. Daily Mail Australia understands Mr Weaver's wife Hannah was able to say her last goodbyes before his death. Following the rescue of her late husband, Mrs Weaver told media he was not in a good condition. 'Ron is not well but he is in the best place,' Mrs Weaver said. 'Ron is a very smart person, he was a very good memory and he is very frustrated he has dementia now. 'You know I'm 60 plus but I just jumped up like a little girl (when he was found). 'I was so happy, it's a miracle. 'I just saw so many people work together to find Ron... I really appreciate it, I don't know how to express it in words.' He was found severely dehydrated after spending four days in rough terrain, and as a result suffered from serious kidney issues Daily Mail Australia understands his wife Hannah Weaver (pictured) was able to say her goodbye's before her husband passed away in hospital An American woman who ran away from her Alabama home to join the Islamic State says she hopes to return home claiming she is a victim of trafficking. In a rare interview from the Roj detention camp in Syria, Hoda Muthana said she was 'brainwashed' by online traffickers into joining the group in 2014 and regrets everything except her young son, now of pre-school age. She says she is a 'victim' of the terrorist group, just like those who were beheaded and who lost friends and family members, 'Of course I regret coming here,' the 28-year-old told The News Movement. 'If I could take it back I would do it in a heartbeat.' She has previously claimed that tweets inciting violence against former President Barack Obama were actually sent by jihadis who stole her phone. Following those calls for violence, Obama stripped her of her citizenship, and the United States government has repeatedly denied her requests to return home. Hoda Muthana, 28, insisted in a recent interview she was brainwashed into joining ISIS as she says she hopes to one day return to the United States Muthana, who joined ISIS at the age of 20 and married three fighters, has repeatedly claimed she is a victim of the terrorist organization. But at the height of the extremists' power, she had voiced enthusiastic support for them on social media and in an interview with BuzzFeed News. The ISIS bride from Alabama who wants to go home Hoda Muthana has been trying to get back into the US for years without success. In January this year, Supreme Court justices refused to hear her appeal to be allowed back. The justices declined without comment on to the appeal of the Yemeni diplomat's daughter. Muthana left the U.S. to join the Islamic State in 2014, apparently after becoming radicalized online. While she was overseas the government determined she was not a U.S. citizen and revoked her passport, citing her father's status as a Yemeni diplomat at the time of her birth. Her family sued to enable her return to the United States. A federal judge ruled in 2019 that the U.S. government correctly determined Muthana wasn't a U.S. citizen despite her birth in the country. Children of diplomats aren't entitled to birthright citizenship. The familys lawyers appealed, arguing that her father's status as a diplomat assigned to the U.N. had ended before her birth, making her automatically a citizen. The decision to revoke her passport was made under former President Barack Obama. The case gained widespread attention as former President Donald Trump tweeted about it, saying he had directed the secretary of state not to allow her back into the country. Advertisement She told reporter Ellie Hall at the time that it is the duty of all true Muslims to join her and wage war on the West. Muthana also used Twitter under the name 'Umm Jihad' and the handle @ZumarulJannah. On March 19, 2015, that account shared statements encouraging followers in the US to attack parades on national holidays and 'spill all of their blood or rent a big truck n (sic) drive all over them. Kill them'. Another tweet posted on the same day read 'You can look up Obamas schedule on the white house (sic) website. Take down that treacherous tyrant!'. Muthana was also tagged in photos posted on Twitter with women clad in burkas holding rifles and ISIS flags. She later confirmed to Buzzfeed that she was one of the women in the photo. By January 2016 the Obama administration revoked her passport and just last year, the US Supreme Court declined an appeal against that decision. But, she has denied that she sent those tweets, 'I never had a platform to say this, but I have always been trying to tell people that those tweets were not mine,' the former ISIS bride said recently. 'It either gets cut out of the media or it gets kind of butchered somehow and I never get a platform. 'It's not fair, the person that did bring me here had a wife who I become (sic) friends with. 'There was a group of us in a home and she would take our phones. 'She would take our phones and tell us because we've always thought about going back to our countries that we need to make ourselves look bad in the media so we don't have this persuasion to go back. 'That's basically what her agenda was, that's what their (ISIS) agenda is, that they have to portray you in the worst way so that you don't have these thoughts of ever wanting to return. 'She just took my phone and I thought she was just looking through my diary or something and then when she left and I looked through and I saw a bunch of evil horrible tweets that I would never have done because I wanted to stay off media, I never wanted to get myself out there you know. 'It was not only me that she did it to, it was several people and they were made to look really bad also.' Muthana was raised in a conservative Muslim household in Hoover, Alabama, just outside Birmingham This photo of female jihadis waving the ISIS flag was found on a now-deactivated Twitter account which reportedly belonged to Muthana. She later confirmed she was in the picture She is now a prisoner alongside other foreign ISIS brides at the Al-Roj camp in northern Syria as a lawyer back in the United States works to bring her back. 'One of the worst feelings I ever had was someone telling me I wasn't an American citizen,' Muthana told The News Movement, adding that she still disagrees with the ruling. She claimed that many of the other Americans who joined ISIS were charged with terrorism, and said that she will serve time in an American prison if she can return to the United States. But, she said: 'I'm hoping my government looks at me as someone young at the time and naive.' And once she leaves Syria, she says she 'will be an advocate against this,' noting once again: 'I as well, I'm a victim.' Muthana (pictured in 2019) said she had no knowledge of the tweets and believed they were sent out to prevent her being able to go home Muthana was born in New Jersey to Yemeni immigrants and once had a U.S. passport. She was raised in a conservative Muslim household in Hoover, Alabama, just outside Birmingham. In 2014, she told her family she was going on a school trip but flew to Turkey and crossed into Syria instead, funding the travel with tuition checks that she had secretly cashed. The Obama administration cancelled her citizenship in 2016, saying her father was an accredited Yemeni diplomat at the time she was born a rare revocation of birthright citizenship. Her lawyers have disputed that move, arguing that the father's diplomatic accreditation ended before she was born. But the Trump administration maintained that she was not a citizen and barred her from returning, even as it pressed European allies to repatriate their own detained nationals to reduce pressure on the detention camps. U.S. courts have sided with the government on the question of Muthana's citizenship, and last January the Supreme Court declined to consider her lawsuit seeking re-entry. That has left her and her son languishing in a detention camp in northern Syria housing thousands of widows of Islamic State fighters and their children. Muthana described life at the prison to The News Movement as 'basically the same day on repeat for four years the only change is your child growing.' Muthana, pictured with her son several years ago, said the tweets were sent out by a woman in their group who had confiscated all of their phones In February 2019 Trump Tweeted: 'I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!' Some 65,600 suspected Islamic State members and their families - both Syrians and foreign citizens - are held in camps and prisons in northeastern Syria run by U.S.-allied Kurdish groups, according to a Human Rights Watch report released last month. Women accused of affiliation with IS and their minor children are largely housed in the al-Hol and Roj camps, under what the rights group described as 'life threatening conditions.' The camp inmates include more than 37,400 foreigners, among them Europeans and North Americans. Human Rights Watch and other monitors have cited dire living conditions in the camps, including inadequate food, water and medical care, as well as the physical and sexual abuse of inmates by guards and fellow detainees. Kurdish-led authorities and activists have blamed IS sleeper cells for surging violence within the facilities, including the beheading of two Egyptian girls, aged 11 and 13, in al-Hol camp in November. Turkish airstrikes targeting the Kurdish groups launched that month also hit close to al-Hol. Camp officials alleged that the Turkish strikes were targeting security forces guarding the camp. 'None of the foreigners have been brought before a judicial authority ... to determine the necessity and legality of their detention, making their captivity arbitrary and unlawful,' Human Rights Watch wrote. 'Detention based solely on family ties amounts to collective punishment, a war crime.' Calls to repatriate the detainees were largely ignored in the immediate aftermath of IS' bloody reign, which was marked by massacres, beheadings and other atrocities, many of which were broadcast to the world in graphic films circulated on social media. But with the passage of time, the pace of repatriations has started to pick up. Human Rights Watch said some 3,100 foreigners - mostly women and children - have been sent home over the past year. Most were Iraqis, who comprise the majority of detainees, but citizens were also repatriated to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and the United Kingdom. The U.S. has repatriated a total of 39 American nationals. It's unclear how many other Americans remain in the camps. She has repeatedly said she is a victim of the Islamic State terrorist organization She claims she was 'trafficked' to Syria by jihadis playing on her faith in 2014 These days, Muthana portrays herself as a victim of the Islamic State. Speaking with TNM, she doubles down on her claim that she was trafficked to Syria, saying the jihadis she spoke with online played on her religion and her desire to leave Alabama, where she says she was 'physically abused.' 'Someone who is God-fearing and afraid of missing out on all the obligations will end up listening to something like this,' she said. When she arrived in Syria in 2014, Muthana says she was detained in a guest house reserved for unmarried women and children. Hoda's first husband was Australian extremist Suhan Abdul Rahman who was killed in battle in Syria 'I've never seen that kind of filthiness in my life, like there was 100 women and twice as much kids, running around, too much noise, filthy beds,' she said. The only way to escape was to marry a fighter. She eventually married and remarried three times. Her first two husbands, including the father of her son, were killed in battle. She reportedly divorced her third husband. By 2018, Muthana said she left the terrorist group with her child. 'When I left ISIS territory I was very excited,' she said in the interview. 'I thought it was the start of my new life.' But Muthana says she still has to be careful about what she says because of fear of reprisal, as ISIS forces continue to carry out sporadic attacks and has supporters in the camps themselves. 'Even here, right now, I cant fully say everything I want to say. But once I do leave, I will. I will be an advocate against this,' she said 'I wish I can help the victims of ISIS in the West understand that someone like me is not part of it, that I as well am a victim of ISIS.' Hassan Shibly, an attorney who has assisted Muthanas family, said it is 'absolutely clear that she was brainwashed and taken advantage of.' He said her family wishes she could come back, pay her debt to society and then help others from 'falling into the dark path that she was led down.' 'She was absolutely misguided, and no one is denying that. But again, she was a teenager who was the victim of a very sophisticated recruitment operation that focuses on taking advantage of the young, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised,' he said. A loyal Qantas customer sued the airline after she was given a 'lifetime' membership before it was taken away from her because of an error. Catriona Wilson had ordered a new Qantas Club membership card when one lasting a 'lifetime' arrived in the mail in 2018. Her husband James said he spoke to a member of the airline believing it was an error when he was informed his wife had won it in a lucky draw. 'I thought, "this is great, very exciting", it's one of those things you don't win raffles or prizes,' Ms Wilson told Sydney Morning Herald. 'For something like that to come in the mail is pretty exciting.' Catriona Wilson had ordered a new Qantas Club membership card when a new one lasting a 'lifetime' arrived in the mail in 2018 Catriona Wilson had ordered a new Qantas Club membership card when a new one lasting a 'lifetime' arrived in the mail in 2018 (stock image) Ms Wilson enjoyed free access to the Qantas lounge before her card was abruptly cancelled by the airline in May 2021. She had been trying to access the lounge at Melbourne Airport while waiting to board a flight to South Australia to visit her sick father when she realised the card had been cancelled. Ms Wilson claimed she tried to contact the airline to remedy the situation but did not hear back from any of its staff. The couple had to take their complaint to the Airline Customer Advocate ombudsman before they learned the airline had issued the 'lifetime' card in mistake. Ms Wilson was given the offer to renew her Qantas Club membership with a 20 per cent discount and a waived joining fee but she outright refused. She took the matter to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) demanding the airline honour the lifetime membership. Ms Wilson said she would have been happy if the airline gave her the equivalent value of a membership in the form of frequent flyer points - worth an estimated $9,775. Qantas told VCAT the lifetime membership card had been discontinued in 2007 and that it was an error. VCAT member Susan Burdon-Smith sided with Qantas and said Ms Wilson had only paid for the cost of a regular Qantas Club membership. 'This is not a situation where the respondent offered a benefit or service and failed to supply it. It was a windfall,' she wrote in her decision. Qantas told VCAT the lifetime membership card had been discontinued in 2007 and that it was an error 'As such the applicable law is that which applies to a benefit obtained in error or through a mistake. 'The mistake vitiates any intention on the part of Qantas to give the benefit to the applicant, and gives Qantas a prima facie entitlement to restitution.' The couple have since sent the card to Qantas CEO Alan Joyce saying they intend to never use the airline again. Mr Wilson said the couple had only pushed the matter so far because of the poor customer service they had received from the airline. 'It was all about the principle and abominable customer service,' he said. Their case has sparked a mixed reaction from Australians with some slamming the couple as entitled on Facebook. 'It was an error which she benefitted from for several years,' one person wrote. 'They offered her numerous compromises to try and rectify the error but the level of entitlement on her behalf is bewildering and now crying to the media after the court ruled against her just shows that some people will always try to play the victim.' A second added: 'They didn't pay for it in the first place, just appreciate you got a free membership for 15 years and move on.' A Qantas spokesman said the airline had nothing to add following the decision by VCAT. Investigation into the spill's source is ongoing but is believed to be commercial Beachgoers are being urged to stay ashore at two popular swimming spots after bathers emerged covered in an oily substance and dead fish were spotted floating in a river. The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria issued a warning on Friday for Elwood, St Kilda, Middle Park, South Melbourne, Sandridge and Williamstown beaches after being alerted to an oil spill. Swimmers and paddleboarders reportedly emerged from the water covered in an oily substance, while locals reported seeing oil and dead fish floating on the Elster Creek Canal. Swimmers are being urged to avoid entering the water at St Kilda (pictured) and Elwood beach after the state's environmental regulator was alerted to an oil spill A large 'pollution alert' sign was set up on the foreshore urging swimmers to avoid the water, while smaller signs erected on the sand advised locals to keep their pets from entering or drinking the water. The environmental regulator identified the spill as vegetable oil - mostly palm oil- and advised it was not a threat to human health. 'The spill has been identified as vegetable oil which presents no hazard to human health, but is still unpleasant for beachgoers and can harm some wildlife,' EPA wrote. Authorities feared the spill could threaten the little penguin colony at St Kilda breakwater, however it was later confirmed the penguins are safe, according to Guardian Australia. An investigation into the source of the contamination is ongoing, with the dead fish in the Elster Creek Canal yet to be linked to the spill. Authorities initially believed the spill would harm the little penguin colony at St Kilda breakwater (pictured), however the colony's welfare has since been secured Environmental Protection Authority Victoria identified the contamination as vegetable oil - mostly palm oil - and are investigating the source of the spill (pictured, Elwood Beach, Melbourne) Early reports suggest the hazard came from a commercial source due to the volume of oil entering the bay. Swimmers and paddleboarders were spotted entering the water on Sunday morning despite the environmental warnings. The EPA upgraded the alert from fair to good on Sunday morning for South Melbourne, Port Melbourne and Sandridge beaches. The water quality at Elwood and St Kilda was changed from poor to fair on Sunday afternoon with locals advised that swimming was 'suitable' if there are no signs of pollution including an oily sheen in the water or on the sand. Also accused her of plotting to take the Crown after marrying Charles In Spare, Harry wrote that he and William begged Charles not to marry Camilla Harry claims her 'connections with the press' made her dangerous and that 'there was an open willingness on both sides to trade information' Said that she 'needed to rehabilitate her image' after Princess Diana branded her the 'third person in her marriage' to now-King Charles in a 1995 TV interview During the interview - his second of the day - Harry, 38, attacked his father's wife Prince Harry today launched another extraordinary attack on King Charles' wife Camilla, branding her 'dangerous' and a 'villain', as he continued his publicity blitz for his explosive memoir Spare. The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex took aim at the Queen Consort while speaking with CBS News' 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper, who questioned Harry about several very damaging allegations he made about Camilla in the book's pages. Referring back to a 1995 interview in which his mother, Princess Diana, famously referred to Camilla as the 'third person in her marriage', Harry says that this admission turned the now-Queen Consort into a 'villain', adding: 'She needed to rehabilitate her image.' According to Harry - who also reveals in his book that he and William 'begged' their father not to marry Camilla - this desire to transform her public image made her 'dangerous'. He accuses his step-mother of 'trading information' with the press in an attempt to get more positive stories written about herself, before sensationally suggesting that her 'connections' with the media would end up with 'people or bodies left in the street'. Prince Harry has launched another round of sensational attacks on King Charles' wife Camilla in a new TV interview to promote his explosive memoir Spare While speaking to CBS News' 60 Minutes, Harry, 38, branded his stepmother 'dangerous' and called her a 'villain' The Duke claimed that Camilla forged 'connections' with the press in the UK in order to try and 'rehabilitate her image' and get 'positive stories' written about her '[Her need to rehabilitate her image] made her dangerous because of the connections that she that she was forging within the British press,' he told Cooper. 'And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen Consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.' Princess Diana's interview with the BBC's Martin Bashir in 1995 marked the first time that she had publicly addressed claims that Charles and Camilla had an affair during her marriage to the then-Prince of Wales. At the time, she sensationally told Bashir: 'There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.' As the Duke once again blasts his closest family members in the 60 Minutes - just over one hour after his sit-down with British TV host Tom Bradby finished airing - interview, DailyMail.com can reveal he also: Claims he was 'not invited' on the plane that his family took up to Balmoral upon learning that the Queen was unwell Admits that he used to look at videos of his mother, Diana, and 'go over memories of her' in an attempt to make himself cry Says his brother, Prince William, initially refused to believe that Diana was really dead and that they both believed she 'would call us and we would go and join her' Reveals he took psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca and psilocybin as 'experimental treatments' and says they 'cleared the... misery of loss' for him Believes that psychedelics can 'work as a medicine' for those who are 'suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief, or trauma' Suggests he and Meghan will never renounce their titles because 'what difference would it make' Defends his decision to air his grievances against his family so publicly, suggesting public attacks are the only 'language that perhaps they understand' Admits that he has not spoken to his brother or his father 'in a while' In his new book, Prince Harry accuses Camilla and even his father, at times, of using him or William to get better tabloid coverage for themselves. Prince Harry writes, Camilla sacrificed me on her personal P.R. altar. https://t.co/oBAfNSc2cp pic.twitter.com/2S76o3dzpg 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) January 9, 2023 Princess Diana's interview with the BBC's Martin Bashir in 1995 marked the first time that she publicly addressed claims that Charles and Camilla had an affair during her marriage His latest attack on Camilla comes after he revealed in his book, Spare, that he and William 'begged' Charles not to marry her Harry also claims that what he saw as Camilla's desire to 'be on the front page [and] have positive stories written about [her]' came from his family's belief that positive media coverage would 'improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public'. 'If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that's what you're gonna do,' he adds. The Duke's sensational public attack on Camilla is the latest in a line of barbs that he has flung at his stepmother - having already painted what Cooper describes as a very 'unflattering portrayal' of her in his explosive memoir Spare, which was accidentally released in Spain last week. In the book, Harry makes similar accusations against Camilla in regard to her so-called 'connections' with the press, accusing her of leaking information to the media as part of a 'campaign' to take the Crown. In an extraordinary passage in his autobiography, the Duke of Sussex writes: 'Shortly after our private meetings with her, she began to develop her long-term strategy, a campaign directed at marriage and with time, the Crown (with the blessing of our father, we supposed). 'News stories started appearing in all the newspapers about her conversations with Willy, stories which recounted lots of small details, none of which came from my brother, of course.' The Duke also claims that he and his brother William 'begged' the then-Prince of Wales not to remarry after Princess Diana's death, fearing that she would be their 'wicked stepmother'. During his 60 Minutes interview, Harry said that both he and William didn't think it was 'necessary' for Charles to wed Camilla, telling Cooper: 'We didn't think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that-- surely that's enough. Why go that far when you don't necessarily need to? 'We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, "Okay."' Charles had tried to win over his sons before asking the public to accept Camilla, the book claims. Harry then astonishingly says that meeting the future Queen Consort for the first time was like an 'injection'. He later says that ultimately he and William approved of Camilla. He writes: 'I remember wondering... if she would be cruel to me; if she would be like all the wicked stepmothers in the stories.' Prince Harry says taking psychedelic DRUGS helped him deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' of Princess Diana's death The Duke of Sussex , 38, called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997 Prince Harry credited the use of psychedelic drugs with helping him deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' he felt after the tragic death of his mom, Princess Diana. The Duke of Sussex, 38, called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997. While Harry was only 12 when Diana tragically died in a car accident, he admitted in his upcoming book, Spare, that he struggled to come to grips with her sudden passing. Now he has shared more details about his mother's death, explaining that he only cried once over his mother's death - when her coffin was put in the ground - and that he was plagued with guilt over feeling like he was not being emotional enough over her passing for years. But the former royal said using psychedelics when he got older ultimately 'cleared away the idea' that he needed be sad to prove he 'missed' his mom. 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,' he said during the one-hour tell-all interview. 'But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. 'For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that ... I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.' Prince Harry reveals he used to watch videos of his mother Princess Diana online in a desperate attempt to CRY about her death Prince Harry has candidly admitted that he used to watch videos of his late mother Princess Diana and 'muster up memories of her' in an attempt to cry over her death. The 38-year-old revealed his 'guilt' at not being able to shed a tear about Diana's tragic passing in 1997. 'There was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years that I was never able to cry,' he told host Anderson Cooper, according to a transcript of the interview that DailyMail.com received ahead of the pre-taped interview's release. 'So I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, but... in even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum. And sometimes I watched videos online.' However, Harry says that, no matter how hard he tried, he 'couldn't' shed a tear - something that filled him with 'guilt' for years. Harry explained during the sit down that he believes he didn't cry over Diana's death because he had 'refused to accept that she was gone.' He added that there was a huge 'weight on his chest' that he 'felt for so many years' over not shedding more tears - and that he even tried watching videos of her to bring forth his emotions. 'I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum,' he added. 'And sometimes I watched videos online.' Harry says that, no matter how hard he tried, he 'couldn't' shed a tear - something that filled him with 'guilt' for years Harry says that Prince William believed their mother Princess Diana was ALIVE for years Prince Harry revealed that his older brother Prince William was convinced that their mother, Princess Diana, was alive, saying that both brothers believed she would one day get in touch with her sons and whisk them away. According to Harry, he and William 'talked about' the idea that their mother had not died in the 1997 Paris car crash that saved her life, but had instead decided to 'disappear for a time' - with the Duke of Sussex explaining that they believed it was 'all part of a plan'. 'For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was... she was gone,' said. 'Um, part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan. '[I believed she had disappeared] for a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah.' Harry - who also wrote about this in his bombshell new memoir Spare - added to Cooper that his brother 'had similar thoughts', saying: 'William and I talked about it as well. He had similar thoughts.' He admitted that he kept this belief alive for 'many, many years', adding that he 'had huge amounts of hope' that his mother would one day return to be with her children - until he ultimately demanded that he be given access to the police report about her death, which contained graphic images of the scene of her crash. According to Harry, he wanted to see these images because they provided 'proof' that she had really gone. 'Proof that she was in the car,' he told Cooper when asked why he'd requested to see the report. 'Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs - photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car.' Harry told Cooper that he was 'not invited' to travel to Balmoral with the other royals in order to say goodbye to the Queen before she died. He is pictured arriving at the estate alone Prince Harry claims he was 'not invited' to travel on plane to Balmoral with William and other royals to say goodbye to the Queen before she died Prince Harry has claimed that he was 'not invited' on the plane that the rest of the royals took to Balmoral to see the Queen before her death - as he opened up about the final moments he spent with her. The Duke of Sussex was back in the UK with Meghan for a slew of charity events last September when his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II's health suddenly declined on September 8. The Queen died later that day - but when reports started to circulate that Harry didn't arrive to the castle until more than two hours after her passing, while the rest of the family got there before her death - many were left to wonder why he came so late. Now, the royal has claimed that his delayed arrival was the fault of his family members - saying that he was not included in their travel plans, despite the fact that there was plenty of room for him on the plane that they all flew on to get to Balmoral. He told Cooper that he texted his brother, Prince William to see how he and his wife, Kate Middleton, 41, were going to get to the estate, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, but that he was never given the flight details. 'I asked my brother - I said, "What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?"' he recalled. 'And then, a couple of hours later, you know, all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats.' 'You were not invited on that plane?' Anderson asked him, to which Harry replied, 'I was not invited.' He ultimately flew to Scotland alone - and by the time Harry got to Balmoral, the Queen had sadly passed away at age 96. 'I don't see it as cutting at all': Prince Harry brazenly insists he has 'NEVER intended to hurt his family' - despite launching brutal attacks on royals in memoir AND TV interviews Prince Harry boldly claimed that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the brutal contents of his bombshell memoir - despite the book, and the various TV interviews the Duke has done to promote it, containing several very damaging attacks on the royals. Prince Harry boldly claimed that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the brutal contents of his bombshell memoir The 38-year-old father-of-two defended his decision to air his grievances about his family so publicly to Cooper - just over an hour after he gave a nearly-identical one-on-one chat to British TV channel ITV. When asked by Cooper about a particularly 'cutting' passage in his book in which he details his brother William's 'alarming baldness' and his 'famous resemblance' to their mother Princess Diana - which the Duke wrote was 'fading with time, with age' - Harry claimed he saw nothing 'cutting' about that passage, nor any other in the memoir. 'I dont see it as cutting at all,' Harry fired back. 'Um, you know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years.' The Duke went on to insist that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the publication of the book, however he claimed that he felt the need to share his story in such a public manner in order to 'squash the idea' that Meghan 'was the one that destroyed' his relationship with his brother. 'None of anything that Ive written, anything Ive included is ever intended to hurt my family,' he claimed. 'But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.' Prince Harry has hinted that he and his wife, Meghan Markle (seen in 2017) will never give up their royal titles Prince Harry hints that he and Meghan will NEVER give up their royal titles Prince Harry hinted that he and Meghan will never give up their royal titles, while brazenly asking 'what difference it would make'. When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they were stepping away from the monarchy and moving to America in early 2020 - many people called for them to give up their royal titles. Those cries have become increasingly louder in the years since, during which Harry and Meghan have both launched multiple attacks on the royal family, beginning with their incendiary Oprah interview - and continuing with further TV appearances, a Netflix documentary, and the release of Harry's bombshell memoir, which he has been promoting in a series of on-air interviews. More than two years later, a poll revealed in December that 98 per cent of participants sill want the pair to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles - especially amid the couple's bombshell Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which premiered last month and included several explosive accusations about their time as royals. But now, the Prince has addressed the burning question surrounding his and his wife's royal titles - suggesting that the pair will not ever relinquish their status as Duke and Duchess because he doesn't believe it would 'make a difference'. When asked by host Anderson Cooper about why he and Meghan haven't renounced their titles, Prince Harry fired back, 'And what difference would that make?' Anderson then pointed out that 'one of the criticisms' that the pair has received is that they 'want to step back from the institutional role' but still want to 'be so public.' 'Every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife,' Prince Harry stated. 'You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it's just a motto. And it doesn't really hold.' President Joe Biden came closer than he ever realized to hundreds of illegal migrants who had just set foot on American soil during his border trip on Sunday. As his presidential motorcade sped along closed roads from one carefully stage-managed facility visit to another, he came within a few dozen feet of migrants lining up on the wrong side of the border fence. They sent up a cheer as Biden's convoy race past above them even though he would almost certainly have been oblivious to their presence. It marked an ironic twist to a whistlestop tour of border facilities in El Paso, where the president was kept well away from streets where he might be able to see migrants at large in the city. Migrants gather by the border fence around El Paso after crossing the Rio Grande into U.S. territory. Here they wait for border agents to open a gate and begin processing them The episode echoes Republican criticism that the visit was little more than a photo op at the border. And it comes amid claims that El Paso the epicenter of a migrant surge last month had been cleaned up before Biden's visit. In all the president spent three hours on the ground near the border, meeting officers and charities that help migrants. He was not seen meeting any migrants, however. After visiting the busy port of entry on the Bridge of the Americas, connecting El Paso to the Mexican city of Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, Biden was driven to his next stop at the El Paso County Migrant Services Center. The convoy of police vehicles, SUVs and buses carrying staff, Secret Service agents and journalists traveled at high speeds along roads that were closed to regular traffic. The 21-minute journey took them past the well-fortified border, where Texas National Guard troops have been deployed to stem the flow of migrants. But the vehicles were clearly visible to migrants on the other side of the border fence. Some 200 people had just made the crossing from Mexican territory, across the muddy water of the Rio Grande, and had gathered on U.S. soil at a gate in the fence as they waited for Border Patrol to let them through. The presidential motorcade raced along closed roads during Biden's visit on Sunday The president talked to Border Patrol agents as he strolled beside the border fence Just a short distance from where President Biden was taking a stroll along a 'sanitized' stretch of the border fence in El Paso, migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande river into the U.S. The numbers entering the U.S. around El Paso have dropped by 70 percent according to the White House. But they could still be seen wading through the Rio Grande river on Sunday This is how the complicated business of processing at the border works. Arrivals are brought inside the fence by border officers, who then have to process their claims of asylum and decide who is being expelled immediately and who gets to make their case to a judge. The shabbily dressed new arrivals mostly men, and mostly without any possessions were not part of the Biden tour. Instead, he met local officials at the airport and was then taken to the Bridge of the Americas for a close-up look at the border and a bustling port of entry. He watched border officers demonstrate how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. A yellow Labrador was shown detecting fruit and meat in a vehicle, before a chocolate Labrador retrieved what appeared to be a package of drugs from another car. Texas National Guard troops have been deployed on the U.S. side of the border to try to prevent people crossing. This was the scene on Sunday More than 100 migrants could be seen along the border fence waiting to be allowed in As he toured the port of entry, a sign reading, 'Bienvenido a Mexico,' could be seen on the far side of the border. From there it was past the fence, and on to the El Paso County Migrant Services Center to hear about the services that were offered to new arrivals. He asked how many people came through the center and was told about 300 to 500 a day, although it sometimes reached as many as 1000. Republicans denounced the visit as a carefully managed photo op, and pointed to reports that the city of El Paso had been cleaned up in advance. During his tour Biden was shown how border officers search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband at the El Paso port of entry on the Bridge of the Americas Biden was shown a fake battery that was used in an attempt to smuggle drugs into the U.S. Biden looks at food that is distributed to migrants as he tours the El Paso County Migrant Services Support Center in El Paso Biden was greeted at the airport by Greg Abbott, the state's Republican governor, who handed him a letter denouncing his border policies. 'Your visit to our southern border with Mexico today is $20 billion too little and two years too late,' it said. 'Moreover, your visit avoids the sites where mass illegal immigration occurs and sidesteps the thousands of angry Texas property owners whose lives have been destroyed by your border policies.' Representatives of border agents said it was impossible for the president to see the real picture during such a brief visit, which was a little more than three hours. Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents 18,000 agents, said: 'You're barely going to get the scope of what is happening.' The owners of a popular outback pub ravaged by floodwaters have been forced to destroy their entire alcohol supply after shameless looters allegedly broke in. The Historic Crossing Inn in Western Australia's Kimberley region admonished the thieves in a withering Facebook post on Sunday. Fitzroy Crossing Police charged six males - four adults and two youths - with aggravated burglary offences after liquor was stolen from the pub on Wednesday. 'Firstly, to the (alleged) looters breaking in to get alcohol over the past days - shame on you,' the pub wrote, alongside a photo of dozens of cans of alcohol submerged in mud. 'We would like to give a shout out to the police here in Fitzroy who, despite multiple demands on them at the moment, were swift in their response and who have already been able to locate some suspects. The owners of the Historic Crossing Inn in Fitzroy (pictured) have been forced to destroy their entire alcohol supply after loots broke-in to the pub last week The pub posted a photo of just a 'small amount' of the cans of beer and cider that would be destroyed in the interests of community safety 'Secondly, FYI - the (allegedly) stolen alcohol was submerged in flood waters (including sewer water, deceased animals etc) which wouldn't make for enjoyable drinking we would think?! 'Finally, after being able to assess the damage properly today, we have made the decision to DESTROY ALL ALCOHOL kept on site.' Owners of the rural watering hole posted a photo of dozens of cans of booze in a muddy puddle, saying it was just a 'small amount' of what had been destroyed. 'This decision was made with the safety of the community in mind,' they said. 'We are saddened to say that the Crossing Inn will be closed for months while we plan for the future. 'We hope everyone is safe, and look forward to welcoming you back at some stage.' The four adults charged over the break in are due to appear in court on January 24. The Fitzroy Bridge in Fitzroy Crossing, WA, has been cut in half by the floodwaters as the government issuing an emergency warning on Tuesday Up to 230 residents were ordered to evacuate from flood-affected areas last week with the Australian Defence Force aircraft and personnel called in to help The alleged break-in comes amid catastrophic downpours in the Kimberley region, with towns such as Fitzroy Crossing experiencing their worst flooding in history. Ex-tropical cyclone Ellie brought endless rainfall that lifted the Fitzroy River to its highest level ever, resulting in homes being flooded, roads being turned into rivers and residents forced to use boats to get around. The Fitzroy Bridge has been cut in half by floodwaters as up to 230 residents were ordered to evacuate from affected areas last week - with Australian Defence Force aircraft and personnel called in to assist in evacuations. Helicopters are pictured delivering hay for cows stranded in floodwaters in the Kimberley Major roads and bridges have been damaged by the once-in-a-100-year floods in WA Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm last week said the region was facing a 'one-in-100-year' flood event. Rain from Cyclone Ellie has dumped between 200mm and 600mm since December and is predicted to deliver further widespread heavy falls into the week. Clean-up efforts have begun in the regional towns, with the SES clearing branches from roadways and residents repairing their homes and businesses. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will visit the Kimberley Region on Monday where he is expected to announce a joint Disaster Relief package after communities in the Northern Territory were granted relief measures. Authorities in Pennsylvania say they are 'very concerned' over the sudden disappearance of a missing mother, 43-year-old Jennifer Brown. Brown, who lives in Limerick Township, was last seen by a friend and business associate around 2pm last Tuesday. Neighbors say Brown was seen outside her home on Stratford Lane and did not notice anything out of the ordinary. Loved ones say that Brown's youngest son was always by her side and that she would never leave him intentionally. Authorities in Pennsylvania are searching for Jennifer Brown, 43, a mother who failed to pick up her son from the bus stop last Wednesday A candlelight vigil was held on Saturday afternoon where the family appealed for anyone who may have information about her whereabouts to come forward 'It's literally like we're living in a movie that we watch on TV, it's so surreal and unbelievable,' family rep Tiffany Barron told WPVI. 'Jennifer would never ever just disappear, she would never abandon her son. Noah is the love of her life.' She failed to pick up Noah up from the bus stop the following day, leading family and friends to become concerned and contact the authorities. She is believed to have gone missing some time between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. When investigators arrived at Brown's home, they found her vehicle parked outside with her keys, wallet, purse, and work cell phone still inside. When Brown failed to pick up her son, Noah, her family became panicked and contacted the authorities Brown's vehicle was parked outside her home with her keys, wallet, purse, and work cell phone still inside Friends and family attended a vigil on Saturday afternoon where people prayed for a positive outcome Brown's personal cell phone was nowhere to be found and is still missing. It has not been used since she disappeared. 'Law enforcement is very concerned about the welfare of this mother,' Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said in a statement. A candlelight vigil was held on Saturday afternoon where the family appealed for anyone who may have information about her whereabouts to come forward. 'Someone knows where my niece is and, please, somebody speak up,' Brown's aunt, Diane Brehm, said. 'We're begging for her, for her family, for her sons.' One neighbor told how she ran into Brown only last week. 'She was driving by. I was in the parking lot talking to another neighbor in the car with my dog,' Ellen Friend said, according to Fox 29. 'We both waved hello, and I went inside.' Brown, who lives in Limerick Township, was last seen by a friend and business associate around 2pm last Tuesday 'To have something like this happen a few houses away is a shock so we're all... I'm a praying person and praying for some kind of resolution, some kind of answer,' said neighbor Lisa Tomarelli 'To have something like this happen a few houses away is a shock so we're all... I'm a praying person and praying for some kind of resolution, some kind of answer,' said another neighbor Lisa Tomarelli. Brown's family is also offering a $10,000 reward for any information that leads to her being found. Brown is described as having brown hair and green eyes, standing at 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighing around 150 pounds. Anyone with information regarding Jennifer Brown's whereabouts is urged to contact Limerick Township Police at 610-495-7909 or Montgomery County Detectives at 610-226-5553. U.S. House elects new speaker after historic deadlock Xinhua) 10:22, January 09, 2023 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to the alleged concessions after McCarthy's election, saying the proposals "will cause a government shutdown or a default with devastating consequences to our country." WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. House of Representatives elected Congressman Kevin McCarthy as speaker early Saturday morning after a historic deadlock that kept the lower chamber from being fully functional days after the new Congress convened. McCarthy, a California Republican, clinched enough votes to become House speaker in the 15th round of voting -- the longest contest in 164 years -- after a bitter fight with a group of hardline conservatives and 14 failed ballots. It was the first time a House speaker -- who maintains order, manages its proceedings, and governs the administration of its business on the lower chamber's floor -- had not been elected on the first ballot in 100 years. U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said earlier this week that it is "embarrassing for the country" not to have a fully functional Congress, the legislature of the federal government. U.S. Congressman Kevin McCarthy (C) is seen in the House chamber as the House meets to elect a speaker in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Jan. 6, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) All House Democrats voted for Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, making him the minority leader and the first African American lawmaker to run a party in either chamber of the U.S. Congress. To flip Republican holdouts, McCarthy reportedly made a series of concessions, including a lower threshold to force a vote on ousting the House speaker and a floor vote on a border security bill. He also promised that efforts to raise the nation's debt ceiling must be paired with spending cuts. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, also a New York Democrat, responded to the alleged concessions after McCarthy's election, saying the proposals "will cause a government shutdown or a default with devastating consequences to our country." "Speaker Kevin McCarthy's dream job could turn into a nightmare for the American people," Schumer said. "To get the votes, he surrendered to demands of a fringe element of the Republican party." Members of the U.S. House of Representatives kneel in prayer prior to a session to elect a House speaker in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Jan. 6, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) On Friday morning, House Democrats and reportedly only one Republican gathered on the steps of the Capitol, located at the eastern end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to mark the second anniversary of the mayhem on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021. "The Jan. 6 insurrection shook our republic to the core," U.S. Congresswoman and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said. "For many in the Congress and across our country, the physical, psychological, and emotional scars are still raw." Two years ago, a large group of supporters of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump violently stormed the Capitol and disrupted a joint session of Congress to affirm the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Biden won. Some of the rioters chanted "Hang Mike Pence" while making their way into the Capitol. Pence, then U.S. vice president presiding over the procedure to formally verify Biden's victory, was rushed out of the building by Secret Service agents to a secure location. Members of the U.S. Congress attend an event to mark the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack in Washington, D.C., the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) Panicked lawmakers took shelter and crouched behind chairs in the House gallery after the chaos broke out and shocked the United States and the rest of the world. Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted in the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol in more than 200 years, to which at least five deaths have been linked. Over 900 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the landmark complex. At a ceremony in the White House on Friday, Biden warned that things like the Capitol riot "could happen again" as the United States faces "an inflection point" in its history. Two years after the riot, U.S. democracy "is in distress and the House is a total mess," said Brad Bannon, a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. "The impasse in the U.S. House of Representatives over the election of the Speaker is another demonstration of the decline in our political institutions." (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Prior to the publishing of his biography 'Spare,' Patti Davis, an actress and the youngest daughter of the late President Ronald Reagan, gave Prince Harry some unsolicited but sensible advice. In an op-ed penned for the New York Times, Davis, 70, warned the Duke of Sussex to be cautious with his openness. 'Family Secrets,' a book written by Davis on the Reagan family, was released in 1993. Prince Harry May Regret The Release of His Memoir Davis perceived similarity between her choices and those of the distant Prince Harry. Davis drew attention to the fact that there are various versions of the truth, and since excerpts from Prince Harry's book have been released in advance of its January 10 release date, she feels the monarch and Prince William are entitled to their own version. A chapter of Prince Harry's book describing a violent conflict with Prince William has been made public in recent days. Davis feels that she should never have revealed her family's most intimate secrets, Fox News reported. It appears Prince Harry himself could be getting cold feet about his bombshell memoir after it was discovered he reportedly planned to take Spare off stores after the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. But in her caution to the prince, Davis has opened up on the disastrous effects of her own memoir. She asks Prince Harry to take Prince William and King Charles' opinions into account. In relation to the physical fight claims between the brothers, she claimed that although Prince Harry prided himself on not striking his brother back at the moment, he did so anyways "by writing about the incident." Per Daily Mail, Davis also said that Prince Harry "extended" the battlefield between him, his brother, and his father and that the only way to cure such a wound is to "remain silent." She herself apologized to her father Ronald Reagan years after the publication of her book, while her father was battling Alzheimer's disease. Now looking back, she stated she would have benefited from being silent herself, as "silence gives you room, it gives you the distance." Spare, which is ghostwritten by JR Moehringer, has received more praise than the "repetitive and one-dimensional" Netflix documentary series 'Harry & Megan.' The biography, which begins with a description of his mother Diana's 1997 funeral, is supposed to provide "historical context" for the Duke's views about his family. Prince Harry thinks he "grew up in a confined and dysfunctional institution" and he considers it - at least in part - responsible for his mother's death, the person close to the publisher allegedly claimed. Despite not being released yet, Spare has already generated controversy when PR experts warned Prince Harry's "truth bombs," such as saying he did cocaine and killed 25 Taliban militants in Afghanistan, might have disastrous ramifications for Meghan's political prospects. Read Also: King Charles Begs Prince Harry, Prince William To Stop Making His Final Years 'Miserable'; Duke of Sussex's Memoir Continues To Hit the Royal Family Prince Harry Slams Hypocrisy Allegations Meanwhile, Prince Harry addresses allegations of hypocrisy over his need for privacy while "invading the privacy" of the royal family. The Duke of Sussex was asked how he would respond to allegations that he invades the privacy of his "nearest and dearest" in an ITV interview conducted before the release of his memoir. According to The Independent, he stated that his biography, which included purported conflicts with Prince William, was not intended to "deliberately harm anyone in my family." The Duke of Sussex stated that he still believes in the monarchy but is unsure about his role in its future. The "personal and emotional" book allegedly contains accusations that Prince William physically assaulted Prince Harry at his London residence during a disagreement with the Duchess of Sussex in 2019. After Prince Philip's burial in March 2021, King Charles allegedly requested his sons not to "make my final years miserable" during a conversation with Harry. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have declared that they will stand down as senior members of the royal family in January 2020. In their six-part Netflix docuseries, Prince Harry discussed the 'Sandringham Summit,' or the January 13, 2020 meeting he had with the late Queen, Charles, and William to discuss the Duke and Duchess's choice. During the discussion, the Prince of Wales allegedly "screamed and raged" at him, leaving him "terrified." Related Article: Prince Harry Accuses Prince William of Physically Attacking Him in Row Over Meghan Markle @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An Alabama woman died after she was thrown from a horse at a rodeo in the Florida panhandle, local authorities announced on Sunday. Regina Short, 56, had just finished competing in a barrel race at the Baker Arena Community Center on Saturday and was leaving the competition center down an exit ramp, when her horse suddenly moved and abruptly threw her off its back, WEAR-TV reports. She fell and hit a pole, according to deputies with the Okaloosa Sheriffs Department, and was transported to a local hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries. Authorities would not immediately release Short's name, and would only say the victim was a 56-year-old woman from out of state. But fellow horse riders identified her on Facebook as they shared their condolences and posted photos of her final moments showing her happy on the back of a horse as she did what she loved. Regina Short, 56, died when she was flung from a horse's back at a barrel racing competition in northern Florida on Saturday Okaloosa Sheriff's Department deputies would not release her name, but fellow horse riders identified her on Facebook as they shared their condolences In one Facebook post on the National Barrel Horse Association Florida District 07 page, organizer Abigail McClellan shares her condolences to the Short family. 'First and foremost, our deepest condolences and continued prayers to Regina Short's family and friends as they navigate this unexpected loss. 'There are no words to adequately address all of this, but we trust in God knowing our hearts and haring our prayers.' McClellan also revealed: 'There were many people that came to Regina's side while awaiting EMS. They took swift action and are so appreciated. 'We are praying for all of those that were involved as well as the medical professionals that later cared for Regina,' she wrote, adding: 'We have been informed of Regina's beloved daughter, Christen, that proceeded her in passing. We are hopeful that they had the most joyous reunion today. 'Please use this time to come together, lifting one another in prayer,' McClellan concluded. 'Our horse community is strong and full of so many wonderful people.' The Covington Equine Association also posted a tribute to Regina, revealing she was a board director. 'She was a smiling face we looked forward to seeing at barrel races, an encouragement to everyone even on the bad runs and loved watching the kids,' the organization wrote. 'She always helped where she could without being asked and never complained. 'Her CEA family will miss her dearly. There will always be a missing piece in our horse community but we will honor her memory.' Short had just finished her competition and was leaving the arena down a ramp when she was thrown off the horse Regina is predeceased by her daughter, Christen, who died at age 16 in a car accident The incident occurred Saturday at the Baker Arena Community Center, where Short had just finished competing and was leaving the competition arena Others also took to Facebook to express their shock and grief. Jill Braxton shared how Regina acted as a mentor to her daughter, Kynley. 'She told me about her daughter, and how she wanted to support what her daughter loved so much,' Braxton wrote. 'She also knw that barrel racing and horses came with danger. But doesn't everything?' 'She lost her life yesterday doing what she loved. Her daughter lost hers at 16 in a car accident. 'Yesterday wasn't Regina Short first horse accident. I've seen her come off a horse before. Yesterday was her time to go be with her daughter. No one's fault not the horses fault.' Karen Kirkland Copeland also wrote on Regina's timeline that she is in 'total shock right now, as I am sure MANY people are. But I am sure that there was a sweet angel waiting on you with open arms. You will be missed.' Leanne Holmes added: 'Our barrel racing community has lost a sweet, wonderful lady today in a barrel racing accident. Prayers for the family of Regina Short.' And Kathleen Penton simply wrote: 'Fly high, cowgirl. Go rest high on that mountain!' The competition was cancelled after the incident, McClellan said, and will be rescheduled for a future date. It is part of the National Barrel Horse Association tour of rodeos around the country, according to the event's website. A renter has demanded compensation from her landlord after the elevator to her building stopped working seven times in as many months - with tenancy rights' groups confirming she has a case for a rent reduction. The Melbourne tenant said they have been forced to climb up the stairs on several occasions to reach her apartment in the 14-storey building. The apartment block has two elevators with one of them being upgraded and out of service since July 2022. The other elevator has been out of service at least once every month prompting the tenant to take to Reddit to ask for advice. 'I had three separate trips to make on Saturday, so I ended up climbing 42 flights of stairs while the lift technicians tried to repair the only working lift,' they wrote. A renter has demanded compensation from her landlord after the elevator to her building stopped working seven times in as many months 'It's time consuming and annoying. I shouldn't be expected to put up with this every month. 'What if I'd come home with 3-4 bags of groceries in my hands? It's been going on since last July and it's not acceptable that this just keeps happening.' The desperate tenant asked if they were entitled to any sort of compensation to make up for the hassle. 'I'm not expecting a monetary payment, but our rent went up 35 per cent last year,' they wrote. 'It's expensive living here. A reduction in rent, even a slight concession, would be appreciated. 'Nothing gets real estate companies more determined to resolve something than when there's a direct cost to them.' Tenants Victoria explains renters are able to make a claim for compensation for several reasons including loss of facilities and significant inconvenience. Tenants Victoria's director of client services Agata Wierzbowski told Daily Mail Australia renters could claim compensation from the owners corporation. 'Owners corporations, formerly called body corporates, are responsible for common areas in apartment buildings, such as elevators, and are legislated under the Owners Corporation Act rather than the rental laws, the Residential Tenancies Act,' she said. The apartment block has two elevators with one of them being upgraded and out of service since July 2022 'Under the Owners Corporation Act, there is a dispute process, where the renter would first need to request compensation from the owners corporation. 'If they are not successful, there is an option for mediation at the Dispute Settlement Centre of Victoria however both parties need to agree to this process.' The renter would have to take the matter to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal if it remained unsolved. 'The renter would need to convince VCAT that they have suffered loss, damage or significant inconvenience due to the faulty elevator,' Ms Wierzbowski said. In the past, renters have successfully challenged their landlords for compensation over faulty elevators in apartment buildings across the country. One landlord was ordered by the tribunal to pay a tenant $300 when the only lift became inoperable in the complex in NSW in 2012. The tenant had been living on the sixth floor of the building. In another case, a resident was given a $600 rental deduction when one of the lifts only became operational 20 to 30 per cent of the time at a complex in 2008. An accused serial sex pest who allegedly groped and attacked nine shoppers - including two children - during a single visit to a shopping mall has fronted court. Luke Gowman, 26, was arrested after allegedly sexually touching and assaulting several people at Liverpool Westfield, in Sydneys south west, four days before Christmas. He was initially taken into custody at the scene for allegedly touching two young girls, aged nine and six, before seven more alleged victims came forward. Gowman - who has remained in custody since his arrest - appeared in front of Liverpool Local Court on Monday, charged with 21 offences over the alleged incident. Magistrate Imad Abdul-Karim Gowman was told Gowman had turned down the services of Legal Aid NSW and would be representing himself. Luke Gowman, 26, was arrested after allegedly sexually touching and assaulting nine shoppers in Sydney's southwest days before Christmas However, when Mr Abdul-Karim asked Gowman to confirm if that was the case, the alleged offender said he would be seeking a private lawyer. 'I have a lawyer in Sydney. I am planning to see my lawyer as soon as I get out (of custody)' Gowman told the court. Mr Abdul-Karim appeared shocked by Gowman's suggestion he was expecting to be released on bail. 'Youre in custody with your bail refused on these allegations, you have already made an application for bail and bail was refused,' Mr Abdul-Karim said. Mr Abdul-Karim offered to give Gowman an adjournment to seek a lawyer or said he could alternatively enter a plea and be sentenced on the spot. Gowman asked what sentence he would be facing for the alleged crimes, with Mr Abdul-Karim saying he was not sure, but the charges were 'serious'. 'I dont want to adjourn it indefinitely. It is in your best interest to see a lawyer,' Mr Adbdul-Karim told Gowman. Police were called to Liverpool Westfield (pictured) about 3.15pm to reports two young girls had allegedly been touched by a man 'If you dont have the funds, it is in your best interest to seek legal aid at least to assist you to proceed with the matter.' Four days before Christmas, police were called to the shopping centre about 3.15pm to reports a man had allegedly touched two young girls. A short time later, Gowman was stopped by security guards as he was leaving the centre and was arrested then charged with two counts of common assault, stalk/intimidate intend fear of physical harm. Police later slapped Gowman with a further 18 charges after investigators uncovered he had allegedly sexually touched and assaulted a further seven people. They included three counts of sexual touching, four counts of intentionally sexually touch a child under 10 years, two counts of intentionally touch child aged between 10 and 16 years, and nine counts of common assault. Court documents exclusively obtained by Daily Mail Australia show Gowman is currently homeless and police will allege the alleged offences occurred in the two and a half hours between 12:38pm and 3pm. According to his online profiles, Gowman works as a scaffolder who is 'enjoying life to its fullest potential', with a love of 'travel and fitness and motorbikes'. On one of his social media pages, he describes himself as 'rapper low-key Lukey', alongside photos of him posing for mirror selfies, sitting on a Harley Davidson, and playing with pitbulls. Police Prosecutor Shane Arie told the court the matter had been referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The case was adjourned until January 16. Many Muslims refrain from looking at pictures of the Prophet Muhammad Lopez Prater had included warnings moments before and in the syllabus Erika Lopez Prater, 42, was let go from her job at Hamline University in December An adjunct professor was fired after showing a painting of the Prophet Muhammad to her students despite giving warning A Minnesota adjunct professor has been fired for showing an image of the Prophet Muhammed to a class that included a Muslim student who complained about it offending her religion. Erika Lopez Prater, 42, was let go from her position at Hamline University in Saint Paul despite warning students ahead of time about the 14th-century imagery. Many practicing Muslims do not believe in looking at pictures of the Prophet Muhammad as they believe it may lead to worshipping an image. With that in mind, Prater warned her class before she cast the image on her screen, giving them the chance to leave the room if they wished. Muslim student Aram Wedatalla chose to stay in the room. She says she was 'blindsided' by the images that followed. She and the school's Muslim Association then complained to the school and Lopez Prater was fired. The school has since called the incident 'Islamophobic'. In a letter sent out to students, Hamline University President Fayneese Miller apologized for the incident and said not offending the school's Muslim students is incredibly important Despite the warnings given by the adjunct professor, senior Aram Wedatalla, a Muslim in the class, said she was blindsided by the image. 'I'm like, "This can't be real,"' said Wedatalla in an interview with the school's newspaper In a letter sent out to students, Miller apologized for the incident and said not offending the school's Muslim students is incredibly important. 'It is not our intent to place blame; rather, it is our intent to note that in the classroom incidentwhere an image forbidden for Muslims to look upon was projected on a screen and left for many minutesrespect for the observant Muslim students in that classroom should have superseded academic freedom,' Miller said. The report from the New York Times stated the syllabus issued by the lecturer notified students they would see holy figures across religions, including the Prophet Muhammad and the Buddha. Lopez Prater allegedly gave students a heads up moments before the painting was shown, giving them another chance to leave the room if they didn't feel comfortable looking at the picture. Again, no students brought any concerns or exited the classroom during the October lecture. Despite the warnings, senior Aram Wedatalla, a Muslim in the class, said she was blindsided by the image. 'I'm like, "This can't be real,"' said Wedatalla in an interview with the school's newspaper. 'As a Muslim and a Black person, I don't feel like I belong, and I don't think I'll ever belong in a community where they don't value me as a member, and they don't show the same respect that I show them,' the student said. Wedatalla, a member of the Muslim Student Association, then gained support from Muslim students who were not in the class but called the incident an attack on their religion. A Minnesota adjunct professor who showed students a painting of the Prophet Muhammad lost her job after the incident In a letter sent out to students, Miller apologized for the incident and said not offending the school's Muslim students is incredibly important According to AboutIslam.net , the practice of avoiding the images goes back centuries and stems from the fear of the images sending the wrong message After the class ended, Wedatalla stuck around to speak with Lopez Prater. The conversation prompted the professor to sent an email to her department head, Allison Baker, to give her a heads up about the situation. Baker, the chair of the digital and studio art department, responded by saying: 'It sounded like you did everything right.' 'I believe in academic freedom so you have my support,' Baker wrote. The group demanded officials take action and the movement led to Lopez Prater, a first time adjunct, not being welcomed back for the spring semester. Deangela Huddleston, a Hamline senior and Muslim Student Association member, said of the incident: 'Hamline teaches us it doesnt matter the intent, the impact is what matters.' A spokesperson for Hamline said Lopez Prate 'received an appointment letter for the fall semester, and taught the course until the end of the term.' DailyMail.com reached out to officials at Hamline University for a statement on the professor's firing but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. Wedatalla is a member of the Muslim Student Association and gained support from Muslim students who were not in the class but called the incident an attack on their religion 'As a Muslim and a black person, I don't feel like I belong, and I don't think I'll ever belong in a community where they don't value me as a member, and they don't show the same respect that I show them,' Wedatalla said At a town hall following the incident, an invited Muslim speaker 'compared showing the images to teaching that Hitler was good' according to the New York Times At a town hall following the incident, an invited Muslim speaker 'compared showing the images to teaching that Hitler was good' according to the New York Times. The university president also said in her letter that while academic freedom 'is very important' it should 'not have to come at the expense of care and decency toward others. In a statement to one outlet last week, a school representative said they strive to make all students 'feel safe, supported, and respected both in and out of our classrooms.' The firing also sparked backlash from those who believed the firing was an attack on academic freedom. One Islamic art historian penned an essay defending Dr. Lopez Prater and started a petition which received thousands of signatures demanding the university's board investigate the incident. Another organization, PEN America, called her firing: 'one of the most egregious violations of academic freedom in recent memory.' According to AboutIslam.net, the practice of avoiding the images goes back centuries and stems from the fear of the images sending the wrong message. 'In Islam there has always been a prohibition on making images of God and His Prophets,' the website states. 'At the start, this prohibition was quite simply to avoid the temptation of worshiping the images themselves, as people had done for centuries,' the site continues. 'As far as depicting the Prophet is concerned, Muslims don't make pictures or statues of Prophet Muhammad for a clear reason. The reason is not that images or art are wicked or evil, but that images can lead to a wrong understanding.' The author of the post, Idris Tawfiq, states that depicting the Prophet Muhammad may make him seem like a holier figure, when he was just a man. 'Prophet Muhammad was a man. He was not a saint or a god, but a simple man. The love in which he is held by Muslims is intense. Creating statues and pictures of that man can lead people to see in a man something more than he was,' Tawfiq writes. She was supposed to take a flight from Boston to D.C. for a work emergency Brian Walshe, 46, the husband of Ana Walshe, 39, who disappeared on New Year's Day after failing to catch a work flight to Washington D.C. is a convicted art swindler The art-swindler husband of a missing Massachusetts mother-of-three has been arrested for allegedly misleading police in the search for his wife. Brian Walshe, 46, was detained during the hunt for 39-year-old real estate executive Ana Walshe after she disappeared on New Year's Day after failing to board a flight to Washington DC, where she works. She has not used her phone or credit cards since disappearing and has not shown up for work. Her friends say that her disappearance is out of character, as she would never abandon her three young sons. Brian Walshe initially told police that he was asleep when Ana ordered a rideshare from their home in Cohasset to Logan International Airport in Boston however, police have now arrested him. 'Police developed probable cause to believe that (Ana Walshe's) husband, Brian Walshe, had committed the crime of misleading police investigators,' reads a statement from the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office. They had initially said that Brian was cooperating with the investigation but things suddenly changed on Sunday night. He is set to be arraigned on Monday. It is not yet clear what additional information may be revealed at his arraignment. Walshe is expected to be arraigned Monday morning in Quincy District Court. 'Additional facts may or may not be entered into the record at that time,' police said. Brian is seen driving away from the Cohasset, Massachusetts, home on Sunday where he, his wife, Ana, and their three children lived until the mom-of-three's disappearance A gray Volvo with the Walshe children was also seen heading out of the Walshe property on Sunday. It is believed that they were escorted away by close family friends or relatives Earlier on Sunday, camera-shy Brian appeared to be driving a red Volkswagen away from the home in Cohasset - a 45-minute drive south of Boston - a week after his wife's disappearance. The pictures were obtained by Fox News Digital. The couple's three children were given a ride in a separate vehicle, a gray Volvo, by people believed to be friends or family. Authorities appeared to have returned to the Walshe's home on Sunday to dig through the contents. Detectives from Cohasset and the State Police had also been investigating in Washington D.C., where Ana worked for real estate behemoth, Tishman Speyer. The mother-of-three boys between the ages of two and six, who is of Serbian descent, was reported missing in the small Massachusetts town of roughly 8,600 people on Wednesday by her husband and her employer. The ground search for 39-year-old Ana has stopped a week after she was supposed to catch a flight to Washington D.C. from Boston Logan International Airport The couple owns a home in D.C. and Ana often commuted during the week for work her friends told various outlets. Ana had booked a flight to Washington for January 3 before she was ordered by her bosses to come in sooner for 'an unexpected work emergency'. Last seen leaving her home at about 4am on New Year's Day, Ana is said to have caught a rideshare bound for Logan International Airport in Boston, where her flight was taking off from. Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley said Ana never got on that plane. In fact, police have not been able to independently confirm Walshe got into or even booked a car service, or that she had had a flight booked for January 1 Friends also noticed that Ana's normally active social media presence went silent since the start of the new year. In a brief statement on her disappearance, Tishman Speyer, which Ana has been a part of since said February 2022, said: 'We are actively assisting the local authorities in their ongoing search for our beloved colleague, Ana, and are praying for her safe return.' A graduate of Cornell University, Ana had worked for various US real estate companies after obtaining a degree from the University of Belgrade. She's described as having brown hair, brown eyes, and is five-feet-two-inches tall with an estimated weight of about 115 pounds. Brian Walshe (right), pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston in 2021 after being arrested a few years earlier for selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings to a South Korean buyer for $80,000 Ana, who is originally from Serbia, is a graduate of Cornell University and worked in he real estate development before her vanishing. Pictured with her husband, Brian, in Europe Friends noticed that Ana's normally active social media presence went silent all of a sudden. She regularly posted updates on her life and family on Facebook Police said she's left no digital footprint since she went missing, with her cell phone turned off and credit cards left unused. While police searched for Ana on Friday and Saturday, there was also a fire at a home in Cohasset she owned before it was sold in March for nearly $1.4million, according to online records. State Police and local investigators determined the cause of the fire was accidental and is not believed to have had any connection to her vanishing. The current occupants escaped safely. Ana's husband, Brian, is currently awaiting sentencing in a fraud case involving the sale of two fake Andy Warhol 'Shadow Paintings' to a South Korea buyer for $80,000 according to court records. Brian took the paintings from a friend and sold them on eBay, only to switch them out for fakes. In November 2016, Walshe put the paintings up on eBay for $100,000 each, after which art gallery owner Ron Rivlin agreed to buy them for $80,000. Picutred; Rivlin at his Andy Warhol gallery Walshe got the paintings from his friend, who had recently bought them, and convinced him he could sell them for a good price - but then he disappeared and his friend never received any money in return for them. Pictured: One of the fame Warhol paintings In Walshe's criminal case, it was November 2016 when an eBay user - Ron Rivlin, the owner of Revolver Gallery in Los Angeles - found Walshe selling two Andy Warhol paintings for $100,000 each, reported the Boston Herald. Rivlin claims that his gallery is the the world's largest gallery-owned Andy Warhol collection. The paintings Rivlin saw on eBay were from Warhol's Shadows series, abstract paintings the pop artist created in 1978. On the listing, Walshe also included a photo of an invoice from the Warhol Foundation, where he claimed he bought the paintings, and which allegedly showed he paid $240,000 for them. Walshe allegedly told Rivlin he was selling the works at a great loss in order to pay for home renovations, reported the Herald. Rivlin believed they were authentic and contacted Walshe in early November, arranging to purchase both paintings outside of eBay for $80,000. The pair signed a contract, which explicitly stated that Rivlin had three days to get a full refund, according to the Massachusetts DA's office. On November 7, Rivlin's assistant flew to Boston to collect the paintings and gave Walshe an $80,000 cashier's check, which was deposited that day. The next day, Rivlin unwrapped the paintings and found there were no authentication stamps on the back from the Warhol Foundation and that the canvasses looked new. Next, he compared the paintings to the photographs on eBay and determined they were different. After concluding the paintings in his possession were inauthentic, he made repeated attempts to contact Walshe. The Herald reported that phone records show Rivlin called and texted Walshe from November 8 to 12, all of which went unanswered. According to the DA's office, when Walshe did reply, he made several excuses for not refunding the money immediately. After Walshe refunded Rivlin just $30,000 of the $80,000, the gallery owner said he had he had contacted the FBI. Court documents show there have been various issues surrounding Brian Walshe's sentencing, which initially was scheduled for home confinement and it is not clear what the current status of the case is. After buying the paintings, Rivlin realized the artworks he purchased were fakes, When Walshe wouldn't return all the money, Rivlin called the FBI. Pictured: One of the fake Andy Warhol paintings On Saturday, video showed investigators furiously coming through debris that had gathered at her home's pool after they had drained it as part of the search Cohasset police, however, have repeatedly said Walshe's disappearance and her husband's case seem to be two very separate things. Massachusetts State Police and local police said in a joint statement that their ground search for the mother-of-three or evidence related to her disappearance concluded Saturday. A specialized State Police unit trained in search and rescue operations, three K-9 teams and the State Police Air Wing searched wooded areas near the Walshe's home on Saturday. State Police divers searched a small stream and a pool but did not find anything, the statement said. The Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council also helped with the search. The desperate search has been continuing for a 39-year-old Massachusetts mother-of-three who vanished after on New Year's Day and failed to catch her work flight to Washington D.C Walshe was known to travel to Washington D.C. weekly for work and had booked a flight for January 3, not January 1, but cops say she may have been hoping to get an earlier flight Police described Walshe as a woman with brown hair, brown eyes, five feet and two inches tall and weighing about 115 pounds and said she's left no digital footprint since she went missing Friends told NBC Boston that Ana is a wife and mother to three young boys - with her social media platforms reflecting the life of a happy family. 'Ana is a remarkable woman,' her friend Peter Kirby said. 'She's a powerful executive, she's a loving mom, she's just loving wife, she's one of the most remarkable humans we know, and we've very scared. 'We miss her a lot and we're just praying for her to be safe.' 'Everyone that knows and loves Ana, we just want her home safely,' Evan Turell, a friend of Walshe's who used to work with her at a hotel in Boston, told Fox News. 'Her husband and her boys were someone she talked to every single day and the fact that she hasn't been in touch with them is concerning and it's not like her to not be in touch with anyone. It's just really scary.' Harry's first UK interview in support of his memoirs last night saw him questioned over a legal claim he has launched against the Mail. Prince Harry, together with a group including Sir Elton John and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, have alleged that tapping, bugging and other illegal activities were carried out against them, which the Mail vehemently denies. ITV interviewer Tom Bradby warned Harry that the accusations he has made are very grave and the stakes... very high, adding: Lets be clear... You would owe them a pretty abject apology if youre not right, if its not proven. Harry responded: Well if it wasnt... they would presumably sue us. Harry's first UK interview in support of his memoirs last night saw him questioned over a legal claim he has launched against the Mail The Mail has unambiguously rejected the allegations as groundless and preposterous smears. Harry also appeared to claim he was policing the Press. He told Bradby: They want to hold us and the rich and powerful to account and they want to police society then whos policing them? The prince insisted he was going to continue to serve his country from his mansion in California by holding the British Press to account. He also attacked the controversial Sun column by Jeremy Clarkson in which the TV presenter suggested that Meghan should parade naked through Britain while people throw excrement at her. He called the idea which echoed dramatic scenes from TV hit Game of Thrones horrific. Harry claimed that the monarchy should have spoken out against Clarksons hurtful and cruel comments which could encourage mistreatment of women. He stressed it was no longer a case of me asking for accountability, but at this point the world is asking for accountability. And the world is asking for some form of comment from the monarchy. But the silence is... deafening. Prince Harry has accused Jeremy Clarkson of inciting violence towards women in a 'cruel' column in The Sun dreaming of a Meghan 'shame parade'. In an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby to promote his new memoir, Spare, Harry referred to comments made by former Top Gear presenter Clarkson, 62, who wrote that he 'hated' the Duchess of Sussex and dreamed of her being paraded through British towns and publicly shamed. Harry said: 'When we're talking about accountability... the Jeremy Clarkson article, so not only did what he said was horrific and is hurtful and cruel towards my wife, but it also encourages other people around the UK and around the world, men particularly, to go and think that it's acceptable to treat women that way. In an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby, Prince Harry accused Jeremy Clarkson of inciting violence towards women in a 'cruel' column dreaming of a Meghan 'shame parade' Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, 62, pictured, wrote that he 'hated' the Duchess of Sussex and dreamed of her being paraded through British towns and publicly shamed 'To use my stepmother's words recently as well, there is a global pandemic of... violence against women.' Harry added: 'It's no longer a case of me asking for accountability, but at this point the world is asking for accountability, and the world is asking for some form of comment from the monarchy but the silence is deafening.' The Sun apologised after the piece - within which Clarkson said 'everyone who's my age thinks the same way' - became the Independent Press Standards Organisation's most complained-about article. Harry made the comments in his 90-minute ITV interview with Tom Bradby The royal aide met with the Sistah Space founder to apologise in December Lady Susan Hussey, 83, asked Ms Fulani where she came from at a palace event Harry expressed delight at the reconciliation of Lady Susan Hussey and Ngozi Fulani over their racism row - as he used his TV interview to say he wants accountability from his relatives. The Duke of Sussex made the comments in his 90-minute discussion with ITV presenter and old friend Tom Bradby, ahead of the publication of his memoir 'Spare' on Tuesday. The Duke of Sussex said the reaction to the incident between Lady Susan Hussey and Ngozi Fulani in November was 'horrendous'. Lady Susan Hussey, 83, Prince William's godmother and one of Queen Consort Camilla's closest aides, resigned from her honorary role at Buckingham Palace after asking Ms Fulani where she came from. The Duke of Sussex made the comments in his 90-minute discussion with ITV presenter and old friend Tom Bradby Prince Harry expressed delight at the reconciliation of Lady Susan Hussey and Ngozi Fulani over their racism row. Pictured together on December 16 However, she met with Ms Fulani in December to apologise. The Duke told Tom Bradby: 'All we've ever asked for in the last - certainly the last few years - is some accountability. 'And I'm very happy for Ngozi Fulani to be invited into the palace to sit down with Lady Susan Hussey and to reconcile, because Meghan and I love Susan Hussey. (Meghan) thinks she's great. 'And I also know that what she meant - she never meant any harm at all. 'But the response from the British press, and from people online because of the stories that they wrote was horrendous.' His backing comes in contrast to his brother, Prince William, whose spokesman condemned as 'unacceptable' the comments made by Lady Susan in the wake of the furore. The Duke also stated his belief that the Royal Family have also avoided accountability 'on a lot of things'. Speaking about what he wants from his family and book, Harry told Bradby: 'I want reconciliation, but first there needs to be some accountability. You can't just continue to say to me that I'm delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up, because I was genuinely terrified about what's gonna happen to me.' Ms Fulani shared this transcript of the alleged incident but said the rest of the event was a 'blur' Lady Hussey, the Queen's former lady-in-waiting, reportedly asked Sistah Space founder Ngozi Fulani: 'What part of Africa are you from?' at an event at the palace on November 29. The 83-year-old, who served the late Queen for six decades, stepped down from her honorary role 'with immediate effect' amid a furious outcry after Miss Fulani tweeted about her experience at the event. Miss Fulani said she was left feeling 'violated' after Prince William's godmother, who served as the late Queen's right-hand woman for 62 years, 'interrogated' her about where she was from at a Palace reception, despite her making clear she was British. She also accused Lady Susan of moving her hair in order to look at her name badge and asked her: 'What part of Africa are you from?' when she replied that she came from Hackney. Only when the domestic violence campaigner said she was of Caribbean descent and African origin did Lady Hussey stop, saying: 'I knew we'd get there in the end.' Ms Fulani, 57, later posted a transcript of the exchange on social media, which led to a furious outcry, leading Lady Susan to quit her post. In December Lady Susan met with the activist to express her 'sincere apologies', which Ms Fulani accepted. Camilla, the Queen Consort, centre, attended the reception to raise awareness of violence against women and girls where the comments to Ngozi Fulani (circled in red) were made Lady Susan Hussey (right), 83, Prince William's godmother and one of Queen Consort Camilla's closest aides, resigned from her honorary role at Buckingham Palace after asking Ms Fulani (centre, left image) where she came from The Palace said shortly after the meeting: 'At this meeting, filled with warmth and understanding, Lady Susan offered her sincere apologies for the comments that were made and the distress they caused to Ms Fulani. 'Lady Susan has pledged to deepen her awareness of the sensitivities involved and is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the issues in this area. 'Ms Fulani, who has unfairly received the most appalling torrent of abuse on social media and elsewhere, has accepted this apology and appreciates that no malice was intended. 'Both Ms Fulani and Lady Susan ask now that they be left in peace to rebuild their lives in the wake of an immensely distressing period for them both. 'They hope that their example shows a path to resolution can be found with kindness, co-operation and the condemnation of discrimination wherever it takes root. 'It is the wish of both parties that, at the end of the UN's 16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, attention can now return to the important work of Sistah Space in supporting women affected by domestic abuse. 'Their Majesties The King and The Queen Consort and other members of the Royal Family have been kept fully informed and are pleased that both parties have reached this welcome outcome.' Miss Fulani previously described her Buckingham Palace ordeal as a 'form of abuse'. She also said Lady Susan moved her dreadlocks during the exchange so she could read her name badge. 'That's a no-no,' Miss Fulani said. 'I wouldn't put my hands in someone's hair, and culturally it's not appropriate.' Queen Elizabeth ll, accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, in 2012 She added: 'Although I didn't experience physical violence, what I feel I experienced was a form of abuse.' The Palace said it took the incident extremely seriously' and had investigated immediately. Harry also said he would not describe as racist comments allegedly made by an unnamed family member about Archie's skin colour, after the bombshell allegation was raised during the Sussexes' interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey last March. Harry told Tom Bradby: 'You speak to any other mixed race couple around the world, and you will probably find that the white side of the family have either openly discussed it, or secretly discussed 'What are the kids gonna look like?' 'And that is part of a bigger conversation that needs to be had. He added: 'The difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different. 'But once it's been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that in order so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.' Asked why he had not identified the family member involved, Harry said: 'I will never talk about that.' British readers have already received copies of Prince Harry's memoir days before its global release date. It is the latest gaffe to hit Spare, Harry's personal account of royal life, after copies were accidentally placed on sale in bookstores in Spain last week. This was despite efforts to prevent its contents being leaked, including guarded sites being used to store the books around the world and tracked delivery vans. Spare is due to go on sale officially from tomorrow. But some royal fans have already received their copies Spare is due to go on sale officially from tomorrow. But some royal fans have already received their copies. One customer, who ordered the book from Amazon, told the Daily Mail last night: 'I literally ordered it on Friday and it said it would be delivered on Tuesday. Then today it said it was out for delivery. I was like, 'Nah, they've messed up.' And there it was when I got home.' Another customer posted a picture of their copy of the book on Twitter on Saturday night, writing: 'I got my book today!' Spare is priced at 28, although Amazon are among the retailers selling copies for as little as 14. Amazon said: 'Due to a technical issue, a limited number of customers received their order slightly earlier than expected.' The Belgian malinois has been found to be the most intelligent dog in a study of 13 different breeds. Scientists assessed 1,000 dogs by setting them seven cognitive and three behavioural tasks. Tests included their ability to read human gestures and if the animals could detour around a transparent V-shaped fence to access a food reward which they could see. The researchers also investigated how independent a dog was and how quickly they came to a human for help by giving them an unsolvable task trying to access food in a sealed box. The Belgian malinois was found to be the most intelligent dog of 13 different breeds The dogs involved in the experiment Belgian malinois Australian kelpie Labrador retriever Border collie Golden retriever Hovawart Spanish water dog Shetland sheepdog English cocker spaniel Australian shepherd Mixed breed German shepherd Finnish lapphund Advertisement The malinois, pictured, which are often used as police dogs or guard dogs, came first with 35 points out of 39. Border collies came second with 26 points, while the hovawart a German breed was third with 25 points. Dr Katriina Tiira, from the University of Helsinki in Finland, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'The Belgian malinois stood out in many of the cognitive tasks, having very good results in a majority of the tests.' Saara Junttila, the study co-author and a PhD researcher in canine cognition at the University of Helsinki, added: 'Most breeds had their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Labrador retriever was very good at reading human gestures, but not so good at spatial problem-solving. Some breeds, such as the Shetland sheepdog, scored quite evenly in almost all tests.' The dogs selected were required to be interested in working for food, and to not be overly aggressive to people. The researchers chose pets between the ages of one and eight as cognitive traits may not have fully developed in younger dogs, while older dogs may experience cognitive decline. They were subjected to the smartDOG tests between March 2016 and February 2022. The tests included one where the dog was shown two food bowls. One was empty, the other had food in but was covered up. The idea was to see if the animal could find the food that was in the other bowl. The team said this test would be the best gauge for overall intelligence, but data revealed there was no difference between the dog breeds for this task. Scientists assessed 1,000 dogs by setting them seven cognitive and three behavioural tasks (file image) However three tasks, each testing a specific aspect of dog cognition, did show how the breeds differed. One was a V-detour task - where the dog has to detour around a transparent V-shaped fence to access a food reward it could see. It aimed to measure problem-solving ability. The team measured the dogs' ability to read gestures by getting them to respond to five human movements: constant pointing, brief pointing, pointing with the foot, pointing at something while facing another direction and following a gaze. Adam Rich, who is most famous for being a child star on ABC's 'Eight is Enough,' a comedy series, has died at the age of 54 after battling depression for years. In a statement, Lt. Aimee Earl of the Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner Coroner's office announced that Rich died on Saturday in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. The star's cause of death was still under investigation but authorities said that it was not considered to be suspicious. Adam Rich's Death Also, Rich's publicist, Danny Deraney, remembered the former child star as "simply a wonderful guy." In a Twitter post, Deraney said that Rich was a kind and generous man who was also a warrior who fought against mental illness. Deraney said that Rich did not have even an ounce of ego, adding that he was unselfish and always looked out for the people he cared about. The publicist said that this was the reason why many people who grew up with him feel that a part of their childhood was now gone with his passing, as per USA Today. Rich's publicist said that the former child star suffered from a type of depression that defied treatment and noted that he had tried to erase the stigma of talking about mental illness. However, he unsuccessfully tried experimental cures over the years and remained sober. Deraney said that he and several other people who were close to Rich were worried in the last couple of weeks when they were unable to reach him. The former child star was known for his wide grin and a pageboy haircut. He found fame through his portrayal of Nicholas Bradford in the comedy series that aired from 1977 to 1981. The show focused on Dick Van Patten who played the character of a newspaper columnist and was the father of eight kids. Read Also: NBA All-Star Vote Initial Returns Show LeBron James, Kevin Durant Still Faces of The League; Derrick Rose Remains Makes It To East Top 10 Battle With Depression According to TMZ, which was the first to report about Rich's death, the former child star retreated from show business in the '80s because he said that he did not like the glare of the spotlight, or more specifically, anything celebrity-related. One of the low points in Rich's life was his substance abuse issues, which resulted in a 1991 arrest after he smashed a pharmacy window in an attempt to get more drugs. Patten was the one who bailed him out of prison but he still had other legal issues. Rich also appeared on the cover of the December 3, 1979, issue of PEOPLE magazine alongside co-stars Patten, Grant Goodeve, and Willie Aames. The story that was written detailed the road to the show's success. It featured the time when the original series' mother, Diana Hyland, died just four episodes into the show and Mark Hamill exited following a car accident just before the premiere. Patten, who died in 2015, called the former child star "the most intelligent person on the show and very sweet, careful of people's feelings which is rare in children." Rich, at the time that he was a young kid, said that Patten was like a father but was not bossy, People reported. Related Article: Jeremy Renner Update: 911 Call Log Reveals Horrifying Detail on 'Avengers' Star's Snow Plow Accident @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Terror comes in many forms. But in peacetime, at least, there are few things more frightening than not being able to pay your debts. A week ago, the Mail's front page highlighted 'families' growing mountain of debt'. Based on figures from the accountants PwC, this showed that the total amount of unsecured debt in the UK (in other words, not including mortgages) had risen to 400 billion equivalent to more than 16,000 per household. With borrowing rates rising, and the prices of essential goods likewise, this predicament most of all for the poorest must be an element in the fact that more than two million Britons have used at least three days' worth of 'emergency food' at foodbanks in the past year. Since the deeply misguided decision by the Blair/Brown administration in 2005 to 'liberalise' the gambling industry, this has been a social disaster in the making, most damaging to the poorest families with which the Labour Party has always claimed a special affinity A significant proportion of those people will be in employment, not down-and-outs. This is an argument brandished by the public sector unions when threatening strike action. The general secretary of the PCS union, Mark Serwotka, claimed to the BBC that '40,000 public sector workers are using foodbanks'. And the Fire Brigades Union, on December 29, tweeted: 'Many ordinary firefighters, on 32,244, are forced to foodbanks.' Distress This provoked the Conservative MP Brendan Clarke-Smith to respond: 'I respect the profession, but 32,244 and using a foodbank. Never heard such a ridiculous thing in my life. I earned a lot less than that for most of my teaching career, and so do many of my constituents. If true, which is unlikely, I suggest learning how to budget and prioritise.' But, as those figures for unsecured debts suggest, many are in a position where even a salary above the national average won't keep the wolf from the door. When the cost of living surges much higher than you could have foreseen, you can't walk away from such obligations (or not without facing the bailiffs and the prospect of personal bankruptcy). It is seldom mentioned in this context, but I wonder to what extent the rising use of foodbanks, tied to genuine financial distress, is linked to the issue of 'problem gambling', as well as poverty. Since the deeply misguided decision by the Blair/Brown administration in 2005 to 'liberalise' the gambling industry, this has been a social disaster in the making, most damaging to the poorest families with which the Labour Party has always claimed a special affinity. The parents of Jack Ritchie (centre), Charles and Liz Ritchie were awarded an MBE for services to charity and families bereaved by gambling-related suicide Among the measures that the Ritchies have called for is a ban on gambling advertising. That, unfortunately, won't happen. The minister responsible, Paul Scully, has indicated only that he might demand a 'hardening' of the warning in gambling ads, beyond the current, vapid, 'when the fun stops, stop' Fifteen years later, the House of Lords assessed the wreckage in a report entitled Gambling Harm Time For Action. It found that a third of a million Britons are 'disordered' gamblers. And it estimated that for each such 'problem' gambler, six other people (so, another two million) are 'harmed by the break-up of families, crime, loss of employment, loss of homes and, ultimately, loss of life'. This last, devastating consequence was why, in 2018, I met a group of families who had been shattered by the suicide of one of their number all young men, as it happened caused by the shame and helplessness of their addiction, and the catastrophic effect on their finances. Among them were Liz and Charles Ritchie, whose 24-year-old son, Jack, a teacher, had killed himself in such circumstances. They launched the charity Gambling With Lives, tied to my interview with these families in the Daily Mail. Liz and Charles were awarded MBEs in the New Year Honours. That is a tribute to what Gambling With Lives has been doing to raise the public awareness of this issue since then; but I'm sure what Liz and Charles really want is for the Government to implement the reforms which the Conservatives promised in their 2019 manifesto, but which have been repeatedly postponed. Among the measures that the Ritchies have called for is a ban on gambling advertising. That, unfortunately, won't happen. The minister responsible, Paul Scully, has indicated only that he might demand a 'hardening' of the warning in gambling ads, beyond the current, vapid, 'when the fun stops, stop'. Profits In Australia, the government has done something of the sort, demanding such warnings as 'You win some, you lose more' and, 'Imagine what you could be buying instead'. Such as food for your family. But the problem with addiction is that it defies dissuasion. And it is from the addicted, or so-called 'problem' gamblers, that the companies gain the bulk of their profits, according to that House of Lords report. The firms also find vast pickings amongst the least well-off. This was true of the fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs), which, until the Government, in 2018, took the decision to reduce the maximum stake from 100 to 2, were a huge money spinner (for their owners) in the poorest parts of the country. In Australia, the government has done something of the sort, demanding such warnings as 'You win some, you lose more' and, 'Imagine what you could be buying instead'. Such as food for your family A 2021 report from the Standard Life Foundation charity revealed that the 'UK's most deprived areas have more than ten times the number of betting shops than the most affluent parts. Those with the least resources are being targeted more'. Now the companies, having seen their betting shop revenues hit by belatedly effective regulation of FOBTs, are concentrating on the online business, where the Government has so far refrained from imposing similar stake limits. Last June, the National Centre for Social Research found losses across all types of online gambling were 'strongly skewed' towards the most deprived areas. The scale is astounding. In four of the past five years, British 'punters' have lost more than 14 billion in all forms of betting. By 2021, the size of the UK's regulated online gambling market alone had reached, according to the leading industry analysts H2 Gambling Capital, a figure of $12.5 billion (10.34 billion) the biggest in the world, outstripping the U.S.'s $11 billion (9.1 billion). Bet365 boss Denise Coates was paid more than 260m in salary and dividends in the year to March 2022, according to company accounts No wonder that the boss of the UK online gambling website Bet365, Denise Coates, was able to take home total pay of nearly 1.3 billion in the five years to 2021. She also pays great wodges of tax to the Exchequer. The Treasury has always been anxious to do nothing to mess up the business model of firms such as Bet365. But one friend of mine, who used to work for the Treasury, was a dissident voice. He emailed me: 'I would ban all 'free' bets and all adverts. And I would limit the ability of people on benefits to gamble. I know a person who spends all her benefits within 48 hours (on betting). Her wonderful father gives her 3 a day to buy food. He says if he gives her a fiver she will gamble 2.' Block My ex-Treasury friend is suggesting exactly the sort of legislation which MPs who receive either pay or freebies from the gambling industry are trying to block. According to a recent audit, a total of 28 MPs 19 Conservative, nine Labour had within a single year received almost 225,000 in payments or perks from the gambling industry. A tremendous investigation published last month by Bloomberg, entitled Online Casino Smartphone Gambling: How The UK And Its Politicians Got Hooked, showed how although Tory MPs were the majority in this group, the offices of the Labour Leader Keir Starmer and the Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves had received donations totalling 35,000 from gambling industry tycoons. It described a party thrown at the last Labour conference, sponsored by the Betting and Gaming Council (the industry lobby group), at which 'Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, took to a makeshift stage emblazoned with the BGC's logo and belted out a pop ballad and Keir Starmer mingled with guests, including the BGC's CEO Michael Dugher a former Labour MP and other industry representatives'. So it's all the more important that Rishi Sunak acts now and introduces the stricter regulations his party promised but which it has repeatedly deferred. Because not only is there no sign that the financial squeeze has reduced gambling spend, it may even be causing more to use it as a desperate way to make a bit extra. A survey published last month by Gamble Aware reported that 'one in four women who gamble are expecting to gamble more because of the cost-of-living crisis'. What more does Mr Sunak need to know? Prince Harry has revealed that his older brother Prince William was convinced that their mother, Princess Diana, was alive, saying that both brothers believed she would one day get in touch with her sons and whisk them away. According to Harry, 38, he and William, 40, 'talked about' the idea that their mother had not died in the 1997 Paris car crash that saved her life, but had instead decided to 'disappear for a time' - with the Duke of Sussex explaining that they believed it was 'all part of a plan'. 'For a long time, I just refused to accept that she was... she was gone,' he told 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper in an explosive new interview. 'Um, part of, you know, she would never do this to us, but also part of, maybe this is all part of a plan. '[I believed she had disappeared] for a time, and then that she would call us and that we would go and join her, yeah.' Prince Harry has revealed that both he and his brother William refused to accept that their mother Princess Diana was dead - and instead became convinced that she'd just 'disappeared' According to Harry, 38, he and his brother discussed the idea that their mother's death had been staged as part of a wider 'plan', with both believing she would one day return to them Harry - who also wrote about this in his bombshell new memoir Spare - added to Cooper that his brother 'had similar thoughts', saying: 'William and I talked about it as well. He had similar thoughts.' He admitted that he kept this belief alive for 'many, many years', adding that he 'had huge amounts of hope' that his mother would one day return to be with her children - until he ultimately demanded that he be given access to the police report about her death, which contained graphic images of the scene of her crash. According to Harry, he wanted to see these images because they provided 'proof' that she had really gone. 'Proof that she was in the car,' he told Cooper when asked why he'd requested to see the report. 'Proof that she was injured. And proof that the very paparazzi that chased her into the tunnel were the ones that were taking photographs - photographs of her lying half dead on the back seat of the car.' In his explosive new book Spare, which was accidentally released several days early in Spain before its intended January 10 publication date, Harry writes at length about his struggle to come to terms with his mother's death - admitting in its pages that he has only ever been able to cry about the loss on one occasion: her burial. In his explosive new book Spare, Harry reveals that he demanded to see the police report about his mother's fatal car crash, which included images of her wrecked vehicle The Duke (seen at his mother's funeral) said he wanted to see the photos because he needed 'proof' that Diana was really dead Speaking to Cooper, Harry further opened up about the 'guilt' that he felt over his inability to show emotion or shed a tear - telling the 60 Minutes host that he used to look at videos of his mother and think about memories of her in an attempt to try and cry. 'There was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years that I was never able to cry,' he said. 'So I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, but... in even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum. And sometimes I watched videos online.' Harry struggled with his grief for years - and says it wasn't until he began going to therapy and experimenting with psychedelic drugs that he truly came to terms with his mother's death. The Duke of Sussex told Cooper that psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997, saying that using psychedelics when he got older ultimately 'cleared away the idea' that he needed be sad to prove he 'missed' his mom. 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,' he said. 'But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. 'For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that ... I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.' Mattel, the toy manufacturer known for producing Barbie and Hot Wheels cars, is making a comeback with its new line of princess dolls representing 17 different Disney characters, including Anna and Elsa, Moana, and Cinderella. The release of the dolls marks sees Mattel becoming the belle of the ball once again and is something of a turnaround for the company, which has experienced financial difficulties and a lack of creative inspiration in recent years. The company's CEO, Ynon Kreiz, has implemented a host of corporate restructuring alongside other changes in order to breath new life in the company's designs and increase market share. As a result, sales are once again booming with Mattel seeing an increase in net sales and a swing from a $343 million loss in 2017 to a $730 million profit in 2021. Toy manufacturer Mattel, best known for making Barbie, has announced a new line of princess dolls representing 17 different Disney characters The company's CEO, Ynon Kreiz, has implemented a host of corporate restructuring alongside other changes in order to breath new life in the company's designs and increase market share The company's share price has been hovering around $20, less than half of its 2013 high, but it has been profitable in the first three quarters of 2022. Mattel's return to the production and sale of Disney princess dolls comes nearly a decade after losing the license to rival company Hasbro. Mattel had been the Disney dollmaker since the 1990s but it lost the franchise after developing its own line of dolls that saw an overlap with Disney's characters. The company had a relationship with the House of Mouse for 70 years starting out with The Mickey Mouse Club TV in the 1950s. But when Barbie sales began dwindling from 2012, Disney felt overlooked and Mattel appeared to focus more attention on their best-known product leading to Disney dumping them. Mattel had worked with Disney since 1955 and after the latter decided to sell dolls depicting Jasmine, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and co. under the brand Disney Princess in 2000, sales soared. The final straw came in 2013 when Mattel introduced Ever After High, a line of dolls to rival the Disney Princess brand. Designed to be the teenage daughters of characters like Cinderalla and Little Red Riding Good, the company did not have to pay licensing fees to Disney as the figures were based on fairy tale characters. Meanwhile, Hasbro was approached when Disney was looking for a new dollmaker to portray the Princesses as heroines as opposed to damsels. Their shared vision saw each Princess seem more like an individual character with slightly different heights and waist sizes and features modeled on their animated versions - rather than identical Barbie-ish figurine with painted-on faces and different color dresses. But now, in 2023, Mattel appears to have finally got the message. The company is once again on the up with new toy lines being launched together and collaborations with other fine-art creators. It is also broadening the presence of its toy brands, helped by the creation of films and live events - all in an effort to increase market share and broaden the appeal of their toy catalog. Aurora, Ariel, Pocahontas, Rapunzel, Tiana, Snow White, Belle, Jasmine, Merida, Mulan, Moana, Cinderella and Raya are all part of the new line up of Mattel/Disney dolls Kreiz is a former television-studio executive who briefly worked for Disney before becoming CEO in 2018. 'You would come into this building and you wouldn't think it was a toy company. It felt like an insurance company in the Midwest,' Kreiz told the Wall Street Journal. After taking on the role, Kreiz hired Robbie Brenner, a the producer behind Oscar-nominated film Dallas Buyers Club to head up a new film unit. Now Mattel is helping to produce hit films with links back to its toy brands. Progress has been fast with 15 feature films in some stage of development, including a Barbie film due out this summer. Mattel ventured further into monster trucks and race tracks for its Hot Wheels cars including radio-controlled cars. It was an area of the toy market where Mattel had little experience and involvement previously The return of Disney's partnership with Mattel comes after the company started to ask itself, 'Are we making good toys?' 'We've shifted from being a toy company that is manufacturing items to an intellectual- property company that is managing franchises,' Kreiz explains. 'When we lost Disney Princess, there was a fixation on the numbersthe culture was being driven by spreadsheets and checklists and how to grow through cost-cutting,' Ted Wu, head of design for Mattel's vehicles, to WSJ. 'We weren't really asking ourselves, "Are we making good toys?"' Mattel ventured further into monster trucks and race tracks for its Hot Wheels cars including radio-controlled cars. It was an area of the toy market where Mattel had little experience and involvement previously. But when Mattel was dumped by Disney, the share price fell by 25 percent and saw three CEOs come and go. Mattel's return to the production and sale of Disney princess dolls comes nearly a decade after losing the license to rival company Hasbro. Pictured, a girl is seen with the Moana doll The new dolls are part of a broader effort to revive the design mojo at the company. Rapunzel doll is picture here, right For the new line of Disney princess dolls, Mattel aimed to make the design more closely resemble how children imagined the characters should look, based on feedback from focus groups. To achieve this, designers digitally sculpted features and hand-painted faces on prototypes that were based on the characters' appearance in films and used new knitted fibers for a more diverse range of hair types. Some of the new dolls from Mattel come in packaging that can be cut out and turned into background objects, such as a shell throne from The Little Mermaid, enhancing play scenarios for children. The return of the Disney princesses was a major triumph for Mattel. In recent years, the company has held 'Big Ideas' showcases, where employees can pitch new toy ideas to senior executives. The 'color reveal' dolls from the Barbie line, which change color when submerged in water, were developed after Mattel employees were able to suggest ideas to senior executives The 'color reveal' dolls from the Barbie line, which change color when submerged in water, were developed through such a process. Additionally, the Chief Operating Officer, Richard Dickson, has launched Mattel Creations, which produces higher-priced, limited edition collectors' versions of toys from various product lines, often in collaboration with artists. Kreiz closed factories and significantly reduced the number of employees, from 13,500 to 8,500. He also reorganized the company's creative divisions, grouping them into teams that design dolls, vehicles, and toys for young children in order to facilitate the sharing of ideas. Despite such efforts, the company is still working to reach the annual sales of over $6 billion that it regularly achieved earlier in the decade. The sister of murdered University of Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves has shared her relief that a suspect is finally in custody. Speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with NewsNation Sunday night, Alivea said she and her family felt 'the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders' when they heard of Bryan Kohberger's arrest in Pennsylvania and read the damning evidence against him. Kohberger, 28, is charged with the quadruple homicides of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, as well as her friends Xana Kernodle, 20, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Madison Mogen, 21, who were all found dead of stab wounds in their off-campus home. An affidavit released on Thursday described how he allegedly stalked the victims for weeks before killing them, in a move that Alivea called 'true evil.' Kohberger now remains in the local jail after he was denied bail late last week. He faces the death penalty if he is found guilty of the brutal slayings. Alivea Goncalves Stevnson, left, is the older sister of Kaylee Goncalves, center, one of the four University of Idaho students murdered in her off-campus housing on November 13. They are pictured with Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee's best friend who was also killed Alivea said in the interview Sunday night how her and her family had 'presumed innocence' until they read a damning affidavit released late last week, which details how police in Moscow, Idaho were able to track down Kohberger. She told Senior National Correspondent Brian Entin how she now thinks Moscow Police have developed a solid case against the suspected killer. 'I was able to kind of read that and process that, and then you not only have a name and a face, but the beginnings of a case against him,' Alivea said. She added: 'The relief that we all felt at having a suspect in custody, it was like, I can't even describe, it was like the weight of the world's been lifted off our shoulders.' But when reading the affidavit describing the days and weeks leading up to her sister's untimely death, Alivea said she could not help but remember the text conversations she had with her sister that day and how normal everything seemed. 'To be honest, think that was the hardest part of this was to sit back and look at the totality of this,' she said. 'When my sister was texting me about a new egg bites recipe, he was planning his next visit to the home, and that's really difficult. 'It's really difficult not to do more, not to have known more, but it's just the first step. A lot more evidence will come out, and I'm confident Moscow Police Department [and] Idaho State Police have the right person, and I thank them from the very bottom of my heart. Alivea continued to say that neither she nor Kaylee had any idea that 'true evil was genuinely watching them' as Kohberger allegedly returned to the house at least 12 times leading up to the slaying. He would then return to the home just hours after the four University of Idaho students were killed, suggesting to Alivea that he wanted to return to the scene to see if a 'circus' had developed yet. Bryan Kohberger, 28, has been arrested in connection with the quadruple homicide Alivea asked viewers to continue sharing their tips linking Kohberger to the victims Based on that information, Alivea suggested Kohberger may have been contributing on online forums speculating about the quadruple homicide. 'I don't think that he would have been able to refrain from engaging with the online community,' she said, as she asked Internet sleuths to continue sending her information connecting Kohberger, who was studying criminology at the University of Washington, to the four University of Idaho students. Alivea added: 'It's really difficult not to wish you could've done more.' But now, Alivea said, her family would like to set up a foundation in Kaylee and her best friend Maddie's name. She seemed close with both of them, as they both appeared in her wedding. Alivea said she could remember what she and her sister were texting each other about when Bryan Kohberger allegedly stalked her. The sisters are pictured here in 2010 The affidavit released last week recounts in brutal detail the moments Moscow Police Officer Brett Payne entered the home on King Road and found the four college students brutally stabbed to death. He goes onto describe how the Moscow Police tracked down Kohberger, who lived eight miles from the murder scene, and drove the white Hyundai Elantra cops were looking to trace. With the help of genetic genealogy, cell phone data, CCTV footage, and evidence left at the crime scene, they were able to hunt down their suspect and charge him with the quadruple murder. Kohberger was ultimately arrested by the Pennsylvania State Police at a home in Albrightsville, a small town in the heart of the Poconos Mountains on December 30 more than 2,000 miles from where the gruesome killings took place. Authorities say that following the November 13 murders, Kohberger and his father, Michael, drove 2,500 miles in a white Hyundai Elantra from Idaho to Pennsylvania. Kohberger is accused of murdering Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on November 13 in the quiet, college town of Moscow, Idaho On November 29, police obtained surveillance footage from the parking lot of Kohberger's apartment building, some 10 miles from the murder scene, in Pullman, Washington State. Moscow Police officers visited the parking lot to obtain a license plate for the vehicle - as it matched the description of the car they saw on footage the night the students were killed. They ran a search, and found multiple incidents in which the car and its owner - Bryan Kohberger - had been pulled over multiple times in the past. With Kohberger's name, police honed in on him and reviewed historic surveillance camera footage, along with phone records, going back several months. Then following their initial suspicions, Kohberger was pulled over over twice as he passed through Indiana on December 15 - once for speeding and the other for following a car ahead too closely. Cellphone tower data also seemed to link him to the crime scene - as well as a single male DNA left on a knife sheath next to two of the dead victims at the home in Moscow, Idaho. Former friends of Kohberger's have since detailed how he was bullied and dropped 100 pounds in his senior year of high school before taking up hard drugs. Casey Arntz, who was friends with Kohberger, has revealed what he was like at school Kohberger lost 100 pounds in high school, and was previously bullied, according to his former friends Two of his high school friends, Casey Arntz and Bree, who asked to have her last name kept private, said Kohberger shed nearly 100 pounds in his senior year after being the brunt of his classmates' jokes - which was when people noticed a switch in him. Arntz told CBS' 48 Hours: 'He was rail thin. It was after that weight loss that a lot of people noticed a huge switch.' After losing the weight, it was Kohberger who started bullying Arntz' brother - putting him in chokeholds and getting physically aggressive with him. Bree said that 'self-destructive' Kohberger started also using heroin. She added: 'You just saw him becoming more self-destructive. He really stayed secluded.' In the years after high school, the suspect seemed to be getting his life back on track, and would tell Bree that he was 'going to be better.' She revealed: 'He was telling me that he wanted to get sober, that he was getting sober. And he wanted to let me know, 'I'm gonna do better. I'm gonna be better.'' Bree (pictured) said that 'self-destructive' Kohberger started also using heroin. She added: 'You just saw him becoming more self-destructive. He really stayed secluded' Kohberger is pictured smiling in court on January 5, 2022 after being denied bail Alivea Goncalves told News Nation about the relief she and her family felt at having a suspect in custody in an interview Sunday night Both of the women last saw Kohberger at a friend's wedding in 2017 - where they said he looked 'good' and seemed to have a new lease of life. Arntz said: 'I gave him a hug and I said, 'You look so good. I'm so proud of you.'' And Bree said that his new focus on his criminology studies: 'His goal was just to change the world for the good around him. He wanted to do something that impacted people in a good way. 'People were not his strong suit. she added, 'And I think through his criminology studies, he was really trying to understand humans and trying and understand himself.' Speaking about Kohberger allegedly being the Idaho killer, Arntz said: 'I honestly think he did it because he wants to see if he can get away with it. Where did it go wrong? What happenedwhy didnt I see it?' Transgender people in Scotland may need to apply for a UK gender recognition certificate if they wish to be recognised in England and Wales. A controversial new law passed by the Scottish Parliament states that people will no longer need a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to legally change their gender and be given a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). It will also lower the minimum age for applicants from 18 to 16 and drop the time required for an applicant to live in their acquired gender from two years to three months, although with a subsequent, three-month reflection period. But UK government sources told The Times that if a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria is not required then Scotland would no longer be recognised by the rest of the UK as having a rigorous process for changing gender. A consequence of this would mean that people issued with a Scottish GRC would also have to apply for a UK certificate for it to be recognised south of the border. The UK government may remove Scotland from a list of countries whose gender certificates are automatically recognised, forcing transgender people to apply for a UK version A government source said the UK may no longer recognise Scotland's GRC if they continue to not require a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to legally change their gender The UK government currently has a list of countries whose GRCs meet sufficient checks and balances for people who want to change their legal gender. Certificates from countries on the list are automatically recognised in the UK, but those not on the list have to apply for a UK certificate. Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch launched a review to 'update the list' following the Scottish parliament passing the gender bill last month. A UK government source told The Times: 'This is just a procedural change and it was envisaged in the 2004 act. It is not a new measure, it was done in 2011 and we are updating it for 2023. 'We are not discriminating against people from foreign countries with GRCs. If they arrive in this country with one from a country that has a less rigorous system than the UK, we're saying you should apply for a UK GRC, which is readily available.' In 2011 Montenegro and Latvia were removed from the list of approved countries. It follows fears of 'gender tourism' to Scotland from other parts of the UK where the law has not been changed. It has been suggested a male-born transgender woman could travel to Scotland to have their gender legally changed, then use their new official status to access female-only spaces in other nations. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has not ruled out the UK Government trying to prevent the bill passing into law It is believed that the legislation could make intimate same-sex care more difficult to guarantee, as there could be an increase in the number of health workers who have changed their gender. In single sex schools, where polices on gender are decided independently, there are fears that they will be pressured to amend their admission rules. The age clause of the legislation, allowing people to change gender from 16 to 18, means that more sixth formers could legally change their gender and request a place at a single sex school. Government sources have previously told The Times they feared the new law could be used to allow biologically male Scottish prisoners in English jails to demand to be placed in women's prisons. The Government may now be gearing up to block the legislation from being enshrined into law. Under the Scotland Act, the UK Government can challenge devolved legislation if it feels it impacts on national security or reserved matters. Prince Harry has taken a dig at the Australian gossip magazine that broke a worldwide media embargo and forced his withdrawal from Afghanistan in his memoir, Spare. The Duke of Sussex's first deployment to Afghanistan was cut short in February 2008 after New Idea revealed he was in Helmand Province fighting the Taliban. That original report in the magazine was followed up in the United States by Matt Drudge's news website the Drudge Report. Harry recalls in his new memoir Spare the moment his commanding officer, who he calls only 'Colonel Ed', told him how a media embargo over his posting had been breached on the other side of the world. Prince Harry has blamed New Idea and an American reporter for sharing a story published in an 'inconsequential' Australian magazine about his presence in Afghanistan which forced his withdrawal from the warzone. He is pictured in Helmand Province in February 2008 The Duke of Sussex's first deployment to Afghanistan was cut short in February 2008 after celebrity gossip magazine New Idea revealed he was in Helmand Province fighting the Taliban. He is pictured outside a Scottish service to honour those killed in Afghanistan in June 2008 'An Australian magazine had picked up the story and told everyone that I was in Afghanistan,' he writes. 'The magazine was inconsequential, so at first no one had noticed the story, until some [journalist] in the US read the article, posted it on his c***py website, and the trackers got hold of it.' Harry writes that Colonel Ed apologised that he would have to be evacuated and the young prince almost begged to stay but knew he could not for the safety of those around him. 'Now that the Lebanese knew that I was in the country, and roughly where, they would use all their efforts to eliminate me,' he writes. Harry recalls in his new memoir Spare the moment his commanding officer, who he calls only 'Colonel Ed', told him how a media embargo over his posting had been breached on the other side of the world. Harry is pictured with wife Meghan After shaking Colonel Ed's hand, Harry left his tent, gathered his belongings and said goodbye to some of his comrades. He then boarded a Chinook helicopter and an hour later was in Kandahar. The Ministry of Defence explained it was too dangerous for the 23-year-old to complete the last month of his 14-week rotation. 'This decision has been taken primarily on the basis that the worldwide media coverage of Prince Harry in could impact on the security of those who are deployed there, as well as the risks to him as an individual soldier,' it said in a statement. New Idea later issued an apology for breaching the media blackout over Harry's presence in Afghanistan. 'We regret this serious lapse of judgment,' its publisher said. 'We sincerely apologise to all our readers, to the servicemen whose lives are at constant risk while serving at home and abroad and to their families and loved ones.' 'The magazine was inconsequential, so at first no one had noticed the story, until some a**hole in the US read the article, posted it on his c***py website, and the trackers got hold of it,' ' Harry writes in Spare. The prince is pictured manning a machinegun in January 2008 Harry, who returned to Afghanistan flying Apache attack helicopters in 2012, has disclosed in Spare he killed 25 Taliban during that second tour. He has been widely criticised by former soldiers for revealing the number of insurgents he killed, who he described as 'chess pieces removed from the board'. During a trip to Australian in June 2017, Harry said he had felt 'guilt' at being evacuated from Afghanistan due to New Idea revealing where he had been posted. 'I could no longer stay with my soldiers as it would have put them at greater risk,' he said in Sydney at the time. 'It was a decision over which I had no control, but the guilt of having to leave my guys behind was something I felt hard to swallow as anyone who has served would understand. 'It was that flight home from Afghanistan that put me on the path to create the Invictus Games.' After shaking Colonel Ed's hand, Harry left his tent, gathered his belongings and said goodbye to his comrades. He then boarded a Chinook helicopter and an hour later was in Kandahar. Harry is pictured sitting on his camp bed at a forward operating base in January 2008 It was not until he prepared to board that plane in Kandahar that Harry realised for the first time the devastation the conflict was causing. 'While we waited to board, a coffin of a young Danish soldier was put on the plane, and three soldiers in induced comas, all three wrapped in plastic, some with missing limbs and tubes coming out everywhere,' he said. 'The sacrifices we ask our men and women to make came home so powerfully to me in those moments.' On a trip to the Warrior Games in the United States in 2013, Harry saw how sport could help servicemen and women who had been physically or psychologically injured by war. He was inspired by that visit and the Invictus Games was born. Shoppers have evacuated a West Australian Kmart after a pile of books in the store became engulfed in flames. Firefighters were called to the store in Maddington, in Perth's south-east, at about 8.45am on Monday. Customers were ordered to leave the Kmart as firefighters extinguished the blaze which erupted after a pile of books in the back of the storeroom caught alight. It's understood the store did not suffer any significant damage and the area was deemed safe by 10am. Firefighters were called to the store in Maddington, in Perth 's south-east at about 8.45am on Monday after a pile of books in the back caught on fire A Kmart spokesperson confirmed the store had been evacuated and will remain closed while fire services manage on site. 'It is likely to reopen to customers over the next few hours,' a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. Police also attended the scene on Monday morning. The left-wing Observer newspaper has come under fire for mistakenly describing a disgraced Labour politician as a Tory MP. John Stonehouse, the 1970s minister who tried to fake his own death and is the subject of a new ITV drama, formed the basis of a column this weekend linking his scandals to problems in todays Conservative Party. Catherine Bennetts article was on The Guardians website under a headline stating that he had paved the way for todays sleazy Tory MPs. It said his rackety life and faked death now seem almost quaint compared with the brazenness of members of his party today and was also in print. But the MP was in Harold Wilsons Labour government. Catherine Bennetts article was on The Guardians website under a headline stating that John Stonehouse had paved the way for todays sleazy Tory MPs Amid a flurry of corrections on social media, the column was amended online to say Stonehouse paved the way for all todays sleazy members. The scandal-hit politician is portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen in ITVs dramatization of the story, The Real Stonehouse, which documents his fall from grace. Gossip columnist for The Spectator magazine, Steerpike, said: You might have thought that, while watching the series, claims about Soviet contacts and prostitutes in Czechoslovakia might have given Bennett and her Observer colleagues pause for thought. John Stonehouse, the 1970s minister who tried to fake his own death is the subject of a new ITV drama (Pictured: Matthew Macfadyen in ITVs dramatization of the story, The Real Stonehouse) Clearly not. A correction at the bottom of the online version of Catherine Bennetts article states: The headline and subheading of this article were amended on January 7, 2023 because in an early version they suggested John Stonehouse was a Tory MP. The columnist did not describe Stonehouse as a Tory, nor misunderstand his party affiliation, but the detail that he was a Labour politician has also been added to avoid any possible confusion. The Duke of Sussex has said he is 'not texting' his brother and described the Queen Consort as 'the villain' in an incendiary interview in the US. Speaking with 60 Minutes' Anderson Cooper, Harry said Camilla's willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her 'dangerous' and there would be 'bodies left in the street because of that'. On Sunday, the duke also spoke with ITV presenter Tom Bradby, where he denied branding the royals racist as he accused his family of 'getting into bed with the devil'. But speaking on 60 minutes with Anderson Cooper, Harry spoke about the royal family's mistrust of his wife Meghan Markle allegedly sparked by her being 'American, an actress, divorced, black', before joking: 'She must be a witch'. The Duke of Sussex revealed that he is not texting his brother, Prince William Harry stated that he has not spoken with his father, King Charles, 'for quite a while' and referred to the Queen Consort, Camilla, as 'the villain' Cooper put it to the duke that his family dynamic was like 'Game of Thrones without dragons', but Harry replied: 'I don't watch Game of Thrones but there's definitely dragons and that's again the third party that is the British press.' During the interview, the presenter said Harry had written how he had believed his mother was still alive until the age of 23, when he visited Paris for the first time. Harry also said he was 'not invited' onboard a plane taking other members of the royal family to Balmoral Castle, ahead of the Queen's death. Speaking about his relationship with his brother, the Prince of Wales, and his father, the King, Harry said he is currently 'not texting' William, and that he has not spoken to his father for 'quite a while'. 'Do you speak to William now, do you text?' Anderson Cooper asked him. 'Currently, no, but I look forward to us being able to find peace,' Harry replied. Harry stated that he and Prince William are currently not in contact with one another Asked how long it had been since he had spoken to Charles, he said: 'We haven't spoken for quite a while, no, not recently.' Questioned on what his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, would think of his fractured relationship with his brother, Harry said: 'I think she [Princess Diana] would be sad that it is where it is now. 'I believe that she would want reconciliation. And I hope that's what's achievable.' When asked if he could see himself returning as a full-time member of the royal family, Harry replied: 'I can't see that happening.' On Sunday, in his first primetime television interview promoting his controversial memoir, Harry also criticized 'family members' for a 'really horrible reaction' on the day the Queen died, with leakings and briefings. When asked about the possibility of returning as a full-time member of the royal family, Harry replied, 'I can't see that happening.' Pictured, Harry speaking with CBS 60 Minutes I don't watch Game of Thrones but there's definitely dragons Duke of Sussex He labelled royals 'complicit' in the 'pain and suffering' the Duchess of Sussex faced, and told ITV's Bradby he was speaking out in his memoir because 'silence only allows the abuser to abuse'. Harry lambasted the British press throughout the sit-down interview on Sunday night, venting his frustration at the 'conflict' he accused the media of creating, but saying his family had a part in this. He also told Bradby he loved his father and brother, but said: 'At the moment, I don't recognize them, as much as they probably don't recognize me.' He added: 'Nothing of what I've done in this book or otherwise has ever been any intention to harm them or hurt them. The Queen Consort was described as a 'villain' by Harry in an interview with CBS. The pair are pictured in 2005 'The truth is something that I need to rely on, and after many, many years of lies being told about me and my family, there comes a point where, you know, again, going back to the relationship between certain members of the family and the tabloid press, those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil, right, to rehabilitate their image.' Harry's book Spare, due out on Tuesday, has sparked a furore over his claims that William physically attacked him, while his admission he killed 25 Taliban members during the Afghanistan war generated protests in Helmand province over the weekend. In shock remarks, Harry denied he accused the royal family of racism in his Oprah interview, when Meghan revealed an unnamed family member raised concerns about how dark their unborn son's skin would be. 'No I didn'tthe British press said thatdid Meghan ever mention that they're racist?There was concern about his skin colour,' the duke said. Bradby, appearing taken aback, asked: 'Wouldn't you describe that as essentially racist?' Harry replied: 'I wouldn't, not having lived within that family.' He added: 'Going back to the difference between what my understanding is because of my own experience, the difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different.' The claims in March 2021 left Oprah open-mouthed with shock and plunged the monarchy into crisis as it faced accusations of racism, but Harry again refused to name the royal allegedly involved. Those certain members have decided to get in the bed with the devil, right, to rehabilitate their image Duke of Sussex Harry also backed the Queen's former lady in waiting Lady Susan Hussey who quit an honorary role after asking a black British domestic violence campaigner where she really came from. 'Meghan and I love Susan HusseyShe never meant any harm at all,' he said. Accusing his family of a having a role in Meghan's distress, Harry said: 'At that time I didn't fully understand how much or how complicit the family were in that pain and suffering that was happening to my wife, and the one group of people that could've helped or stopped this from happening were the very people that were, that were encouraging it to happen.' Harry claimed that Camilla's relationships with the British press made her 'dangerous' stating that there could be 'bodies left in the street because of that'. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are pictured in June 2022 As Bradby outlined Harry's criticisms of his father including that the duke's interests are 'sacrificed to his interests, certainly when it comes to the press', the duke said he understood the need to have that relationship with the tabloid press but did not agree with it. He said there had been 'incredibly hurtful' decisions, adding: 'And they, and it continues. It hasn't stopped. It's continuing the whole, the whole way through.' Harry's tell-all tales in his book include recounting how he took cocaine and magic mushrooms, and lost his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a busy pub, with the stories have dominating the headlines for days. Harry also revealed how he felt 'slightly isolated' and different from his family in his younger years following the death of his mother, but shared joyful times with his great-grandmother the Queen Mother. Two more interviews are set to be broadcast, with Michael Strahan of Good Morning America on Monday and Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on CBS on Wednesday morning UK time. Julie Bishop has shown she can still call on the political armoury of a sharp comeback and a thick skin when she needs to. Ms Bishop, 66, swatted away critics on Monday who accused her of using a filter to blur and soften her features in a video posted to her Instagram, where she has promised a daily vlog of her famous morning runs. When an anonymous commenter from a private account wrote 'take the filter off though', the former foreign affairs minister and long-serving federal Liberal deputy leader immediately shot back. Julie Bishop , 66, has been accused of changing her appearance with a filter in a video she posted of herself exercising over the weekend on Instagram 'May I see your posts?' Ms Bishop replied. Ms Bishop previously batted back an accusation she was using a filter with a denial. 'Are you using a filter,' a commenter asked under the image, which gave Ms Bishop's features a soft appearance. Ms Bishop replied that if she was, 'I'd get rid of the mascara dripping under my eyes'. 'You look so great I didn't even notice the mascara lol,' the questioner replied with a laughing emoji. 'Rats! Shouldnt have mentioned it,' Ms Bishop said. 'Julie learns how to use face enhancing filters - finally,' another person posted. 'Take the filter off though', another follower commented. Ms Bishop hit back at this user by pointing out that they were hiding behind a private account 'Are you using a filter?' one curious fan commented. Julie seemingly denied that she'd edited her complexion by commenting: 'If I were I'd get rid of the mascara dripping under my eyes!' Ms Bishop replied to this with a laughing emoji. The overwhelming response to Ms Bishop's post was positive. 'Keep up the posts, don't worry about what others think,' one wrote on Ms Bishop's feed. The most recent video posted on Ms Bishop's Instagram appears to show her features less rounded than the immediately preceding one In a more recent post, Ms Bishop uploaded a video that appeared to be in sharper focus than the preceding one, with her features less rounded and more lines apparent. Ms Bishop told the camera she was running '100 steps up, 100 steps down, the DNA Tower, double-helix lookout in Perth's Kings Park. In her caption Ms Bishop said climbing the DNA-strand themed tower 'seemed appropriate for my run this morning - the blueprint of life'. 'What a brilliant way to start the day,' Ms Bishop says in the video. Ms Bshop responded with amusement to another commenting that she is 'finally' using Instagram filters Again the responses are overwhelmingly positive. 'Well done, changing it up with stairs, they can be brutal at times,' one commenter notes. Ms Bishop's most recent running feat was to tackle the 100-step DNA Tower (pictured) in Perth's Kings Park In December, Ms Bishop attracted headlines after showing off her yoga skills with a headstand on Cottesloe Beach in the background of a live cross, surprising a Studio 10 reporter. 'I was relatively fit but I was challenged by many of the poses,' she previously told Body and Soul. 'Over time, I came to enjoy the experience and yoga has become part of my life.' Ms Bishop said on her latest Instagram post that she does yoga 'a few times a week'. The popular former federal politician now runs a consulting business, Julie Bishop and Partners. Republican Nancy Mace on Sunday criticized her fellow GOP member Matt Gaetz for allegedly fundraising off of newly-elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's votes, calling the Florida lawmaker a "fraud." Mace also said that she was "on the fence" about supporting a rules package that will govern the way that the House operates under the control of the Republican Party. She cited the backroom-deal making that happened with a group of conservatives who initially fought against McCarthy's speakership bid. Nancy Mace Calls Matt Gaetz a 'Fraud' While she said that she liked the package for it being the most open, fair, and fiscally conservative package that they have gotten in the last three decades. However, she said that she does not support people trying to get a deal done in private in order to get a vote. Mace argued that this kind of behavior was exactly what former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did and said that it should not be what the GOP does. It was the only reason she gave for being on the fence with the rules package vote, as per CBS News. Now, the Republican Party controls 222 seats in the House for the 118th Congress, which is a narrow margin that only allows up to four defections in order for legislation to pass without Democratic support. During an interview on Sunday, GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas reiterated that he planned to oppose the rules package when it comes up for a vote on Monday. This leaves McCarthy and his leadership team with little room for error if they want the legislation to pass, particularly if Mace also ends up opposing the package. The measure includes some of the concessions that the new House speaker made in order to win enough votes from his Republican colleagues after a strenuous voting process. McCarthy was only able to secure sufficient support on the 15th ballot late Friday night after more than four days of being in a deadlock. Read Also: Federal Court Rules South Carolina Congressional District as Racial Gerrymandering, Forcing Redrawing of Maps Concessions for House Speaker Vote According to The Hill, the reason that Mace called Gaetz a fraud is that every time he voted against McCarthy last week, he sent out a fundraising email. She added that what the American people witnessed last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions. Gaetz was among a group of 20 holdouts who prevented McCarthy from being elected the House speaker for 14 rounds of voting. The Florida lawmaker was also one of the six individuals who voted "present" in a 15th round of voting that was held early Saturday. One of Gaetz' fundraising emails read that he had no regrets about casting his vote on the House floor against McCarthy as House speaker. On the other hand, Mace sharply criticized Gaetz and other Republicans who were demanding concessions from McCarthy. Mace said that she got significant heartburn over the deal-making that she argued was not done transparently. She added that nobody knew what they got or did not get because it has not been seen yet, barring anyone from having any idea of what promises were made, Yahoo News reported. Related Article: Kevin McCarthy Finally Elected as Speaker After Historic US House Debacle; Here's What Happened @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Prince Harry has boldly claimed that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the brutal contents of his bombshell memoir - despite the book, and the various TV interviews the Duke has done to promote it, containing several very damaging attacks on the royals. The 38-year-old father-of-two defended his decision to air his grievances about his family so publicly during a 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper on Sunday - which aired just over an hour after Harry gave a near-identical one-on-one chat to British TV channel ITV. When asked by Cooper about a particularly 'cutting' passage in his book in which he details his brother William's 'alarming baldness' and his 'famous resemblance' to their mother Princess Diana - which the Duke wrote was 'fading with time, with age' - Harry claimed he saw nothing 'cutting' about that passage, nor any other in the memoir. 'I dont see it as cutting at all,' Harry fired back. Prince Harry insists that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the contents of his bombshell new memoir Spare - claiming he simply wanted to tell his 'truth' During an interview with 60 Minutes, Harry said that he had no choice but to publicly air his grievances about the royals because when he has done so privately, stories have been 'leaked' 'Um, you know, my brother and I love each other. I love him deeply. There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years.' The Duke went on to insist that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the publication of the book, however he claimed that he felt the need to share his story in such a public manner in order to 'squash the idea' that Meghan 'was the one that destroyed' his relationship with his brother. 'None of anything that Ive written, anything Ive included is ever intended to hurt my family,' he claimed. 'But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers.' Prince Harry's suggestion that he 'never intended' to cause his family upset seems very much at odds with the contents of his explosive book - which was accidentally released in Spain before the weekend, days ahead of its planned January 10 publication. The memoir's early release revealed a laundry list of damaging claims and accusations made by the Duke against his family - with Cooper himself noting in the introduction to his interview that it 'is anything but spare in its unflattering portrayal of the royal family'. Attacks rain down in every chapter of the book, from accusations that his brother assaulted him to claims that William and their father Charles confronted him after Prince Philip's funeral Cooper referenced one particularly 'cutting' passage in which Harry describes William's 'alarming baldness', however the Duke retorted: 'I don't see it as cutting at all' Attacks rain down in every chapter: from accusations that his brother assaulted him in a row over Meghan to claims that William and Charles confronted Harry after Prince Philip's funeral and were 'looking for a fight'. Harry also alleges that William and Kate his once adored sister-in-law who is now painted as cold and unfriendly urged him to wear his infamous Nazi costume. The prince, who quit as a working royal and moved to California with Meghan in a quest for greater privacy, recalls in agonizing detail dozens of family arguments and intimate conversations. He also goes on to reveal his father's medical ailments and the fact the King still carries around his favorite teddy bear. However, according to Harry, none of this was meant to 'hurt' his family - with the Prince going on to claim to Cooper that that he had no choice but to hit out at the royal family in such a public manner - because it is the only 'language that perhaps they understand', alleging that he had tried to have conversations 'privately' but that 'every time... there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife'. He continued: 'You know, the family motto is "never complain, never explain", but it's just a motto and it doesn't really hold...' When asked by Cooper whether there had been 'a lot of complaining and a lot of explaining through leaks,' Harry claimed: 'Through leaks. They will feed or have a conversation with the correspondent and that correspondent will literally be spoon fed information and write the story. Shortly before his 60 Minutes interview aired, the Duke launched another attack on his family in a sit-down with British ITV journalist Tom Bradby, in which he likened the royals to 'abusers' 'And at the bottom of it, they will say that they've reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment. But the whole story is Buckingham Palace commenting.' Repeating the attacks he and Meghan made against the royals in their recent Netflix docuseries, the Duke said the couple has been 'betrayed' repeatedly by his family, telling Cooper: 'When we're being told for the last six years, "We can't put a statement out to protect you," but you do it for other members of the family, there comes a point where silence is betrayal.' Taking another swipe at his family - and what he claims is the royals' persistent 'leaking' of stories to the press - Harry said that he would rather speak out himself than voice his complaints about the Monarchy through 'someone else' or an 'unnamed source'. 'So now, trying to speak a language that perhaps they understand, I will sit here and speak truth to you with the words that come out of my mouth, rather than using someone else, an unnamed source, to feed in lies or a narrative to a tabloid media that literally radicalizes its readers to then potentially cause harm to my family, my wife, my kids,' he said. Ironically, even as Harry was defending the bombshells included in his memoir, he was - at the same time - launching further attacks on his family, at one point describing Queen Consort Camilla as a 'villain' who he considered to be 'dangerous'. Shortly before his interview on 60 Minutes aired, the Duke launched another extraordinary attack on his family in a sit-down with British ITV journalist Tom Bradby, in which he likened the royals to 'abusers' and suggested the Monarchy helped to 'trash' his and Meghan's reputations. The owner of a robot dog is offering a $500 reward to find a woman who kicked it square in the 'front sensors' while it was in the middle of building a 3D map of Brisbane. Mark Trueno shared a video of the unknown woman booting his pet robodog, called Stampy, as it trotted down a Fortitude Valley street in Brisbane's CBD on Sunday night. The woman, dressed in white and wearing heavy boots, was filmed kicking the robot before her friend then thew his arms up, crouched down and patted it. 'Her friend in the video was very apologetic for her behaviour and I was willing to let it slide before after analysing the damage,' Mr Trueno said. The owner of robot dog Stampy (pictured) is offering a cash reward to find the person who kicked it square in the 'front sensors' The woman lashed out at the robodog as it trotted down a Brisbane street on Sunday night 'The forward facing depth perception stereoscopic cameras, ultrasonic distance measurement sensors and led array are no longer functional. After examining the onboard video, it is pretty clear this person thought it was funny.' Mr Trueno said he was open to discussing an agreement with the woman to cover the cost of damages. The model of robot is a Go1 made by Unitree which retails for about $3,900 Australian dollars plus another $1,400 to have it shipped into the country. 'Considering it probably costs more than her own car, it's just blatant disregard for other people's property,' Mr Trueno said. 'I just don't understand what inspires someone to do that. Just because they've never seen one before.' Her friend seemed less-than-impressed with the uncalled for aggression towards the robot He then crouched down and patted the $3,900 robot before it continued on its way He estimated there was 'probably a couple of grand damage' to the robot. Commenters on the video said they hoped Mr Trueno was able to recover at least some of the cost of repair. 'So unnecessary and so difficult to fix these things because it's a niche market and everything is custom,' one person said. 'She kind of limped away like she hurt her foot,' added another. 'She'd be first on the list when the robots take over,' a third joked. 'Robot was headed straight for her, it was self defence,' added a fourth. Mr Trueno said he is willing to discuss the damage expenses with the woman and not get the police involved Unitree Robotics is a Chinese start-up that is developing their robot dogs for the consumer market - as opposed to the more famous version created by US company Boston Dynamics, which are geared towards government uses. The Go1 is far smaller than Boston Dynamics model called Spot but looks and moves in a similar way - that some people have described as an unsettling 'uncanny valley' type spectacle. While Spot has been tested in policing, hospital and industrial situations, the more than $100,000 price tag puts it out of reach of most people. Unitree has, however, driven the price right down and is seeking to make the pet robots as common and as accepted as drones. A woman has died at a popular Sydney beach after suffering a medical episode. The 47-year-old woman was pulled from the water by three teen girls at Gordon's Bay, near Clovelly Beach, about 1.40pm on Monday afternoon. She was unable to be revived, a NSW Police statement said. The 47-year-old had been swimming when she suffered a medical episode, police said. Surf Lifesaving NSW said three young women - all aged under 16 - spotted the woman face down in the ocean. They managed to pull her onto the rocks and performed CPR. A woman has died at one of Sydney's most popular beaches after being pulled unconscious from the water at Gordon's Bay near Clovelly Beach NSW Police say the 47-year-old was swimming when she suffered a medical episode A rescue helicopter was seen at the site of the drowning as paramedics worked desperately to revive her Lifeguards attended on a jetski a short time later and took over CPR. After more than 30 minutes she was unable to be revived. Surf Lifesaving NSW Sydney Branch Duty Officer Ben Henman said the young women did an exceptional job. 'Three young girls pulled her in ... and they did a fantastic job under the circumstances,' Sydney Branch Duty Officer, Ben Hennan said. Mr Hennan said the woman was pulled onto the rocks about halfway between the Clovelly and Gordon's Bay access points. 'It was hard to navigate on foot, so having the lifeguards there meant we could get there quite quickly as their access was via the water. 'When NSW Ambulance arrived they utilised the Lucas Device (a mechanical CPR machine) on the patient but unfortunately, she was declared deceased on scene.' A witness said police arrived at the scene at about 1:30pm. 'There was a commotion in a cave down that way and then the police arrived and they brought someone higher up on the rocks and we saw them doing CPR,' Ellie Shephard said. 'I think they were doing CPR for like 15 minutes, 20 minutes and then they stopped after that and we were asked to come off the rocks.' Beachgoers gawked as the emergency unfolded before their eyes Police and paramedics scrambled over the rocks near Gordons Bay to assist the woman Monday's incident comes after it was revealed a 'staggering' 1200 rescues were completed in NSW by surf lifesavers over the Christmas and New Year period, the highest number recorded in the last five years. Lifesavers and lifeguards performed 56,470 preventive actions and were involved in 85 emergency incidents, another record in the past five years. It comes just days after an off-duty police officer died while trying to save his teenage son at an NSW Beach on New Year's Day. Peter Stone, 45, died at Bogola Beach near Narooma while trying to rescue his son from a rip. Lifesavers rushed to the unpatrolled beach in an inflatable rescue boat but he could not be revived despite CPR being performed. At least 30 people have died after drowning in the nation's waterways so far this summer, 11 of which were in NSW, according to Royal Lifesaving Australia's fatal drowning toll. 'We are reminding people about the power of the ocean environment and of just how quickly things can change, which is why it is so important to swim at a patrolled location and between the red and yellow flags,' Surf Life Saving NSW director Joel Wiseman said. 'If you are caught in a rip current, the number one priority is to remain calm and conserve your energy. Attract the attention of a lifesaver or lifeguard and wait to be rescued. If you are a competent swimmer, you can escape the rip by swimming parallel to the shore.' Monday's drowning is the eighth coastal drowning of the summer and the 18th since July 1, 2022. In NSW, drowning deaths are 2.7 times more likely to happen during a public holiday and 1.6 times more likely during school holidays. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace said Rep. Matt Gaetz repeatedly blocked Kevin McCarthy from becoming speaker of the house because he was angry McCarthy didn't defend him over allegations of sex trafficking. In a fiery tweet on Sunday afternoon, Mace said that 'as a rape victim myself' she wouldn't 'defend the indefensible.' Mace was referring to the revelation that Gaetz was the subject of a federal probe that he trafficked a 17-year-old girl for sex. The Florida congressman denied the accusations and was never charged, but was reportedly enraged that McCarthy did not step to his defense. It has been speculated that Gaetz's ire towards McCarthy over the incident contributed to his repeated votes against the new speaker of the house last week. Gaetz was the subject of a federal probe that accused him of trafficking a 17-year-old girl for sex. The Florida congressman denied the accusations and was never charged, but was reportedly enraged that McCarthy did not step to his defense South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace denounced 'backroom deals' that were made to get Kevin McCarthy the Speaker's gavel, though she was among the 200-plus members who supported him the entire time 'If you believe patriotism is sending a fundraising email every time he voted against McCarthy bc McCarthy wouldn't defend allegations he sex trafficked minors, then our definition of patriotism is very different,' Mace tweeted on Sunday. Her comments came after she appeared on CBS News' Face The Nation, and compared her party's four-day public battle over the House Speakership to a 'food fight' on Sunday and said her South Carolina constituents are dissatisfied with the prolonged delay. 'I represent a very purple district,' Mace said. 'I have all sides to serve, and there was a lot of frustration with the prolonged and unnecessary food fight we had this week.' 'But you saw democracy on full display. And I think that's healthy to have that kind of debate. I'm glad that it's over and we can move forward.' Mace, who has supported new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, blasted the 'backroom deals' made between the leader's allies and conservative holdouts to get him over the finish line on the fifteenth vote. The South Carolina Republican lawmaker also did not hold back against individuals making those deals, nor did she spare other controversial members of her conference. GOP Rep. Nancy Mace tells @margbrennan that within her district there was a lot of frustration with the prolonged and unnecessary food fight over the House speakership vote this week. pic.twitter.com/LbfkhEzLnG Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 8, 2023 'Matt Gaetz is a fraud. Every time he voted against Kevin McCarthy last week he sent out a fundraising email,' Mace fumed. 'What you saw last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions. I don't support that kind of behavior.' Mace was also asked about freshman GOP Rep. George Santos of New York, who has been facing calls from opponents and constituents to resign after he admitted to lying about his employment, education and Jewish heritage. She would not say whether she'd join calls for Santos' removal, but Mace did bluntly state that his mistruths were a 'problem.' 'It's very difficult to work with anyone who cannot be trusted, and it's very clear his entire resume in life was- was manufactured until a couple days ago when he finally changed his website,' Mace said. 'It is a problem. If we say we can't trust the Left when they are telling the truth, how can we trust our own?' She singled out Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of McCarthy's biggest critics (pictured speaking with McCarthy on the House floor on January 6), as a 'fraud' Unrelated to the McCarthy holdouts, Mace also said it would be hard to trust someone like New York Rep. George Santos, who misrepresented parts of his backstory Santos had been a supporter of McCarthy's for all 15 rounds of voting. He announced Saturday that he would also vote 'yes' on the House rules package, which McCarthy made last-minute concessions on last week to secure the final votes needed to win Speaker. Mace, however, said she was 'on the fence' - not because of the package's contents, but rather because of how the agreements were struck. Indeed, the congresswoman pointed out that there was not much different in the new package - touted as a victory for the hardline right - and its earlier version, save for the threshold to trigger a vote to remove McCarthy as Speaker being lowered to just one lawmaker. 'I like the rules package. It is the most open, fair, and fiscally conservative package we've had in 30 years,' Mace said. In the end, McCarthy narrowly won the Speakership with 216 votes in the early hours of Saturday morning 'I support it, but what I don't support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret to get a vote or vote present. I don't support that. That is just what Nancy Pelosi does.' She pressed the Pelosi comparison multiple times, claiming that the final holdouts like Reps. Gaetz, Eli Crane and Matt Rosendale who held up the votes had acted 'just like' the former Democratic House Speaker. 'What I saw last week was a small faction of the 20, who were acting just like the old Nancy, trying to cut back room deals in private, in secret without anyone knowing what else was going on,' Mace said. 'And when they did the rules package, at the end of the day, there was only one point that was changed. That was on the motion to vacate. 'That was the only difference in the package that we're going to be voting on tomorrow that was different from the original package that was proposed. So my question really is today is what back room deals were cut- did they try to cut?' Under Virginia law guns need to be secured from children under the age of 14 Classes have been canceled for the 550 students at the school until Wednesday Children fled to another classroom for safety, where they remained in lockdown The boy at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, intentionally shot his teacher Abby Zwerner, who has been described as bubbly and outgoing The six-year-old boy who intentionally fired a gun at his first-grade teacher was moments away from having the weapon confiscated from him and may never be charged with a crime because of his age. Abby Zwerner, a first-grade class at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, had just finished reading a story and were about to head to an art lesson when the youngster pulled out the handgun. 'She was going to confiscate it, and that's when he shot,' Brittaney Gregory, whose son was also in the class, told the Washington Post. The children then raced out of the classroom and into another one, where they stayed in a lockdown. Zwerner was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries and is now in serious but stable condition. Abby Zwerner, 25, was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries and is in serious but stable condition Brittaney Gregory, whose son goes to first grade at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, said the teacher was about to confiscate a gun when she was shot Chief Steve Drew met with Abby Zwerner and her family on Saturday morning and said in a statement her condition is improving The boy's first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner, 25, was rushed to hospital with critical injuries on Friday. Although the child in still in custody, it is unlikely he will ever be charged with any crime. 'As a practical matter, it would be next to impossible to prosecute a six-year-old, no matter how serious,' said Andrew Block, associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. Block noted that the 'infancy defense,' means that people younger than seven do not have the mental ability to form the intent to commit a crime. 'The bigger barrier, presuming the prosecution could overcome that, is all defendants have to be competent to stand trial,' Block said. 'That means you have to understand the nature of legal proceedings against you and assist in your own defense. There's no way a six-year-old would meet that criteria. 'The juvenile justice system would not be equipped to handle such a young kid.' An adult could face misdemeanor charges as under Virginia law, guns need to be secured from children under the age of 14. Brittaney Gregory, whose son attends first grade, says her son has suffered nightmares in the nights since the shooting 'There's way more we don't know than we do,' Block said. 'I can't imagine what it's like to be the teacher or teacher's family; it's horrible in every single direction.' Newport News police chief Steve Drew met with Zwerner and her family on Saturday morning. Her wounds have been described as life-threatening but her condition is improving and she is now in a serious but stable condition. Gregory's son said that the teacher who was shot was his favorite, describing her as bubbly and outgoing. She was also someone who fostered love and encouragement among her young pupils, sometimes leaving surprise notes in the children's backpacks. 'I hope you had a great day,' one read. 'I want you to know your smile is contagious,' said another. 'She's such a sweet lady,' Gregory explained to the Post. 'She's very attentive to the kids.' Her son has had nightmares in the nights since the shooting. 'He normally sleeps in his own room but the night of the shooting he came into my room. He was talking in his sleep, saying we got to get out of here,' Gregory said. She is now planning to take her son to a therapist this week. Gregory believes her son was deeply affected by what he saw and experienced. 'He's normally a talker, but he stumbled over his words. I was so relieved,' she added. 'But you could tell on his face what he was going through. He was a deer in the headlights.' 'The individual is a six-year-old student and is right now in police custody,' Chief Drew said at a press conference on Friday. 'This was not an accidental shooting. Abby Zwerner (pictured), 25, a first-grade teacher at Richneck Elementary School, was rushed to hospital with critical injuries on Friday after she was shot in the chest by a six-year-old boy Gregory's son, pictured above, said that the teacher who was shot was his favorite, describing her as 'bubbly and outgoing' Zwerner has been described as a teacher who fostered love and encouragement among her young pupils, sometimes leaving surprise notes in the children's backpacks 'It was in a classroom, an altercation took place there,' he said. 'We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting. We had a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired.' Classes have been canceled on Monday and Tuesday for all of the 550 students at the school which teaches from kindergarten through to the fifth grade. 'It's very devastating,' Gregory said of the shooting, never believing such a thing would be possible in her son's school. 'It's sad that such a young child holds so much anger.' A crowd of parents waited outside Richneck Elementary School after the 2pm shooting where a six-year-old allegedly shot his teacher on purpose after an 'altercation' Zwerner was shot in the chest at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News at 2pm Friday A grandmother of one of the students told DailyMail.com that a student brought 'shiny gold bullets' to school last week, but it is unclear if it is the same child who was taken into custody today. Speaking to DailyMail.com, she said: 'The parents outside stated that their child told them a kid brought golden shiny bullets to school and was thinking about bringing his gun. The student told the parent, who informed the school. 'And the school just yesterday got back to the parent saying the parent of the kid said it was a nerf bullet and the parent said nerf bullets aren't shiny and gold.' She was not positive if the child who brought in the 'bullets' is the same child allegedly involved in last week's shooting. Carlos Glover, nine, (pictured) was seen leaving the school with his mother Joselin after the shooting. A student has been taken into custody, but police have not released the student's name The shooting occurred in the classroom and was an isolated incident. Officers are still trying to determine how the boy managed to get the weapon One parent, Sebastian Gonzalez-Hernandez, confirmed Zwerner's identity. He said 'she screamed at her kids to run away' after the student fired a single bullet. 'Even after she'd been shot she was thinking about the safety of her children,' Gonzalez-Hernandez said. His own six-year-old, who he did not wish to name, was in the classroom when the gunshot went off. 'My son didn't see what happened, he heard the gunshot go off, and turned around to see Miss Zwerner on the floor,' he told DailyMail.com on Friday. 'She is an amazing teacher, so dedicated. My son absolutely loves her, and we're devastated about what's happened. We are all thinking of her and hoping that she gets better soon.' Damage and saturated landscape from days of storms will compound problems California was hit with more extreme weather on Sunday as thunderstorms, snow and damaging winds swept into the northern part the state, with severe rain and wind already having left at least 12 people dead over the past 10 days. The National Weather Service cautioned that the west coast 'remains under the target of a relentless parade of cyclones,' while Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency last week and warned 'the worst' of the storms is 'in front of us'. A succession of atmospheric rivers have continued to pour torrents of rain and floodwaters across the already battered state. Residents are bracing for more flooding, rising rivers and mudslides on soils already saturated after days of rain. Weather services say much of California could face risks of 'significant' flooding until the storms abate around the middle of the week. At least 115,000 Californians were without power early Monday, with some counties ordering evacuations over 'imminent' flooding and wind gusts expected to reach up to 60 miles-per-hour. California was hit with more extreme weather on Sunday as thunderstorms, snow and damaging winds swept into the northern part the state. Pictured: A drone view of a tree that fell during a winter storm with high winds in Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023 Damage to a jetty is seen in Capitola Wharf following a powerful winter storm on January 6, 2023 in Capitola, California Pictured: A man wades through knee deep water in a California neighborhood Pictured: A man runs from the spray of waves hitting and going over the breakwall of Redondo Beach, CA, Harbor, in the wake of a storm that cleared the south bay community of Los Angeles County, Thursday, January 5, 202 Authorities fear the dangers residents face will be compounded by the frequency with which each storm has and will continue to follow the previous. Without time for cleanup and damage mitigation between bouts of rain, sleet, snow, and wind, problems could build on one another increase. 'The longevity and intensity of rain, combined with the cumulative effect of successive heavy rain events dating back to the end of December, will lead to widespread and potentially significant flood impacts,' said the Weather Prediction Center on Sunday. 'Numerous flash flooding events likely, some possibly significant, especially over burn scars,' the Center added, noting that terrain altered by the regions recent forest fires could amplify problems. Last week a roadway washed out by floodwaters in California after the state's recent flooding On Wednesday, cars crashed through huge puddles of water from California's ongoing severe storms The National Weather Service said the terrain has become so inundated by rain and in previous days that it is vulnerable to increasingly dangerous conditions as more rain falls. 'While some of the forecast rain totals are impressive alone, it is important to note that what really sets this event apart are the antecedent conditions,' the NWS advised. Multiple systems over the past week have saturated soil, increased flow in rivers and streams, and truly set the stage for this to become a high impact event.' Up to 12 inches of rain could fall in many parts of California between now and Wednesday, coming across two successive and prolonged storms. 'Tuesday is probably the day where you'll likely need to keep a really close eye on the weather as the potential for widespread flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and roadway and urban flooding will be at its highest during the next week as all the runoff and heavy precipitation comes together resulting in a mess,' said Sacramento's weather service office. On Saturday, a surfer watches the large waves brought on by the storm surge The Golden Gate Bridge is seen through a rainy windshield in San Francisco, California, on January 4, 2023 A trolly car travels down a California street during a rainstorm in San Francisco, California, on January 4, 2023 Over 400,000 buildings had their power finally restored Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, after previous storms left them in the dark. San Francisco has already begun to flood, with Department of Emergency Management Executive Director Mary Ellen Carroll saying sinkholes and mudslides have begun. 'We're seeing sinkholes on our streets a few of them. We're seeing mudslides nothing significant at this point,' Carroll said, according to CNN. 'But the more rain we get and the less time in between, we know we're going to see more of those conditions.' She also cautioned that the city's underground communications infrastructure could become compromised. 'As we get more inundation from the rain, we're seeing more failure around those, what we call lifeline systems,' she said. A tree collapsed and ripped up the sidewalk damaging a home in Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 8 Pictured: A map from the NWS Weather Prediction Center that shows the excessive rainfall outlook, with much of California expected to see at least a 40 percent risk of rainfall that exceeds flash flood guidance (shown in red) Residents in Sacramento County were warned to evacuate ahead of in preparation for flooding. 'Out of an abundance of caution, residents must leave now before roads become impassable. Rising water may spill over onto the nearest roadways and cut off access to leave the area,' Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services said. Joey Kleemann was listening to the winds howling shortly after midnight, wondering whether she should move her car, when she heard a 'gigantic, thumping, crashing sound' as a massive tree fell onto the Sacramento home where she's lived for 25 years. The gusts were strong enough to rip the tree from its roots, pulling the concrete sidewalk up with it. Cracks in Kleemann's roof meant rain streamed into her dining area throughout the night. She planned to place a tarp over the damaged area in anticipation of another deluge.'I just had a feeling with the winds. They were scary winds,' she said. 'Mostly I focused on: It could be so much worse.' The Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner also issued an evacuation warning, advising them to prepare in advance for sudden flight. 'If possible, consider moving prior to the start of the weather system,' the warning said. And in the Central Valley, Stockton public schools are closed Monday over 'extreme weather conditions.' Numerous other schools across the state have followed suit. Photos from the deluge showed massive waves crashing on the California coastline, and trees toppled across streets and lawns. Roadways have been stripped away by the coursing floodwaters, and home and business owners have piled sandbags up in front of their properties to try to deflect the running waters. Though the body of the storms are expected to subside by midweek, weather experts predict that things are likely to remain wet for weeks to come. Residents looks at a tree that fell in high winds during a winter storm in West Sacramento, California, U.S. January 8, 2023 Aerial view of the Capitola Beachfront in Capitola, CA after the most recent storm on January 5, 2023 Pictured: Damage from a powerful storm is visible on January 6, 2023 in Capitola, California 'Overall, there is high confidence (60-80%) that this wetter-than-normal pattern will continue through the next couple of weeks,' said the San Francisco weather service. 'While we don't have details on how much rain above normal will fall, suffice it to say that the continuation of saturated soils could continue to pose hazards into the third week of January.' The state Department of Transportation warned motorists to stay off mountain roads after closing a stretch of U.S. 395 in Mono County, along the Eastern Sierra, due to heavy snow, ice and whiteout conditions. 'With the severe nature of this storm, Caltrans is asking all drivers to limit nonessential travel until the peak of the storm has passed,' the department said in a statement. The wet weather comes after days of rain in California from Pacific storms that last week knocked out power to thousands, flooded streets, battered the coastline and caused at least six deaths. The first of the newest, heavier storms prompted the weather service to issue a flood watch for a large swath of Northern and Central California with 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of rain expected through Wednesday in the already saturated Sacramento-area foothills. In the Los Angeles region, scattered rain fell during the weekend while stormy conditions were expected to return Monday, with the potential for up to 8 inches (20 cm) in foothill areas. High surf was expected through Tuesday, with large waves on west-facing beaches. Since Dec. 26, San Francisco has received more than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, while Mammoth Mountain, a popular ski area in the Eastern Sierra, got nearly 10 feet (3 meters) of snow, the National Weather Service reported. The storms won't be enough to officially end California's ongoing drought - but they have helped. State climatologist Michael Anderson told a news briefing late Saturday that officials were closely monitoring Monday's incoming storm and another behind it and were keeping an eye on three other systems farther out in the Pacific. Police have laid additional charges against a 24-year-old woman accused of murdering a baker and his daughter in a fire at a rural Queensland property. The bodies of 54-year-old Todd Mooney and his 10-year-old daughter Kirra were found inside the shed at Biggenden, 240km northeast of Brisbane, on December 20. Detectives last week charged Kristen Leslie Olsen, of Maryborough, with two counts of murder and one count of arson. Kristen Leslie Olsen (pictured), 24, has been hit with fresh charges following charges already laid against her over the alleged murder of a baker and his 10-year-old daughter on December 20 54-year-old Todd Mooney and his 10-year-old daughter Kirra (pictured) were found dead inside a burnt out shed at Biggenden, 240km northeast of Brisbane Olsen's matter was heard for a second time on Monday in Maryborough Magistrates Court and she was not required to appear in person. A Queensland Police spokesperson said the prosecutor had additionally charged the OnlyFans creator with one count of arson of a motor vehicle and two counts of arson of a building or structure, allegedly committed at Tinana. Olsen was also charged with on count of stealing, allegedly committed at Ban Ban Springs, about 30km southeast of Biggenden. The new charges related to alleged incidents separate from the murder charges. The matter was adjourned until March 6 for a committal mention. Olsen was remanded in custody and excused from appearing in person at the next hearing. As part of ongoing investigations, police have appealed for anyone who might have seen a white Holden Barina wagon with a distinctive solar panel on the roof between Biggenden and Ban Ban Springs to come forward. They tried to explain offences, but lectured them about his version of the law Unlicensed driver barricaded himself in car, which police say is unregistered Wild video has emerged of Australian police smashing a car window to arrest a so-called 'sovereign citizen' for driving without a licence and refusing to show a real ID after a tense roadside standoff. The footage, shot from inside the man's Mitsubishi 4WD, shows officers losing their patience after issuing several requests and warnings, then eventually breaking a rear window and removing the rebellious driver. The incident occurred on December 11 on Spencer Highway, at Wallaroo north-west of Adelaide and resulted in a 42-year-old man being arrested on several charges. Despite what appears to be a straightforward example of police dealing with a stubborn refusal to comply, the man has since launched a compensation claim with the SA government on several counts, including 'armed kidnapping'. Wild video has emerged of South Australian police smashing a car window to arrest a so-called 'sovereign citizen' after he stubbornly refused all their requests SA police confirmed the bizarre incident happened north-west of Adelaide on December 11 and resulted in a 42 year old driver being arrested on several charges What is a sovereign citizen? The contemporary sovereign belief system is based on a decades-old conspiracy theory. Sovereign citizens believe that they not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials should decide which laws to obey and which to ignore. Most sovereign citizens also don't believe they should have to pay taxes. As part of the strange ideology, Sovereigns believe maritime law should be used govern - even on land. They also believe capital letters are used on birth certificates to make individuals a corporate entity, not a sovereign person. Source: Southern Poverty Law Centre (US) Advertisement The emergence of the video comes just a day after a woman who claimed she is 'not part of the state' clashed with a NSW police officer when she was pulled over for not displaying number plates. In the South Australian video, police try to explain to the driver exactly how he's broken the law and what he needs to do for at least 10 minutes before realising he won't budge. 'Last warning. Show us your real ID or you're coming with us,' an officer says through his passenger window after a long stalemate. 'I don't have real ID, I showed you the real ID,' the driver stutters, before an officer forces entry and climbs into his back seat. 'Now you're under arrest,' he is told. The incident involved three South Australian police officers and the male driver, who speaks with a thick foreign accent. At the start of the clip the officers state they believe the man is driving an unregistered vehicle on a suspended licence and request he gets out of his vehicle and provide identification. 'The documentation you provided has a name on it, the name that is linked to that has a suspended driver's licence,' an officer explains. The officers also determined his car is uninsured and request he provide identification and comply with a roadside breath test. He refuses all requests. The man is heard arguing throughout that hasn't done anything wrong and lectures officers that his conspiracy-driven understanding of the law is correct - and that they are wrong. 'You don't need a driver's licence to travel with your automobile,' he tells the officer. 'You need a driver's licence if you make money for what you are doing, if its for commerce. If you know the meaning of the word, this is what you say.' In all Australian states and territories it is an offence to drive a motor vehicle on a road without a valid licence. You must carry your licence when driving and show it to a police officer when asked. The footage, shot from inside the man's Mitsubishi 4WD, shows officers losing their patience after issuing several requests and warnings, then eventually breaking a rear window and removing the rebellious driver All motor vehicles that are driven on Australian roads must be registered. In SA, fines of up to $7500 are payable for driving an unregistered vehicle Sovereign citizens are a loosely-affiliated but growing movement of people who connected with one another mainly on social media during the pandemic. They often believe that they not judges, juries, law enforcement or elected officials should decide which laws to obey and which to ignore. When an officer asks if he understands the implications of not complying with their requests, he replies 'I don't stand under you, I never will stand under you.' When officers warn the driver in the latest video 'you are going to be arrested', he shoots back 'what's the crime [for me] to be arrested?' 'It's going to be driving an unregistered vehicle,' he begins, but is cut off. 'It's not a crime. Where's the victim?' 'Where's the victim please? Where's the victim!' Chloe Fisher, was stopped by police while she was driving along the road at Gundagai, claimeed she was allowed to drive without licence plates because she was 'going sovereign' When the reality sinks in that the police are not buying his defence, he asks 'why don't you write a fine?' 'I can't,' replies a female officer. 'I don't know who you are.' She refused to accept the validity of an ID card he flashed through the window but refuses to hand over. At that point the three officers appear to give up trying to negotiate with the uncooperative driver. In a statement, SA Police told Daily Mail Australia that the man had committed multiple offences and refused all police directions. 'About 10.40am on Sunday 11 December, police stopped the driver of a Mitsubishi 4WD on the Spencer Highway, Wallaroo after checks revealed the car was unregistered and uninsured,' 'The driver was directed to submit to a road side breath test however he refused. He also refused to his exit his vehicle after several requests from police. 'As a result, access was gained to his vehicle and the driver arrested. 'A 42-year-old man from Wallaroo was charged with driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle, driving while disqualified and refusing to provide personal particulars.' The man was released on bail to appear in the Kadina Magistrates Court on 30 January. A narrated clip of the frustrating incident was posted to a Youtube channel that shows the bizarre antics of 'sovereign citizens' from around the world. The channel claimed that the man in the video believes he has 'compensation claim' against SA police for 'armed assault, trespass on multiple counts, armed kidnapping, destruction of private property and unlawful detainment of liberties'. In another apparent example of 'sovereign citizens' ignoring road rules, Chloe Fisher was stopped by police while she was driving near Gundagai, in rural NSW. She used her phone to film her conversation with the policewoman who asked her for forms of identification and whether the vehicle was registered. She stepped out of the car and explained she hadn't displayed any number plates because she was in the process of 'going sovereign'. She handed the officer an ID card that described her status as a 'sovereign living woman' with the date of birth category replaced with 'first breath'. 'First breath location' was among the bizarre headings with 'Earth' written next to it. A wedding party and a luxury country retreat has been slammed for posing in front of a controversial painting depicting a massacre of Indigenous people. Redleaf Wollombi, in the NSW Hunter Valley, shared the photo to their Instagram which shows the smiling group in front of the artwork titled Les Vues du Bresil' or The Views of Brazil - a piece encapsulating the Portuguese colonisation of Brazil. The venue told Daily Mail Australia on Monday it had now deleted the image and is 'deeply sorry' about the awkward post. Redleaf Wollombi, a country retreat that hosts weddings in the NSW Hunter Valley, has come under fire for posting this photo to their social media accounts The image was met with uproar from many within Australia's Indigenous community. 'Nothing like getting married and posing in front of Aboriginal people being slaughtered by colonisers,' Indigenous-owned small business Dreamtime Aroha commented. 'I'm not sure at what point anyone would hang up in their venue or consent to a wedding picture being taken in front of a painting of a brutal Aboriginal massacre? 'This was sent to me because the person didn't know how to approach the venue well I am just a Blak woman asking what the hell?' Dreamtime Aroha added in the post. One social media user wrote: 'How can anyone with a heart think this painting is ok to hang?' 'How did f... did the wedding planner, the photographer and wedding guests not notice the disgraceful piece of art,' another said. 'It's beyond shocking shame on all involved.' Dreamtime Aroha, an Indigenous-owned small business, shared the image to Facebook and lambasted the country retreat for featuring the artwork in the wedding photo Redleaf Wollombi was slammed by several people on social media who questioned why the painting was being used as a backdrop for wedding pictures A third commented: 'Why on earth would they think an image portraying murder, would be a good one for a wedding venue?' 'It's even worse that it's about a very real history, but who looked at the painting originally and thought 'brides and grooms will LOVE images of murder in their wedding photos, this is perfect' like what?!' Former Bachelor contestant and podcast host, Abbie Chatfield, targeted the venue by sharing Dreamtime Aroha's original post to her Instagram Stories. Cabaret artist and podcaster Carla Arla Anita Mattiazzo, also slammed Redleaf Wollombi. 'This is what I hate. People choosing to stay ignorant,' she wrote. Former Bachelor contestant and podcast host, Abbie Chatfield, shared the original post criticising the country retreat and tagged them Redleaf Wollombi in a statement apologised to people who were offended. 'We are deeply sorry to learn that, over the weekend, we have caused offence to several people who noticed the paintings in photos on our social media,' the venue said. 'We are very remorseful that we have caused anyone to feel pain on seeing the paintings; this was never our intention.' The painting depicts the colonisation of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and was originally designed in 1829 by French artist, Jean Julien Deltil. Redleaf Wollombi explained that Jean Julien Deltil had been hired by Zuber, a French wallpaper manufacturer, at the time to create it. The manufacturer still produces the wallpaper to this day. The artwork is part of Les Vues du Bresil or The Views of Brazil from 1829 and depicts the Portuguese colonisation of Rio de Janeiro The retreat's owner was given the painting by a family friend who died several years ago, according to the venue's statement. Redleaf Wollombi said they had since removed images featuring the painting from their social media accounts. The painting has also been taken off display at the retreat. The venue added: 'We respectively ask that any comments toward clients (brides, grooms) and other suppliers (including photographers) stop immediately.' 'Any inference that they have somehow deliberately been racist is simply not true.' Thugs firebombed a car outside the home of the daughter of a Scottish rail tycoon amid an alleged gangland feud. Jennifer McLeish, whose father is millionaire railway maintenance magnate Alan McLeish, was left terrified when the gang drove a Volvo to her gate outside her Glasgow home, set it alight then fled the scene. Firefighters rushed to the address to put out the blaze, while police gathered evidence and took photos of the crime scene. The motor had two different number plates and officers are attempting to trace its owner. The firebombing on Saturday night reportedly comes amid an alleged ongoing gangland feud. Jennifer McLeish, whose father is millionaire railway maintenance magnate Alan McLeish, was left terrified when the gang drove a Volvo to her gate outside her Glasgow home, set it alight then fled the scene Firefighters rushed to the address to put out the blaze, while police gathered evidence and took photos of the crime scene (pictured, Bellshill Road in Bothwell) Ms McLeish's Range Rover was blown up by a petrol bomb in 2020, which also set fire to the roof of the 500,000 home. The 36-year-old's beauty salon in Glasgow's Dennistoun was also ram-raided just weeks later. Last night one local told The Sun: 'I was watching Dad's Army on TV when these cars shot up the street. Ms McLeish's Range Rover was blown up by a petrol bomb in 2020, which also set fire to the roof of the 500,000 home 'I think there were two at least. A load of guys got out and there was a lot of shouting, they had Glaswegian accents. The next thing one of the cars they'd driven was on fire right next to the house.' A Police Scotland spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We were called around 7.45pm on Saturday, 7 January, to a report of a fire at a property in the Bellshill Road area of Bothwell. 'The fire was put out by the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and no one was injured. 'Enquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances.' A mom has been convicted of murder and other crimes for allegedly killing her toddler son almost four years ago and told authorities he had been kidnapped before his remains were discovered buried in the yard of her New Jersey home. Cumberland County prosecutors say 28-year-old Bridgeton resident Nakira Griner will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole next month. A jury found her guilty of first-degree murder, destruction of human remains, child endangerment, tampering with evidence, and false public alarm. New Jersey Mom Guilty of Killing, Dismembering Son She first informed police in February 2019 that she had been assaulted on the street and her 23-month-old son Daniel Griner Jr. had been taken, according to authorities. The child's burned remains were discovered the next day in her front yard, and an examination revealed that he had been battered to death, according to investigators. Prosecutors claim that Griner later told police that the kid fell down a flight of stairs in the family's house, but in phone conversations from jail, she admitted that she "done what she did to him" to conceal bruises on his body. According to the criminal complaint, Griner ultimately told police she struck the kid because he refused to "eat or listen to her." According to the lawsuit, Griner confessed that she struck the youngster so violently that she left bruises on his face and that he tumbled down a flight of steps. According to the station, after beating the boy, the woman placed him in a stroller and abandoned him. Defense counsel Jill Cohen conceded that her client mutilated and burnt the child's body but contended that prosecutors couldn't establish she was directly responsible for his murder and so could be convicted of nothing more than manslaughter. Cohen stated that she will appeal the judgment. At the time of the occurrence, neighbors said they were stunned, CBS News reported. Griner was given a plea deal in October 2019. The prosecution offered thirty years in return for a guilty plea to the murder accusation. She rejected it and chose to go to trial instead. Read Also: NYC Pharma Millionaire Gigi Jordan Who Killed Her 8-Year-Old Son with Autism Was Found Dead in Prison Toddler's Dismembered Remains Burned in Oven According to NJ.com, Griner's defense counsel stated in opening statements that the mother acknowledged burning and dismembering her son's body but denied willfully murdering the youngster. In addition, according to expert evidence, the toddler's skull was fractured into 74 pieces and the corpse was burned in an oven. The trial was two weeks long. Griner was found guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree desecrating human remains, fourth-degree tampering with evidence, second-degree endangering the welfare of a child, and second-degree false public alarm following the conclusion of the jury's deliberations on Wednesday. The sentence of Griner is expected on February 21. Authorities searched the Woodland Drive residence of the family. Canine led detectives to the charred and mutilated remains of Daniel, which had been placed in his mother's purse and buried behind the shed in the backyard. A prosecutor had stated that it was impossible to instantly determine what had happened to him due to his severe burns. The county medical examiner's autopsy determined that Daniel's death was a murder caused by blunt force trauma. Multiple fractures of the child's bones were also noticed in the report. Per Law & Crime, prosecutors have stated that Griner made calls from jail in which she claimed that Daniel received his injuries by falling down the stairs and that she "did what she did to him" to cover up the marks on the boy's body. According to her counsel, Griner did not "deliberately and intentionally" cause Daniel's death. Related Article: Utah Murders Solved: Tragedy That Killed 7 People Found To Be a Murder-Suicide Over Divorce Talks @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Police have issued a desperate second public plea to help find a missing Sydney model and dancer who vanished a week ago. The tattooed Talaya Newton, 26, went missing on January 2 after she was last seen at a home in Sydney's south-west and has been uncontactable since. Ms Newton has described herself as a 'writer, model, entertainer, dancer and stylist' and has also gone by the names Layla Rose and and Layla Roxy-Rose. Police have issued a desperate second public plea to help find a missing Sydney model and dancer Talaya Newton, 26, who vanished a week ago Ms Newton has described herself as a 'writer, model, entertainer, dancer and stylist' and has also gone by the names Layla Rose and and Layla Roxy-Rose Family and investigators hold 'serious concerns' for Ms Newton's welfare and have asked to public to look out for several distinctive body markings she has. She has several distinctive tattoos, including medusa on her left shoulder and a large snake covering her right thigh. She also has a scar on her left forearm. Ms Newton has a slim build, is 175cm tall and is described as having an olive complexion and dyed red and black hair. The last definite sighting of Ms Newton was at a home on Omnibus Road, Kingsgrove, about 10.30am on Monday 2 January. She is known to frequent Blacktown, Redfern and Wollongong She was last seen wearing a black shirt and red shorts and is described as 'Maltese appearance'. The last definite sighting of Ms Newton was at a home on Omnibus Road, Kingsgrove, about 10.30am on Monday 2 January. Police said she could not be located and has been uncontactable since. She is known to frequent Blacktown, Redfern and Wollongong. Anyone with information on Ms Newton's whereabouts is urged to contact police immediately. A 12-year-old girl is in custody in Oklahoma after stabbing her brother, nine, to death. Police said the children's parent was asleep upstairs at their Tulsa residence when the daughter woke them shortly before midnight on Thursday and said that she had stabbed her brother. The girl is in juvenile custody with the Tulsa Police Child Crisis Unit in charge of the investigation. She is being held at the Family Center for Juvenile Justice, according to Tulsa Police. Police responded to the incident late on Thursday night. Pictured: The Family Center for Juvenile Justice in Tulsa, where the 12-year-old girl is being held, according to Tulsa Police When officers arrived, firefighters and paramedics 'were already on scene and performing CPR to a 9-year-old male victim,' police said. The CPR was performed at the River Bank Plaza Apartments complex, according to the New York Post. The boy 'was rushed to the hospital and taken into surgery,' but died due to his injuries shortly after 2:30 a.m. CT, police said. Neither child has been identified by authorities. Police responded to the incident late on Thursday night. When officers arrived, firefighters and paramedics 'were already on scene and performing CPR to a 9-year-old male victim,' police said The boy 'was rushed to the hospital and taken into surgery,' but died due to his injuries shortly after 2:30 a.m. CT, police said This is the second homicide in the city of Tulsa this year, the Tulsa Police Department Child Crisis Unit said. Tulsa Police Department Chief Franklin tweeted: 'All homicides are tragic, but the 2nd homicide of 2023 in Tulsa shows a definitive societal problem. The question is, how does society address a child killing another child?' Police have not revealed a motive for the killing, stating it will be the court's burden to uncover intent. 'Obviously we did some interviews, but interviews with a 12-year-old are very preliminary,' Captain Richard Meulenberg from the Tulsa Police Department told Fox 23. 'This, unfortunately, has no easy end or easy path, this is going to be a long, convoluted process that's going to be extremely taxing on everyone involved in this.' Prince Harry was today accused of having 'hung his family out to dry' after he 'failed to correct' accusations of racism made about the Royal Family in his bombshell Oprah interview and the recent Netflix series. The Duke of Sussex last night denied calling the Royal Family racist but said they were guilty of 'unconscious bias' while discussing Meghan's controversial claim to Oprah that an unnamed royal had expressed 'concern' about Archie's skin colour. Ms Winfrey asked Meghan in 2021: 'They were concerned that if he were too brown, that would be a problem? Are you saying that?' Ms Markle responded: 'If that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?' It prompted a worldwide guessing game about the senior royal who said it and hours later Harry's estranged brother, Prince William, was forced to publicly remark that they were 'very much not a racist family'. The Queen gave a rare statement and said 'the issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning' but stressed that 'recollections may vary'. But last night in an incendiary interview to plug his new memoir, he told ITV's Tom Bradby that the Royal Family is not racist. Mr Bradby was visibly stunned - as were millions of viewers - by his screeching U-turn from previous incendiary claims. The British broadcaster, a friend of Harry's, raised the 2021 Oprah interview with Meghan and said: 'You accused members of your family of racism.' But Harry snapped back: 'No I didn't. The British press said that. Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist?' Prince Harry is today facing allegations that he failed to 'correct the narrative' around racism in the Royal Family after sensationally accusing an unnamed royal of asking about the skin colour of his and Meghan's then-unborn son Archie during his bombshell Oprah interview Jennie Bond (left) told Lorraine: 'He allowed his family to be hung out to dry on an accusation of racism which Harry says now he never said and wasn't true'. ITV's Royal Editor Chris Ship (right) said: 'Harry is right to say that Meghan or Harry didn't use the word ''racist'' at any point... [but] Harry didn't correct the narrative when this whole racism row then started' The duke then insisted the comments made about his son Archie's skin colour were 'unconscious bias'. Mr Bradby appeared taken aback by the answer - while experts said that Harry clearly didn't understand the term he was now using. Former BBC Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond told ITV's Lorraine: 'So much of what he said seemed conflicted and contradictory... he allowed his family to be hung out to dry on an accusation of racism which Harry says now he never said and wasn't true. That in my view is almost unforgivable.' And ITV News's royal editor Chris Ship said on Good Morning Britain: 'Harry is right to say [they] didn't use the word ''racist'' at any point... [but] Harry didn't correct the narrative when this whole racism row then started, and not correcting the narrative is something he accused the Royal Family of not doing, when he criticised Jeremy Clarkson and other things as well.' Royal correspondent and biographer Robert Jobson said: 'Robert F. Kennedy's daughter said Prince Harry and Meghan were handed an award for their 'heroic' stance against the 'structural racism' of the royal family. Harry says neither he or Meg said the RF was racist. Perhaps they should give the award back then'. While the Duke has not referred to the Oprah interview in his memoir, which is published tomorrow, he was asked by Bradby in the interview to plug the book: 'Wouldn't you describe that as essentially racist?' The duke replies: 'I wouldn't, not having lived within that family.' But he adds: 'The difference between racism and unconscious bias the two things are different. 'But once it's been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.' And he accused Buckingham Palace of failing to follow up on promises it made in the wake of the Oprah controversy, including appointing a 'diversity tsar'. The Duke of Sussex said there is a place for the monarchy in the modern world if they addressed unconscious bias. Asked on Good Morning America this morning if he thinks there is a place for the British monarchy in the 21st century, he said: 'I genuinely believe that there is. Not the way that it is now.' Asked if they need to modernise and if so in what way, Harry said: 'I think the same process that I went through with regarding my own unconscious bias would be hugely beneficial to them. 'Not racism, but unconscious bias, if not confronted, if not learned and grown from, that can then move into racism. 'But there was an enormous missed opportunity with my wife.' During the interview, Harry also said: 'I think my mother would have realised the missed opportunity with Meghan being part of the institution, part of the monarchy.' Critics accused the Duke of not understanding the difference between denying the royals are racist while also accusing them of 'unconscious bias', arguing they amount to the same thing The Duke of Sussex last night conceded that the Royal Family were not racist but said they were guilty of 'unconscious bias' while discussing the controversial claim in an incendiary interview to plug his new memoir Pictured, Meghan, Archie and Harry at a Polo match in Wokingham in 2019 Harry and Meghan's 'tell-all' conversation with Oprah in 2021 marked their first major interview since they stepped down as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020. One of the most shocking moments from the interview came when Meghan said there were 'several conversations' between herself, Harry and members of the Royal Family about 'how dark' their baby could be before Archie was born. Speaking about the family, Oprah had asked Meghan: 'Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem? Are you saying that?' Meghan then replied: 'I wasn't able to follow up with why, but that - if that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?' In his interview with Bradby last night, Harry said: 'That conversation, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked.' His refusal to name the person involved sparked an international guessing game about who the 'royal racist' was. In a statement the late Queen said the claims were 'concerning' but stressed that 'recollections may vary' and the claims would be addressed privately. Referring to the racism allegations made previously by his wife, Harry bridled at the suggestion by Bradby that he accused his family of racism, snapping back: 'No I didn't. The British press said that. Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist?' 'She said there were troubling comments about Archie's skin colour,' Bradby replied. 'There was there was concern about his skin colour,' Harry corrected him. When Bradby suggested that there was a danger by not naming the person concerned, Harry said: 'Yes, you're right, the key word is concern, which was troubling. 'But you speak to any other couple, mixed race couple around the world, and you will probably find that the white side of the family have either openly discussed it, or secretly discussed, you know, 'What are the kids gonna look like?' And that is part of a, you know, bigger conversation that needs to be had.' He claimed that after the interview with Ms Winfrey 'they said that they were gonna [sic] bring in a diversity tsar. That hasn't happened'. He added: 'Everything they said was gonna [sic] happen hasn't happened. I've always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it, and especially when you are the monarchy you have a responsibility and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others.' In the couple's Netflix series Harry & Meghan, the Duke claimed: 'In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias. Harry told Netflix: 'In [the Royal Family], sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias' 'The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one's fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right. It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.' The Duke added that members of the Royal Family asked why the Duchess should be 'protected' when they questioned newspaper headlines about her. 'The direction from the palace was don't say anything,' he said. 'But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well. So it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like, ''My wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?'' 'I said ''The difference here is the race element''.' Business will find out today how much further help they will get with energy costs this year amid claims many firms could go bust without sizeable support. A new scheme to underwrite bills will be announced this afternoon, but is expected to be significantly less than the current system after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned it was 'unsustainably expensive'. Under the scheme that started in October, some gas and electricity costs for businesses are being underwritten by the Treasury for six months at a cost of around 40billion. It ends at the start of April and Mr Hunt has already committed to extending it, but delayed an announcement on the details to now from before Christmas. Sources said the replacement will give a discount on wholesale prices, not a fixed price, with very heavy energy-using sectors - such as steel, glass and ceramics industries - getting a larger discount than other businesses. The revised scheme is expected to offer help with bills for a further year, until March 2024. A new scheme to underwrite bills will be announced this afternoon, but is expected to be significantly less than the current system after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt warned it was 'unsustainably expensive'. Under the scheme that started in October, some gas and electricity costs for businesses are being underwritten by the Treasury for six months at a cost of around 40billion. No 11 has rolled the pitch for the levels of support to be scaled back, arguing the current scheme cannot be sustained forever. Mr Hunt last week told business leaders the level of support was unsustainable and reiterated it was always limited to run for six months. Extending the scheme in its current form could 'cost tens of billions of pounds' depending on wholesale energy prices, he argued. The Government's Bill may also be cut thanks to sharp recent falls in wholesale energy prices, driven by unseasonably warm weather, which has reduced the amount of gas that households and businesses need to use for heating and allowed European gas reserves to hold up well. The support package covers not just businesses, but also charities and public-sector organisations, including schools and hospitals. Households have already been told their bills will be capped until April 2024, albeit at a higher rate of 3,000, up from the current 2,500 annual cost, while firms have been kept waiting to hear what will be available to them. Mr Hunt had promised to give firms certainty over future plans for support by the new year, saying last month the announcement would come just before or just after Christmas. Mr Hunt said at his autumn budget in November that the Government would have to target support only at the most vulnerable industries and would likely also have to lower the aid they receive. Business groups railed against the plans, warning over job losses and company failures if universal support is withdrawn. While ongoing help for companies is set to be welcomed, there are concerns over a drastic cut to support. Rises in energy bills will come at a difficult time for firms as the UK faces a predicted painful and prolonged recession, with consumer spending coming under severe pressure amid the cost-of-living crisis and workers demanding higher wages. Experts analysing a WWII diary said to reveal the location of hidden Nazi treasure in an 18th century palace in Poland have concluded it is a complete forgery. Presenting their findings in their monthly magazine, the group said: The War Diary is a Polish-German forgery likely produced some time after 1982. The diary, said to have been written by an SS officer who noted down the location of looted works of art and valuables hidden towards the end of WWII, was acquired by a group calling itself the Silesian Bridge Foundation. Since last year they have been digging up an old palace in the Polish village of Minkowskie where they believe 200m worth of Nazi gold is hidden. Since May last year, the 'WWII diary' has been in the hands of a group called the Silesian Bridge Foundation - who have been digging up the grounds of an 18th century palace in the Polish village of Minkowskie where they believe 200million of Nazi gold The diary claimed to show the hiding places of treasures intended for the creation of a Fourth Reich to continue the war, but experts now believe the entries are forgeries from the 1980s But after going through the diary, historians from the Discoverer organisation in the Polish city of Wroclaw said they found conclusive proof that the whole thing was fake. The organisations ukasz Orlicki told the Polish Press Agency: It turns out that the diary is an accounting book from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with almost 600 pages, the vast majority of which are blank. There are simply accounting entries from the beginning of the 20th century, but on page 100 the notes of the alleged German officer appear. The records containing the history of hidden valuables and works of art cover only nine pages. They are written in pencil. At first glance it looks to have come from the period. The content contains information about four caches; the entire content of the notes can be divided into a narrative part containing information about events from the Lower Silesia and Opole region at the end of World War II, and the deposit part, i.e. descriptions of where valuables are hidden. But the events contained in the diary were copied from the accounts of German refugees who fled from Lower Silesia in 1945. Treasure hunters failed to find 10 tonnes of gold in the grounds of the 18th century palace in Minkowskie, southern Poland Large parts of the diary are believe to have been copied verbatim from this book, which described the accounts of German refugees who fled from Lower Silesia in 1945 These were accounts written down after the war, which were in German archives. After comparing the content, it turned out that someone had copied word-for-word into the journal fragments of these accounts that were published in Germany several decades after the war. He added: This is one of the irrefutable proofs that the so-called diary was written by an unknown person in the 1970s at the earliest. According to the Silesian Bridge Foundation, they received the diary from a man claiming to be the son of a SS officer and represented a Masonic Lodge made up of the descendants of Nazi officials seeking atonement. According to legend, the treasure was stored in police headquarters and packed into crates before being transported under SS guard from Breslau, in what is now the Polish city of Wrocaw, towards Hirschberg, today's Jelenia Gora, and the Sudeten mountains. The treasure dubbed the 'Gold of Breslau' is thought to include jewellery and valuables from the private collections of wealthy Germans who lived in the region and who handed their possessions to the SS to protect them from being looted by the advancing Red Army. Soon after, the trail went dead and the gold was never seen or heard of again. According to the Silesian Bridge Foundation, they received the diary (pictured) from a man claiming to be the son of a SS officer The dig took place in the grounds of the 18th-century palace in the village of Minkowskie, Poland According to the Foundation, a letter written by a senior SS officer to one of the girls who worked at the palace and who later became his lover revealed the treasure was buried in the palace. The officer wrote: 'My dear Inge, I will fulfil my assignment, with God's will. Some transports were successful. 'The remaining 48 heavy Reichsbank's chests and all the family chests I hereby entrust to you. 'Only you know where they are located. May God help you and help me, fulfil my assignment. In November last year, the historians who had been invited by the Silesian Bridge Foundation to verify the diary said their initial findings werent positive. Talking to local media at the time, they said: Our most important finding is that the village of Minkowskie is not mentioned in the 'War Diary. 'This may be hard for the Foundation, because it is the only place their excavation works are being carried out at this moment.' The historians who examined the documents have also questioned the authenticity of the letter. They said: 'The corresponding documents, like one famous letter, do not seem very 'legit' and are not a part of the 'War Diary', meaning there is not even one bit of evidence that there is anything in Minkowskie. The Silesian Bridge Foundation responded saying: 'Documents of that age and type leave a lot of room for interpretation, we are aware of that. 'It is our belief that War Diary will always defend itself. 'We are very confident about it which is why we welcomed your team and we are open to other experts as well. 'Thank You! The experts examining the letter and diary admitted that some of the people mentioned did exist and that led credence to the claims. But they then found a book published in Germany after the war about escapees from the region which they say contained the same details which were then copied verbatim into the diary. According to the historians, the passages in the diary were transcribed from accounts of German refugees who fled Lower Silesia in 1945 which were later published in the 1960s in a book called Die Flucht (The Flight). The result of our analysis unequivocally identifies the war diary as a fictional text created many years after the war. Ambulance strikes are set to go ahead this week after talks with unions failed to achieve a breakthrough despite Rishi Sunak suggesting pay was on the table. Separate meetings have been taking place with NHS, education and rail unions as they threaten to ramp up industrial action. Health Secretary Steve Barclay met leaders including from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) - amid hints that a one-off payment could be offered to nurses to break the deadlock. Teaching unions attended talks with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan ahead of announcements this week over whether their members will go on strike. Rail minister Huw Merriman also took stock with train workers after sustained action crippled services last week. But there was little sign of progress, with the GMB saying the session 'fell well short' and more than 10,000 ambulance workers will take to picket lines on Wednesday. The RCN and education unions also sounded negative tones, although RMT chief Mick Lynch remained notably tight-lipped, merely saying that more talks would take place. Sara Gorton, head of health at Unison, speaks to the media after a meeting with Health Secretary Steve Barclay today Rail union chiefs Mick Lynch and Mick Whelan stayed tight-lipped as they left talks today Ministers are mounting a last-ditch bid to avert a fresh wave of strikes today after Rishi Sunak (right) suggested pay can be on the table. Health Secretary Steve Barclay (left) will meet with leaders including from the Royal College of Nursing Mr Sunak raised hopes yesterday saying he was willing to discuss pay with health workers - though he indicated it would only be for the 2023-24 settlement, while the current unrest largely relates to 2022-23 deals. Writing on the ConservativeHome website today, the PM said: 'Ministers from across government will be meeting with the unions to set out how we can resolve these disputes in a responsible and reasonable way. 'I accept the freedom of individuals to strike, but this must be balanced with the rights of everyone else to safely go about their lives. 'That's why we introduced new laws in common with countries such as France, Italy and Spain to ensure we have minimum levels of safety in critical areas like our ambulance and fire services.' Mr Sunak declined to deny rumours about a one-off payment to support health workers with the cost of living this winter. 'On pay, we've always said that the Government is happy to talk about pay demands and pay issues that are anchored in what's reasonable, what's responsible and what's affordable for the country. 'The most important thing is those talks are happening and let's try and sit down and find a way through.' Pressed again if such a proposal was being considered, the Prime Minister said: 'You wouldn't expect me to comment on specifics but the most important thing is that the conversations are happening, that people are talking and with regards to pay we have to have those conversations based on what is affordable, what's reasonable, what's responsible, for the country.' The RCN described the talks as 'bitterly disappointing'. Joanne Galbraith-Marten, director of employment relations and legal services at the RCN, said in a statement: 'There is no resolution to our dispute yet in sight. 'Today's meeting was bitterly disappointing nothing for the current year and repeating that 'the budget is already set' for next year.' Physiotherapists said they would be announcing strike dates later this week despite talks with Mr Barclay. Elaine Sparkes, assistant director at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said: 'Although the meeting was more constructive this time, there is nothing tangible on the table. 'As such, we'll be announcing the first of our strike dates later this week as we continue to push for a fairer deal for our members and their colleagues.' Unite union negotiator Onay Kasab said there had been no 'detailed' discussion of what a pay settlement might look like, adding that the talks had left him 'very angry'. However, his colleague Sara Gorton sounded more optimistic, saying 'progress' had been made even though there were no 'tangible' concessions. Speaking outside the Department for Education in central London alongside co-leader Mary Bousted and Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT union Kevin Courtney said: 'While there is the thought of further meetings, there is no sense of concrete progress as yet. There is no offer, there is no change. 'There are further discussions to happen that we will engage in while still urging our members to vote in the ballot.' Speaking outside the Department for Education in central London alongside co-leader Mary Bousted, general secretary of the NASUWT union Kevin Courtney said: 'While there is the thought of further meetings, there is no sense of concrete progress as yet.' Rail minister Huw Merriman is also holding talks with train workers after sustained action crippled services last week RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said yesterday she felt a 'chink of optimism' after noticing a 'little shift' in the PM's stance. But she warned the planned action will still go ahead without compromise on this year's pay settlements, as the Unite union accused Mr Sunak of 'misleading' the public about the negotiations. Labour accused him of 'taking our nurses and ambulance workers for fools', with Monday's talks with health unions set to centre on 2023/24's deal. Mr Sunak had told BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: 'When it comes to pay we've always said we want to talk about things that are reasonable, that are affordable and responsible for the country. 'We are about to start a new pay settlement round for this year, we're about to start that independent process, and before that process starts the Government is keen to sit down with the unions and talk about pay and make sure they understand where we're coming from.' Ms Cullen said the talks are 'not going to avert the strike action' in England on January 18 and 19 without compromise on 2022/23 pay. But she told Kuenssberg: 'The Prime Minister talked about coming to the table, now that's a move for me because I have said, let's meet half way.' She added: 'When I listened to that there was a chink of optimism and there was a little shift in what the Prime Minister was saying.' Mr Barclay said in The Sunday Telegraph he will take a 'constructive approach' to negotiations on April's pay review, suggesting increases are on the table if unions agree to efficiency savings to make higher salaries more 'affordable'. In his memoir Spare, he said he didn't think of them 'as people' but 'chess pieces' The Duke of Sussex said he killed 25 members of the Taliban while in Afghanistan A Tory MP has suggested that Prince Harry's claim that he killed 25 members of the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan could pose security risks for the Invictus Games. The Duke of Sussex, who was known as 'Captain Wales' in the military, wrote in his tell-all memoir Spare that he did not think of those he killed 'as people' but instead 'chess pieces' he had taken off the board. This morning Tobias Ellwood, a senior backbencher and chairman of the Commons Defence Committee said the revelation in Harry's memoir was 'ill-advised'. Speaking about the Invictus Games, a sporting event created by the Prince for injured, sick and wounded soldiers, he told Sky News: 'I do worry that this is going to have security implications.' Harry revealed he killed 25 Taliban fighters on his tours in Afghanistan in his book, which will go on sale in the UK on Tuesday Tobias Ellwood, a senior backbencher and chairman of the Commons Defence Committee said the revelation in Harry's memoir was 'ill-advised' and warned there may be 'security implications' at the Invictus Games The MP, who also served with the British Army, said: 'One of the rare occasions that I worked with Prince Harry was in the Invictus Games in Sydney and in Toronto and so forth. 'Incredible effort. This was his design, this was his creation. 'And I'm now concerned that something which has been so important to veterans to help rehabilitation will now suffer because there could be security implications of him participating in that.' It comes as Rusty Firmin, a SAS hero from the Iranian Embassy siege, warned that Prince Harry's claims has massively increased the threat for his own family and other key royals. Rusty Fermin pictured here kneeling next to Prince Charles and Princess Diana while serving in the SAS Mr Ellwood said his claim could risk the security of the Invictus Games. Pictured: Prince Harry congratulating a Team UK medal winner at the Invictus Gams in the Hague, Netherlands, in April It is a threat that will not go away - and it's a feeling shared by many, including a former British Commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp. War veterans and defence experts have warned Prince Harry now faces a life of looking over his shoulder, and has even increased the risk to his family. Mr Firmin openly questioned the 'kill count' revealed by Harry in his memoir, Spare. The Duke of Sussex, who piloted an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan, likened the Taliban targets to chess pieces on a board. 'From what I've been told, he was a gunner, not a pilot,' said Rusty. 'Either way, I don't know how he's positively counted 25. 'I find it hard to believe an Apache crew member can provide exact numbers. I find that bizarre, I'm sceptical. 'He's used a lot of jargon about serving in the forces, yet I've heard no one referring to human lives as chess pieces. To them, Prince Harry was the enemy. To us, they were the enemy. You have to respect that.' Rusty, a celebrated member of the Who Dares Wins regiment for 15 years, fears extremists are now plotting to make Harry pay for his words. He is certain of it. The 72-year-old said yesterday: 'I would not like to be in his shoes. 'He has shot himself in the foot and I just hope that is the worst that comes out of it.' Rusty, now a successful author, was famously part of the crack SAS team who stormed South Kensington's Iranian Embassy after six armed terrorists seized the building in 1980. In 1983, he rushed to Princess Diana's rescue when she and Charles secretly took part in an anti-terrorist and kidnap drill at the SAS's Herefordshire HQ. Harry said in Spare that he did not think of his targets as humans, rather chess pieces on a board Rusty, a celebrated member of the Who Dares Wins regiment for 15 years, fears extremists are now plotting to make Harry pay for his words Rusty leapt into action after a stray pellet from a stun grenade set fire to Diana's hair. He doused the flames. 'Harry has put himself and other members of the family at much greater risk,' said Rusty. 'As a terrorist target, Harry is now right up there. It's not only himself at risk, it's his family, his children and, arguably, members of the military family. 'He's a prince. The reverberations are much more than reading a line in a book. The Taliban have sat back and pretended to be Mr Nice Guy, but they haven't changed. They will study those words and decide what they want to do about them. 'I'm from the time of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, I met her more than once. From what I knew of her, she'd want nothing to do with this.' Rusty, who served in the army for 27 years before providing personal security for the rich and famous, has strong, working links with the royal family. He believes leading members of the monarchy and those tasked with shadowing them - will be forever haunted by Harry's revelations. 'I was involved in royal protection for two years,' he said, 'I know the officers who will be dealing with this. They are at more risk.' Colonel Richard Kemp said Prince Harry's comments were an 'own-goal' and raised the threat level against him 'He has turned a lot of the military against him and the military were part of my family for a very long time. If you turn that against you as well, you've got nowhere to go. He's destined to be very much a loner, a man without support from anyone. 'He has the rest of his life to look over his shoulder.' He was not the only veteran to criticise the Duke of Sussex's comments, as former British commander in Afghanistan Colonel Richard Kemp described his words as 'ill-judged.' Col Kemp told LBC on Saturday: 'It's an own-goal I think by announcing this number of kills and attracting the interest of the Taliban. 'He was already under threat as someone who has fought in Afghanistan, and obviously a very high-profile international fear. He was already under terrorist threat and that is pretty well-known. But this if anything has increased that threat.' On the description of Taliban fighters as 'chess pieces', and not as humans, he added: 'I've never come across any training that would suggest that should happen'. But he said Prince Harry had a 'phenomenal reputation within the armed forces and the veterans' community.' Col Kemp also expressed concerns that the Prince's comments could be used by lawyers attempting to prosecute British soldiers for their actions while serving: 'Another concern of mine is that his comments will be seized on by those lawyers who want to drag British soldiers through the courts accusing them of war crimes and unlawful killing. 'They will use his comments in court to say, "British soldiers are trained not even to see their enemy as humans so it's not surprising that they should act".' One security expert went as far as to say Prince Harry has a 'foolishness that knows no bounds.' Also speaking to LBC, Professor Anthony Glees, a politics professor at the University of Birmingham who specialises in security, said: 'He [Prince Harry] had probably been so [traumatised] himself, he's had a life full of trauma poor chap. 'But the way that you deal with these things is to reflect, to take advice from senior officers, from psychologists, and you don't put yourself, or your kids or your wife at obvious risk 'The Taliban aren't interested in the state of his mind, they aren't interested whether he's suddenly woke, whether he's suddenly seen the light, whether he suddenly opposed British policy. 'All the time he is chipping away at our armed strength in this country.' He added: 'Think how Putin must be grinning from ear to ear at what Prince Harry has said. So I think the damage is very deep.' Prince Harry's comments on his time in Afghanistan were uploaded to Twitter by Meghan's close friend Omid Scobie as he launched a fierce defence of the memoir. Prince Harry wrote: 'Afghanistan was a war of mistakes, a war of enormous collateral damage - thousands of innocents killed and maimed, and that always haunted us. 'So my goal from the day I arrived was never to go to bed doubting that I'd done the right thing, that my targets had been correct, that I was firing on Taliban and only Taliban.' The Duke of Sussex wrote: 'While in the heat and fog of combat, I didn't think of those twenty-five as people. You can't kill people if you think of them as people.' He also described how helicopter technology allowed him to know exactly how many people he had killed, and that his kill count did not give him 'satisfaction', nor did it make him 'ashamed'. German media says the prince showed 'no respect for the dignity of others' Prince Harry made a 'declaration of war' against the royal family in his latest round of bombshell TV attacks, according to international media. The Duke of Sussex 'shot the heart' of the monarchy with the latest revelations in interviews with ITV's Tom Bradby and CBS's Anderson Cooper. In scathing criticisms of his family, Harry branded his stepmother Camilla 'the villain' and 'dangerous', ignoring King Charles's pleas not to attack his wife. Spanish news outlet ABC condemned the comments, saying today: 'Prince Harry shoots the heart of the British Royal Family.' Prince Harry made a 'declaration of war' against the royal family in his latest round of bombshell TV attacks, according to international media They added that the media blitz by the 'wayward son' is causing a 'nightmare' for the monarchy with his 'explosive' statements. The Suddeutsche Zeitung, one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany, led today with the headline: 'Declaration of war against the royal house'. Fellow German outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said today: 'It's good that the Queen no longer has to experience this.' The withering critique said Harry has 'ruined the family life of the royals', adding: 'The prince and his wife present themselves as well-meaning do-gooders who were accused of being eaten by the Windsors of the gossip press. 'However, they themselves show no respect for the life, dignity or privacy of others.' Spanish outlet El Pais declared last night: 'Harry has decided to present himself to the world as a man who has achieved peace with himself - thanks to years of therapy - and happiness with his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children, Archie, three years old, and Lilibet, a year and a half. 'At no time does it cross his mind that, in doing so, he is airing the intimacies of close relatives or directly attacking them or the monarchical institution.' The Duke of Sussex 'shot the heart' of the monarchy with the latest revelations in interviews with ITV's Tom Bradby and CBS's Anderson Cooper Prince Harry's eagerly awaited memoir, Spare, goes on sale worldwide tomorrow, promising scandalous revelations about his own and his family's personal lives. French publication Le Figaro branded the royal 'Dirty Harry, dirtier than ever' amid the series of interviews, Netflix shows and lucrative book deals as he continues to sell his story and speak his 'truth'. On a night of TV drama on both sides of the Atlantic: In his interview on 60 Minutes with Anderson Cooper yesterday, Harry said regarding Camilla: 'She was the villain, she was a third person in the marriage, she needed to rehabilitate her image. 'That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.' The Duke claimed that Camilla forged 'connections' with the press in the UK in order to try and 'rehabilitate her image' and get 'positive stories' written about her Prince Harry has taken aim at his father's wife Camilla in a new TV interview to promote his explosive memoir Spare, with CBS' 60 Minutes in the US But hours earlier, in an interview that viewers said contained several contradictions, he told ITV's Tom Bradby that he was not 'scathing' towards Camilla in his book. Harry's contradictions included his denying previous allegations that the Royal Family is racist. There was also disbelief when Harry told Mr Bradby that whatever he says to William in future will remain 'private', despite using his memoirs, TV interviews, a Netflix documentary and an Oprah special to spill the beans on what his family said to him and Meghan behind closed doors. He also said he has no wish to hurt his family. Mr Bradby was visibly stunned - as were millions of viewers - by his screeching U-turn from previous incendiary claims that an unnamed senior royal had raised concerns over the colour of his son Archie's skin. The broadcaster raised the 2021 Oprah interview with Meghan and said: 'You accused members of your family of racism.' But Harry snapped back: 'No I didn't. The British press said that'. The CBS interview came hours after a longer sit-down in the UK with ITV, in which he told his friend Mr Bradby that his family was 'complicit' in the 'pain and suffering' inflicted on his wife Meghan and compared them to 'abusers'. He suggested they helped to 'trash' his and Meghan's reputations, forcing them to move to California, and have 'shown no willingness to reconcile'. Harry also said that there was a 'lot of stereotyping' of Meghan after she was introduced to the Royal Family, because she is an 'American actress, divorced, biracial'. But, in an interview of contradictions, he later insisted that the Royal Family is not racist - despite the allegation being at the very heart of the Sussexes' Oprah interview in 2021. The duke said the comments made about his son Archie's skin colour were 'unconscious bias'. Mr Bradby appeared taken aback by the answer - while experts said that Harry clearly didn't understand the term he was now using. Prince Harry pictured with his brother Prince William and father Prince Charles at the funeral of Princess Diana Harry's new book is out in the UK tomorrow, but was released early in Spain. The duke writes in his memoir how he and William begged the King not to marry Camilla, and he told Anderson Cooper: 'We didn't think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good.' In his UK interview with ITV on Sunday night, the duke, however, denied that he had been 'scathing' about the Queen Consort in his autobiography. Presenter Tom Bradby said: 'I want to sort of just briefly talk about your stepmother and the press 'cause you, you are pretty consistently scathing and suggest that you are...' Harry replies 'Scathing?...What, scathing towards?' Mr Bradby responds: 'Well, as in you say that, 'your interests were sacrificed on her PR altar', to quote, and you seem to be specifically referencing that. Now her people might say, well, it's not a crime to go to lunch with journalists. Harry: 'Well, I think in the book is very clear what happened.' American media have slammed Prince Harry after his two prime-time interviews on both ideas' of the pond. Fox and Friends host Ainsley Earhardt said in response to his interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS' 60-minutes that while everyone has family problems you dont go out and spread it all to the world. She had been interviewing Piers Morgan who branded the Duke of Sussex as being on a one-man mission to dismantle the monarchy. Prince Harry gave old friend Tom Bradby a candid interview with Britains ITV ahead of the release of his controversial tell-all memoir Spare. American media has reacted to Prince Harry and his duo of televised interviews (pictured) that aired on Sunday ahead of the release of his tell-all memoir Spare Fox and Friends host Ainsley Earhardt said in response to his interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS' 60-minutes that while everyone has family problems you dont go out and spread it all to the world' In explosive revelations, Harry said he is 'not texting' his brother and described Queen Consort Camilla as 'the villain'. He told ITV's Bradby he was speaking out in his memoir because 'silence only allows the abuser to abuse'. Both sides of the pond have been quick to react to the Duke's revelations, with American media given several high-profile interviews with the royal. Earhardt said on Fox and Friends: 'You know, everyone has stuff that happens and their families, but you don't go out and spread it all to the world.' Piers Morgan was quick to shut down claims by Harry that the British press were intrusive, telling the show: He has turned out to be the single most intrusive person the royal family has ever been exposed to. CNN's Don Lemon spoke about losing several of his own family members, before adding that he 'hopes' Prince William and Harry can 'heal' their rift. Speaking to Cooper about the interview, he said: 'It's interesting because you never get those people back, but he still has his brother in his life. 'That was the sad part for me, when he said I don't think I'll ever be a member of the royal family again, which translated to me as, I don't think I can heal this rift. I hope they can. His brother is still here.' However TODAY's Al Roker slammed Harry for not trying to 'resolve things' with his family before going public. He said: This goes so deeply it almost seems like he's trying to get back at them. Its all about family, Prince Harry could have learnt about Craig Melvin, he wrote a book on his dad and addiction but you didnt do it until after everything had been resolved. The incendiary interviews were covered across the whole US media spectrum, with Bloomberg noting that Harry reserved 'real venom' for his brother William, while the prince 'skillfully directed and produced his own melodrama' In explosive revelations to Anderson Cooper on CBS's 60-minutes, Harry (pictured) said he is 'not texting' his brother and described Queen Consort Camilla as 'the villain', and told ITV's Bradby he was speaking out in his memoir because 'silence only allows the abuser to abuse' Until things had been taken care of and then he went public because there was resolution - and thats how you do that. Bloomberg noted that Harry reserved 'real venom' for his brother William, while the prince 'skillfully directed and produced his own melodrama'. In an opinion piece for Bloomberg, Martin Ivens compares Harry and William's feud to other famous warring siblings - both fictional and non-fictional - and particularly those born from the resentment that comes from a first-born's right to succeed. Ivens points to 'Jacob who outwits a slow-witted, elder brother Esau to win his father's inheritance', the Roy siblings in the HBO drama Succession, and the Miliband brothers in the UK who vied for leadership of the Labour party - with the younger of the pair, Ed Miliband, going on to win the position in 2010. He believes that Prince Harry is getting 'his revenge' by publishing Spare for being made to feel second best by Buckingham Palace - casting doubt on Harry's insistence he is not trying to hurt his family. 'Prince Harry has skillfully directed and produced his own melodrama,' Ivens says. 'Lacerating detail of his quarrels with William, Prince of Wales, will guarantee the warring brothers a place in history,' he adds, saying the story resonates with people around the world. The difference, he notes, is that most disgruntled siblings don't get the chance to air their grievances to Oprah Winfrey. Ivens notes that during his interviews, Harry reserves the 'real venom' for his brother, 'whom he accuses of 'parroting' the Fleet Street newspaper line about Meghan's alleged high-handed ways', the piece says. The Washington Post said in its article on the interviews that Harry has launched 'a full broadside' against Buckingham Palace with his latest media appearances, focusing in particular on his comments about his stepmother Camilla NBC News said that Harry 'unmasked his emotion and animosity toward Britain's royal family' in the interviews that aired on Sunday Fox News summarizes the 'Top 5 bombshells' in Harry's Sunday night 60 Minutes interview While fights between boys are 'commonplace,' the columnist writes, 'for two adults to row about whether Harry's beard should be shaved off for his wedding day seems absurd, if not pathetic.' But despite all of Harry's complaints about the Royal Family, Ivens says that the Prince seems reluctant to fully sever his ties. 'But if it is as rotten to the core as he suggests, why does he still hang on to his title?' Ivens asks. 'Possibly, Harry just likes being royal because he is used to it and it suits him and his wife. There is the paradox of the tale: The man who has rocked the monarchy by storming out of it, somehow can't let the old firm go,' he speculates. All that being said, Bloomberg notes, Harry's revelations are 'going to sell a lot of books'. Harry's book Spare has sparked a furor over his claims that William physically attacked him, while his admission he killed 25 Taliban members during the Afghanistan war generated protests in Helmand province. In shock remarks, Harry denied he accused the royal family of racism in his Oprah interview, when wife Meghan Markle revealed an unnamed family member raised concerns about how dark their unborn son's skin would be. The New York Post's headline focuses on some of these more salacious details from the interviews. 'Prince Harry admits to 'drinking heavily,' using hard drugs on 60 Minutes' the Post's headline read on Sunday evening The Hollywood Reporter says the Prince 'keeps the royal melodrama going with a series of much-talked-about TV interviews in the U.S. and U.K' Variety reports on Harry's criticism of the controversial British TV personality Jeremy Clarkson, who was criticized at the end of last year for a newspaper column he wrote about his dislike of Harry's wife Meghan NBC News says that Harry 'unmasked his emotion and animosity toward Britain's royal family' in the interviews that aired on Sunday. The network says Harry was 'taking aim' at the Royal Family ahead of his 'bombshell' memoir, which releases on Tuesday - although it was leaked ahead of time, revealing several new details of the Prince's claims against the Firm. The Washington Post says Harry has launched 'a full broadside' against Buckingham Palace with his latest media appearances, focusing in particular on his comments about his stepmother Camilla. Harry said Camilla's willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her 'dangerous' and there would be 'bodies left in the street because of that'. The New York Times notes that Harry was 'at times emotional' in his interviews, but otherwise appeared 'at ease' discussing his issues with the family. Harry's tell-all tales in his book include recounting how he took cocaine and magic mushrooms, and lost his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a busy pub, with the stories have ewinating the headlines for days. The New York Post's headline focuses on some of these more salacious details from the interviews. 'Prince Harry admits to 'drinking heavily,' using hard drugs on 60 Minutes' the Post's headline read on Sunday evening. Tabloid Page Six focuses on Harry's revelation of if he is still in close contact with his family despite the back and forth in the media The New York Post's headline focuses on some of these more salacious details from the interviews Harry told Cooper that he did this is response to the trauma he suffered as a result of the death of his mother, Princess Diana, who was killed in a fatal car crash. Fox News, meanwhile, summarizes the 'Top 5 bombshells' in the 60 Minutes interview. These, it says, were Harry asking for proof that Princess Diana had died, that Harry sought experimental treatments for his anger, that Queen Consort Camilla was 'the villain,' that he had a physical fight with William, and that Harry is currently not speaking to his father - King Charles - and his brother. Tabloid Page Six focuses on Harry's admission that he still has questions about the death of his mother. During the interview, Cooper said Harry had written how he had believed his mother was still alive until the age of 23, when he visited Paris for the first time. During the ITV interview with Bradby, Page Six reports how Harry told the presenter that 'there's a lot of things that are unexplained' in relation to Diana's death. Harry also revealed how he felt 'slightly isolated' and different from his family in his younger years following the death of his mother, but shared joyful times with his great-grandmother the Queen Mother. The Duke also spoke about the royal family's mistrust of his wife Meghan Markle - allegedly sparked by her being 'American, an actress, divorced, black', before joking: 'She must be a witch'. Cooper put it to the duke that his family dynamic was like 'Game of Thrones without dragons', but Harry replied: 'I don't watch Game of Thrones but there's definitely dragons - and that's again the third party that is the British press.' In his interviews, Harry said Queen Consort Camilla's (pictured second right) willingness to forge relationships with the British press made her 'dangerous' Bloomberg noted that Harry reserved 'real venom' for his brother William (seen together in September) while the prince 'skillfully directed and produced his own melodrama' On account of Harry's royal-celebrity status - particularly since marrying his American wife Meghan and leaving the UK for Los Angeles - the couple are also of significant interest to the Hollywood press. Covering Harry's Sunday night interviews, The Hollywood Reporter says the Prince 'keeps the royal melodrama going with a series of much-talked-about TV interviews in the U.S. and U.K.' 'Certain members of the British royal family may well have been avoiding the television on Sunday,' THR says, following a week of 'damaging revelations'. The magazine's headline focuses on Harry telling Cooper during the interview in Los Angeles: 'The saddest thing is that it never needed to be this way' about the growing separation he feels from his family in London. Among all the shocking revelations from Spare, THR says 'the most incendiary revelation' - which resulted in worldwide headlines - was of the altercation with William in 2019. Variety, meanwhile, reports on Harry's criticism of the controversial British TV personality Jeremy Clarkson, who was criticized at the end of last year for a newspaper column he wrote about his dislike of Meghan. '[It was] horrific, hurtful and cruel towards my wife,' Variety quotes Harry as saying in the ITV interview. Two more interviews are set to be broadcast, with Michael Strahan of Good Morning America on Monday and Stephen Colbert on the Late Show on CBS on Wednesday morning UK time. Since Harry and Meghan announced their departure from the monarchy, many have called into question whether or not they should be stripped of their royal titles. Poll Do you think Harry and Meghan should be stripped of their royal titles? Yes No Undecided Do you think Harry and Meghan should be stripped of their royal titles? Yes 198636 votes No 9211 votes Undecided 2126 votes Now share your opinion The pair first made the shocking announcement that they were going to step back from their royal duties on January 8, 2020. At the time, they wrote in a joint statement that they had reached the decision after 'many months of reflection and internal discussions.' They continued by saying they wanted to 'work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.' MailOnline app users can vote in the poll by clicking here. The statement continued: 'This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.' Since, the issue of their titles has become increasingly pressing as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have continuously made attacks on the royal family - starting with the Oprah interview, then following on to a Netflix documentary, and finally the release of Harry's memoir, which he has been promoting in a string of interviews. The pair first made the announcement that they were going to step back from their royal duties in 2020 The Duke, 38, addressed the matter himself during his tell-all interview with 60 Minutes, suggesting the pair have no intention to give up the status as it would not 'make a difference'. Anderson Cooper asked: 'Why not renounce your titles as Duke and Duchess?' Prince Harry retorted back: 'And what difference would that make?' This statement contradicts Harry's previous claims in his Netflix docuseries, saying he and Meghan told King Charles they would give up their Royal titles if their departure failed. The Prince, 38, addressed the burning question surrounding his and his wife's royal titles during a new, tell-all interview with 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday During the series, he said that by the time he spoke to his father Charles from Canada in Christmas 2019, the family knew they wanted to leave. Discussing the initial conversations, he added: 'My father said, "Can you put it in writing?" Harry said he would prefer not to, but relented, adding: 'He said he couldn't do anything unless it was put in writing. I put it in emails.' Over footage of Meghan sighing, Harry said he sent messages on January 1, 2 and 3. The Duke adds: 'In one of those I said that if it didn't work out we would be willing to relinquish our Sussex titles if need be. That was the plan.' NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured an image of the sun's powerful X-class solar flare that is strong enough to create geomagnetic storms that could disrupt Earth's magnetic field. The solar flare that occurred on Thursday came from a complex sunspot that could flare up once more very soon. Scientists said that the blast of charged particles was recorded as an X1.2-class flare. Powerful X-Class Solar Flare X flares are considered the most powerful category of flares and are strong enough to result in geomagnetic storms that can reach our planet. These also have the strength to damage satellites, communications equipment, and even the power grid. An X1 flare such as the most recent one that NASA has documented is at the lower end of the X-scale. This means that there is no immediate damage from the blast itself that has been reported yet, except for a short-wave radio blackout in several parts of Australia and the South Pacific. This particular outage was caused by the solar flare's energized blast that traveled at the speed of light toward our planet, reaching the surface in a mere eight minutes. However, it was still quite a brief blackout, as per CNET. On the other hand, scientists believe that there will surely be more solar flares that will come out of this particular sunspot. Former NASA astronomer Tony Phillips said that given the size and apparent complexity of the large, active region, there was a pretty good chance that the explosions would continue through the following days. Powerful solar flares are usually followed by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) of hot plasma that can be thrown into the direction of our planet, albeit at much slower speeds. These could take up to a day or more to reach Earth. When powerful CMEs make a direct impact on our planet, the result can be bright auroral displays at higher altitudes. However, these can also result in the aforementioned infrastructure damage. But so far, there have been no reports of a CME accompanying the solar flare on Thursday. Read Also: First Meteor Shower in 2023: How To Watch Spectacular Quadrantids? Monitoring the Sun's Impact on Earth According to SciTechDaily, being an X1.2-class solar flare, the recent blast was more powerful than an average X1 flare. Specifically, the recent burst has a peak flux of 1.2 x 10 W/m. Scientists warn that it can also produce a significant amount of solar energetic particles (SEPs) that are a threat to spacecraft and astronauts in space. NASA's SDO is a spacecraft that was launched by the space agency in 2010 in an effort to study the sun and how it influences our planet. The craft is part of NASA's Living with a Star (LWS) program. This seeks to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. NASA officials said that solar flares are typically seen by the photons (or light) that they release, at most every wavelength of the spectrum. The primary ways that they are monitoring these flares are in x-rays and optical light. Solar flares are also sites where particles (electrons, protons, and other heavier particles) are accelerated, the Hindustan Times reported. Related Article: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Captures Images of Ancient Milky Way-Like Galaxies From 11 Billion Years Ago @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. He is now also accused of abusing a pupil in his adopted country of South Africa Man, known as Edgar, admitted fondling pupils at top schools where he worked A retired schoolmaster accused of sexually abusing boys at some of Scotland's most prestigious schools is now facing similar allegations in his adopted country of South Africa. Broadcaster Nicky Campbell has spearheaded the campaign to extradite the 82-year-old man, who has admitted fondling male pupils at Fettes College and Edinburgh Academy, which Mr Campbell attended in the 1970s. The 61-year-old said he saw the teacher abuse his friend in his school's changing rooms and described his conduct as 'so ubiquitous' that all of the pupils knew what was going on. Now, the man - referred to only as 'Edgar' for legal reasons - is accused of abusing another boy at Rondebosch Boys' School in Cape Town, where he taught from 1979 to 2006, The Mirror reports. Broadcaster Nicky Campbell says he witnessed his former teacher 'Edgar' abuse male pupils at Edinburgh Academy in the 1970s and has spearheaded the campaign to extradite the man to the UK from South Africa Edinburgh Academy, where Edgar allegedly abused dozens of boys in the 1970s, has since issued a public apology and says it is cooperating with police The victim, known as Steven, was interviewed by journalist Alex Renton for his Radio 4 series Dark Corners. He described being molested by Edgar several times in one year in the 1980s. Steven said: 'He was a senior teacher in his 50s, I was a 12, 13-year-old boy. All I could say was, "yes sir, no sir". His favourite one was being untidy. If your shirt wasn't tucked in, that was part of his modus operandi to have physical contact with you. That would progress to grabbing me. He would push himself up against me.' Steven added that he witnessed Edgar abusing other boys at the school. Dark Corners, which investigates abuse allegations at some of Britain's most elite schools, reported that the Cape Town School has appealed for alumni to come forward with their stories if they believe they were abused. Campbell described the interview as a 'breakthrough' and said he was glad the 'net was finally closing in' on the suspect. He said: 'It's a real breakthrough. The Scottish and South African legal authorities have made procedural errors, but there's now a very good chance Edgar will be prosecuted in South Africa. Fettes College, made a 'full and unreserved apology' to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry over the abuse carried out by Edgar 'I've listened to the whole unedited interview with tears in my eyes. It is incredibly powerful. Your hear the shame. It is incredible that he has come forward.' Speaking on BBC Breakfast last July, Campbell said that another teacher at his school, Hamish Dawson, had abused him and had since died. Now he wants to bring 'Edgar' to justice, who is proving difficult to extradite. 'I think it's an absolute scandal that the extradition process is kind of like yeah whatever,' he said. '[Edgar] could well be one of the most prolific paedophiles in British criminal history if you do the maths and look at how long he taught and how many schools he was at.' He claimed that in 1971, aged 10, he witnessed the man - who has more than 20 child abuse allegations to his name under the ongoing Scottish Child Abuse Enquiry - abusing one of his friends in Edinburgh Academy's showers after rugby training. 'My friend is laughing but I know from the fear in it that it's not a good laugh,' Campbell recounted. 'When we walk to the bus stop we don't even talk about it and we'd never tell.' Nicky Campbell spoke in July about witnessing and experiencing sexual and violent physical abuse as a young schoolboy at a Scottish private school during the 1970s The former Watchdog presenter added he 'couldn't have spoken about the school' when his mother and father 'were alive' because of the sacrifices they made to send him to private school. He also called on a change of the rules for private schools who are not subject to the same safeguarding requirements as state schools. Mr Campbell added: 'There is no mandatory reporting in the private sector and you think now with our understanding and sensibilities he would be. 'Schools like that fostered a culture of omerta and not telling and keeping the secrets and these are the people who have been running the country.' After Campbell went public with the allegations, other former pupils of Edinburgh Academy and Fettes College stepped forward with stories of abuse. Edinburgh Academy has since issued a public apology and say it is cooperating with police. In a statement to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, Fettes College - whose alumni include former PM Tony Blair - made a 'full and unreserved apology'. It said: 'While words of apology may have limited worth, we fully accept and recognise in the past there was sexual, physical and emotional abuse of pupils while at Fettes College.' Edgar, who lives in a retirement complex in Cape Town, was arrested in South Africa in 2019 by British Police, and is due to appear in court on March 17 for a further extradition hearing. He told a previous court hearing that he moved to Edinburgh from South Africa in 1967 to seek treatment after experiencing 'urges' to touch boys in the school he worked after graduating, The Times reports. Harry has shocked the world again with two interviews in which he launches another series of bombshells on the Royal family and the British press. In an ITV interview with his friend Tom Bradby, he suggests his relatives were 'complicit' in the 'pain and suffering' inflicted on his wife, and astonishingly likens them to 'abusers'. The Duke also insists he would have physically fought William in Nottingham Cottage if he hadn't been receiving therapy, criticises King Charles' parenting and makes a cryptic reference to 'a lack of scrutiny to my family towards a lot of things'. Meanwhile, speaking to Anderson Cooper on US network CBS, he calls Camilla 'the villain' and 'dangerous' - ignoring his father's pleas not to attack her - and suggests there are still questions to be answered surrounding Diana's death. The interviews are to plug his memoir, Spare, which was officially released today days after being prematurely put on sale in Spain. Below, MailOnline runs through the top 10 moments from the two appearances. Harry suggested William and Kate had 'stereotyped' his wife Meghan as a 'biracial American actress' William and Kate 'stereotyped' Meghan as a 'biracial American actress' 'Stereotyping' prevented Meghan from being properly welcomed into the Royal Family, Harry said. The Duke of Sussex described a fractious relationship between his wife and Kate, and said his sister-in-law got so angry during a clear-the-air summit that she gripped the edges of a leather chair so tightly 'her fingers were white'. Harry said Kate demanded an apology from Meghan for describing a moment of forgetfulness by the then-Duchess of Cambridge as 'baby brain', allegedly telling the former Suits star the women were 'not close enough' to talk in such a manner with each other. In his interview with Bradby, Harry said: 'I always hoped that the four of us [Harry, Meghan, Kate and William] would get on. 'But, very quickly it became Meghan versus Kate. And that, when it plays out so publicly, you can't hide from that.' Harry and Meghan began dating in 2016 and got engaged the following year. He said his older brother William did not dissuade him from marrying Meghan, but 'aired some concerns' about how hard it would be for Harry. The royal said: 'I don't think they were ever expecting me to get or to become to get into a relationship with someone like Meghan who had, you know, a very successful career. 'There was a lot of stereotyping that was happening. Some of the way that they were acting or behaving definitely felt to me as though unfortunately that stereotyping was causing a bit of a barrier to them really introducing or welcoming her in.' Asked to provide further details, Harry replied: 'American actress, divorced, biracial, there's all different parts to that and what that can mean but if you are, like a lot of my family do, if you are reading the Press, the British tabloids, there is a tendency where you could actually end up living in the tabloid bubble rather than the actual reality.' Prince Harry has accused the British media of creating the notion of the 'Fab Four' royals in order to introduce a drive for competition Harry also repeated the claim that Kate made Meghan cry during the notorious bridesmaids row at the Sussexes' 2018 wedding, but admitted there had been 'over 25 versions' of the story. Prince Harry has accused the British media of creating the notion of the 'Fab Four' royals in order to introduce a drive for competition. The duke claimed that while he hoped that he and the Duchess of Sussex would be close to the now Prince and Princess of Wales the relationship was quickly reduced to 'Meghan versus Kate'. Blaming the media for the breakdown of the relations, Harry claimed the ideas of the 'Fab Four' was 'something that the British Press created' to 'dissect and create competition'. He said that as the 'new kids on the block', the Sussexes had been used to 'sell papers' and the couple were inadvertently 'stealing the limelight' from other senior royals, causing divides. Keeping conversations with his brother 'private' There was disbelief when Harry told Bradby that whatever he says to William in future will remain 'private', despite using his memoirs, TV interviews, a Netflix documentary as well as an Oprah special to spill the beans on what his family said to him and Meghan behind closed doors. The duke said: 'I don't know whether they'll be watching this [interview] or not, but, what they have to say to me and what I have to say to them will be in private, and I hope it can stay that way.' Hundreds of royal fans took to social media to blast the duke's bewildering plea for privacy after publicly airing several deeply personal rifts within his family. Ex-BBC broadcaster Jon Sopel tweeted: 'Please tell me I misheard this: 'I hope what I say to my father and brother remains private'.' Vanity Fair's royal correspondent Katie Nicholl shared her thoughts in just two words in her own tweet: 'The irony!' Another person quipped online: 'Private? Not a word in Harry's vocabulary.' There was disbelief when Harry told Bradby that whatever he says to William in future will remain 'private' Royals aren't racist but are guilty of 'unconscious bias' Prince Harry claimed to Bradby that he didn't accuse an unnamed member of the royal family of racism, two years after they told Oprah that there were 'concerns' about how dark Archie's skin would be. In a bombshell interview to plug his new memoir, the royal discussed Meghan's controversial claim to Oprah Winfrey that an unnamed royal had expressed 'concern' about what colour skin their son Archie might have as a bi-racial child. Harry confirmed that a remark had been made but refused to name the individual concerned, prompting a worldwide guessing game and leading his estranged brother, Prince William, to publicly remark that they were 'very much not a racist family'. While he has not referred to the incident in his memoir, which is published tomorrow, he was asked by ITV's Tom Bradby in the interview to plug the book: 'Wouldn't you describe that as essentially racist?' The prince replies: 'I wouldn't, not having lived within that family.' But he adds: 'The difference between racism and unconscious bias the two things are different. But once it's been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.' And he accused Buckingham Palace of failing to follow up on promises it made in the wake of the Oprah controversy, including appointing a 'diversity tsar'. Harry and Meghan's 'tell-all' conversation with Miss Winfrey in 2021 marked their first major interview since they stepped down as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020. One of the most shocking moments from the interview came when Meghan said there were 'several conversations' between herself, Harry and members of the Royal Family about 'how dark' their baby could be before Archie was born. Harry added: 'That conversation, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked.' His refusal to name the person involved sparked an international guessing game about who the 'royal racist' was. Prince Harry claimed to Bradby that he didn't accuse an unnamed member of the royal family of racism, two years after they told Oprah that there were 'concerns' about how dark Archie's skin would be In a statement the late Queen said the claims were 'concerning' but stressed that 'recollections may vary' and the claims would be addressed privately. Referring to the racism allegations made previously by his wife, Harry bridled at the suggestion by Bradby that he accused his family of racism, snapping back: 'No I didn't. The British Press said that. Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist?' 'She said there were troubling comments about Archie's skin colour,' Bradby replied. 'There was there was concern about his skin colour,' Harry corrected him. When Bradby suggested that there was a danger by not naming the person concerned, Harry said: 'Yes, you're right, the key word is concern, which was troubling. 'But you speak to any other couple, mixed race couple around the world, and you will probably find that the white side of the family have either openly discussed it, or secretly discussed, you know, 'What are the kids gonna look like?' And that is part of a, you know, bigger conversation that needs to be had.' He claimed that after the interview with Miss Winfrey 'they said that they were gonna [sic] bring in a diversity tsar. That hasn't happened'. He added: 'Everything they said was gonna [sic] happen hasn't happened. I've always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it, and especially when you are the monarchy you have a responsibility and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others.' Royals were 'horrible' to him and Meghan after the Queen's death The Duke of Sussex accused the royals of a 'really horrible reaction' and said his family were 'caught on the back foot' on the day Queen Elizabeth II died. Speaking about September 8, he told Bradby: 'The day that she died was just a really, really horrible reaction from my family members. 'And then by all accounts, well certainly from what I saw and what other people probably experienced, was they were on the back foot and then the briefings and the leaking and the planting. The Duke of Sussex accused the royals of a 'really horrible reaction' and said his family were 'caught on the back foot' on the day Queen Elizabeth II died 'I was like 'We're here to celebrate the life of granny and to mourn her loss, can we come together as a family?' but I don't know how we collectively - how we change that.' In the controversial tell-all memoir Spare, Harry also recounts his final words to his grandmother when he visited her body at Balmoral. 'I whispered that I hoped she was happy and that she was with grandfather now. 'I said that I admired her for having carried out her duties until the end: the Jubilee, the welcoming of the new Prime Minister,' Harry revealed. His words come after it was reported he claimed in his memoir, Spare, that Meghan was 'not welcome' at Balmoral, with the King allegedly telling Harry not to bring his wife. 'I want reconciliation' but family has 'shown no willingness to reconcile' Harry claims to want reconciliation with his family, but insists the 'ball is in their court' and he and Meghan need 'accountability' for their behaviour. Speaking about what he wants from his family and book, Harry told Bradby: 'I want reconciliation, but first there needs to be some accountability. You can't just continue to say to me that I'm delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up, because I was genuinely terrified about what's gonna happen to me.' Referencing his decision to step down as a senior royal in 2019, he continued: 'And then we have a 12-month transition period, and everyone doubles down. My wife shares her experience.' He said that instead of backing off, 'both the institution and the media doubled down.' Harry added: 'I want reconciliation, but first there needs to be some accountability.' 'They've shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile up until this point. And I'm not sure how honesty is burning bridges. 'You know, silence only allows the abuser to abuse. Right? So I don't know how staying silent is ever gonna make things better. That's genuinely what I believe.' Camilla is branded 'the villain' and 'dangerous' In his interview with Anderson Cooper, attacks his stepmother Camilla, branding her 'the villain' and 'dangerous', having ignored a plea from his father not to attack his wife. Harry, in an interview with US show CBS's 60 Minutes, launched into his fiercest criticism yet of his stepmother. The duke wrote in his memoir Spare that Camilla 'sacrificed me on her personal PR altar'. In his interview with Anderson Cooper, attacks his stepmother Camilla, branding her 'the villain' and 'dangerous', having ignored a plea from his father not to attack his wife He told Cooper: 'She was the villain, she was a third person in the marriage, she needed to rehabilitate her image.' He added: 'The need for her to rehabilitate her image...that made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press. 'And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.' The duke writes in his memoir how he and William begged the King not to marry Camilla, and he told Cooper: 'We didn't think it was necessary. We thought it would do more harm than good.' In last night's interview with Bradby, the duke, however, denied that he had been 'scathing' about the Queen Consort in his autobiography. Bradby said: 'I want to sort of just briefly talk about your stepmother and the press 'cause you, you are pretty consistently scathing and suggest that you are...' Harry replies 'Scathing?...What, scathing towards?' Bradby responds: 'Well, as in you say that, 'your interests were sacrificed on her PR altar', to quote, and you seem to be specifically referencing that. Now her people might say, well, it's not a crime to go to lunch with journalists. Harry: 'Well, I think in the book is very clear what happened.' In an excerpt read from his memoir Harry says: ''We support you' we said, 'We endorse Camilla' we said. 'Just please don't marry her, just be together, Pa.' He didn't answer. 'But she answered. Straight away. Shortly after our private summits with her, she began to play the long game. A campaign aimed at marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa's blessing we presumed.' Camilla's public image has changed dramatically over the years since she was cast as the third person in the marriage of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales due to her affair with Charles. 'Still questions to be answered' over Diana's death Harry said there was a lot that remained 'unexplained' about the crash that killed his mother Prince Harry revealed how he 'demanded' to see pictures of Princess Diana's fatal crash as he struggled to believe his mother had really died. Speaking in the ITV interview, Harry said he had been searching for 'evidence' that his mother was dead and described looking at images of her devastating 1997 collision. The duke also claimed there was a lot about the crash that remained 'unexplained' and suggested that if the paparazzi were removed from the equation she would still be alive. Referring to a section in his book, Bradby said Harry had asked his private secretary to see the 'secret government file' on Diana's death before Harry narrates a passage from Spare. In his book, Harry recounted the searing moment he first laid eyes on the images of his beloved mother laying in the debris of the catastrophic crash. 'At last, I came to the photos of mummy. There were lights around her, auras, almost halos... The colour of the lights was the same colour as her hair. Golden,' Harry said. Still very young, he struggled at first to understand what the lights might be before coming to the shocking realisation that they were 'visages' of the paparazzi captured in the flash of the cameras. 'As I realise their true origin, my stomach clenched. Flashes. They were flashes, and within some of the flashes were ghostly visages. And half visages,' he continued. 'Paps, and reflected paps and refracted paps on all the smooth metal and services and glass windscreens. Those who'd chased her. 'They'd never stopped shooting her... Not one of them was checking on her, offering her help, not even comforting her.' Harry said he is 'thankful' that his secretary had removed the more harrowing content from the file. However he said he saw several images: 'I saw the back of her blonde hair, you know, slumped on the back of the seat.' Explaining the thinking behind his request, Harry said: 'I was looking for evidence... that it actually happened, that it was true. 'But I was also looking for something to hurt, because at that point I was still pretty numb to the whole thing.' He added that it 'still hurts' to know that his mother was photographed as she lay dying. He said there were still several question marks over her death and having driven through the Paris tunnel himself, added that it was 'impossible to lose control' unless you were 'completely blinded'. Despite believing that the people responsible for the crash the paparazzi 'all got away it', Harry said he doesn't see the point of reopening an inquiry. Drugs helped him deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' Harry credited the use of psychedelic drugs with helping him deal with the 'grief' and 'trauma' he felt after the tragic death of his mother, Diana. The Duke of Sussex called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997. He told Anderson Cooper: 'I would never recommend people to do this recreationally. The Duke of Sussex called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his 'medicine' after the huge 'loss' of his mother in 1997 'But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. 'For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that ... I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.' Harry explained during the sit down that he believes he didn't cry over Diana's death because he had 'refused to accept that she was gone.' He added that there was a huge 'weight on his chest' that he 'felt for so many years' over not shedding more tears - and that he even tried watching videos of her to bring forth his emotions. 'I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum,' he added. 'And sometimes I watched videos online.' 'I'm very happy', Harry insists - despite constantly slating his family Despite the constant attacks on his family, the Duke of Sussex said he is 'very happy and very at peace' living with wife Meghan and their two children Archie and Lilibet in their multimillion-dollar California mansion. He claimed he is 'in a better place than I've ever been', which he said 'probably angers some people [and] infuriates others' who never thought he would step away from life as a senior royal. 'It wasn't something that I would have necessarily chosen at the time, but I own my story and I own the results. 'I've got two beautiful kids and an amazing wife, like the happiness in my family now I have never felt anywhere else before,' he told Bradby. 'I guess there's also a lot of people who refuse to accept that I could be happy out here, because of what I've left behind. But the reality is I've never been happier,' he added. Asked if the peace and happiness he felt was because he was physically away from 'aggravating' factors like the British media, Harry said 'the safety of my family is my priority', adding this was 'the main reason' behind Megxit. Of his new life, Harry said: 'I feel safe here, my family feel safe here, I'm happy, my family's happy'. He admitted that while it is 'difficult going back', he believes he is mentally strong enough to attempt a reconciliation with the Royal Family. The duke insisted he is in 'such a good headspace now, that whatever conversations need to happen, or whatever the future holds to the point of where, can there be reconciliation and is there some, whatever comes from that, that I'm in a really good place to be able to have those conversations and come back and not linger on it, or not let it pull me back in.' Criticises Donald Trump for his 'harmful' and 'dangerous' tweets Harry criticised Donald Trump with an oblique reference to his allegedly 'harmful' and 'dangerous' tweets. The Duke was discussing the need for the Royal family to face 'accountability' for their alleged wrongdoing when he mentioned the former US president without saying his name. He told Bradby: 'And from what I have learnt and believe of the monarchy, if someone in this country, if someone, you know, especially in the US, no names mentioned, tweets or says certain things that are just categorically harmful and dangerous, you have the president and the vice president speak out against it. 'But, everything to do with my wife, after six years, they haven't said a single thing. But they're willing to defend themselves regularly.' Read more: Harry is accused of turning the Royal Family 'into an episode of the Kardashians' as social media explodes at ITV interview - questioning why the Duke is calling for his privacy in tell-all chat William is 'dignified and unbelievably loyal' say friends, who claim future king will keep his silence despite Harry's ongoing bombshell revelations Prince Harry claims William wasn't keen on a public 'walkabout' before his wedding to Meghan - and cancelled plans to stay with him the night before Sarah Harris has slammed Prince Harry for revealing cheap secrets about his family including that he and his brother William were circumcised. The new Project host on Monday's episode - which featured the Duke of Sussex's latest tell-all interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper - questioned what the wayward Prince is hoping to achieve by dishing out so much dirt on the Royal Family. Prince Harry's new bombshell memoir Spare, which lays out he and wife Meghan Markle's struggles with the Crown, is set to be released on Tuesday - although explosive details of it's content have already been widely leaked. 'What is all that cheap stuff? What is that cheap stuff that he brings up in the book? What does that achieve though?' Harris asked her co-hosts. '(He) talked about his and his brother's circumcisions. It's just stuff you don't need to know about.' Prince Harry (pictured with wife Meghan Markle) released his tell-all memoir, Spare, which the hosts of Channel 10's The Project discussed New host on the current affairs show Sarah Harris (pictured) was perplexed by the 'cheap stuff' in the book and questioned why the Duke of Sussex decided to write about his circumcision Fellow host Steve Price also blasted the Prince Harry for sharing private details about his family for a paycheck. 'He won't give up his title, he's selling his family's secrets including that he saw his grandmother the Queen dead in bed, for money,' he said. 'He's flogging a book, he's gone to Netflix, he's done the Oprah interview. It's all about him and Meghan making money out of flogging royal secrets. Price added that he didn't buy the 'justification' from Prince Harry that he had written the book to 'protect his wife'. 'He didn't need to go public with any of this,' he said. The Duke of Sussex addressed the 'media's fascination' with his genitalia in his autobiography with rumours swirling about him and his brother being uncircumcised. 'There were countless stories in books, and papers (even The New York Times) about Willy and me not being circumcised,' he wrote. But Prince Harry put the rumours to bed, declaring all the stories were inaccurate and confirming that he had been 'snipped'. Other strange details in the book included the Duke of Sussex revealing that his penis had become injured during a gruelling charity trek through the North Pole in 2011. Prince Harry's memoir is due for release on January 10. Some copies have been released early in Spain. (pictured, a copy of the autobiography that has hit the shelves early in Spain) The Duke of Sussex was addressing the media's fascination with his genitalia in his autobiography as rumours swirled about him and his brother being uncircumcised Harris' co-host Steve Price (pictured) slammed the Duke for 'flogging his family's secrets for money' A group of of servicemen had decided to make the 305km journey to raise money for Walking with the Wounded when they were joined by Prince Harry for four days. He returned home in time to attend the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and made an X-rated admission about his penis at their pre-wedding dinner. 'Pa was very interested and sympathetic about the discomfort of my frostnipped ears and cheeks, and it was an effort not to overshare and tell him also about my equally tender penis,' he wrote. 'Upon arriving home I'd been horrified to discover that my nether regions were frostnipped as well, and while the ears and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn't.' The Duke of Sussex opened up on more X-rated matters in his autobiography, recounting on how he lost his virginity to an unnamed older woman at the age of 17. He explained how his anonymous first lover treated him like a 'young stallion' and detailed how the steamy exchange took place in a field behind a pub. Three years after his rendezvous with the anonymous older woman, Prince Harry started dating socialite Chelsea Davy. Prince Harry has candidly spoken about his penis becoming 'frostnipped' during his trip to Antartica in his soon to be released autobiography 'Spare' The Duke opened up about other private matters in his autobiography recounting losing his virginity to an unnamed older woman at the age of 17 Harris' criticism of Prince Harry comes just one day after she made her debut on Network Ten's flagship show The Project on the Sunday. The former Studio 10 star was met with approval from viewers, who posted their thoughts to Instagram and Twitter. 'Great show Sarah! You are a good fit for @theprojecttv,' one person said of the 41-year-old television star. '@SarahHarris loving you on @theprojecttv,' another person said while one more chimed in, 'How good it is to see @SarahHarris on @theprojecttv'. 'Project better now more clever and fun,' someone else said, while another wrote: 'Awesome start on The Project, Sarah. You look really comfortable on the desk.' 'You were born for this gig @theprojecttv @SarahHarris. You are smashing it. Love you gurl,' one more said. Sarah is pictured alongside Hamish Macdonald on The Sunday Project The former Studio 10 star was met with approval from viewers, who posted their thoughts to Instagram and Twitter Not everyone agreed, however, with one tweeting: 'Im sure Sarah Harris is a lovely person but Im not sure this show needed another light relief, say nothing of substance character after Lisa Wilkinsons departure'. New stars Sam Taunton and Michael Hing have joined the show for 2023, alongside Sarah and existing panelists Waleed Aly and Hamish Macdonald. Georgie Tunny, who has already been a regular fixture on the current affairs show, will also appear on the new season. 'Great show Sarah! You are a good fit for @theprojecttv' one person said of the 41-year-old television star. But not everyone was impressed It follows the mass departure of stars Carrie Bickmore, Lisa Wilkinson and Peter Helliar from the troubled show. Tommy Little was also quietly removed as a regular panellist last month. The stand-up comic is no longer an 'official' cast member but will appear on the show sporadically, according to TV Blackbox. It comes as the Kremlin warned deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine would only 'deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people' Rescuers were seen trying to pull bodies from the rubble of a market square Harrowing footage emerged following the strike on Shevchenkove near Kharkiv A shocking Russian missile attack on a village market in eastern Ukraine this morning left two women dead and several others injured, including a 10-year-old girl. Harrowing footage from the scene of the strike in Shevchenkove, 50 miles southeast of the regional capital Kharkiv, showed a square littered with debris as rescue workers hurriedly picked their way through the ruins in search of survivors. One blood-covered woman was seen lying prone amid the rubble waiting for help, with rescuers having placed a dirt-covered cushion under her head as they tended to more serious cases. Moments later other rescuers were seen moving what appeared to be a corpse before an injured child was carried out of the rubble, crimson smeared across her face. A building burns at a site of a market hit by Russian missiles, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Shevchenkove Rescuers dig through the rubble in the aftermath of the attack A photograph posted online by the Ukrainian president's office showed rescuers trying to pull a woman free of the dirt and debris following the missile attack An injured child is carried in the aftermath of a Russian missile attack on a local market in Shevchenkove village, Kharkiv region, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in this image released January 9, 2023 Putin is lonely this Christmas: Moscow's most secure cathedral is ordered to start midnight Orthodox service so Russian leader can worship alone - Click HERE to read more Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a Christmas service at the Annunciation Cathedral in the Kremlin in Moscow Advertisement A photograph posted online by the Ukrainian president's office showed rescuers trying to pull a woman in a thick winter coat out of the debris. Her head and arms poked out from under the rubble but it was not clear whether she was alive. Other footage posted by Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne on the Telegram messaging app showed burning wreckage and a large crater in the centre of Shevchenkove. 'The Russian army committed another act of terror against the civilian population and a child was wounded, two women were killed,' the regional prosecutor's office said. Criticising Russia over the attack, Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, wrote on Telegram: 'Common terrorists.' Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, wrote on Telegram: 'According to confirmed information, unfortunately a 60-year-old woman died. 'All other victims were hospitalised. Doctors are helping them. Rescuer workers continue to clear the debris.' Suspilne quoted a local official as saying at least three pavilions were destroyed in the attack and that a shopping centre was damaged, but that Monday was not a market day. The village succumbed to Russian occupation days after Vladimir Putin ordered his tanks over the border on February 24, 2022, but was liberated by Ukrainian forces in September. Rescuers look through the rubble in the aftermath of an attack on a local market in Shevchenkove village, Kharkiv region A firefighter works at a site of a market hit by Russian missiles, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the town of Shevchenkove Ukrainian service members pose for a photo in the recently liberated settlement of Shevchenkove, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, in this handout picture released September 10, 2022 Just hours after the brutal attack on Ukrainian civilians, the Kremlin on Monday delivered an ominous statement, claiming that new deliveries of Western weapons to Kyiv would only 'deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people' and would not change the course of the conflict. 'This supply will not be able to change anything', Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, whose military launched a series of successful counterattacks and recaptured significant swathes of territory from the occupiers in the months before New Year, has asked Western allies for heavier weapons and air defences as he seeks to tip the balance of the 10-month long conflict in its favour. The US, UK and EU have been reluctant to supply Ukraine with its most advanced heavy weaponry, but France, Germany and the US all agreed last week to send several of their respective infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) - the AMX-10, the Marder and the Bradley. These vehicles are not considered tanks because of their lack of armour and weaponry, but the machinery will undoubtedly provide the Ukrainian infantry with enhanced firepower and manoeuverability they have lacked thus far. The US Bradley - which served with distinction in the 1991 Gulf War - is widely regarded as the most advanced IFV, boasting a 25mm cannon fired from a chain gun and a pod on the side - effective at wiping out Russian battle tanks. America's provision of 50 Bradleys comes as part of a near $3 billion military aid package announced by President Joe Biden last week. The US has pledged to send around 50 Bradley tanks to Ukraine. The vehicles were highly effective during the Gulf War in 1991 The German Marder was described as 'respectable but old' with around 40 understood to be promised to Ukraine The AMX-10 IFV supplied by France is capable of great speed and has been described as ideal for a 'reconnaissance echelon or rapid reaction force' Ever since Putin's invasion of Ukraine on February 24 last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky has successfully lobbied Western allies for technology to outmatch the invaders France has not confirmed the number of AMX-10s it will send, while German newspaper Der Spiegel reported about 40 Marders - the equivalent of a battalion - are likely to be sent. Germany also announced it would provide Ukraine with the sought-after Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) defence system, which should prove instrumental in warding off Russian rocket attacks and aerial assaults. The head of the Ukrainian military, Valery Zaluzhny, says he needs 300 tanks, 600 to 700 infantry fighting vehicles and 500 howitzers to push Russia back to its lines before the invasion. Writing for the Guardian, professor of defence studies at Kings College London Michael Clarke said: 'Kyiv still has some way to go before it has enough equipment and troops to conduct the sort of offensive that will throw Russian forces out of most, or all, its territory. 'It needs a lot more of what it already has - and then more overtly offensive weapon systems, including heavier armoured forces, more attack aircraft and more drones and missiles.' The Pope's resignation was 'unlikely' while his predecessor Benedict XVI lived His liberal views and changes to Latin Mass drew suspicion from traditionalists Conservatives inside the Vatican are said to be plotting to oust Pope Francis Conservatives in the Vatican are said to be plotting to put Pope Francis under such pressure that he is forced to resign. The move to oust the liberal-minded pontiff, 86, began in earnest just days after the death of his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on December 31. Although Pope Francis has previously declared he would step down if his health deteriorates, it was deemed unlikely to happen while Benedict XVI was alive in order to prevent an unprecedented situation of three Popes living at the Vatican, The Telegraph reports. The speculation grows as the Pope met with Archbishop Georg Ganswein on Monday, the longtime secretary of Pope Benedict XVI and a key figure in his recent funeral. Ganswein has released an extraordinary memoir in which he casts Francis in a deeply unfavorable light. The Vatican provided no details about the content of the private audience, other than to say that it happened. Pope Francis (centre), 86, pictured presiding over the funeral of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI last week, is facing a revolt among conservative cardinals Pope Francis (left) greets the retired Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI (right) in the chapel of the Mater Ecclesiae monastery, inside the Vatican, in 2020 Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that a cardinal had told them the conservative faction is ready to move against the 'communist' Pope. The cardinal was quoted as saying: 'The secret plan will be formulated on various axes and phases, but it will have one objective - to place the pontificate under such stress that Francis will have to resign. 'The opponents of Francis know that right now they are in a minority, that they will need time to both win a consensus and to weaken [him].' The cardinal added that the campaign would hinge upon 'the progressive weakening of the Holy Father as well as his doctrinal choices, which will create a great deal of discontent which can be used against him.' Formerly known as Cardinal Bergoglio, Pope Francis became pontiff in 2013 after the resignation of the arch-conservative Benedict. His appointment signalled a definite change in the Catholic church, with his criticism of capitalism and open attitude toward homosexuality, abortion, communion for remarried divorcees and celibacy for priests. La Stampa reports said some opponents will be open in their criticism of the pope, while others will operate 'in the shadows'. Pope Francis, who succeeded Benedict in 2013, sat in a chair near the altar in front of the crowd of tens of thousands of mourners for the late Pope's funeral As many as 100,000 mourners gathered in St Peter's Square last week, which was shrouded in the mist, for a sombre two-hour ceremony as Pope Benedict IVI was laid to rest A 'conservative' group inside the Vatican is said to be plotting to oust Pope Francis (Pictured: cardinals from around the world at the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI) Cardinal Georg Ganswein, who spent 19 years as personal secretary to Pope Benedict and has been nicknamed 'the George Clooney of the Holy See' because of his good looks, is a key figure in the faction against Francis. Now that his main job tending to Benedict has come to an end following his death, questions have been raised about what Francis will do with Ganswein following this week's publication of his tell-all book, 'Nothing But the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI.' Some Vatican watchers see the book as the first salvo in a new era of anti-Francis attacks from the conservative right, for whom Benedict remained a nostalgic point of reference in retirement. Benedict's death, and Ganswein's postmortem revelations, have removed the facade of a happy cohabitation of two popes. In the text, Ganswein reveals previously unknown details of some of the biggest hiccups and bad blood that accrued during the last 10 years in which Benedict lived as a retired pope following his 2013 decision to retire, the first pope in six centuries to do so. In one of the most explosive sections, Ganswein says he was 'shocked and speechless' when Francis essentially fired him from his day job as the head of the papal household in 2020 after a scandal over a book Benedict co-authored. Francis told Ganswein to stop coming to the office and to dedicate himself to caring for Benedict, essentially ending his job as the 'bridge' between the pontificates. Printing previously secret letters between the two popes and relaying private conversations with both, Ganswein revealed that Francis even refused entreaties from Benedict to take him back on. Embittered, Ganswein described Francis as insincere, illogical and sarcastic in deciding his fate, and said Benedict even made fun of Francis when told of the decision. 'It seems as if Pope Francis doesn't trust me anymore and is making you my chaperone,' Ganswein quoted Benedict as saying. Cardinal Georg Ganswein, who spent 19 years as personal secretary to Pope Benedict, and has been nicknamed 'the George Clooney of the Holy See' because of his good looks, is a key figure in the faction against Francis. Pictured: Ganswein and Pope Francis at the Vatican, February 4, 2017 Ganswein has released an extraordinary memoir in which he casts Francis in a deeply unfavorable light. Pictured: Pope Francis with Archbishop Georg Gaenswein in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, May 25, 2016 Ganswein also wrote of his dismay that, years earlier, Francis had refused him the right to live in the palace apartment occupied by his predecessor. After a longer-than-usual refurbishment, Francis gave the flat instead to the Vatican foreign minister, forcing Ganswe into continue living in the monastery that Benedict called home. Cardinal Ganswein also spoke to German press and blasted the pope's decision to limit the traditional Latin Mass, saying it had 'broken the heart' of his predecessor. In his autobiography, Ganswein also recalled how he was unable to reach 'a climate of trust' with pope Francis and was 'shocked and speechless' when he lost his position in the papal household in 2020. Other members of the traditionalist movement include cardinals Raymond Burke, an American, and Gerhard Ludwig Muller, who was a close ally of Benedict XVI. As many as 100,000 mourners gathered in St Peter's Square for the late pope's funeral on January 4, with a host of royalty in attendance including King Philippe of Belgium and dowager Queen Sofia of Spain. Francis, who arrived on a wheelchair and stood with the aid of a stick, did not mention Benedict by name in his homily until the final line. Referring to Jesus as the 'bridegroom' of the church, he said: 'Benedict, faithful friend of the bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever.' Prince Harry's popularity among the British public has slumped to an all-time low, a new poll has suggested. The YouGov survey, undertaken by more than 1,600 adults between January 5 and 6, reveals the duke's net favorability now sits at -38. Almost two-thirds of those polled (64 per cent) admitted they hold a negative view of the duke, while his support among the 18-24 age group has also fallen to its lowest ever score. The duke's public feud with Buckingham Palace appears to have also added fuel to the fire, with those reporting negative views up six percentage points since May. Just over a quarter (26 per cent) of those polled view Harry in a positive light. The YouGov survey, undertaken by more than 1,600 adults between January 5 and 6, reveals the duke's net favorability now sits at -38 Prince Harry's popularity among the British public has slumped to an all-time low, a new poll has suggested Harry's popularity hit an all-time high of +70 in 2017, just a year before he wed Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle, according to YouGov. Public opinion on the duke has consistently slipped over the past six years, with there being more negative polling for Harry than positive since the end of 2021 - the year of his notorious Oprah Winfrey interview. There was also a marked drop in favourability for Harry since undertaking his media blitz late last year after his bombshell memoir, Spare, was announced. Support for the duke and his wife, Meghan Markle, dipped last month after they singled out Buckingham Palace for stinging criticism during their six-part Netflix docu-series. The results come ahead of the release of Harry's book Spare, due out on Tuesday, which has sparked a furore, following claims the Prince of Wales physically attacked him. The King's younger son's net favourability score among 2019 Labour voters is minus seven, while among 18-24-year-olds, the proportion of positive and negative views of him was equal (41%). The results come ahead of the release of Harry's book Spare, due out on Tuesday, which has sparked a furore, following claims the Prince of Wales physically attacked him Meghan still has a positive net favourability score of 10 among 18-24-year-olds, but this has dropped from 55 in 2017. She holds a score of minus 11 among 2019 Labour voters and minus 30 among Remain voters, with minus 81 and minus 72 among 2016 Conservative voters and Leave voters, respectively. Harry's tell-all-tales in the book include how he killed 25 Taliban members during the Afghanistan war, recounting how he took cocaine and magic mushrooms, and losing his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a pub. In television interviews, the duke has said he is 'not texting' his brother, described the Queen Consort as 'the villain' and criticised 'family members' for a 'really horrible reaction' when the Queen died. He spoke to ITV presenter Tom Bradby, denying branding the royals racist and accusing his family of 'getting into bed with the devil'. The YouGov data reveals the duchess has seen her net favourability also fall to its joint-lowest score of -42. Harry's tell-all-tales in the book include how he killed 25 Taliban members during the Afghanistan war, recounting how he took cocaine and magic mushrooms, and losing his virginity to an older woman in a field behind a pub. In television interviews, the duke has said he is 'not texting' his brother, described the Queen Consort as 'the villain' and criticised 'family members' for a 'really horrible reaction' when the Queen died. YouGov surveyed 1,693 adults in the UK at the end of last week. A British family has cheated death after their tour guide's 4x4 veered off a mountain road in Cyprus and nearly plummeted hundreds of feet off a cliff edge before it was stopped by a tree. Jeanette Tumbridge was celebrating her 60th birthday at TUI's Louis Ledra resort in Paphos with eight family members when they won a free excursion in a Land Rover up the Troodos Mountains after winning a Halloween scavenger hunt. But her daughter-in-law Kristina O'Connell said it nearly turned out to be a 'first prize to our deaths' after their driver ignored warnings by driving at speed off road despite some passengers not having seatbelts to wear. Footage shows the family enjoying the wild ride through the dirt roads on the final day of their holiday just an hour before disaster struck. A British family has cheated death after their tour guide's 4x4 plummeted off a mountain road in Cyprus As the weather got increasingly dangerous on their tour, the driver continued to plough on and ended up veering off the side of the mountain, rolling the vehicle twice before it came to a halt by a tree above a 200ft drop. Along with her mother, Ms O'Connell's brother-in-law Lee Evans and her uncle David Gorton went on the trip, while two German tourists were also in the car. She told MailOnline: 'We set off from the hotel and instead of the driver taking a left, he just drove over the reservation at the roundabout - we looked at each other but we just thought maybe that's something they do in Cyprus. 'He then took us off road and we got to the next stop off at an old 16th century bridge and then when we got back in it started to rain. 'We stopped again at a waterfall, when we got there it was really raining at this point. When we got to the entrance, the other jeeps were pointing a different way because they were using the main road and our driver was using off road tracks.' On the excursion were (from left to right) David Gorton, Kristina O'Connell, Jeanette Tumbridge and Lee Evans Footage taken around an hour before the crash shows the car tearing through the off-road tracks The family went on the trip up the Troodos Mountains after winning a Halloween scavenger hunt As the weather got increasingly dangerous on their tour, the driver continued to plough on and ended up veering off the side of the mountain Ms O'Connell said a weather warning was in place that day cautioning drivers not to drive off road, and they were the only car not using the main routes. She continued: 'We started driving further up the mountains and the weather was getting worse and worse the further we went, it was hail, it was raining and I remember at one point looking out to the front and you couldn't see out of the front because of the condensation. 'By this point, my mum said she just wanted to go home now because he kept on going off road, it was really bumpy and the weather was bad. 'I was then looking down at my phone and I just remember my mum screaming, 'No no, no!'. 'We'd come off a cliff edge and we were just rolling. I didn't have a seatbelt on so I smacked heads with my brother in law, glass smashed and then we stopped and I blacked out. 'I remember waking up with my mum hanging over the top of us because she still had her strap on.' Ms O'Connell said a weather warning was in place that day cautioning drivers not to drive off road Jeanette Tumbridge was celebrating her 60th birthday at TUI's Louis Ledra resort in Paphos with eight family members when they won a free excursion in a Land Rover Brother-in-law Lee was able to get out of the back of the car and help free the others from the precarious situation, with the car just being propped up by the tree, although Ms O'Connell was blacked out. She credits Lee as their 'hero' for helping everyone get free. Ms O'Connell said: 'I can't remember two hours from standing off the top of the cliff, picking glass out of my mum's hair, until police arriving. 'My mum and I were taken to hospital, mum had severe whiplash and a bump to the head from where she smacked the roof and had CT scans, my injury was muscle damage in my shoulder. 'The driver suffered a broken bone in his shoulder and we were told he can't remember anything of the day, despite him calling out for us on the cliff edge after the crash. 'A policeman took our statement in the car up the mountain, he said there were weather warnings not to drive off road, that's why all the jeeps were facing the other way but we were not aware of this. 'He said if that tree wasn't there you would have plummeted 200 feet to your death.' Ms Tumbridge (right) is still signed off work and has severe nerve damage, and remains in a neck brace with shooting pain down to her neck and her elbow The family were staying at a resort in Paphos in the west of the island nation Brother-in-law Lee (left) was able to get out of the back of the car and help free the others from the precarious situation The holidaymakers said TUI visited them the next day for statements on the morning of their departure but to add to their woes, they arrived at the airport to find their flight was cancelled. Ms Tumbridge is still signed off work and has severe nerve damage, and remains in a neck brace with shooting pain down to her neck and her elbow, having been told it could take her up to three years to fully recover. Ms O'Connell said she now has to take sleeping tablets because whenever she falls asleep, she wakes up in a panic that she is back in the jeep. The family are suing TUI and have warned others not to go on these trips. She said: 'My advice is don't do it, you're putting your trust in these people, you trust them because they do it all the time, they should know what they're doing, they know the roads. 'When you're there, you don't think you're possibly about to go over a cliff. 'TUI should not be allowing these excursions to continue as they definitely shouldn't be offering these as a first prize, it's a first prize to your death.' TUI told MailOnline: 'We are really sorry to hear about Ms OConnells experience. Customer and colleague safety is our highest priority. 'As this is now being investigated by our legal team we are unable to comment further.' The man said the 'terrifying' ordeal has left his family 'traumatised' A thief drove off with the child inside the car while the man ducked into a shop A father reunited with his toddler has urged parents to not make the same mistake he did after a thief drove off with the two-year-old boy asleep in the back of his car while he ran into a shop. The man, who did not wish to be named, had briefly left the car and ducked into a shop on the Nepean Highway in Chelsea in Melbourne's southeast at 4pm on Sunday. He decided not to disturb his sleeping son and left him inside the air-conditioned Volkswagen SUV with the engine still running as he popped into the store to by an ice-cream. A thief jumped in into the car just seconds after the father was gone and sped off with the little boy still inside. The father said the 'terrifying' ordeal has left his family 'traumatised' (man pictured after realising his toddler had been taken when a thief stole his car) The toddler was abandoned in nearby Bath Street and found by horrified bystanders wandering alone on a busy highway. The father on Monday issued a dire warning to parents following the ordeal, which he said has left his family 'traumatised'. He told 9News the incident was 'terrifying' and his 'worst nightmare'. 'Even if your car's in plain view, please don't make the same mistake I did,' he said. Police are still hunting for the thief responsible for the shocking act. The stolen grey Volkswagen SUV was last seen at McDonald's in Oakleigh, a suburb around 20km north Chelsea, where the thief allegedly used stolen credit cards to buy food. A Melbourne father reunited with his toddler shared a desperate warning to parents after a thief drove off with the two-year-old boy asleep in the back of his car while he ducked into a shop in Chelsea (father and son pictured) Victoria Police are still hunting for the stolen vehicle and the thief responsible for the despicable act Police said they are looking for a man aged around 20-years-old, with an olive complexion, dark shoulder-length hair, a moustache, dressed in a black T-shirt and shorts and a white cap. The harrowing ordeal prompted a warning from police to parents on Monday morning. 'This situation serves as a timely reminder never leave young children unattended in a car,' police said. 'A lot can happen in the space of a minute or two.' Anyone with information is urged to contact police immediately. This is the heartwarming moment grandparents were reunited with their grandkids after three years apart due to Covid restrictions. Footage shows grandparents Johnny, 74, and Elizabeth, 68, who live in Toronto, Canada, as they are greeted unexpectedly by their grandchildren. Parents Nate and Anju and their three children drove 16 hours (around 1,800km) from Arkansas, USA, across the border into Canada. Both grandparents were immunocompromised, meaning they couldn't have any contact with their family during most of the pandemic period. The footage shows grandparents Johnny, 74 (pictured), and Elizabeth, 68, who live in Toronto, Canada, as they are greeted by their grandchildren Parents Nate and Anju and their three children drove 16 hours from Arkansas, USA, across the border into Canada. Both grandparents were immunocompromised, meaning they couldn't have any contact with their family, during most of the pandemic period The family also experienced various difficulties that included 'home displacement, job layoffs and financial hardships'. The border regulations between Canada and the United States also prevented them from seeing each other. In the video one of the grandchildren waits at the door with her brother. She appears to be very excited. In the video one of the grandchildren waits at the door with her brother. She appears to be very excited Two of the grandchildren wait patiently before they are reunited with their family members Johnny opens the door with an ecstatic expression on his face. He hugs his grandchildren and expresses delight Other family members hurry downstairs for the reunion The family members, who have been separated for all this time, hug one another in the hallway Johnny opens the door with an ecstatic expression on his face. He can be seen hugging the girl and expressing delight. Johnny then hugs the other children. The rest of the family hurry downstairs for the reunion. They all hug one another in the hallway. Grandmother Elizabeth looks delighted to see her grandchildren again Johnny greets the father with a hug and a kiss. At the end of the video he looks overwhelmed with emotion The mother says, 'another surprise' as the father enters. He embraces Johnny, who greets him with a kiss. At the end of the video Johnny looks overwhelmed due to the surprise of seeing all his loved ones at once. The footage was captured on December 14. From January 3, 2020 to January 6, 2023, 99,423,758 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,082,265 coronavirus deaths in the USA were reported to the World Health Organization. As of December 16 2022, a total of 652,464,668 vaccine doses have been administered, according to the figures. A student accused of egging King Charles has complained that he has been banned from dating apps after being charged with threatening behaviour. Patrick Thelwell says he has been blocked from both Tinder and Hinge - saying that 'the state' will 'stop you getting laid' if you do not 'obey'. Student and campaigner Thelwell, 23, was held by police in November after he allegedly threw eggs at King Charles. All four eggs missed and the monarch walked away unscathed after the incident in York on November 9 last year. Student and campaigner Patrick Thelwell, 23, was held by police in November after he allegedly threw eggs at King Charles (pictured) on November 9 last year Patrick Thelwell (pictured), 23, will appear at York Magistrates' Court on January 20 charged with threatening behaviour contrary to Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 The activist claims he is facing a 5,000 fine and up to six months in prison, and was charged with threatening behaviour in December. He will appear at York Magistrates' Court on January 20 charged with threatening behaviour contrary to Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986. On a Instagram story he wrote: 'LOL I got banned from Tinder and Hinge because I'm accused of a threatening crime. 'Obey the state or they'll stop you getting laid.' After two attempted alleged attempted eggings of the King over the course of two months last year, an urgent review was launched into his safety. Mr Thelwell previously said that he may call the monarch to give live evidence at court in his defence. He said in December: 'I am charged with section four of the public order act. 'My plea hearing is on the 20th of January I will plead not guilty, of course. 'The charge relates to someone feeling fear of imminent physical violence. 'The question is did the King fear imminent violence? So I don't know how to get an answer to that without getting a statement from him.' Asked if he would also call the King to give live evidence, he replied: 'These are questions for my solicitor I think. It should be fun.' On a private Instagram story Mr Thelwell wrote: 'LOL I got banned from Tinder and Hinge because I'm accused of a threatening crime' 'Obey the state or they'll stop you getting laid,' Mr Thelwell (pictured) told his Instagram followers Hinge does not authorise people to create accounts if they have 'committed, been convicted of or plead no contest to a felony or any crime involving violence or threat of violence.' North Yorkshire Police said at the time: 'Yesterday, we arrested a 23-year-old man on suspicion of a public order offence during the Royal visit. 'The man has been interviewed and released on police bail. 'He was detained following an incident which occurred as King Charles III and the Queen Consort arrived at Micklegate Bar in York yesterday.' A University of York spokesperson said in November: 'We are aware of eggs being thrown and are appalled by the images reported by the media today. 'As a community built on the values of respect and decency, the University condemns such behaviour, and we will be reviewing the incident in line with our misconduct procedures.' Nick Price, head of the CPS special crime and counter terrorism division, said in December: 'The CPS has authorised North Yorkshire Police to charge Patrick Thelwell with threatening behaviour contrary to Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986. 'This follows an investigation by police into an incident in which eggs were thrown at HM The King in York on November 9, 2022. 'The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against Patrick Thelwell are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.' A statement by the CPS added at the time: 'It is extremely important there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings. 'The function of the CPS is not to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence, but to make fair, independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for a criminal court to consider.' According to reports, Kim Jong Un has executed a North Korean official criticizing former US president Donald Trump and calling him a liar. An unconfirmed claim in Japan states that the North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2020, Ri Yong-ho, has been killed. North Korea's Ex-Minister Executed The purported killing occurred as Kim Jong Un's dictatorship intensified its testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles, including launches during the holiday season, as per Mirror. Ri, who has not been seen in public since 2019, served as British ambassador from 2003 to 2007 and as foreign minister from 2016 until his replacement in 2020. The Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun said that the 66-year-old lawmaker was executed last year, citing unknown sources. Youn Kun-young, a South Korean lawmaker, informed his colleagues that the National Intelligence Service (NIS) had confirmed that Ri had been "purged" by the dictatorship. However, claims of the prominent politician's alleged execution remain unverified. In 2017, during rising tensions with the United States, Ri delivered a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he referred to Trump as the "Lying King" and the "President of Evil." Nevertheless, despite his outspoken criticism, the minister played a crucial role in discussions with the United States that led to Trump and Kim Jong Un's extraordinary encounter. The Times quotes Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul, South Korea, as saying that if the rumors of Ri's executions are accurate, it would be a "terrible indication" for North Korea's diplomacy. The news comes as the Supreme Leader of North Korea prepares to celebrate his 39th birthday on Sunday. North Korea launched a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan just before Christmas, days after the United States and South Korea performed joint military exercises that it perceived as an invasion rehearsal. The Joint Chiefs of Staff of South Korea stated that the launch happened on December 23, but provided no more information, such as what sort of missile was fired or how far it traveled. On December 20, the United States flew nuclear-capable bombers and advanced stealth aircraft near the Korean Peninsula for joint training with South Korean airplanes. Typically, North Korea refers to such military drills by the United States and South Korea as invasion rehearsals. Read Also: China Crash: 17 Killed, 22 Injured During Road Traffic Accident as the Country Opens Up Back Following Intense COVID-19 Chaos Kim Jong Un Regime Thae Yong-ho escaped to South Korea in August 2016, citing dissatisfaction with Kim Jong Un rule and a desire to provide a better future for his children. In February of 2019, activists seized the North Korean embassy in Madrid, Spain, and stole computer hard drives and mobile phones before leaving. According to Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, Kim Jong Un tends to prioritize personal devotion and regime cohesiveness above all else and does not necessarily favor hardliners over bureaucrats. He stated, "We do not know exactly what happened to former foreign minister Ri Yong-ho, but he was likely removed from any influential post some time ago." If he were executed, it would be a negative omen for the North Korean foreign ministry and diplomatic chances. It comes amid rumors that "sickly" Kim Jong Un is preparing his sister and daughter to succeed him after months of purported illness, The Sun reported. Kim Jong Un was photographed holding the hand of his baby daughter Kim Ju-ae for the first time in November, shortly prior to the launch of a nuclear missile test. The youngster, thought to be nine or 10 years old, has been characterized as Kim Jong Un's "most beloved daughter" by North Korean media. Pyongyang is notorious for executing prominent politicians who fall out of favor with the authorities. Jang Song-thaek, Kim Jong Un's uncle through marriage, was the final prominent individual to be executed. In 2013, former vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission Jang was executed by firing squad. And in 2017, Kim Jong Un was accused of plotting the murder of his own half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport with a lethal nerve poison. Related Article: North Korea Supports Russia's Aim To Invade Ukraine, Russian Diplomat Reveals @YouTube @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Prince Harry has made yet another sensational U-turn in his attacks on the Royal Family - claiming he has 'huge compassion' for his father's wife Camilla, less than 12 hours after he branded her 'dangerous' and a 'villain' in a 60 Minutes interview to promote his explosive new book. The 38-year-old's latest comments about the Queen Consort - whom he reveals in his memoir Spare that he once thought of as an 'evil stepmother' - came in a new sit-down with GMA, his third pre-recorded interview in less than 24 hours. Speaking to host Michael Strahan, who asked Harry 'what [Camilla] had done' to prompt both he and his brother to 'beg' Charles not to marry her, the Duke of Sussex insisted he actually sympathized with her role as the 'third person in his parents' marriage', claiming that he 'doesn't look at her as an evil stepmother'. 'I have a huge amount of compassion for her, you know, being the third person within my parents' marriage,' Harry told Strahan - despite telling 60 Minutes' Anderson Cooper last night that Camilla's affair with Charles made her a 'villain'. When asked where his relationship with Camilla stands today, Harry conceded that they 'haven't spoken for a long time', but added that he 'loves every member of his family' and that when he and the Queen Consort 'see each other, we're perfectly pleasant'. Prince Harry has claimed that he has 'huge compassion' for his father's wife Camilla in a new interview with GMA - less than 12 hours after branding her 'dangerous' and a 'villain' The Duke is said to have ignored his father Charles' pleas not to attack his wife in his memoir and accompanying interviews, with Harry launching several barbs at Camilla in his book The pleasantries that he claims once existed between them may well be a thing of the past however, after Harry launched a ferocious attack on Camilla, having ignored a plea from his father not to attack his wife. Harry told Cooper that the Queen Consort was content with bodies - including his own - being 'left in the street' as she tried to rehabilitate her image after her long affair with King Charles while he was married to Princess Diana. Referring back to a 1995 interview in which his mother, Princess Diana, famously referred to Camilla as the 'third person in her marriage', Harry said that this admission turned the now-Queen Consort into a 'villain', adding: 'She needed to rehabilitate her image.' According to Harry, this desire to transform her public image made her 'dangerous'. 'That made her dangerous because of the connections that she was forging within the British press,' he said. 'And there was open willingness on both sides to trade information and with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.' The Duke also wrote in his memoir Spare that Camilla 'sacrificed me on her personal PR altar', and revealed that he and William asked Charles not to marry her, and accused her of scheming to wed the now King and become Queen Consort. Ironically, in the same breath that he claimed to GMA he has 'compassion' for Camilla, Harry doubled down on those claims that she 'traded' stories with the press in order to 'rehabilitate her image' after her affair with Charles was revealed. 'She had a reputation, or image, to rehabilitate, and whatever conversations, whatever deals or trading was made right at the beginning, she was led to believe that would be the best way of doing it,' he said. He went on to suggest that Camilla was only ever focused on herself - saying that she 'has done everything she can' to 'improve her own image... for her own sake'. When asked where his relationship with Camilla stands today, Harry conceded that they 'haven't spoken for a long time' Harry's claims about feeling 'compassion' for his stepmother came less than 12 hours after he branded her a 'villain' in a pre-recorded sit-down with 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper 'She's my stepmother. I don't look at her as an evil stepmother,' he went on. 'I see her as someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to, you know, improve her own reputation and her own image. For her own sake.' The Duke's sensational public attack on Camilla was the latest in a line of barbs that he has flung at his stepmother - having already painted what Cooper described as a very 'unflattering portrayal' of her in his explosive memoir Spare, which was accidentally released in Spain last week. But just hours earlier, in a British interview that viewers said contained several contradictions, he told ITV's Tom Bradby that he was not 'scathing' towards Camilla in his book. Harry's contradictions also included his denying previous allegations that the Royal Family is racist. Bradby was visibly stunned - as were millions of viewers - by his screeching U-turn from previous incendiary claims that an unnamed senior royal had raised concerns over the color of his son Archie's skin. The broadcaster raised the 2021 Oprah interview with Meghan and said: 'You accused members of your family of racism.' But Harry snapped back: 'No I didn't. The British press said that'. There was further disbelief when Harry told Bradby that whatever he says to William in future will remain 'private', despite using his memoirs, TV interviews, a Netflix documentary, and a primetime Oprah special to spill the beans on what his family has said to him and Meghan behind closed doors. He also insisted to Cooper that he 'never intended to hurt his family' with the contents of his book. The CBS interview came hours after a longer sit-down in the UK with ITV, in which he told his friend Bradby that his family was 'complicit' in the 'pain and suffering' inflicted on his wife Meghan and compared them to 'abusers'. He suggested they helped to 'trash' his and Meghan's reputations, forcing them to move to California, and have 'shown no willingness to reconcile'. Harry also said that there was a 'lot of stereotyping' of Meghan after she was introduced to the Royal Family, because she is an 'American actress, divorced, biracial'. But, in an interview of contradictions, he later insisted that the Royal Family is not racist - despite the allegation being at the very heart of the Sussexes' Oprah interview in 2021. Kiir has been president of the north African country since independence in 2011 Footage of the incident was not broadcast live but later leaked on social media Salva Kiir Mayardit was opening a new road in December when he wet himself Six journalists in South Sudan have been detained after footage showing the moment President Salva Kiir Mayardit wet himself at an official event leaked online, the national journalists union has revealed. The clip from December showed a dark stain spread down the 71-year-old president's grey trousers as he stood for the national anthem at a road commissioning event. The video never aired on television but subsequently circulated on social media. The journalists, who work with the state-run South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation, were detained on Tuesday and Wednesday, said Patrick Oyet, president of the South Sudan Union of Journalists. Salva Kiir Mayardit was directly in front of the cameras as as a damp patch appeared in his trousers while the national anthem played The president appears to look down at his legs before the camera pans away from him Kiir has been president since South Sudan gained independence in 2011. Government officials have repeatedly denied rumours circulating on social media that he is unwell. The country has been embroiled in conflict for much of the past decade. The detained journalists are camera operators Joseph Oliver and Mustafa Osman; video editor Victor Lado; contributor Jacob Benjamin; and Cherbek Ruben and Joval Toombe from the control room, Oyet said. 'We are concerned because those who are detained now have stayed longer than what the law says,' he added. By law, South Sudanese authorities are allowed to detain suspects for only 24 hours before bringing them before a judge. The incident 'matches a pattern of security personnel resorting to arbitrary detention whenever officials deem coverage unfavourable,' said the sub-Saharan Africa representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Muthoki Mumo. 'Authorities should unconditionally release these six SSBC employees and ensure that they can work without further intimidation or threat of arrest.' South Sudan Information Minister Michael Makuei and National Security Service spokesperson David Kumuri did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir attends the swearing-in ceremony for Kenya's new president William Ruto, at Kasarani stadium in Nairobi, Kenya on Sept. 13, 2022 The 71-year-old president of South Sudan has wet himself on live television while opening a new road project (pictured on December 2) The 71-year-old president of South Sudan suffered the embarrassment of wetting himself while opening a new road project in December. Salva Kiir Mayardit was directly in front of the cameras as a damp patch appeared on his trousers while the national anthem played. In a clip of the unfortunate incident, the elderly president appears to look down at his legs before the camera pans away from him. The footage showed him flanked by military officials and other dignitaries in the African country. The president was believed to have been suffering from a urinary tract infection, according to Sahara reporters. Kiir has been president of South Sudan since 2011 after the country voted to become independent from the north. The incident sparked mixed reactions online with some taking to Twitter to express support for the president, who is still carrying out public duties. One user said: 'He's 71 years old, that's not uncommon at all for people of his age.' Another user tweeted: 'Poor dude. Not his fault,' while another added: 'Probably very old and has health issues.' A 'greedy' puppy farmer faces the prospect of a third ban in 18 years on owning animals after again being convicted for running a cruel dog breeding operation. Kathryn Lisa King, 52, was convicted on 17 counts of animal cruelty and now faces being prohibited from having contact with any animals for years after a trial in Perth Magistrates Court. She had faced 26 charges stemming from a raid by RSPCA Western Australia inspectors at property in Bullsbrook, north-east of Perth, in June 2020. They found 32 dogs being kept in unsanitary and cramped conditions, including small metal cages and plastic crates. The breeds found included Maltese cross Shih Tzus, Cavalier King Charles spaniels, poodles, and cavoodles. Nine were still puppies. 'Greedy' puppy farmer Kathryn Lisa King (pictured) faces the prospect of a third ban in 18 years on owning animals after again being convicted for running a cruel dog breeding operation The 52 year old woman faced 26 charges stemming from a raid by RSPCA Western Australia inspectors at property in Bullsbrook in June 2020 (pictured) RSPCA spokeswoman Hannah Dreaver said this was a case of 'greed, pure and simple'. 'This woman was breeding a large numbers of dogs with absolutely no concern for their welfare, health or safety,' Ms Dreaver said. She claimed Ms King ran an operation deliberately prioritising 'profits over welfare'. Ms King treated the dogs as 'money making machines', forcing them to have 'litter after litter'. The 26 charges she faced came just two years after a five year ban on being in charge of or being within 10 metres of any animal expired. That order was made after 50 dogs were found in a cramped underground bunker at a Kellerberrin property after a raid by police, RSPCA inspectors and council rangers. Inspectors found 32 dogs being kept in unsanitary and cramped conditions (pictured), including small metal cages and plastic crates In 2014, 50 dogs were found living in 'alien 'conditions in underground bunkers on Ms King's Kellerberrin property (pictured) after a raid by police, RSPCA inspectors and council rangers The dogs were forced to live in an 'alien environment' poor ventilation and no sunlight. They included German Shepherds, West Highland Terriers, King Charles Cavalier Spaniels, Labradors, and Tibetan Terriers. She was fined $20,000. Prior to that she had already been banned from owning an animal for a decade in 2004 over similar acts of cruelty. King will be sentenced later this year. There was terror on a Russian flight today when an An-26 plane's rear door sprang open soon after takeoff in the world's coldest region. Hats belonging to the 25 passengers flew off their heads and vanished into the cold air as the cabin depressurised. Most luggage belonging to passengers was sucked out of the plane's door when it burst open, said later reports. A video shows the visible gaping rear door on the IrAero Antonov aircraft, which had taken off from Magan in the region of Yakutsk, eastern Siberia, in minus 41C cold. The passenger filming the video is in a rear seat on the plane, bound for Magadan on Russia's Pacific coast. A video taken from the AN-26 passenger flight showed travellers looking unnerved as the rear door of the plane flung open - sending hats and luggage flying Another passenger filming the video (left) is in a rear seat on the plane (pictured right at takeoff) bound for Magadan on Russia's Pacific coast The door, used to load cargo and luggage, is normally curtained off from the passengers at the back of the plane. The curtain is seen blowing in the wind. The pilot made a rapid emergency landing at Magan in Siberian region Yakutsk, and all on board were 'safe' despite the intense cold in the cabin during the drama. The man filming the nightmare is heard swearing in shock at the open door behind him. Magan is eight miles from Yakutsk, the world's coldest city, and capital of Yakutsk region in Siberia, eastern Russia A report said: 'Fortunately, the 25 people on board, including the crew, were unharmed. 'The caps off some people's heads flew into the white void.' It is believed all the passengers were strapped in for takeoff and wearing coats having boarded in the intense cold. Magan is eight miles from Yakutsk, the world's coldest city, and capital of the Yakutsk district in Siberia, Russia. An investigation is underway into the disturbing incident. His mother revealed his last words to her were 'I love you' He was allegedly struck by a car while riding his motorbike The final time a grief-stricken mother saw her teenage son before he died in a horror motorcycle crash, he hugged her tightly and said 'I love you'. Darrell Chepseba, 19, was riding his new motorcycle when a Holden Commodore allegedly ran a red light and struck him at an intersection in the Melbourne suburb of Burwood East last Friday. Diesel Handley, 18, the P-plater alleged to have been behind the wheel has since been charged with culpable driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death, driving with a suspended licence and breaching bail. Witnesses ran to the teenager's aid before he tragically died at the scene of the crash. Mr Chepseba's mother, Rose, broke down in tears as she expressed her grief over the tragic loss of her son. Grieving mother Rose Chepseba recalled the last time she saw her son Darrell (pictured), 19, who died last Friday 'It's very difficult as a mother to lose a child,' she tearfully told Channel Nine. 'It's so hard that I'll never see my son again.' Ms Chepseba said the last time she ever saw her son, was when the teen took her to the airport days earlier. 'He gave me that tight hug - little did I know that was the last one,' she said. 'Then he told me mum 'I love you'.' Mr Chepseba moved to Australia from Kenya only 18 months ago. Mr Chepseba was heading to his job on his motorcycle (pictured) when he was allegedly struck by a Holden Commodore at an intersection in the Melbourne suburb of Burwood East The teen's mother Ms Chepseba (pictured right) said her son had taken her to the airport just days earlier and told her that he loved her He initially had a job cleaning buses but recently started a role as a disability support worker. Mr Chepseba was heading to his job on his motorbike when he collided with the car. His family said it was the teenager's dream to own a motorbike, which he had registered on the day of the crash. Meanwhile, Handley, faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday and did not apply for bail. He will front court again in May. The driver of the car, Diesel Handley (pictured), 18, has been charged with multiple offences and faced Melbourne Magistrates Court over the crash A female prison officer accused of having an 'inappropriate relationship' with a male inmate held her middle finger up as she appeared in court today. Custody officer Ruth Shmylo, 25, made the gesture as she entered Cardiff Crown Court today, after she denied misconduct in public office over the alleged fling. The court heard she was one of two staff to allegedly have a relationship with inmate Harri Pullen, 25, while he was locked up at category B prison HMP Parc in Bridgend. Health worker Elyse Hibbs was jailed for six months in October after she admitted having flirtatious phone calls with 'manipulative' Pullen while he served his sentence. Custody officer Ruth Shmylo, 25, made the gesture as she entered Cardiff Crown Court today, after she was charged with misconduct in public office over the alleged relationship Harri Pullen, 25, is accused of having relationships with health worker Elyse Hibbs and custody officer Ruth Shmylo, Pullen's identity was revealed during a hearing at Cardiff Crown Court today, where Shmylo will stand trial in September. The prisoner was jailed for five years in 2019 over his role in a drugs gang flooding the streets of south Wales with cocaine and heroin. He spent time in HMP Parc before being transferred to HMP Manchester allegedly because of suspicions over his relationships with staff. However, he was handed a further four years and nine months' imprisonment after a hidden phone was discovered in his rectum when he was being transferred from HMP Manchester to Swansea Prison in preparation for his release. The court heard that Pullen came into contact with Hibbs and Shmylo while serving at HMP Parc. Shmylo, of Treforest, Pontypridd, was today handed unconditional bail ahead of a trial in September Shmylo (pictured) is facing trial charged with misconduct in public office over an alleged relationship with the prisoner Shmylo will now stand trial over an alleged affair with the prisoner while she was employed as a custody officer at the 1,652-capacity prison. Claire Wilks, defending Shmylo, said alleged evidence the prosecution were relying on was not relevant to her case. The charge against her states: 'While acting as a public officer, namely a prison custody officer, wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification misconducted yourself in a way which amounted to an abuse of the publics trust in the office holder by engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a prisoner.' Prosecutors have been ordered to serve transcripts of the alleged phone calls between the pair before a trial planned for September. Shmylo, of Treforest, Pontypridd, was handed unconditional bail. Shmylo will now stand trial over an alleged affair with the same prisoner while she was employed as a custody officer The two relationships allegedly took place while Pullen was serving as a prisoner at HMP Parc in south Wales Pullen met health worker Hibbs when she was giving him medical treatment in the prison, before contacting her on Instagram. Hibbs quit her post at HMP Parc in July 2021, but was arrested a week later and admitted exchanging messages with the prisoner. Matthew Cobbe, prosecuting, previously said: 'She explained that she and the inmate were never in a sexual relationship of any kind at all.' Adam Sharp, defending Hibbs, said in mitigation at her sentencing that the prisoner was known within the system to be a 'particularly manipulative individual'. Excitement builds in Cornwall as locals prepare for Britain's first ever rocket launch from the airport in Newquay. The launch, set to take place tonight at 10pm, has fuelled excitement by locals and aviation fans alike. Local Tim Jones said on Twitter: 'Very excited that today marks the day when my home of Cornwall and the UK becomes a launch pad for the future rocket launch industry.' Hayley Lyon tweeted: 'Such an exciting development for the South West... we look forward to hearing how it went! The launch, set to take place tonight at 10pm, has fuelled excitement by locals and aviation fans alike 'Good luck Andrew Boomer and all at Cornwall Airport Newquay.' While some were quick to point outtheir opinion on the rocket's effect on the environment on Facebook, Ryan Juleff said: 'Huge event for Cornwall, BEST of luck Cosmic Girl and also to Spaceport Cornwall. 'One small step for man, one BIG step for Cornwall Space port.' The 're-purposed' jumbo jet called Cosmic Girl will take off from the UK's first spaceport in Cornwall carrying the 70ft rocket under its wing to a height of 35,000ft, before releasing it south of Ireland. How will it work? History could be made as early as tonight, when Cornwall could host the first ever orbital space launch on UK soil. A former Virgin passenger plane is scheduled to take to the skies and drop a rocket that will fly off into space (shown above) The 're-purposed' jumbo jet called Cosmic Girl will take off from the UK's first spaceport in Cornwall carrying the 70ft rocket under its wing to a height of 35,000ft, before releasing it south of Ireland The rocket, LauncherOne, will then soar into space with a payload of nine satellites. Their purposes range from navigation to sea surveillance to prevent illegal fishing, smuggling and piracy. Bill Hooper said on Twitter: 'Tonight, more like tomorrow morning, early, a Jumbo jet will tkae off from Newquay Airport, fly out over the Atlantic Ocean and release a rocket that will put several small satellites into Earth's orbit. 'Cornwall have, with customery dreckliness, entered space technology.' The launch that has been in the works for months, received the required licenses in December. Some people were worried the launch might not be visible from the UK. Kit Chapman wrote on Twitter: 'It's exciting... but there is little point watching. 'The plane takes off from Newquay, the rocket launches over the Atlantic. You won't see anything.' The weather conditions could potentially pose a problem for the rocket launch. Organisers said they are working closely with the Met Office to ensure there is no risk of triggered lightning. Due to cloudy skies, it might be hard to see the launch. Local Colin Lovatt said on Facebook: 'British weather and space travel don't go hand in hand. 'Seems like a big waste of money that could have been better spent fixing the county's road, tackling its housing problems or poor transport and infrastructure.' Like Mr Lovatt, not everyone is happy about the pending rocket launch. On Facebook, some people voiced their frustration at the launch and the related costs as well as repercussions for the environment, saying that 'the average rocket launch emits more greenhouse gases than my car does in a thousand lifetimes' and the rocket launch being 'cr** for the environment'. Elizabeth Wilson said: 'Stop messing with rockets in space, (we) need to sort out (our) own planet first.' Lisa Schoepe added: ' Stop sending rockets up, everytime one goes up you are breaking the ozone (layer) just a little bit more. 'It's no wonder we have global warming, humans killing earth more and more.' Adrian Brittain wrote: 'All we need to know is it's a waste of money and resources. Adn cr** for the environment!' However, not everyone is happy about the pending rocket launch. On Facebook, people voiced their frustration at the launch and the related costs, saying that 'the average rocket launch emits more greenhouse gases than my car does in a thousand lifetimes' or the rocket launch being 'cr** for the environment' HOW VIRGIN ORBIT GETS SATELLITES INTO SPACE TAKE OFF Cosmic Girl, an adapted Boeing 747, takes off from an air and space port, initially in California. ROCKET DEPLOYMENT At cruising altitude around 35,000 feet, the chief pilot hits the Big Red Button that releases the rocket from the pylon. FIRST STAGE BURN After a 4-second freefall, the first stage engine, NewtonThree, bursts to life, accelerating the rocket to more than 8,000 miles per hour. Once its fuel is spent, the first stage detaches. FAIRING SEPARATION With LauncherOne now between 310 to 745 miles above the Earth's surface, the fairing pops open, exposing the payload as it nears its destination. SATELLITE DEPLOYMENT Finally, with very precise timing, the second stage ejects the satellite into its final orbit. RETURN TO EARTH Atmospheric drag will eventually pull the second stage back down to Earth, where it burns up in the atmosphere, minimising environmental footprint. Advertisement If you enjoyed this article... What other space launches will take place in 2023? MailOnline looks at the exciting missions blasting off this year Why haven't aliens contacted Earth yet? Scientists say it's because there's no sign of intelligence here! Stargazers will have a once-in-a-generation chance to see a new comet at the end of January Cult mother Lori Vallow has finally submitted an alibi denying that she murdered her two children, claiming she was somewhere else when they were killed in her brother's apartment - two months before he died in suspicious circumstances. Vallow faces the lethal injection for the murders of her two children, JJ and Tylee, who went missing in 2019. Police and prosecutors say the children were murdered in their uncle's apartment in Idaho. Vallow, who fled to Hawaii with her new church-leader husband in the immediate aftermath of her kids' disappearance, denies their murders but has been charged with them. Vallow is facing the lethal injection for the murders of her two children, JJ and Tylee, who went missing in 2019. Police and prosecutors say the children were murdered in their uncle's apartment in Idaho. She is shown in court in April Tylee, 16, and JJ, seven, are shown with their uncle, Alex Cox, in what is believed to be the final photo of them, taken during a family trip to Yellowstone National Park in September 2019 In new court filings this week, she claims for the first time that her kids were killed in the apartment of her brother, Alex Cox. She does not offer a date for their deaths, but she says she was in her own apartment, nearby, when they occurred. Tylee and JJ were last seen in September 2019 and Cox died suspiciously in December 2019. Vallow has not been charged in his death, but she is facing the death penalty for her children's deaths. Her attorneys however say she is innocent and should never have been facing the death penalty because she was not there when the children died. In paperwork submitted this week, her lawyers also asked the court to allow her to communicate with her husband, Chad Daybell - also facing conspiracy to commit murder charges - without being recorded. Prosecutors have never revealed a cause of death for either JJ or Tylee. Lori's Doomsday cult leader husband Chad Daybell (shown left with his lawyer) is also facing the death penalty The kids' bodies were discovered in shallow graces on Chad Daybell's property in 2021 The kids' remains were discovered buried in shallow graves on Chad Daybell's property in 2021, nearly two years after they vanished. Lori's defense seems to pin the kids' deaths on her late brother, Alex, who died in December 2019, two months after the children were last seen alive. While the filing submitted this week does not go as far as to say he killed them, it suggests he is responsible by inferring that it happened at his home, while she wasn't there. The alibi also claims Vallow was in Hawaii when her husband's ex-wife, Tammy Daybell, died in suspicious circumstances. Again, she does not provide a date for Tammy's death, but it was previously reported as being October 19, 2019. As part of the investigation into Chad and Lori, Idaho police asked to exhume Tammy's body. Tammy died of an unexplained cardiac event. Vallow is due to go to trial in Idaho in April. Her attorneys say they do not intend to submit a mental health defense. Vallow and her husband are members of a doomsday religious cult. Friends have told in the past how they thought they were put on earth to rid it of zombies. The last time JJ and Tylee were seen alive was during a family trip to Yellowstone in September 2019, two months before their uncle's death. The case - and Vallow's nonchalant behavior in the immediate aftermath of her children's disappearance - shocked America. The Chinese military held large-scale joint combat strike drills starting Sunday, sending war planes and navy vessels toward Taiwan, both the Chinese and Taiwanese defense ministries said. Over the course of 24 hours, between 6 a.m. Sunday and 6 a.m. Monday, China's People's Liberation Army flew 57 warplanes and four ships towards Taiwan, Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said in a statement Monday morning. Twenty-eight of those planes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, an unofficial boundary that both sides had previously stood by. China announced the drills around 11 p.m. on Sunday, saying their 'primary target was to practice land-strikes and sea assaults,' according to a statement from Shi Yi, a spokesperson for the PLA's Eastern Theater Command. A Chinese PLA J-16 fighter jet flies in an undisclosed location (file photo). The Chinese military held large-scale joint combat strike drills starting Sunday, January 9, 2023, sending war planes and navy vessels towards Taiwan, both the Chinese and Taiwanese defense ministries said A map of the activity between 6 a.m. on Sunday and 6 a.m. on Monday Sunday's exercises have continued into Monday, Taiwan's defense ministry said, monitoring Chinese warplanes and navy vessels on its missile systems. China's actions 'have severely disrupted the peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits and surrounding waters,' the ministry said. The exercises coincided with the visit of a group of German lawmakers who landed in Taiwan on Monday morning. Leading the delegation is Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who heads the German Parliament's Defense Committee. The German lawmakers will meet with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, as well as Taiwan's National Security Council head and the Mainland Affairs Council, which handles issues related to China. Pictured: Residents wearing face masks walk by a large screen showing the Chinese People's Liberation Army Airforce outside a mall in Beijing on January 9, 2023 Taiwan will hold its annual two-day military drills starting Wednesday. The exercise ahead of Lunar New Year holidays is aimed at showcasing its defense capabilities. A US warship riled China on Thursday by sailing through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, as Beijing warned against 'escalating tensions and undermining peace' in the region. In recent years, US warships, and on occasion those from allied nations such as Britain and Canada, have sailed through the strait, drawing the ire of China, which claims the island territory of Taiwan as its own. In a statement, the US military said the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer Chung-Hoon carried out the transit. 'Chung-Hoon's transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,' the statement added. Pictured: German Member of Parliament Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (left), chair of the parliamentary defence committee, greeting Taiwan Parliament Speaker You Si-kun (right) at Parliament House in Taipei on January 9, 2023 Liu Pengyu, spokesman for China's embassy in Washington, said China firmly opposed the move and urged the United States to 'immediately stop provoking troubles, escalating tensions and undermining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait'. 'US warships frequently flex muscles in the name of exercising freedom of navigation. This is not about keeping the region free and open,' the statement said. 'China will continue to stay on high alert and is ready to respond to all threats and provocations at any time, and will resolutely safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.' A spokesman for the Eastern Theatre Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army said it organised troops to monitor and guard the ship's transit, and 'all movements were under control'. Taiwan's Defence Ministry said the ship sailed in a northerly direction through the strait and that its forces had monitored its passage and observed nothing out of the ordinary. Taiwan is expanding domestic shipbuilding and its arms industry and it is buying more defensive weaponry from the US. Pictured: ground crew attach a missile to the wing of an F-16 jet fighter China accused the US of 'publicly hyping' the passage, adding that its forces monitored the ship the entire time. 'The Eastern Theatre Command of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army organised troops to monitor the US ship's entire passage and was fully cognisant of all its actions,' Colonel Shi Yi said in a brief statement posted to social media. China's attempts to intimidate Taiwan militarily have risen to new heights in recent months, raising concerns in Washington that Beijing is growing closer to using force. That has included firing missiles into the sea and sending planes and ships across the dividing line in the Taiwan Strait in August in response to a visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Last month, it sent a record-breaking 71 planes and seven ships toward Taiwan in a 24-hour display of force after expressing anger at Taiwan-related provisions in a US annual defense spending bill. A handout photo from the US Central Command shows USS Chung-Hoon sailing through the Taiwan Strait on January 5 The narrow Taiwan Strait has been a frequent source of military tension since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the communists, who established the People's Republic of China. The United States has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself. China has never ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan vows to defend itself if attacked, saying Beijing's sovereignty claims are void as the People's Republic of China has never governed the island. A Chinese military plane came within 10 feet of a US air force aircraft in the contested South China Sea last month and forced it to take evasive manoeuvres to avoid a collision in international airspace. The close encounter followed what the United States has called a recent trend of increasingly dangerous behaviour by Chinese military aircraft. On Friday, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen visited a military base to observe drills. Taiwan is seeking to boost its defences against the rising threat from China. On Friday, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen (centre) visited a military base to observe drills That includes expanding the domestic shipbuilding and arms industry, buying more defensive weaponry from the US and extending the national service requirement for all men from four months to a full year beginning in 2024. Along with observing the display by an army mechanised infantry battalion, Ing-wen visited the air force's Fourth Tactical Fighter Wing, whose pilots are largely responsible for intercepting Chinese military aircraft approaching the midline of the Taiwan Strait. 'I would like to reiterate that the continuous activities of the People's Liberation Army [around Taiwan] are not helpful to cross-strait relations nor to the peace and stability of the region,' Ing-wen said. 'As we are facing the expansion of authoritarianism, we can only but strengthen the country's combat capabilities and toughness to secure our national security and interests,' said Ing-wen. In December, the Biden administration approved the sale of an anti-tank mine-laying system to Taiwan, days after China deployed fighter jets to the island and held military exercises with Russia. Soldiers take part in a drill during the president's visit at a military base in Chiayi as Taiwan seeks to boost its defences against the rising threat from China The State Department said the Volcano system and all related equipment would cost an estimated $180 million. It is capable of scattering anti-tank and anti-personnel mines from either a ground vehicle or helicopter. The announcement indicated Taiwan would be buying the vehicle-borne version, the kind of weapon many experts believe the island needs to dissuade or repel a potential Chinese invasion which Beijing has warned could happen by 2027. Meanwhile, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a prominent independent Washington think tank, ran war game simulations of a potential conflict that is preoccupying military and political leaders in Washington and Asia. CSIS claims it was one of the most extensive war-game simulations ever conducted on a possible conflict over Taiwan. The report titled The First Battle of the Next War covered two dozen war scenarios. According to the data, if China invaded Taiwan in 2026, it would lead to thousands of casualties among Chinese, United States, Taiwanese and Japanese forces, and it is not likely that Beijing would triumph, CSIS told CNN. A war over Taiwan could leave a victorious US military in as hobbled a state as the Chinese forces it defeated, CSIS said. Taiwan lives under constant threat of invasion by China, which claims the self-ruled democracy as part of its territory to be retaken one day, by force if necessary. This graphic shows areas Chinese troops are likely to launch from and where in Taiwan they are likely to land if Beijing did launch an invasion After the conflict, the data showed that at least two US aircraft carriers would be left on the ocean floor of the Pacific and China's modern navy, the biggest in the world, would be in a desperate state. The think tank aimed to address two fundamental questions: would the invasion succeed and at what cost? The likely answers to those two questions are 'no' and 'enormous', the CSIS report said. 'The United States and Japan lose dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and thousands of service members. Such losses would damage the US global position for many years,' the report said. In the majority of scenarios, the US Navy lost two aircraft carriers and 10 to 20 large surface combatants. Around 3,200 US troops would be killed in three weeks of fighting - nearly half of what the US lost in two decades of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'China also suffers heavily. Its navy is in shambles, the core of its amphibious forces is broken, and tens of thousands of soldiers are prisoners of war,' it said. The report estimated China would lose around 10,000 troops, 155 combat aircraft and 138 major ships. Prince Harry today dramatically declared that he and Meghan will never move back to the UK and become working members of the Royal Family - just hours after using another bombshell US interview to rubbish suggestions that the couple give up their official titles. Speaking on Good Morning America, the Duke of Sussex said: 'I don't think it's ever going to be possible, I don't think that even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family, there's that third party that's going to do everything they can to make sure that that isn't possible, not stopping us from going back but making it unsurvivable.' He continued: 'Because that's essentially breaking the relationship between us. There was something in the future where, you know, we can continue to support the Commonwealth that of course is on the table.' In a separate interview with the CBS network, the duke swerved a question by Anderson Cooper who asked him why, given his clear antipathy to the monarchy, do he and Meghan not just renounce their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex. 'And what difference would that make?' was his only answer. It comes as Harry's popularity among the British public slumps to an all-time low, with a new YouGov survey finding that the Duke's net favourability now sits at a staggering -38. Almost two-thirds of those polled admitted they hold a negative view of the prince, while his support among the 18-24 age group has also fallen to its lowest ever score. Prince Harry today dramatically declared that he and Meghan will never move back to the UK and become working members of the Royal Family Harry and Meghan at Windsor Castle during the Queen's mourning in September In the US television interview, the Duke insisted his grandmother the late Queen was not angry or upset with him for wanting to step down as a senior working royal. Promoting his autobiography Spare, Harry said the monarch 'knew how hard' it was for him, but was sad at how things turned out. He also described how he 'can't ever get out' of the Royal Family. Good Morning America presenter Michael Strahan asked the duke: 'Did she ever express that she was upset at you?' Harry responded: 'For what?' Strahan replied: 'For wanting to change your role.' Harry said: 'No. My grandmother and I had a very good relationship. It was never a surprise to anybody, least of all her. 'She knew what was going on. She knew how hard it was. She never said to me that she was angry. I think she was sad that it got to that point.' Harry's controversial biography Spare, due out on Tuesday, comes just four months after the death of Queen Elizabeth, amid turbulent times for the monarchy with the long-running feud between Harry and his brother the Prince of Wales. Harry described his sadness that there was no compromise from his family over his hybrid plan to move to Canada but still remain part of the working monarchy in 2020. The Queen summoned the now King and his sons William and Harry to her Norfolk estate to try to resolve the Megxit crisis, but it was ultimately decided Harry and Meghan could not be half in and half out. Strahan asked: 'There was no compromise with the family?' Harry replied: 'No - which was really sad because I still to this day believe that this was entirely possible.' Strahan asked: 'There are going to be people who say 'Why don't they either be in or get out, because if you get out there's no hypocrisy'.' Harry said: 'I can't ever get out and I'm incredibly aware of my position. 'I'm incredibly grateful for the life that I've had and continue to live. 'But there's no version of me being ever able to get out of this. I was stunned that my family would allow security to be taken away, especially at the most vulnerable point for us.' It was at the Sandringham summit that Harry said William left him terrified by screaming and shouting at him, the duke claimed in his Netflix documentary. Cooper said: 'One of the criticisms that you've received is that okay, fine, you wanna move to California, you wanna step back from the institutional role. Why be so public? Why reveal conversations you've had with your father or with your brother? You say you tried to do this privately.' Harry retorted: 'Every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. 'You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it's just a motto. And it doesn't really hold.' The couple first made the shocking announcement that they were going to step back from their royal duties on January 8, 2020. Prince Harry tells @MichaelStrahan that he doesnt think it's ever going to be possible for him and his family to go back to the UK and become working royals again. See more tomorrow on @GMA. https://t.co/jSgNpOauvo pic.twitter.com/cQpje4QPrn Good Morning America (@GMA) January 9, 2023 Anderson Cooper pointed out during 60 Minutes that 'one of the criticisms' that the pair has received is that they 'want to step back from the institutional role' but still want to 'be so public' In a separate interview with the CBS network, the prince swerved a question by Anderson Cooper who asked him why, given his clear antipathy to the instruction of the monarchy, do he and Meghan not just renounced their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex. 'And what difference would that make?' was his only answer At the time, they wrote in a joint statement that they had reached the decision after 'many months of reflection and internal discussions.' They said they wanted to 'work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.' 'We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honor our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages,' the statement continued. 'This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.' At the time, Norman Baker, a former Liberal Democrat MP and a Home Office minister in the coalition government, said they should give up their titles in a scathing interview, stating: 'You can't be one foot in, one foot out.' 'You are either a member of the royal family or you are not,' he told the Express. Just over a year later, in February 2021, Harry and Meghan announced that they were permanently stepping down as royals and moving to California full-time, where they purchased a $14million mansion in Montecito. One month later, the pair sat down with Oprah for a two-hour, tell-all conversation - during which they alleged that someone in the royal family voiced concerns over their son Archie's skin color before his birth and that Meghan had suicidal thoughts while she was pregnant, but that she was told by the Palace that she couldn't 'get help' because 'it wouldn't be good for the institution'. This image released by ABC shows Prince Harry during an interview with Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan When the couple (seen in 2020) announced that they were stepping away from the monarchy and moving to America that year - many people called for them to give up their royal titles After the interview aired, palace aides called on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to give up their titles once again. 'The Duke of Sussex has now spent a significant amount of time emphasizing that he's no different to anyone else and attacking the institution which he says has caused him so much pain,' a senior courtier told The Mail on Sunday. 'There is a growing feeling that if you dislike the institution that much, you shouldn't have the titles. 'They should just become Harry and Meghan. And if they refuse to do that, they have to explain why not.' In their recent Netflix documentary, the couple made more shocking statements - like that they were victims of 'institutional gaslighting' and that the royals would lie to protect his older brother, Prince William. Harry also said in the series that he told his father, King Charles II, that he and Meghan were willing to relinquish their titles during discussions surrounding their plan to move to America. Following its premiere, a poll by YouGov, carried out for The Times, revealed that 44 per cent of participants said that Prince Harry and Meghan should have their titles removed, while 32 per cent thought not. A separate poll for Mail+ resulted in 98 per cent of 9,700 people stating that they wanted the royal couple to lose their titles. Royal expert and biographer Robert Jobson said afterwards: 'Harry claims in his Netflix docuseries he offered to give up his title Duke of Sussex. 'Given his and his wife's distaste for our constitutional monarchy, surely it is time for the Crown to accept his offer. The title was given in anticipation of service to the Crown and country.' It was also reported that Members of Parliament have been trying to get a bill passed that would give the Privy Council the power to downgrade Harry and Meghan's status. To change the royal couple's status, legislation would have to amend the 1917 Titles Deprivation Act that was used to remove honours such as peerages from enemies who supported German aggression in the First World War. Harry faces backlash for denying calling royals 'racist': Duke is accused of 'hanging his family out to dry' by 'failing to correct narrative' after he and Meghan told Oprah of 'concerns' about Archie's skin colour - amid calls to return anti-racism award Prince Harry was today accused of having 'hung his family out to dry' after he 'failed to correct' accusations of racism made about the Royal Family in his bombshell Oprah interview and the recent Netflix series. The Duke of Sussex last night denied calling the Royal Family racist but said they were guilty of 'unconscious bias' while discussing Meghan's controversial claim to Oprah that an unnamed royal had expressed 'concern' about Archie's skin colour. Ms Winfrey asked Meghan in 2021: 'They were concerned that if he were too brown, that would be a problem? Are you saying that?'. Ms Markle responded: 'If that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?' It prompted a worldwide guessing game about the senior royal who said it and hours later Harry's estranged brother, Prince William, was forced to publicly remark that they were 'very much not a racist family'. The Queen gave a rare statement and said 'the issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning' but stressed that 'recollections may vary'. But last night in an incendiary interview to plug his new memoir, he told ITV's Tom Bradby that the Royal Family is not racist. Mr Bradby was visibly stunned - as were millions of viewers - by his screeching U-turn from previous incendiary claims. The British broadcaster, a friend of Harry's, raised the 2021 Oprah interview with Meghan and said: 'You accused members of your family of racism.' But Harry snapped back: 'No I didn't. The British press said that. Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist?'. The duke then insisted the comments made about his son Archie's skin colour were 'unconscious bias'. Mr Bradby appeared taken aback by the answer - while experts said that Harry clearly didn't understand the term he was now using. Former BBC Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond told ITV's Lorraine: 'So much of what he said seemed conflicted and contradictory... he allowed his family to be hung out to dry on an accusation of racism which Harry says now he never said and wasn't true. That in my view is almost unforgivable.' Prince Harry is today facing allegations that he failed to 'correct the narrative' around racism in the Royal Family after sensationally accusing an unnamed royal of asking about the skin colour of his and Meghan's then-unborn son Archie during his bombshell Oprah interview Jennie Bond (left) told Lorraine: 'He allowed his family to be hung out to dry on an accusation of racism which Harry says now he never said and wasn't true'. ITV's Royal Editor Chris Ship (right) said: 'Harry is right to say that Meghan or Harry didn't use the word ''racist'' at any point... [but] Harry didn't correct the narrative when this whole racism row then started' And ITV News's Royal Editor Chris Ship said on Good Morning Britain: 'Harry is right to say [they] didn't use the word ''racist'' at any point... [but] Harry didn't correct the narrative when this whole racism row then started, and not correcting the narrative is something he accused the Royal Family of not doing, when he criticised Jeremy Clarkson and other things as well.' While the Duke has not referred to the Oprah interview in his memoir, which is published tomorrow, he was asked by Bradby in the interview to plug the book: 'Wouldn't you describe that as essentially racist?' The prince replies: 'I wouldn't, not having lived within that family.' But he adds: 'The difference between racism and unconscious bias the two things are different. 'But once it's been acknowledged, or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that so that you are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.' And he accused Buckingham Palace of failing to follow up on promises it made in the wake of the Oprah controversy, including appointing a 'diversity tsar'. Harry and Meghan's 'tell-all' conversation with Oprah in 2021 marked their first major interview since they stepped down as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020. One of the most shocking moments from the interview came when Meghan said there were 'several conversations' between herself, Harry and members of the Royal Family about 'how dark' their baby could be before Archie was born. Speaking about the family, Oprah had asked Meghan: 'Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem? Are you saying that?' Meghan then replied: 'I wasn't able to follow up with why, but that - if that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?' In his interview with Bradby last night, Harry said: 'That conversation, I am never going to share. At the time it was awkward, I was a bit shocked.' His refusal to name the person involved sparked an international guessing game about who the 'royal racist' was. Critics accused the Duke of not understanding the difference between denying the royals are racist while also accusing them of 'unconscious bias', arguing they amount to the same thing The Duke of Sussex last night conceded that the Royal Family were not racist but said they were guilty of 'unconscious bias' while discussing the controversial claim in an incendiary interview to plug his new memoir Pictured, Meghan, Archie and Harry at a Polo match in Wokingham in 2019 In a statement the late Queen said the claims were 'concerning' but stressed that 'recollections may vary' and the claims would be addressed privately. Referring to the racism allegations made previously by his wife, Harry bridled at the suggestion by Bradby that he accused his family of racism, snapping back: 'No I didn't. The British Press said that. Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist?' 'She said there were troubling comments about Archie's skin colour,' Bradby replied. 'There was there was concern about his skin colour,' Harry corrected him. When Bradby suggested that there was a danger by not naming the person concerned, Harry said: 'Yes, you're right, the key word is concern, which was troubling. 'But you speak to any other couple, mixed race couple around the world, and you will probably find that the white side of the family have either openly discussed it, or secretly discussed, you know, 'What are the kids gonna look like?' And that is part of a, you know, bigger conversation that needs to be had.' He claimed that after the interview with Miss Winfrey 'they said that they were gonna [sic] bring in a diversity tsar. That hasn't happened'. He added: 'Everything they said was gonna [sic] happen hasn't happened. I've always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it, and especially when you are the monarchy you have a responsibility and quite rightly people hold you to a higher standard than others.' In the couple's Netflix series Harry & Meghan, the Duke claimed: 'In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias. Harry told Netflix: 'In [the Royal Family], sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias' 'The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one's fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right. It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.' The Duke added that members of the Royal Family asked why the Duchess should be 'protected' when they questioned newspaper headlines about her. 'The direction from the palace was don't say anything,' he said. 'But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well. So it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like, ''My wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?'' 'I said ''The difference here is the race element''.' What Meghan told Oprah vs what Harry told Tom Bradby... and the Duke's claims on Netflix THE OPRAH INTERVIEW Oprah: You certainly must have had some conversations with Harry about it and have your own suspicions as to why they didn't want to make Archie a prince. What are those thoughts? Why do you think that is? Do you think it's because of his race? And I know that's a loaded question, but... Meghan: But I can give you an honest answer. In those months when I was pregnant all around the same time, so we have in tandem the conversation of he won't be given security, he's not going to be given a title, and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he's born... Oprah: What? Meghan: And... Oprah: Who is having that conversation with you? What? Meghan: So... Oprah: Hold up... Meghan: There's several conversations... Oprah: There's a conversation with you... Meghan: With Harry... Oprah: ...About how dark your baby is going to be? Meghan: Potentially, and what that would mean or look like. Oprah: And you're not going to tell me who had that conversation? Meghan: I think that would be very damaging to them. Oprah: Ok. So how does one have that meeting? Meghan: That was relayed to me from Harry. Those were conversations that family had with him, and I think it was really hard to be able to see those as compartmentalised conversations. Oprah: Was the concern that if he was too brown that that would be a problem? Are you saying that? Meghan: I wasn't able to follow up with why, but if that's the assumption you're making that feels like a pretty safe one. Which is really hard to understand, right? Especially when... look, the Commonwealth is a huge part of the monarchy and I lived in Canada which is a Commonwealth country for seven years but it wasn't until Harry and I were together that we started to travel through the Commonwealth, 60-70 per cent of which is people of colour, right? And growing up as a woman of colour, a little girl of colour, I know how important representation is. Oprah: What is particularly striking is what Meghan shared with us earlier, which is that no one wants to admit there's anything about race or that race has played a role in the trolling or vitriol. Yet Meghan has shared with us that there was a conversation with you about Archie's skin tone. What was that conversation? Harry: That conversation I am never going to share. But at the time it was awkward. I was a bit shocked. Oprah: Can you tell us what the question was? Harry: No, I'm not comfortable sharing that, but that was right at the beginning. Oprah: What will the baby look like? Harry: Yeah, what will the kids look like. But that was right at the beginning, when she wasn't going to get security, when members of my family were suggesting that she carry on acting... There was some real obvious signs before we even got married that this was going to be really hard. THE TOM BRADBY INTERVIEW Bradby: In the Oprah interview you accuse members of your family of racism. You don't even... Harry: No I don't. The British press said that. Bradby: Right. I... Harry: Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist? Bradby: She said there were troubling comments about Archie's skin colour. Harry: Yeah there was concern about his skin colour. Bradby: Right. Wouldn't you describe that as essentially racist? Harry: I wouldn't, not having lived within that family. Going back to the difference between what my understanding is because of my own experience, the difference between racism and unconscious bias, the two things are different. But once it's been acknowledged or pointed out to you as an individual, or as an institution, that you have unconscious bias, you therefore have an opportunity to learn and grow from that in order so that you are part of the solution rater than part of the problem. Otherwise, unconscious bias then moves into the category of racism. Bradby: But I suppose, I mean, isn't there a danger... you know. You haven't identified which members of the family... Harry: And I will never talk about that. I mean, what happened to Ngozi Fulani is a very good example of the environment within the institution. And why, after the Oprah interview, they said that they were gonna bring in a diversity tsar. That hasn't happened. Everyting that they said was gonna happen hasn't happened. I've always been open to wanting to help them understand their part in it. And especially when you are the monarchy at the... you have a responsibility and, quite rightly, people hold you to a higher standard than others. Certainly he media should, right? So the way that I've learnt it through my own experience and from what I've seen and what I've heard - yes, you're right, the key word is 'concern', which was troubling, but you speak to any other couple, mixed race couple around the world and you will probably find that the white side of the family have either openly discussed it or secretly discussed, you know, what are the kids gonna look like? and that is part of a, you know, bigger conversation that needs to be had. But to say that that doesn't happen around the rest of the world but it just happened there, is... that's not true. But again, for me, the difference is unconscious bias and racism.... If you are called out for unconscious bias, you need to make that right, and you have the opportunity and the choice to. But if you choose not to, then that rapidly becomes something much more serious. THE NETFLIX SERIES Harry: In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias. The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one's fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right. It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me. The direction from the palace was don't say anything. But what people need to understand is, as far as a lot of the family were concerned, everything that she was being put through, they had been put through as well. So it was almost like a rite of passage, and some of the members of the family were like, 'My wife had to go through that, so why should your girlfriend be treated any differently? Why should you get special treatment? Why should she be protected?' I said 'The difference here is the race element'. Advertisement How could Harry do this to Kate on her birthday? Royal fans rally around Princess as she celebrates turning 41 - while King Charles and Camilla ignore drama to send their best wishes King Charles and Camilla have shared their best wishes with the Princess of Wales as she marks her 41st birthday today - as Prince Harry released a series of bombshell interviews overnight. The Duke of Sussex, 38, sat down with Tom Bradby for a primetime television interview as part of a publicity blitz for his controversial memoir Spare before joining Anderson Cooper for a shocking interview on CBS. In a series of bombshells twisting the knife on his closest family members, Harry claimed royals sought to protect their own reputation 'to the detriment' of him and Meghan and that they were 'complicit' in their 'pain and suffering'. As the world was left reeling over the interviews this morning, the official Royal Family's social media channels shared a birthday wish for the Princess, posting: 'Wishing the Princess of Wales a very happy birthday.' King Charles and Camilla have shared their best wishes with the Princess of Wales as she marks her 41st birthday today - as Prince Harry released a series of bombshell interviews overnight Meanwhile royal fans were also quick to share their birthday messages with the Princess of Wales, posting a host of supportive tweets online. One commented: 'I can't believe Harry is doing this to Kate on the eve of her birthday...' Another wrote: 'Prince Harry: I love Kate! Also Harry: I'm releasing this book on your birthday darling.' A third added: 'Harry can't be trusted. Just imagine if he had a sister and spoke about her body like he has his brother. Charles and Camilla were quick to share a birthday message with the Princess as she marks the big day today 'As far as I'm concerned, he is no royal to me. 'Happy birthday to Kate - and we know why the interview was today.' Other fans flooded social media with snaps of the Princess, sharing their best wishes with the royal today. One wrote: 'My role model. Let's focus on this cutie. Tomorrow is her birthday so let's show her extra love and support!' Royal fans were quick to flood social media with support for Kate, following Harry's bombshell interviews overnight Another commented: 'Happy birthday to the Princess of Wales! Kate is the best thing that happened to the British Royal Family in this century.' A third added: 'Let's celebrate Catherine, the Princess of Wales and the style icon she is today is her birthday. Like this tweet as a way of wishing her a happy birthday. We love Kate.' 'Today is our Princess of Wales' birthday. I hope William and Kate have a lovely day today and hope William, George, Charlotte and Louis spoil Catherine. Happy birthday my princess.' 'Happy birthday to Kate Middleton,' another wrote. 'She turns 41 today and please help her wish and celebrate her big day.' As the world was left reeling over the interviews this morning, the official Royal Family's social media channels shared a birthday wish for the Princess In the interviews last night, Harry described a fractious relationship between his wife and Kate, while also addressing the rift with his brother and his sensational accusation towards Camilla of plotting to marry Charles. But social media has exploded amid the bombshell interview, with claims of 'hypocrisy' over Harry's desire for his family to reach out privately when he is publicly discussing behind closed doors conversations. One user tweeted: 'Harry literally turning the British Monarchy into an episode of The Kardashian's. This is cringe.' Another said: 'If you want communication with your family to be private, why are you doing this interview?! So contradictory. Prince Harry twisted the knife on family members with a series of bombshells during the interview Prince Harry sat down last night for a number of primetime interviews to promote his memoir, Spare A third added: 'He wants any future conversation to stay private but is sitting here telling us what other 'private' conversations they have had.' A fourth tweeted: 'I've never heard such hypocritical, delusional, self-serving, narcissistic ramblings in my life!! 'He's actually said that he 'hopes' his family can respect HIS privacy whilst talking incessantly about THEM to the world's press! KNOWING they cannot respond!' Prince Harry made further charges against the British royals before the release of his memoir "Spare" on Tuesday, setting up a dramatic week for the estranged family. Prince Harry told CBS' 60 Minutes Sunday that Camilla, Queen Consort, was leaking family anecdotes to the British media to "rehabilitate" her image. When questioned about reconciling with his brother, Prince William, and father, King Charles III, he responded the "ball is very much in their court." Buckingham Palace has remained silent on Prince Harry's book, which has been leaked to include some of his most contentious assertions, CNN reported. Prince Harry's book, to be released Tuesday at midnight London time (7 p.m. ET Monday), offers his viewpoint on royal family life. Why Camilla Was Portrayed As 'The Villain' Prince Harry's depiction of his stepmother, Camilla, now the Queen Consort, in his new book "Spare," is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book. She married Prince Charles in 2005 after decades of dating. Prince Harry has never forgotten that Princess Diana referred to Camilla as the "third person" in her marriage with Prince Charles. During their 60 Minutes interview, Prince Harry said that Camilla was presented as "the villain" in the tabloids, as she was the "third party." "She needed to rehabilitate her image," he noted. Anderson Cooper asked if Prince Harry and his brother, Prince William, had specifically requested that their father not wed Camilla. Harry replied, "Yes." However, the royal brothers did not consider it necessary, and they wanted their father to be happy, which was apparent when he was with her. So, everything was "OK" at the time. Read Also: Jeremy Rener Update: 911 Call Log Reveals Horrifying Detail on 'Avengers' Star's Snow Plow Accident However, Harry explained to Cooper that what made Camilla dangerous was her desire to improve her reputation. Due to the ties, she was establishing inside the British press, this made her unsafe, as both parties were eager to share information. With a hierarchical family and her on the path to becoming queen consort, there would inevitably be casualties. According to Prince Harry, he was one of those victims throughout the years. At times, he even claims that his father and Camilla have been exploiting William and him to get favorable tabloid publicity for themselves. CBS News reports Prince Harry remarked that Camilla "sacrificed" him on her "PR altar." 'Dragons' in The Royal Family Story Another controversial statement by Prince Harry was his claim that he had not been invited to go with the other royals on the aircraft that was bringing them north to Scotland on the day that Queen Elizabeth died at Balmoral. Later in the conversation, Cooper likened the scenario to "Game of Thrones without dragons," Harry admitted that he had not watched the show yet, but, for sure, there are "dragons" in his family's story. Prince Harry said the third party is the British press and without it, their family would probably still be dysfunctional, as many are, per The Daily Beast. "But at the heart of it, there is a family, without question," Prince Harry said, adding that he is looking forward to re-establishing a good relationship with the British Royal Family. "I look forward to having a relationship with my father and other members of my family." Related Article: King Charles Begs Prince Harry, Prince William To Stop Making His Final Years 'Miserable'; Duke of Sussex's Memoir Continues To Hit the Royal Family @ 2023 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been denied permission to leave prison to attend Dame Vivienne Westwood's funeral, her family has said. Dame Vivienne was a strong supporter and friend of Mr Assange, who is being held in Belmarsh prison in London while he continues a lengthy fight to avoid extradition to the United States. The fashion designer's family said it was 'deeply disappointed that we were unable to fulfil Vivienne's wishes but are unsurprised by the decision which is unjust and in keeping with the inhumane treatment he has received from the UK authorities up to this point'. They added: 'Julian has not been convicted of any crime, yet he is treated as if he is a terrorist, the only thing he is guilty of is publishing the truth.' Dame Vivienne Westwood was a strong supporter and friend of Mr Assange (pictured at Westminster Magistrates Court in April 2019) Stella Assange wore a dress designed by Dame Vivienne when she married the 51-year-old at the prison in a small ceremony in March. The fashion designer wrote a message on the inside of the wedding dress that read: 'To me, Vivienne, Julian is a pure soul and a freedom fighter. All my love to the family, Julian, Stella, Max and Grabriel. May the holy life force bless your marriage.' Dame Vivienne died last month aged 81 surrounded by her family in south London. The pair had been close friends for more than a decade and last saw one another when Dame Vivienne visited Assange in prison in 2019. After first meeting at Assange's 40th birthday party, the pair stayed in touch and Dame Vivienne would regularly cycle to visit him at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he was given asylum between 2012 and 2019. The designer dressed as a canary and suspended herself inside a giant birdcage outside the Old Bailey in July 2020 to protest against his extradition. Weeks before her death she contacted Assange to tell him she was seriously unwell. A message was left outside Dame Vivienne's home following her death in December, aged 81 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gestures from the window of a prison van as he is driven into Southwark Crown Court in London on May 1, 2019 His wife Stella told The Mail on Sunday: 'She had reached out to tell Julian and me she was very poorly so her death was not unexpected. 'It was about a month ago. It was very hard on him as he had not seen her since that prison visit in 2019.' Mrs Assange continued: 'What she and Julian shared were uncompromising beliefs. Julian loved her company, she was a lot of fun and a real free thinker. 'She would be in and out the embassy up to twice a month and her son Ben would come once a week with a box of homemade sushi for Julian too.' The designer dressed as a canary and suspended herself inside a giant birdcage outside the Old Bailey in July 2020 to protest against his extradition Mrs Assange wore a dress designed by Dame Vivienne when she married the 51-year-old at the prison in a small ceremony in March. The fashion designer wrote a message on the inside of the wedding dress that read: 'To me, Vivienne, Julian is a pure soul and a freedom fighter. All my love to the family, Julian, Stella, Max and Grabriel. May the holy life force bless your marriage.' The designer's death prompted the WikiLeaks founder to issue his first public statement since being imprisoned in 2019. In a comment released by Mrs Assange, he said: 'Vivienne was a Dame and a pillar of the anti-establishment. Bold, creative, thoughtful and a good friend. The best of Britain. She will be missed terribly by me and many others.' Dame Vivienne, who was born in Cheshire in 1941, is celebrated for bringing punk and new wave fashion into the mainstream with her imaginative creations. The US wants to extradite Mr Assange to face allegations of conspiracy to obtain and disclose American defence information following WikiLeaks' publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He was dragged out of his embassy exile in 2019, arrested, and locked up in Belmarsh where his mental and physical health is known to have deteriorated. He had a mini-stroke in 2021. A delegation from Wikileaks recently received the support of leaders across Latin America in calls for his release. Just days after finally earning the Speaker's gavel, Kevin McCarthy will face another showdown within the GOP when voting commences Monday evening to adopt a new rules package for the 118th Congress. The House Speaker made some substantial concessions in order to earn his new post several of which may not please all Republicans and could lead to another week of chaos on the House floor. Tony Gonzales of Texas said he is a 'no' and Nancy Mace of South Carolina said she is on the fence making two Republican representatives who have already publicly signaled they could take away votes needed to pass the rules package. All 212 Democrats will vote against the rules package. The House will convene at 5:00 p.m. on Monday and first votes are expected to commence around 6:30 p.m., but it's unclear if the rules package will pass this evening by the time the last votes are expected at 9:00 p.m. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to give into some major concessions for conservative members to earn his new position, which could lead to more drama within the GOP during a vote on the new rules package Monday At least two Republican lawmakers, Nancy Mace (left) and Tony Gonzales (right), signaled publicly that they will vote against the rules package Rules packages hardly ever receive attention among routine procedures of a new Congress. But this new Congress has been anything but ordinary, requiring 15 rounds of voting to elect McCarthy as Speaker. Congress hasn't failed to elect a Speaker on the first ballot in 100 years until last week. Among the most extreme concessions McCarthy had to make was agreeing to restore the motion to vacate, but with the additional provision that any single member would have the power to call for a vote to remove him from his new seat. This takes a lot of power away from McCarthy and forces him to stay in line with what the group of conservative members want him to do, or else he could easily lose the speakership. Those Republican lawmakers who could vote against the rules package argue that McCarthy gave up too much to win his speakership after 20 conservatives and more far-right members refused to cast their ballot for him in multiple rounds of voting. Moderates aren't pleased with concessions given by McCarthy and argue that the Party leadership needs to stand up to conservatives or else risk being steamrolled for the next two years. The rules package is simply the rules and guidelines under which the House of Representatives operates. A group of 20 conservative lawmakers, including Representatives Matt Gaetz (left) and Lauren Boebert (right) refused to let McCarthy ascend to the speakership without giving into their concessions, which includes allowing just one member to trigger a motion to vacate removing McCarthy as Speaker It took McCarthy 15 rounds of voting to finally become Speaker last week KEVIN MCCARTHY'S CONCESSIONS TO WIN HOUSE SPEAKER House Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally earned his gavel after 15 rounds of voting last week. To win, however, he had to give into some major demands from 20 conservative dissenters. These concessions could lead to even more chaos with moderate Republicans at the start of the 118th Congress. McCarthy's concessions include: RESTORING THE MOTION TO VACATE The motion to vacate allows any single member to call a vote to remove McCarthy as Speaker. VOTING ON TERM LIMITS A floor vote was secured to establish term limits for all House members, which is something lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pushed for in recent years. There are currently no term limits. GIVING FREEDOM CAUCUS MORE POWER The conservative House Freedom Caucus will receive three of the nine seats on the powerful House Rules Committee, which has a huge say in whether bills and amendments are brought to the floor. ENDING THE OMNIBUS McCarthy agreed to vote separately on spending bills instead of bundling them into a massive omnibus bill like the $1.7 trillion one that passed in December 2022. LOWERING SPENDING Concessions cap government spending at lower levels implemented just two years ago. This means most programs will get cuts. PROBES INTO PROBES A new Judiciary subcommittee to focus on 'weaponization of the federal government,' that would investigate the FBI, the DOJ's raid of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and Homeland Security. In a last-minute deal on Friday, McCarthy also agreed to allow the select subcommittee access to information shared with the House Intelligence Committee including 'ongoing criminal investigations.' DECREASE GOP PRIMARY CONTESTS McCarthy agreed to keeping his Congressional Leadership Fund PAC money out of races against conservative members in safe districts. REINSTATING THE HOLMAN RULE The Holman rule allow amendments to reduces lawmakers' salaries, fire federal employees and cut programs. ADDING TIME TO REVIEW BILLS The concessions created a 72-hour review period to allow House members more time to review bills before they reach the floor Advertisement This year, the House rules became a huge part of negotiations between McCarthy and his allies with the 20 hardline conservatives, many of whom are part of the House Freedom Caucus, who refused to elect him speaker without a deal massively in their favor. Conservatives want more power in Congress and claim the status quo needs to change within leadership. To cement this while also allowing McCarthy to become speaker, they required that the rules included securing three of the nine seats on the House Rules Committee for Freedom Caucus members. The powerful House Rules Committee has a big say in whether bills and amendments are brought to the floor. Besides the rules packages, Republicans plan to use their first full week in the House majority by zeroing-in on a massive increase in spending at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which includes expanding the workforce and increasing audits. McCarthy also plans to establish a select committee on China, as well as stop petroleum sales to Beijing. Chaos erupted on the House floor last week and more could ensue this week with the rules package vote on Monday night. Pictured: Rep. Richard Hudson pulls back Rep. Mike Rogers as he lunged toward Gaetz in continued votes for Speaker on Friday, January 6 Moderates who do not favor the way the new Congress is shaping up point to the fact that three of the first 12 bills will tighten abortion restrictions and they were added to the floor schedule without first consulting with the middle of the Republican Conference. One bill would create 'medical protections for babies that survive attempted abortions,' a second condemns attacks on pro-life groups. It's all shaping up to be a very ideological start to the term with focus on social issues important to conservatives. Agents notified the airline who said the snake would not be allowed in the cabin She told TSA employees that 'Bartholomew' was an emotional support pet TSA agents in Florida found a four-foot boa constrictor in a woman's carry-on bag after her suitcase was passed through an X-ray machine. The woman told agents at Tampa International Airport that the snake was 'an emotional support pet,' a TSA spokesperson said. The TSA released X-ray images of the snake on Friday. They showed it curled up in the corner of a tray next to ordinary items such as sneakers, a belt, and a laptop. It says it notified the airline which confirmed that it would not allow the snake in the plane's cabin. The TSA said snakes are never allowed to travel in carry-on luggage and only on some airlines can they be checked-in. TSA agents in Florida found a four-foot long boa constrictor in a woman's carry-on bag after her suitcase was passed through an X-ray machine The woman and her snake, named Bartholomew, were traveling from Tampa Airport on December 15, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein told CNN Travel. Farbstein tweeted: 'Woman claimed the snake was her emotional support pet. TSA notified the airline, which ruled that there was not going to be a snake on their plane!' This is not the first time a snake in Florida has attempted to breach airport security. Just a couple months prior, a flight from Tampa International actually took off with a garter snake in the cabin. United Airlines flight 2038 had just arrived at Newark after a two-hour flight from Florida when the reptile was spotted on the plane as passengers were getting ready to get off. After the incident United said in a statement that although it has 'no weight or breed limitations for pets' flying in its aircraft only cats and dogs are permitted. The woman told TSA employees that she had brought the snake with her as an 'emotional support pet' TSA employees contacted the woman's airline which confirmed it would not allow the boa (stock) in the cabin TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said the woman was traveling on December 15 last month On another occasion in 2018, TSA employees in Miami found a ball python tied in a nylon stocking and hidden inside a hard drive by a woman traveling to Barbados. Screeners operating the X-ray machine detected an 'organic mass' inside the electronic device, which turned out to be the snake. A TSA spokesperson said a bomb expert examined the bag and discovered the animal. 'While this mass inside the electronic device was obviously not an imminent terrorist threat to the traveling public, the kind we are always on high alert to, the interception did prevent a possible wildlife threat on an aircraft,' she stated. The passenger was fined, and the snake was taken into custody by US Fish and Wildlife Services. Neither woman nor snake made the flight. The suit is asking for the maximum amount of damages permitted by law It claims that SPS's nearly 50,000 students have been directly negatively impacted by the actions of the tech giants Seattle's largest public school district has filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against the Big Tech companies that run TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat that seeks to hold them accountable for exacerbating the teen mental health crisis. On Friday, Seattle Public Schools filed a 91-page complaint with the US District Court alleging that the social media companies target detrimental products to children. The suit blames the Big Tech giants for aggravating the mental health and behavioral crisis seen in high school-aged teens that includes depression, anxiety, disordered eating and cyberbullying. The suit also alleges that those issues make it more difficult to educate students and have forced schools to hire additional mental health counselors and spend time and resources developing lesson plans around the negative impacts of social media. Seattle's largest public school district filed a landmark suit in US District court on Friday, alleging that social media companies are responsible for the decline in mental health of the US teenage population This is some of the research Facebook was shown last year about how Instagram is harming young people Dr. Brent Jones, the superintendent of Seattle Public Schools said he is confident the suit will be a 'step forward' in reversing the mental health crisis his students are experiencing The complaint argues: 'Defendants have successfully exploited the vulnerable brains of youth, hooking tens of millions of students across the country into positive feedback loops of excessive use and abuse of Defendants' social media platforms.' 'Worse, the content Defendants curate and direct to youth is too often harmful and exploitive,' it continues. 'Plaintiff is not alleging Defendants are liable for what third-parties have said on Defendants' platforms but, rather, for Defendants' own conduct,' rather, 'defendants affirmatively recommend and promote harmful content to youth, such as pro-anorexia and eating disorder content.' The suit offers a number of statistics that contribute to the argument, including that more than 16million of TikTok's daily users are under the age of 14. It delves into the argument that social media companies intentionally market to younger users to ensure they continue to use the product as they age. The school district is being represented by Keller Rohrback, a Seattle-based firm that regularly litigates against some of the country's most prominent corporate defendants on behalf of school districts and local governments. Felicia Craick, an attorney for the firm, pointed at increased social media usage as a leading cause among suicide attempts and mental-health ER visits. 'The increase in suicides, attempted suicides, and mental-health ER visits is no coincidence. As alleged in the complaint, this crisis was already growing before the pandemic and research has identified social media as playing a major role in causing mental health problems in youth,' she said. On Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, Seattle Public Schools filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, suing the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, seeking to hold them accountable for the mental health crisis among youth The 90+ page suit alleges alleges that social media companies target youthful consumers in order to keep them coming back to their products as they age The suit claims that between 2009 to 2019, 30 percent of SPS students reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for more than two weeks The suit claims that between 2009 to 2019, 30 percent of SPS students reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for more than two weeks. District Superintendent Brent Jones said in a statement, 'It has become increasingly clear that many children are burdened by mental health challenges. Our students - and young people everywhere - face unprecedented, learning and life struggles that are amplified by the negative impacts of increased screen time, unfiltered content, and potentially addictive properties of social media.' 'We are confident and hopeful that this lawsuit is the first step toward reversing this trend for our students, children throughout Washington state, and the entire country,' he continued. The suit is asking for the maximum amount of damages permitted by law. It claims that SPS's nearly 50,000 students have been directly negatively impacted by the actions of the tech giants. The lawsuit says that from 2009 to 2019, there was on average a 30 percent increase in the number of Seattle Public Schools students who reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some typical activities. Jose Castaneda, a spokesperson for Google, which owns YouTube, said the company has allowed parents the option to limit the screen time of their children and prevent them from seeing certain types of content on their devices. 'We have invested heavily in creating safe experiences for children across our platforms and have introduced strong protections and dedicated features to prioritize their well being,' he said. In 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen exposed before Congress reports indicating Facebook (Meta) executives knew that Instagram harmed the body image of young girls This is not the first time Mark Zuckerberg and his company will have to answer for the claim that his products (Instagram, Facebook) are contributing to the decline in mental health in US teenagers Before Congress in 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen showed that the company understood Instagram was negatively affecting the body image and mental well-being of teenage girls. It was, in fact, an issue the company was actively studying. According to leaked research that was obtained by the Wall Street Journal, the company had been warned about the issue and had been thinking about the question since at least 2019. The school district is asking the court to order the companies to stop creating the public nuisance, to award damages, and to pay for prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media. One slide in an internal presentation read: 'We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls. 'Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.' Another presentation found that among teens who felt suicidal, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced their suicidal feelings to Instagram. Nurses at two of New York City's largest hospitals went on strike Monday in a dispute over pay and staffing levels after a weekend of negotiations did not produce a deal for a new contract. The walkout involves as many as 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Patients are likely to see disruptions in care such as emergency room visits and childbirth. The walkout formally began at 6am on Monday. The New York State Nurses Association, which represents the workers, said the group was being forced into the drastic step because of chronic understaffing that leaves them caring for too many patients at a time. 'Nurses don't want to strike. Bosses have pushed us to strike by refusing to seriously consider our proposals to address the desperate crisis of unsafe staffing that harms our patients,' the union said in a statement late Sunday. Hundreds of nurses went on strike today and joined the picket line in New York City NYSNA nurses protest as they walk off the job Monday January 9 after failing to agree on terms for a contract over the weekend Pizza-themed protest signs were aplenty at the Monday morning protest, referencing the pizza parties thrown for nurses when they complain too much at work NYSNA nurses line Madison Avenue while protesting as they walk out of their jobs Around the protests on Monday, lots of signs that featured pizza were seen being waved. When the crowd was asked why, they said it was because, typically, when nurses complain too much about staffing shortages they are given a pizza party. Montefiore officials said in a statement Monday, 'We remain committed to seamless and compassionate care, recognizing that the union leadership's decision will spark fear and uncertainty across our community.' The hospital planned to assign managers not represented by the union to cover nursing shifts. Montefiore and Mount Sinai had been getting ready for a walkout by transferring patients, diverting ambulances to other institutions, postponing nonemergency medical procedures and arranging for temporary staffing. Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the union and the hospitals late Sunday to take their dispute to binding arbitration. Montefiore's administration had said it was willing to let an arbitrator settle the contract 'as a means to reaching an equitable outcome.' Hundreds of nurses are seen walking the picket line outside Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx Ambulances and emergency surgery patients will be re-routed to other NYC hospitals as the nurses strike begins to impact staffing A morning commuter drives by a large group of nurses who went on strike in New York City on Monday Strikers display protest signs as they fight for increased pay and better working conditions The strike involving thousands of nurses is occurring at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx and Mt. Sinai hospital in Manhattan The union did not immediately accept the proposal. In a statement, it said Hochul, a Democrat, 'should listen to the frontline COVID nurse heroes and respect our federally-protected labor and collective bargaining rights.' Montefiore and Mount Sinai are the last of a group of hospitals with contracts with the union that expired simultaneously. The Nurses Association had initially warned that it would strike at all of them at the same time - a potential calamity even in a city with as many hospitals as New York. But one by one, the other hospitals struck agreements with the union as the deadline approached. Nurses gather before sunrise on Madison Avenue as they walk off the job to go on strike at Mount Sinai Hospital An inflatable rat is seen amongst NYSNA nurses as they strike on Monday Nurses took to the streets in protest of chronic understaffing that leaves them caring for too many patients at a time Nurses at New York-Presbyterian Hospital ratified a deal Saturday that will give them raises of 7%, 6%, and 5% over the next three years while also increasing staffing levels. That deal, which covers 4,000 nurses, has been seen as a template for the negotiations with other hospital systems. Nurses at two facilities in the Mount Sinai system also tentatively agreed to contracts Sunday. But negotiations continued at the system's flagship hospital on Manhattan's East Side. Mount Sinai's management walked out on negotiations late last week and only returned to the bargaining table Sunday. Mount Sinai's administration said in a statement that the unions focus on staffing-to-patient ratios 'ignores the progress we have made to attract and hire more new nurses, despite a global shortage of healthcare workers that is impacting hospitals across the country.' Nurses protest in front of Manhattan's Mt. Sinai hospital, where complaints of understaffing have persisted since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic Doctors and nurses look down from a window as striking New York City nurses gather in front of Montefiore hospital in the Bronx 7,100 nurses are on strike and hundreds of them are chanting LOUD outside of Mt. Sinai right now. @NBCNewYork pic.twitter.com/AZhrFnTWXx Romney Smith (@RomneySmith) January 9, 2023 Nurses gather to strike outside Mount Sinai in New York City NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said that the number one 'issue is the crisis of understaffing.' 'We are here to negotiate in good faith, to make sure that the nurses have enough resources to care for the patients.' Emergency rooms at Montefiore are 'often so overcrowded that patients are admitted in beds in a hallway instead of hospital rooms,' Hagans continued. A Mount Sinai representative said the 'exact wage agreement' that was accepted by nurses at Morningside/West was offered to nurses on the East Side campus as well. 'We are continuing to actively negotiate in good faith with NYSNA and hope they will accept our offer - which would provide an additional $51,000 in cash compensation for each nurse and $19,500 in medical and pension payment benefits over three years,' said spokesperson Lucia Lee. He is accused of buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies on January 2 Walshe was arraigned on charges of 'misleading police' in court on Monday Cops have found blood on a damaged knife and in the basement of the Massachusetts home a real estate executive vanished from - as her smirking art-swindler husband is charged with 'misleading' officers. Prosecutors told Quincy District Court they found the evidence after activating a search warrant on Brian and Ana Walshe's Cohasset house. They also told a judge on Monday morning that Walshe was spotted spending $450 on cleaning products in a nearby Home Depot the day after she went missing. The 46-year-old had allegedly told officers he had only left the house to take his son for ice cream since his 39-year-old wife disappeared in the early hours of New Year's Day. Ana, a mother-of-three, has not been seen since she failed to catch a flight to Washington DC for work, with detectives scouring the family home in search of clues and removing a Volvo SUV. Walshe has been arraigned on charges of 'misleading police', but prosecutors say that they discovered blood in the basement of their home Walshe was seen cracking a smile as he was handcuffed and led out of the station by officers this morning while they continue to search for Ana Walshe, 39 Prosecutors confirmed that Ana has still not been found during the court hearing on Monday morning Authorities say it allowed him time to clean up evidence and dispose of it, with his bail being set at $500,000 in cash. Ana was reported missing to police on January 4 by her employer in DC and her husband - a stay at home father - three days after she was last seen. He claimed that he hadn't left the property after his wife, who is of Serbian descent, went missing, but was seen on cameras buying hundreds of dollars worth of cleaning supplies. Prosecutors at Quincy District Court say that Walshes statements, including claiming that he didnt leave the house, delayed the investigation. Police searched the home, finding blood in an area of the basement before finding a damaged knife with blood on it. It is unclear who the blood belongs to, with prosecutors adding that Walshe bought himself time to either clean up evidence, dispose of evidence, in causing a delay. Surveillance footage, which has not been released, from Home Depot proved he was lying to officers, which showed him buying taps, mops, buckets, cloths and various kinds of tape. Court documents show that he was wearing a black surgical mask, blue surgical gloves, and made a cash purchase in the store. It comes as cops removed items from the couple's home in Cohasset eight days after Ana disappeared. The officers loaded a Volvo SUV onto the back of a truck while others searched the grounds of their home. Ana stayed at the couple's $1.3million home in Washington DC while working during the week at her real estate job Police searched the couple's home, finding blood in an area of the basement before finding a damaged knife with blood on it Brian is seen driving away from the Cohasset, Massachusetts, home on Sunday - before his arrest - where he, his wife, Ana, and their three children lived until the mom-of-three's disappearance TIMELINE LEADING TO DISAPPEARANCE November 2016: Brian Walshe was arrested in connection with an $80,000 art fraud of Andy Warhol paintings. He is ordered by a court to remain under house arrest until sentencing. Walshe has yet to be sentenced for the fraud. January 1. 2023 Ana reportedly booked a rideshare car to take her to Logan International Airport at 4am, but it is unclear if she ever got into the vehicle. Her husband claims he went to Whole Foods and CVS, but there is no surveillance or receipts to prove he went. January 2: Walshe tells authorities that he only left the family home in Cohasset to take his son for ice cream. He is caught on surveillance footage buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies in Home Depot. Anas phone pinged in the area of the house on Jan 1 and 2. January 4: Ana's employer reports her as missing. January 5: Police say Walshe is cooperating with the investigation into his missing wife. January 8: Walshe is seen leaving the property on Sunday in a red Volkswagen. His three children were taken away in a separate vehicle. Officers executed a search warrant at their home and found blood in the basement, along with a broken knife. The officers loaded a Volvo SUV onto the back of a truck while others searched the grounds of their home. Police arrested Walshe on suspicion of misleading authorities but have not charged him with anything else. January 9: Walshe grins at reporters as he is transported to his arraignment at Quincy District Court. He was held on $500,000 cash bail. Advertisement Investigators impounded two trash trailers in the search, with a business owner saying police contacted him on Saturday night, adding that they were last emptied just before New Year. Art-swindler Walshe was recorded leaving a Cohasset police station on Monday morning, where he smirked and smiled at reporters. He was charged with fraud after allegedly selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings for $80,000 in 2016, meaning he is on house arrest pending his sentencing in federal court. This means that he must report when he goes anywhere but he was caught on camera going to Home Depot on January 2 after saying he never left the house except to take his son for ice cream. Walshe was arrested on Sunday evening as detectives continued to search for his real estate executive wife. She has not used her phone or credit cards since disappearing and has not shown up for work. Walshe told police he was asleep when Ana ordered a ride to Logan International Airport in Boston, with prosecutors saying she was last seen as she left the property at 4am. Her phone pinged in the area of the house on January 1 and 2 despite her husband saying that she had left for her flight. Walshe claimed that he went to Whole Foods and CVS on January 1, but there were no receipts or surveillance footage to back up his claim. Her friends say her disappearance is out of character, as she would never abandon her three young sons. In a statement, Norfolk County DA's office said: 'Police developed probable cause to believe that Ana Walshe's husband, Brian Walshe, had committed the crime of misleading police investigators.' The couples three young children are being looked after while the search for their mother continues. Authorities initially said that Walshe was cooperating with the investigation before his sudden arrest on Sunday. He left a voicemail for his wifes friend, on the day he reported her missing, claiming that Ana had failed to get in touch for a few days. According to WBZ-TV he said: Good afternoon, this is Brian Walshe. I hope all is going well. I was just reaching out to basically everybody I could. Ana hasn't been in touch for a few days. If you know anyone that may have had contact with her, you know I am trying to call everyone. I am sorry to bother you. I am sure everything is fine. A specialized State Police unit trained in search and rescue operations, three K-9 teams and the State Police Air Wing searched wooded areas near the Walshe's home on Saturday. The ground search for 39-year-old Ana has stopped a week after she was supposed to catch a flight to Washington D.C. from Boston Logan International Airport A gray Volvo with the Walshe children was also seen heading out of the Walshe property on Sunday. It is believed they were escorted away by close family friends or relatives Brian Walshe (right), pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston in 2021 after being arrested a few years earlier for selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings to a South Korean buyer for $80,000 State Police divers searched a small stream and a pool but did not find anything, and were assisted by the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council. Before his arrest, Walshe appeared to be hiding from cameras as he drove away from the family home in a red Volkswagen. Detectives from Cohasset and the State Police had also been investigating in Washington DC where Ana worked for real estate behemoth, Tishman Speyer. Ana would commute during the week for her work, with the couple owning a second home in DC. She was ordered to come back to work sooner than planned after her bosses asked her to help with an 'unexpected emergency.' Ana had booked a flight to DC for January 3, with Walshe telling police that she had changed it to an earlier one at the request of her employer. Cohasset Police Chief William Quigley said that she never got on the flight, and have been unable to confirm if she had got into or booked a rideshare to the airport. Ana, who is originally from Serbia, is a graduate of Cornell University and worked in he real estate development before her vanishing. Pictured with her husband, Brian, in Europe Friends noticed that Ana's normally active social media presence went silent all of a sudden. She regularly posted updates on her life and family on Facebook Friends told NBC Boston that Ana is a remarkable woman and a powerful executive who was a loving mom and wife. Peter Kirby said: 'She's a powerful executive, she's a loving mom, she's just loving wife, she's one of the most remarkable humans we know, and we've very scared. 'We miss her a lot and we're just praying for her to be safe.' Evan Turell added: 'Everyone that knows and loves Ana, we just want her home safely. 'Her husband and her boys were someone she talked to every single day and the fact that she hasn't been in touch with them is concerning and it's not like her to not be in touch with anyone. It's just really scary.' Her boss Tishman Speyer said in a statement: 'We are actively assisting the local authorities in their ongoing search for our beloved colleague, Ana, and are praying for her safe return.' Walshe was known to travel to Washington D.C. weekly for work and had booked a flight for January 3, not January 1, but cops say she may have been hoping to get an earlier flight Walshe is normally active on social media, according to friends, and often posts pictures of what appears to be her happy family life Police described Walshe as a woman with brown hair, brown eyes, five feet and two inches tall and weighing about 115 pounds and said she's left no digital footprint since she went missing A graduate of Cornell University, Ana had worked for various US real estate companies after obtaining a degree from the University of Belgrade. She's described as having brown hair, brown eyes, and is five-feet-two-inches tall with an estimated weight of about 115 pounds. Police said she left no digital footprint since she went missing, with her cell phone turned off and credit cards left unused. Walshe was arrested in connection with the art fraud after stealing the paintings from a friend switching them out for fakes before selling the legitimate artwork on eBay. Ron Rivlin, the owner of Revolver Gallery in Los Angeles - found Walshe selling two Andy Warhol paintings for $100,000 each, in November 2016. In November 2016, Walshe put the paintings up on eBay for $100,000 each, after which art gallery owner Ron Rivlin agreed to buy them for $80,000. Picutred; Rivlin at his Andy Warhol gallery Walshe got the paintings from his friend, who had recently bought them, and convinced him he could sell them for a good price - but then he disappeared and his friend never received any money in return for them. Pictured: One of the fame Warhol paintings Rivlin claims that his gallery is the world's largest gallery-owned Andy Warhol collection explaining that the paintings were created in 1978 as part of the Shadows series. Brian Walshe, 46, the husband of Ana Walshe, 39, who disappeared on New Year's Day after failing to catch a work flight to Washington D.C. is a convicted art swindler On the listing, Walshe also included a photo of an invoice from the Warhol Foundation, where he claimed he bought the paintings, and which allegedly showed he paid $240,000 for them. Walshe told Rivlin he was selling the works at a great loss in order to pay for home renovations, with Rivlin agreeing to purchase both paintings for $80,000 The pair signed a contract, which explicitly stated that Rivlin had three days to get a full refund, according to the Massachusetts DA's office. On November 7, Rivlin's assistant flew to Boston to collect the paintings and gave Walshe an $80,000 cashier's check, which was deposited that day. The next day, Rivlin unwrapped the paintings and found there were no authentication stamps on the back from the Warhol Foundation and that the canvasses looked new. Next, he compared the paintings to the photographs on eBay and determined they were different. After buying the paintings, Rivlin realized the artworks he purchased were fakes, When Walshe wouldn't return all the money, Rivlin called the FBI. Pictured: One of the fake Andy Warhol paintings On Saturday, video showed investigators furiously coming through debris that had gathered at her home's pool after they had drained it as part of the search After concluding the paintings in his possession were inauthentic, he made repeated attempts to contact Walshe. Phone records show Rivlin called and texted Walshe from November 8 to 12, all of which went unanswered. According to the DA's office, when Walshe did reply, he made several excuses for not refunding the money immediately. After Walshe refunded Rivlin just $30,000 of the $80,000, the gallery owner said he had he had contacted the FBI. Cohasset police have repeatedly said Walshe's disappearance and her husband's case seem to be two very separate things. Gunmen have attacked a train station in southern Nigeria, kidnapping at least 32 people and wounding others with gunfire, police and officials said. The station attack in Edo state, 225 miles east of Lagos, took place on Saturday evening, according to police. The bandits opened fire with AK47 assault rifles and other small arms before abducting passengers who were waiting for a train to Warri in southern Delta state, police said in a statement to local media. Kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria where gunmen have repeatedly attacked and abducted people in large groups, but mostly in the northwestern and central states. FILE PHOTO: Abuja-Kaduna train resumes services after an attack on its passengers in Abuja, Nigeria December 5, 2022 Kidnapping for ransom has become a major problem in Nigeria Edo State Information Commissioner Chris Nehikhare said at least 32 people had been abducted. Chidi Nwabuzor, the police spokesman for Edo State, said the kidnappers 'shot sporadically into the air' before taking the passengers, leaving some with bullet wounds. One person managed to escape, lowering the toll of hostages to 31, he said, as police and local hunters tracked the remaining captives. 'We have the area cordoned off. We know the forests better than them,' said Nehikhare. 'At the moment, security personnel made up of the military and the police as well as men of the vigilante network and hunters are intensifying search and rescue operations in a reasonable radius to rescue the kidnap victims,' he continued. 'We are confident that the other victims will be rescued in the coming hours.' The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) closed the attacked station until further notice and the federal transportation ministry called the kidnappings 'utterly barbaric'. It comes nearly a year after a bomb assault on a train travelling from the capital in one of the country's most high-profile attacks. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari speaks after security forces rescued schoolboys from kidnappers, in Katsina, Nigeria, December 18, 2020 Bandits in March last year blew up the tracks and assaulted a train travelling from the capital Abuja to the northwestern city of Kaduna. Eight people were killed and dozens more kidnapped. The last hostage taken in that March attack was not freed until October. The NRC only last month reopened the rail service linking the capital Abuja with northern Kaduna state. President Muhammadu Buhari steps down after an election next month, and insecurity will be a major challenge for whoever replaces the former army commander. The government is trying to stem growing insecurity in the country ahead of the presidential elections, but while authorities have promised to increase security at train stations, conflict analysts warn the nation's security forces are overstretched. The military is battling a 13-year-long jihadist insurgency in the northeast, bandit militias in the northwest and separatist tensions in the country's southeast. Two Just Stop Oil activists who threw a tin of Heinz tomato soup over a 76 million Vincent van Gogh painting must wait 18 months to stand trial for criminal damage. Phoebe Plummer, 21, and Anna Holland, 20, were filmed opening the can of soup and dousing it over 'Sunflowers' at the National Gallery during a protest last October. The artwork was protected by a sheet of glass and was undamaged but the pair were charged with damaging the frame on October 14, 2021. The choice of soup was intended to be a reference to the cost-of-living crisis in the UK. Plummer and Holland went viral when Heinz tomato soup was thrown on Vincent Van Gogh's 76 million masterpiece at the National Gallery Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer pictured outside Southwark Crown Court Plummer later said in a TikTok video: 'I'm Phoebe, I'm 21, I'm from London and I am one of the people that threw a can of soup at Vincent van Gogh's Sunflower painting.' Holland was wearing a t-shirt with sunflowers and 'Vincent' written on it while Plummer appeared at Southwark Crown Court with dyed pink hair and an orange mini-skirt. Holland, of Newcastle Upon Tyne, and Plummer, of Lambeth, south London, both denied criminal damage. The activists at the National Gallery on October 14 - the soup was supposed to be a reference to the UK cost of living crisis Police say the 76 million piece of art was 'unharmed' during the climate demonstration Pictured: Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland as tomato soup is thrown across the painting Prosecutor Jennifer Oborne said: 'The issues have been identified as being the level of damage to the frame, secondly whether the defendants intended or were reckless as to whether the frame would be damaged and whether a conviction would be disproportionate to their right to freedom of expression.' They were granted bail, ahead of their trial on July 22, 2024, on condition they do not enter the grounds of any galleries or museums. They are also banned from having glue, any adhesive substances or paint in a public place as part of their bail conditions. Prince Harry today declared that he and his wife Meghan Markle will never move back to the UK or become full-time working members of the royal family again - just hours after hinting that the couple will never relinquish their official titles. Harry, 38, made the dramatic claims in the latest in a line of TV interviews to promote his bombshell new memoir Spare, telling Good Morning America's Michael Strahan that he 'doesn't think it's ever going to be possible' for his family to return to his home country on a permanent basis. The Duke continued his blistering attacks on the British press, claiming that the media would make his family's lives 'unsurvivable' if they were ever to return to the UK, saying: 'I don't think that even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family there's that third party [the British press] that's going to do everything they can to make sure that that isn't possible, not stopping us from going back but making it unsurvivable.' Harry and Meghan, 41, relocated from the UK to California in early 2020, and have, since early 2021, been raising their two children, Archie and Lilibet, in a $14.65 million mansion in Montecito - thousands of miles away from the Duke's family. However, while Harry has admitted that he doesn't believe they will ever make a full-time return to the UK or royal life, he has also hinted that he and Meghan will never give up their official titles. Prince Harry has revealed that he and Meghan will likely never return to the UK full-time - or rejoin the Monarchy as working royals Harry, 38, and Meghan, 41, relocated to the US in 2020 and have - since early 2021 - been raising their two children, Archie and Lilibet, in a $14.65 million mansion in California In an interview with 60 Minutes, the Duke swerved a question from host Anderson Cooper who asked him why, given his clear antipathy to the instruction of the monarchy, does he and Meghan not just renounced their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Poll Do you think Harry and Meghan should be stripped of their royal titles? Yes No Undecided Do you think Harry and Meghan should be stripped of their royal titles? Yes 198636 votes No 9211 votes Undecided 2126 votes Now share your opinion 'And what difference would that make?' was his only answer. Cooper said: 'One of the criticisms that you've received is that okay, fine, you wanna move to California, you wanna step back from the institutional role. Why be so public? Why reveal conversations you've had with your father or with your brother? You say you tried to do this privately.' Harry retorted: 'Every single time I've tried to do it privately there have been briefings and leakings and planting of stories against me and my wife. 'You know, the family motto is never complain, never explain. But it's just a motto. And it doesn't really hold.' The couple first made the shocking announcement that they were going to step back from their royal duties on January 8, 2020. At the time, they wrote in a joint statement that they had reached the decision after 'many months of reflection and internal discussions.' They said they wanted to 'work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.' On Sunday night, Harry hinted to 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper that he and Meghan will never give up their royal titles, asking: 'What difference would that make?' A recent poll revealed in December that 98 per cent of participants sill want the pair to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles 'We now plan to balance our time between the United Kingdom and North America, continuing to honor our duty to The Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages,' the statement continued. 'This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter, including the launch of our new charitable entity.' At the time, the statement sparked outrage from critics - who insisted that the couple couldn't 'be one foot in, one foot out'. Many people also called for them to give up their royal titles and live as members of the public. Those cries have become increasingly louder in the years since, during which Harry and Meghan have both launched multiple attacks on the royal family, beginning with their incendiary Oprah interview - and continuing with further TV appearances, a Netflix documentary, and the release of Harry's bombshell memoir, which he has been promoting in a series of on-air interviews. A December poll revealed that 98 per cent of participants sill want the pair to be stripped of their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles - especially after the couple aired their bombshell Netflix docuseries, which included several explosive accusations about their time as royals. In the series, the pair claimed they were victims of 'institutional gaslighting' and accused the royal family of lying to protect Harry's brother Prince William. Harry also said in the series that he told his father, King Charles II, that he and Meghan were willing to relinquish their titles during discussions surrounding their plan to move to America - although it appears that is no longer the case. Britain could soon supply Ukraine with military tanks for the first time in an attempt to thwart Russia's invasion, it has been revealed. Ukraine could benefit from a supply of the British Army's Challenger 2 main battle tanks, as discussions have taken place 'for a few weeks' according to a source. The transfer would be a major step in Western support to Ukraine, and could persuade Germany to agree to send its much-sought after Leopard II tanks, Sky News reports. Rishi Sunak's government has yet to make a final decision, but it is thought as many as ten of the vehicles - enough to equip a squadron - could be involved in the transfer. Ukraine could benefit from a supply of the British Army's Challenger 2 main battle tanks, as discussions have taken place 'for a few weeks' according to a source Rishi Sunak's government has yet to make a final decision, but it is thought as many as ten of the vehicles - about the size of a squadron - could be involved in the transfer Former commander of 1st Royal Tank Regiment, Colonel Hamish de Bretton Gordon, said the use of western tanks could 'tip the balance' of the war for Ukraine. He said: 'Strategically this sends a very firm message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that nothing is off the table 'Challenger 2 and Leopard II are modern tanks. They are much better protected, more reliable, quicker.' The Challenger 2 tank has been in service since 1994 and weighs 62.5 tonnes, with a 120mm rifled gun and 7.62mm chain gun. A squadron of the tanks is presently on tour in Estonia a part of a NATO mission to offset any further Russian interference in eastern Europe. The tanks previously served with distinction in the Bosnian conflict in 1994 and the Iraq War in 2003. It is expected more information about military support to Ukraine will be unveiled on a January 20 meeting, with representatives of 50 nations led by the US outlining their proposals. Today, Russia insisted that the supply of western tanks would 'deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people' and not shift the course of the conflict (Pictured: The aftermath of a Russian missile attack near Kharkiv yesterday) Ukrainian rescuers work on the site following a Russian missile strike on a local market in Shevchenkove village, Kharkiv region Germany is still holding back on Ukrainian demands to supply the lethal Leopard-II France, Germany and the US have already signalled plans to send armoured vehicles to help Ukraine - the AMX-10, the Marder and the Bradley respectively - although they are not classed as 'true tanks'. At the top of Ukraine's shopping list are the Leopard II battle tanks, which Germany has so far held back on supplying. Other European nations who use the tanks, including Poland and Finland, have said they are ready to provide them, but this requires approval from Germany - which holds the export licence. Russia bombs market killing two and injuring seven Rescuers dig through the rubble in the aftermath of the attack Advertisement Today, Russia insisted that the supply of western tanks would only 'deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people' and not shift the course of the conflict. The UK's Ministry of Defence has neither confirmed nor denied that the government is sending tanks to Ukraine. A spokesman said: 'The government has committed to match or exceed last year's funding for military aid to Ukraine in 2023, and we will continue to build on recent donations with training and further gifting of equipment. 'We have provided over 200 armoured vehicles to Ukraine to date - including Stormer vehicles armed with Starstreak missiles. 'We have also donated tens of thousands of items including helmets and body armour, mobility and logistics vehicles, anti-tank weapons, air defence missiles and systems, winter and medical equipment.' Last year, the UK signed over 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Poland as part of an arrangement to assist Ukraine, by freeing up capacity for Poland to send its Soviet-era T-72 tanks to Ukraine. At present, the Ukrainian military is using Soviet-era tanks such as the T-72, while Russia is also dependent on tanks dating back to the Cold War. Britain's Challenger tanks from the 1990s are less aged, although they are in the process of an upgrade. Ukrainian soldiers would require training on how to operate them. Beginning January 10, Windows 7 Professional and Enterprise editions will no longer receive extended security updates for critical and significant vulnerabilities as per reports. Although there is still demand for Windows 7 updates, Microsoft no longer provides them, which means that users might have to upgrade their operating systems soon. Microsoft Recommends Replacing Windows 7 With The More Recent Windows 11 Support The tech company launched the legacy operating system Windows 7 in October 2009, which has become the base OS support computers run on in recent years. After that, it reached its initial end of support in January 2015 and its extended end of support in January 2020, Bleeping Computer notes. Customers who needed to continue using legacy Microsoft products on Windows 7 computers after their support ended had to turn to the Extended Security Update (ESU) program. This is due to the fact that the majority of Windows 7 devices will not be able to support Windows 11's hardware requirements. Instead, compatible Windows 7 computers can update to Windows 10 by getting and installing the complete version of the program, according to Microsoft. However, the company warns users to keep in mind that Windows 10 will reach its end of support date in October 2025 before spending money on an upgrade. It is also important to note that it will not be a good idea for users to upgrade their systems to Windows 8.1 since on the same day, every version of Windows 8.1 will also reach end-of-support. WIth that, Microsoft advises users to switch to Windows 11-compatible devices if their current ones do not support the operating system in order to take advantage of the newest hardware features. Currently, Windows 7 is used on more than 11% of all Windows computers globally, whereas only 2.59% of Microsoft's customers run Windows 8.1. Read More: Microsoft Ends Service for Multiple Windows 10 21H1 Editions Today Some Web Browsers Are Also Discontinuing Support For Windows 7, WIndows 8.1 Soon Microsoft Edge 109, the web browser's final version to support Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, will also be released by Redmond following the company's announcement of its last ESU for the aforementioned operating systems. Additionally, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2 will no longer be supported by this version of Microsoft Edge. Google made a similar warning in October, stating that version 110 of its Chrome web browser would probably stop supporting Windows 7 and 8.1 as of February 2023. Despite this, legacy operating systems will continue to be supported by Microsoft Edge 109 and Google Chrome 110. However, they won't any longer get bug patches and security upgrades, putting their users at risk, Bleeping Computer reports. It can be remembered that before Windows 7 stops receiving security patches, other companies have already stopped supporting it. For example, NVIDIA has stopped supporting Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 operating systems since last year, a step which began in October 2021. With such developments, Microsoft has extended its help to users in finding a new PC that will fit their needs and budget, yet still support the latest versions of its operating systems through this link. Related Article: Microsoft Edge's Latest Update Disables Internet Explorer in Feb. 2023 Shards from the door's glass panel could still be seen lying near a trash can containing broken window blinds that were also damaged during the bust The father of accused killer Bryan Kohberger was spotted cleaning up debris and shattered glass left on the family's Pennsylvania property a week after their son's dramatic arrest at their home. break open the family's front door to apprehend the wanted murder suspect on December 30. Michael Kohberger spent Sunday afternoon tidying up the mess from the SWAT team raid in Albrightsville that saw law enforcement Ten days later, shards of glass and remnants of the door's decorative glass panel could still be seen lying near a trash can containing broken window blinds that were also damaged during the bust, exclusive DailyMail.com photos show. Exclusive DailyMail.com photos show Michael Kohberger at the family's Pennsylvania home Sunday, dressed in a jeans and gray hoodie emblazoned with the words 'life is good' on the back He was spotted cleaning up the mess left behind from the dramatic SWAT team raid that took place at the family's Albrightsville, Pennsylvania home on December 30 He was seen tidying up the remaining rubble around the property with a wet/dry shop vacuum Law enforcement officers descended on the property as soon as a warrant was obtained, breaking down the doors and windows in what the source said was a 'dynamic entry' The elder Kohberger, 67, appeared to be faring well despite the horrific charges leveled against his son as he picked up the pieces outside his home. He was dressed casually in jeans and gray hoodie emblazoned with the words, 'life is good' in the back, as he cleaned up the remaining rubble around the property with a wet/dry shop vacuum. Neither of the alleged murderer's parents have spoken publicly since his arrest, however, the family is said to be 'shocked' that their son is the primary suspect in the murders of the four University of Idaho students that were brutally knifed to death at their off-campus rental house on November 13. The Kohbergers' lawyer Jason LeBar said the family believes it is 'completely out of character' for the 28-year-old to be accused of butchering roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Ethan Chapin, 20. LeBar told NBC News last week: 'His family doesn't believe it to be Bryan. They can't believe this, they are obviously very shocked. 'This is certainly completely out of character, the allegations, and really they're just trying to be supportive with the understanding that these four families have suffered loss.' Ten days on, shards of glass and remnants of the door's decorative glass panel could still be seen lying near a trash can containing broken window blinds that were also damaged during the bust, exclusive DailyMail.com photos show The dramatic raid is a rare tactic only used in cases where this suspect is considered 'high risk', according to unsealed court documents According to unsealed court documents, law enforcement had seen Bryan Kohberger multiple times outside of his parent's $250,000 Pennsylvania home wearing surgical gloves in the days after the murders Two weeks before Bryan's arrest, Michael Kohberger had flown from their home state of Pennsylvania to Washington - where Bryan was a PhD student - to meet his son before Christmas and drive home together Neither of the alleged murderer's parents have spoken publicly since his arrest, however, the family is said to be 'shocked' that their son is the primary suspect in the murders of four University of Idaho students LaBar said Michael Kohberger had flown from their home state of Pennsylvania to Washington - where Bryan was a PhD student - to meet his son before Christmas and head home together. They drove back in the white Hyundai Elantra being sought by cops in relation to the murders, it is said. The pair were pulled over on the I-70 just outside Indianapolis on December 15 with police bodycam footage showing Michael sitting in the passenger seat alongside his son during the traffic stop. Kohberger had also told LeBar that he believed he would be 'exonerated' after he is transferred to Idaho, and has remained 'calm'. Damning evidence from a newly-unsealed affidavit on January 5 shows how police were able to link him to the crime scene - after he 'stalked' the college home twelve times before the murders, and also returned to the crime scene five hours later. Kohberger lived eight miles from the murder scene in Moscow, Idaho, and drove the white Hyundai Elantra cops were looking to trace. Kohberger 'stalked' the house of his four victims on twelve occasions before killing them, evidence seems to suggest The suspect is believed to have driven some 2,300 miles from Moscow to Pennsylvania. He was attending college in nearby Washington State Kohberger, 28, is accused of murdering Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on November 13 in the quiet, college town of Moscow, Idaho And with the help of genetic genealogy, cell phone data, CCTV footage, and evidence left at the crime scene, they were able to hunt down their suspect and charge him with the quadruple murder. Investigators started tracking Kohberger's movements across the US, with witnesses claiming that they saw both him and his father getting repairs done to a white Hyundai Elantra on December 16. The documents describe a tan, leather knife sheath with a button snap and 'KA-BAR' and USMC' insignias being found at the scene Police then impounded the vehicle from outside his parents' home when they swooped on the property in Monroe County. Law enforcement had also seen him multiple times outside of his parent's $250,000 Pennsylvania home wearing surgical gloves. Unsealed court documents show the painstaking work done by officers, who matched the DNA found on the sheath to Kohberger's by comparing it to his father's DNA which was a 99.9998 percent match. Kohberger was seen cleaning the inside and outside of his car, with a law enforcement source adding that he didn't 'miss an inch' The crime took place six weeks ago, 2,500 miles from where Kohberger was arrested A SWAT team then moved in as soon as a warrant was obtained, breaking down the doors and windows in what the source said was a 'dynamic entry'. They added that it was a rare tactic that was only used in cases where this suspect is considered 'high risk'. Kohberger appeared in court last Thursday charged with the four murders as well as a felony burglary after being extradited to Idaho. The criminal justice graduate only spoke to confirm his name and that he had representation during a hearing in Moscow, Idaho. Kohberger now remains in the local jail after he was denied bail late last week. He faces the death penalty if he is found guilty of the brutal slayings. Afghans have called for the Duke of Sussex to be put on trial following his admission he killed 25 people during military tours in the country. Protesters claimed his actions as an Apache helicopter co-pilot gunner a decade ago had been 'cruel'. It came as British hate preacher Anjem Choudary today renewed his criticism of Harry and warned that British troops in Muslim countries would now face 'increased risk to their safety'. Choudary, who was jailed for five-and-a-half years in 2016 for inviting support for Islamic State in online lectures, also used the royals admissions to vilify Muslims who serve in the British Army. Prince Harry returning to RAF Brize Norton after spending 10 weeks on active duty in Afghanistan in 2008 British hate preacher Anjem Choudary pictured in July 2021 The extremist suggested that Harry's revelations were a 'warning' to Muslim soldiers and claimed that 'to join the British Army would be an act of apostasy', or the abandonment of their religious beliefs. 'As many security and military experts have concurred, the presence of British troops in Muslim countries will now be a cause of heightened insecurity and instability and an increased risk to their safety in light of Harry's provocative and hurtful statements,' Choudary said in an online statement today. Over the weekend Choudary, who was freed on licence in 2018, issued a statement in which he accused the Royal Family of having a 'dark history of occupying Muslim lands'. On Sunday, protesters at a university in Helmand, southern Afghanistan, carried posters showing Harry's portrait crossed out with a red 'X' He urged his followers to target British troops across the world. Tobias Ellwood, the Conservative MP and former Army officer, said Harry's Afghanistan remarks had allowed extremists like Choudary to 'stir up hatred' and called on the duke to issue a 'statement of humility'. In his memoir Spare, Harry wrote that he regarded enemy combatants in Afghanistan as 'Bads taken away before they could kill Goods' and 'chess pieces removed from the board'. Afghan protesters at Helmand University call for Prince Harry to be put on trial following revelations he killed 25 insurgents while on a tour of duty in the country Afghans have called for the Duke of Sussex to be put on trial following his admission he killed 25 people during military tours in the country. Pictured: December 2012 On Sunday, protesters at a university in Helmand, southern Afghanistan, carried posters showing Harry's portrait crossed out with a red 'X'. Harry detailed the shock revelation in his tell-all memoir Spare Sayed Ahmad Sayed, a teacher at the university, said: 'The cruelties which have been committed by Prince Harry, his friends or by anyone else in Helmand or anywhere in Afghanistan is unacceptable, cruel. 'These acts will be remembered by history.' Mullah Abdullah, who lost four family members in what he described as a UK airstrike in 2011, said: 'We ask the international community to put this person [the Duke of Sussex] on trial, and we should get compensation for our losses. 'We lost our house, life, and family members. 'We lost our livelihood and also our loved ones.' The media director for the Taliban governor of Helmand, Mawlavi Mohammad Qasim, also sought to capitalise on the details in Harry's memoir, suggesting they 'exposed the real face of the Western world'. The Justice Department has seized $464 million worth of Robinhood stock owned by disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, despite his plea to access the shares to pay his legal fees. In a court filing on Friday, federal prosecutors confirmed the seizure of the 55.3 million Robinhood shares and an additional $20.7 million in cash from UK brokerage ED&F Man Capital Markets under criminal and civil forfeiture warrants. The stock was held by Emergent Fidelity Technology, a company 90 percent owned by Bankman-Fried, with Zixiao 'Gary' Wang, another former FTX executive, holding a 10 percent stake. The Robinhood stock had been the subject of legal sparring in collapsed crypto exchange FTX's bankruptcy proceedings, but the DOJ seizure renders the matter moot, putting the shares out of reach of any of the parties for now. The Justice Department has seized $464 million worth of Robinhood stock owned by disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (left) FTX's current management, led by CEO John J. Ray III, had sought a court order freezing the shares to help pay off the company's creditors. Bankman-Fried's attorneys responded in a court filing on Thursday, arguing that Emergent was not party to the bankruptcy, and saying he needed access to the stock to help pay his legal fees. Bankman-Fried, whose net worth was once estimated at $15.6 billion, says he has about $100,000 in cash reserves left after his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed. He was later charged with fraud. After pleading not guilty to eight federal counts of fraud and conspiracy earlier this week, he faces a costly legal battle if the matter goes to trial. 'Bankman-Fried requires some of these funds to pay for his criminal defense,' his attorneys argued in last week's motion. Bankrupt crypto firm BlockFi, FTX and liquidators in Antigua have all laid claim to the Robinhood stock, along with Bankman-Fried's own claim in bankruptcy court. Bankman-Fried's attorneys had argued he needed access to the stock to help pay his legal fees In a court filing on Friday, federal prosecutors confirmed the seizure of the 55.3 million Robinhood shares and an additional $20.7 million in cash from UK brokerage ED&F Man However, the Department of Justice did not believe the Robinhood shares were property of a bankruptcy estate, US Attorney Seth Shapiro told US Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, who is overseeing the FTX bankruptcy, last week. Zixiao 'Gary' Wang owned 10% of the holding company that held the Robinhood shares Shapiro said that competing claims to shares of the stock-trading app could be worked out in a forfeiture proceeding. Prosecutors have accused Bankman-Fried of engaging in a years-long 'fraud of epic proportions' that cost investors, customers and lenders potentially billions of dollars by using customer deposits to prop up his Alameda Research hedge fund. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. He has acknowledged risk-management failures at FTX, but has said he did not believe he was criminally liable. Last May, Bankman-Fried purchased about 7.42 percent of Robinhood's stock through Emergent, using funds borrowed from Alameda Research, according to an affidavit he filed in December in an Antigua court. Bankman-Fried said he owned 90 percent of Emergent and Wang, another former FTX executive, owned 10 percent. Wang has pleaded guilty to fraud charges from the FTX collapse and is cooperating with prosecutors in a bid for leniency. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried smiles as he leaves court after pleading not guilty to criminal charges that he defrauded investors in his crypto exchange out of $1.8billion Shapiro also said prosecutors had seized US bank accounts affiliated with FTX's Bahamas-based business, known as FTX Digital Markets. Court records show the accounts at Silvergate Bank and Farmington State Bank, which does business as Moonstone Bank, held about $143 million James Bromley, an attorney for FTX, told Dorsey that none of the assets targeted for seizure are currently in the direct control of any of FTX entities in Chapter 11. He said the Robinhood shares were subject to litigation and it was an 'open question' about who owns them. The Robinhood stock, which opened Monday at $8.40 per share, is also being claimed by BlockFi Inc, another bankrupt crypto firm as well as liquidators of Emergent, which is in insolvency proceedings in Antigua, where it is incorporated. BlockFi is suing Emergent in a bid to seize the Robinhood stock, which was pledged by Alameda as collateral to guarantee repayment of a loan made by BlockFi. Two days after the pledge, Alameda filed for bankruptcy along with FTX. BlockFi did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Monday morning. President Joe Biden arrived in Mexico City Sunday night, but his son Hunter's business dealings followed him again, in what could be an early preview of two years of Republican investigations. Biden is currently hunkered down in his hotel, after arriving Sunday night following his three-hour visit to the border in El Paso. It isn't his first trip here by a long stretch. He was here in 2016, where he apologized for 'heated rhetoric' during the presidential campaign by then-candidate Donald Trump. That was a trip where he was accompanied by son Hunter Biden and Hunter's business partner Jeff Cooper, in one of an array of business deals House Republicans are vowing to probe. That trip came two years after Biden entertained Hunter and a pair of Mexican billionaires, Carlos Slim and Miguel Aleman Velasco, according to photos on Hunter's infamous laptop. President Joe Biden arrived in Mexico City Sunday night, as he prepares to join the 'Three Amigos' summit. Six years ago, during a trip as vice president, he was joined by son Hunter, whose business deals House Republicans are vowing to probe Incoming House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) is primed to look at Hunter's business dealings in Mexico, China, and other nations. 'Evidence obtained by Committee Republicans reveals Joe Biden lied to the American people about his involvement in his familys business schemes,' Comer told DailyMail.com. He suggested Biden may have had knowledge of his family's business dealings, which the White House vociferously denies. 'The Biden family business model is built on Joe Bidens political career and connections with Joe Biden as the chairman of the board. Biden family members sold access for profit around the world to the detriment of American interests. The American people deserve transparency and accountability about the Biden familys influence peddling and if President Biden is compromised by his familys deals. With the new Republican majority, Oversight Committee Republicans will continue pressing for answers to inform legislative solutions to prevent this abuse of power,' he said. Biden's first event is at the National Palace, where he will take part in a welcome ceremony with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Dr. Beatriz Gutierrez Muller of Mexico. Biden was greeted by the president, who goes by AMLO, upon arrival and the two had a chance to talk during an hour-long ride in 'the Beast,' Biden's presidential limo. The long ride was occasioned because Biden landed at the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, a favored project of the president. Later Biden has a bilateral meeting with the president, followed by a three-way meeting that includes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is arriving Monday. They will be joined by spouses first lady Jill Biden, Dr. Beatriz Gutierrez Muller, and Mrs. Sophie Gregoire Trudeau. Mexico's President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Foreign Affairs Minister, Marcelo Ebrard give welcoming to US President Joe Biden at the Santa Lucia Airport (Felipe Angeles) on the occasion of the 10th North American Leaders Summit. Biden hosted a pair of Mexican billionaires in his vice presidential office along with Hunter and business associates, according to images on Hunter's laptop Joe Biden entertained Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Aleman Velasco - his son Hunter's business associates - in the vice president's office in 2014 While Hunter and Cooper were working on their business plans, they managed to get the billionaires Slim, Velasco and Magnani a private 'meeting' with then-vice president Joe Biden in the VP's office. Photos on Hunter's laptop dated November 19, 2015, show the six men smiling at a meeting in Joe Bidens DC residence. Emails show the men also met Joe at the White House Slim, the richest man in Mexico, regularly appears near the top of Forbes' list of billionaires. Biden entertained his son's business associates in the vice president's office, including Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Aleman Velasco. The then-vice president also flew Hunter and his partner Jeff Cooper on Air Force 2 to Mexico City in 2016 where Hunter arranged to meet Aleman's son for meetings over a 'flippin gigantic' business deal. The revelations, laid bare in photographs and emails on Hunter's abandoned laptop, are the latest in a growing body of evidence calling into question the presidents claim that he never spoke about business with Hunter. In the light of shocking documents uncovered by DailyMail.com from the laptop, the president now faces serious questions not just whether he knew about Hunter's controversial business dealings, but also whether he was involved in facilitating them himself while vice president. The White House continues to fail to respond to any of our questions. In the light of documents uncovered by DailyMail.com from the laptop, the president now faces serious questions not just whether he knew about Hunter's controversial business dealings, but also whether he was involved in facilitating them himself while vice president Hunter and Biden family friend Jeff Cooper hatched a plan in 2013 to invest in multiple businesses in Mexico and Latin America, using their relationship with the Mexican billionaire Aleman family whose late patriarch, Miguel Aleman Valdes, served as president of Mexico. Cooper, an attorney who worked with Hunter's late brother Beau Biden on asbestos claims cases and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Biden political campaigns, was particularly excited by the venture's prospects, writing to Hunter in February 2013: 'This is setting up to be flippin gigantic brother.' The prospects for profit only grew when Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma the following year. He and Cooper sought the help of Valdes' grandson, airline CEO Miguel Aleman Magnani, to forge a relationship with the richest man in Latin America, Carlos Slim, in an attempt to cash in on the privatization of the giant state-owned oil company Pemex for Burisma and themselves. While Hunter and Cooper were working on their business plans, they managed to get the billionaires Slim, Velasco and Magnani a private 'meeting' with then-vice president Joe Biden. Hunter and Cooper attended. Photos on Hunter's laptop dated November 19, 2015 show the six men smiling and hugging in the meeting in Joe Bidens vice presidential residence at Number One Observatory Circle, Washington DC. Emails also show the billionaires met with Joe at the White House. It is unclear what, if anything, Joe Biden discussed with the Mexican billionaires at their meetings and phone call. The White House has repeatedly failed to answer any of DailyMail.com's questions related to the president and his son. It appears there may have been multiple White House meetings, as over a year earlier Hunter emailed White House photographer David Lienemann to ask for photographs of the Aleman family with his business partner and father. 'Do you have pictures from the lunch I had in dad's office (I think on 2/26) with Miguel Alleman Sr. And Jr. And Jeff Cooper? If so let me know and I can send someone to pick them up,' Hunter wrote in 2014. In May that year Cooper even asked Hunter if he could get the pictures signed for the Mexican billionaires. 'Any luck on getting those other pics from the WH [White House]-Aleman visit? Or getting a few signed for Miguel and his dad?' the attorney wrote. The same month, Hunter excitedly sent his business partner and fellow Burisma board member Devon Archer a Forbes article titled 'How Oil Reforms Could Trigger Mexico's Biggest Economic Boom In A Century'. By the end of the year, their efforts were ramping up. Cooper wrote to Hunter and Archer in December 2014: 'I met with Miguel [Magnani] last night. He has set up mtgs with the Secty of Energy and the CEO of Pemex for Jan 12. Is there any chance that anyone from Burisma could attend?' Then in January 2015, Hunter laid out Burisma's plans in detail in an email to Cooper, Archer and Magnani. ] In January 2015, Hunter laid out in detail Burisma's plans to take part in the privatization of Mexican state oil firm, in an email to his business partners Cooper, Archer and Magnani Jeff Cooper, an attorney who worked with Hunter's late brother Beau Biden on asbestos claims cases and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Biden political campaigns, was particularly excited by the venture's prospects, writing to Hunter in February 2013: 'This is setting up to be flippin gigantic brother' Hunter worked with Joe Bidens vice presidential secretary Kathy Chung to arrange a phone call between Carlos Slim and the VP in October 2015 It appears there may have been multiple White House meetings, as in 2014 Hunter emailed White House photographer David Lienemann to ask for photographs of the Aleman family with his business partner and father He proposed the Ukrainian firm pay about $350,000 to access an oil 'data room' run by the Mexican Department of Energy, and laid out the structure of the proposed oil venture. 'The first partnership will be the Aleman entity. This will consist of whomever Miguel determines is necessary to his family's team,' Hunter wrote. 'I believe the current idea is that the Aleman Group will include a U.S. entity that is currently controlled by Jeff and Hunter. 'I (in full disclosure) will most likely be granted equity (commensurate with Devon) from the Burisma side. I am also currently 50% of the equity of the U.S. Entity that conceivably would partner with the Aleman group.' Cooper and Hunter were working business angles beyond oil. In one email from February 2015 Cooper describes a plan to pitch a payroll systems company they invested in, ePlata, to Pemex, Slim's massive Mexican telecoms company Televisia, Walmart, Uber, and even the Mexican government. 'Don't forget Burisma and the non-Mexi folks too,' Cooper added in his email to Hunter. 'This shiznit is global, cabron.' Joe Biden's brother Jim also tried to cash in on the potential for bumper profits from Mexico's huge privatization plans, but was apparently late to the party. In May 2015, he emailed Hunter breathlessly that he had a 'very real deal' involving Slim and a US oil pipeline. 'Have a very real deal with Pemex ( Carlos slim) need financing literally for a few days to a week,' he wrote. 'Have the seller (refinery /slims) and buyer major being delivered from pipeline in ( h/ USA) Nothing is simple but this comes very close. As always the devil is in the detail! 'Any interest on the long skirts part? Need to know if there is any interest asap. Love you, u Jim.' Hunter and his associates had already been planning to snare Slim as a business partner for years. In a 2010 email a staffer at Hunter's consultancy firm Rosemont Seneca suggested the then-richest man in the world as a potential client for a new 'Global Risk' advisory firm they were planning. 'I think once we get past the test/beta phase of say 4-5 $250k projects, we target getting 5-8 clients who will pay us $1m-5m annually,' the staffer, Neil Callahan, wrote in October 2010. 'I don't think any of those clients will be your typical Hedge Fund it's going to be Private Investors (i.e., Carlos Slim), SWFs, Select Corporations (i.e., Chevron, AON) and maybe a mega Hedge Fund.' In a 2010 email a staffer at Hunter's consultancy firm Rosemont Seneca suggested the then-richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, as a potential client for a new 'Global Risk' advisory firm they were planning In 2012 a friend of Hunter working for lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, reportedly now under a Justice Department investigation for its dealings with Burisma, suggested Slim as a potential buyer of a gambling company Hunter was partnered with. 'Below is an article from today's press about Slim getting into the business in Mexico. It sounds like a potential good exit strategy for your investment,' Blue Star staffer Gabriel Zinny wrote to Cooper in April 2012. The article's headline was: 'Tycoon Slim taps online gaming market in Mexico'. By February 2015 Hunter was plotting with Cooper to pitch their latest venture, payroll processing company ePlata, to Slim and his son, Carlos Slim Jr. 'Just wondering who is the best first major partner outside Interjet. Obviously Slims provide that if we could actually sell them on the idea and not have them just take it and create their own,' Hunter wrote to his business partner. His dealings with the Mexican billionaire became more involved that year. In March, Hunter wrote to Magnani to arrange a meeting with Slim and his son. 'What dates for Carlos and Carlos were you thinking?' he wrote. When Magnani gave him some options, the then-vice president's son replied: 'I'll get you some dates later today. How are you? Wish i was back in Acapulco. Showed my Dad pictures and he wants to visit.' 'He is welcome when ever he wants!!!!!!!!!' a jubilant Magnani responded. Hunter arranged a video conference with Slim in October and it appears Joe Biden may have been involved in a second meeting or call. 'The meeting will be on Friday in Mexico City if you can do a video conference in,' Hunter's Rosemont Seneca partner Eric Schwerin, wrote on October 5 2015. A White House assistant responsible for the vice president's diary, Kathy Chung, then emailed Hunter two days later with a list of dates from October 21 to November 6. Hunter replied: 'Can we confirm 10/30 for Slim.' 'Yes,' Chung responded. It is unclear what Slim's ultimate involvement was in any dealings with Hunter, Burisma or Joe Biden, or what was discussed at the meetings. In February 2016, Hunter wrote an email to Magnani revealing that in the midst of their Mexican oil deal, his father was flying him and his business partner on Air Force 2 to Mexico City, where he and Cooper would be sitting in on a meeting with the country's president. In 2012 a friend of Hunter working for lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, reportedly now under a Justice Department investigation for its dealings with Burisma, suggested Slim as a potential buyer of a gambling company Hunter was partnered with. 'Below is an article from today's press about Slim getting into the business in Mexico. It sounds like a potential good exit strategy for your investment,' Blue Star staffer Gabriel Zinny wrote to Cooper in April 2012 In May 2015, Joe Biden's brother Jim emailed Hunter breathlessly that he had a 'very real deal' involving Slim and a US oil pipeline. 'Have a very real deal with Pemex ( Carlos slim) need financing literally for a few days to a week,' he wrote Cooper and Hunter were working business angles beyond oil. In one email from February 2015 Cooper describes a plan to pitch a payroll systems company they invested in, ePlata, to Pemex, Slim's massive Mexican telecoms company Televisia, Walmart, Uber, and even the Mexican government Magnani gave him some options, Hunter replied: 'I'll get you some dates later today. How are you? Wish i was back in Acapulco. Showed my Dad pictures and he wants to visit.' 'He is welcome when ever he wants!!!!!!!!!' a jubilant Magnani responded Joe Biden flew to Mexico on February 25 to 26, 2016 for trade talks with then-president Enrique Pena Nieto. 'We are arriving late tonight on Air Force 2 to MX City. We will be there for Thursday - I'm attending meeting w/ President N w/ Dad. Jeff is with me on lane [sic] and we will be with us all day,' Hunter wrote to Magnani on February 24, 2016. DailyMail.com obtained a copy of Hunter's laptop hard drive from former Steve Bannon podcast co-host Jack Maxey The then-US vice president took Hunter and his business partner, who were setting up 'gigantic' business deals in Mexico, on the official trip despite recent concerns over Hunter's potential conflicts of interest in his commercial dealings. Two months earlier, the New York Times published a prominent story about Joe Biden visiting Ukraine to push for a corruption crackdown while Hunter had been revealed as a board member of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, was under investigation for alleged corruption. By February 2016, Hunter's Burisma colleagues had become disgruntled with Magnani, believing he had failed to deliver on greasing the wheels of their Mexican oil deal. Hunter was reproachful to the Aleman heir in his email ahead of their Mexico city trip and shockingly frank describing his disappointment that Magnani had failed to follow through on what Hunter understood to be a quid pro quo of favors, involving access to the vice president and stays in Magnani's villa. 'Would love to see but you never respond. I am really upset by it. You respond when it's something you need. You are the most generous person I know but WTF,' Hunter continued. 'We have so many great things to do together and I want you at the plane when the [sic] the VP lands with your Mom and Dad and you completely ignore me. 'I've looked at what your family has done and want to follow in that tradition and you always say you will help but I haven't heard from you since I got you a mtg for Carlos and your Dad. 'We have been talking about business deals and partnerships for 7 years. And I really appreciate you letting me stay at your resort villa...but I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F'ing WHite House and the Vice President's house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent - I don't hear from you for months. 'I don't know what it is that I did but I'd like to know why I've delivered on every single thing you've ever asked - and you make me feel like I've done something to offend you.' Joe Biden flew to Mexico on February 25 to 26, 2016 for trade talks with then-president Enrique Pena Nieto. 'We are arriving late tonight on Air Force 2 to MX City. We will be there for Thursday - I'm attending meeting w/ President N w/ Dad. Jeff is with me on lane [sic] and we will be with us all day,' Hunter wrote to Magnani on February 24, 2016 Family photos on Hunter's laptop dated March 2017 show him, his lover and brother's widow Hallie Biden Hallie's her two children Natalie and Hunter joined the vacation and were seen on a yacht and at a palatial villa in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. It is unclear if the location was Magnani's holiday home One of Magnani's earlier asks to Hunter was to transfer the Mexican's stake in their real estate firm Rosemont Realty to Magnani's uncle. On November 20 2014 Cooper wrote to Archer and Hunter: 'Miguel again reiterated that he would take a discounted buyout on his Rosemont investment as long as it could happen quickly. He will then turn that money directly over to ePlata.' The lawyer added: 'He wants us to try to bring a Burisma exec with us on our trip He says the Pemex CEO was extremely excited about their potential involvement and has 'a perfect project' for them.' The same day as Hunter's terse February 2016 email to Magnani, his partner in his consultancy firm, Eric Schwerin, wrote to a staffer at Rosemont Realty asking him to make the transfer to the Mexican heir's uncle. 'Miguel would like to transfer the ownership of his interest to his Uncle. I don't believe any money is changing hands - he just wants to assign them to his Uncle going forward,' Schwerin wrote. The same day as Hunter's terse February 2016 email to Magnani, his partner in his consultancy firm, Eric Schwerin, wrote to a staffer at Rosemont Realty asking him to make the transfer to the Mexican heir's uncle. 'Miguel would like to transfer the ownership of his interest to his Uncle. I don't believe any money is changing hands - he just wants to assign them to his Uncle going forward,' Schwerin wrote On November 20, 2014 Cooper wrote to Archer and Hunter: 'Miguel again reiterated that he would take a discounted buyout on his Rosemont investment as long as it could happen quickly. He will then turn that money directly over to ePlata' At the time, Magnani had financial problems brewing that would culminate in a bankruptcy of his airline Interjet in 2019. By last year the firm had racked up $549.3 million in debt, according to a report by Mexican publication La Jornada. Family photos on Hunter's laptop dated March 2017 show him, his lover and brother's widow Hallie Biden, and her two children Natalie and Hunter, on a yacht and at a palatial villa in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. It is unclear if the location was Magnani's holiday home. DailyMail.com obtained a copy of Hunter's laptop hard drive from former Steve Bannon podcast co-host Jack Maxey. John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the computer store where Hunter abandoned his laptop, gave a copy of its hard drive to Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani in September last year. Giuliani reportedly leaked documents and photos from the drive to the New York Post, and also gave a whole copy of the drive to Trump's former advisor Bannon and his podcast co-host Maxey. A teenage snowboarder put four people in the hospital last week when he tumbled downhill and crashed into oncoming skiers using a tow lift before fleeing the scene. The Hungarian thrill-seeker, 18, was riding the Rosenkranz lift at the Austrian ski resort of Kreischberg on Wednesday when the bar used to pull riders up the slope slipped out from between his legs. At first the unidentified snowboarder managed to grasp the bar with his hands to prevent him from falling, but as the lift reached its steepest point the teenager could no longer hold on. He slipped off the lift and began sliding back down the piste. He narrowly avoided hitting a fellow snowboarder coming up behind him but, unable to slow himself, he quickly gathered speed and careened towards horrified skiers who could not avoid the flailing border hurtling towards them. This is the moment the snowboarder lost his grip on the tow lift and began sliding back down the slope The first skier was demolished, losing both of their skies and poles when the border crashed into them Stunning video footage shows the border flying down the piste in the Styrian Alps and slamming into the skiers, knocking each of them off the lift one by one and leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. Four skiers sustained injuries in the collisions, one of them suffering trauma serious enough to warrant the dispatch of a rescue helicopter, which scooped the victim off the piste and flew to a nearby hospital in Friesach. Three others were able to get down the mountain under their own steam but later went to hospital for treatment. But instead of staying to help the stricken skiers, the offending boarder chose to flee. The incident was reported to the Alpine Service of the Murau District Police Command by the enraged skiers, who launched a manhunt for the culprit and detained him several hours later on Wednesday, according to Austrian outlet Kronen Zeitung. It is unclear what penalties the snowboarder will face or whether the skies intend to press charges - MailOnline contacted authorities at the Kreischberg resort for comment. Clips of the incident posted on social media angered skiers who piled in on the snowboarder for his actions and inability to ride the tow lift. But several snowboarders leapt to the boy's defence, pointing out that the T-shaped bar is designed perfectly for skiers to sit on, but puts snowboarders in a tenuous and physically demanding position for the duration of the lift. 'I've been snowboarding for over 15 years and those things still catch me out sometimes,' one user posted. 'I'm 30 and have been snowboarding since I've been 10 and these still cause me issues,' another chipped in. Thompson showed signs of improvement after he was revived by the drug A school resource officer administered Narcan after Thompson was found unconscious and unresponsive on the classroom floor A New Jersey middle school art teacher has been arrested after he overdosed on fentanyl in front of his students, who found him unconscious on the floor of the classroom. Frank Thompson, 57, was charged on Thursday with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and endangering the welfare of children at Roosevelt Intermediate School in Westfield. A school nurse rushed to the second-floor classroom where Thompson was found unconscious and unresponsive. The school resource officer, identified as Fortunato Riga, then administered naloxone hydrochloride, also known as Narcan, because he believed the teacher was suffering from an overdose, Fox News reported. Thompson began showing signs of improvement after Riga revived him with the life-saving drug according to Police Chief Christopher Battiloro. Narcan is carried by all Westfield police, including school resource officers. Frank Thompson, 57, an art teacher at Roosevelt Intermediate School in Westfield, New Jersey was arrested on Thursday after he overdosed on fentanyl in front of his students The outside of the middle school that Thompson where students found him unconscious on the classroom floor. He was charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and endangering the welfare of children Authorities said investigators found fentanyl and 'various items of drug paraphernalia' in a closet in the classroom. Thompson is due in Superior court on February 1. After the disturbing incident, Superintendent Raymond Gonzalez issued a statement. 'The Westfield Public School District cannot comment on personnel matters which are confidential. We will maintain a continued focus on student and staff safety and on preserving the integrity of the classroom learning environment,' Gonzalez said. 'We are grateful for our strong partnership with the Westfield Police Department.' Thompson's Facebook reveals he is from Red Bank, New Jersey, and shows some photos of him with two young children, some photos of art, and him on some type of holiday. Authorities said investigators found fentanyl and 'various items of drug paraphernalia' in a closet in the classroom. The stock image shows a vial of Fentanyl Citrate with ampule, patch, powder and pills Thompson's bio is featured on the site of 'The Teachers' Westfield, New Jersey Thompson, who earned his bachelor's degree in art education from Kean University has been teaching at the Westfield School District for the last ten years, according to the site WesfieldNJ.com. A bio shared on the site states that Thompson started on the elementary level before teaching middle school, and said he was planning to pursue his Master's in Computer Arts. 'I've always loved art. In school, art was the subject I looked forward to the most. As a child I loved to draw. When I got older and gained experience in various mediums I discovered I enjoyed many forms of visual expression, including sculpture, ceramics, weaving, mosaic, and jewelry making,' Thompson wrote. 'As a student, first in public school and then college, I can remember the freedom I felt through creative expression and the sense of accomplishment that came from learning a new process or technique. He also spoke about his passion for art and his reason for becoming an art teacher. ' I feel that I can make use of all that involvement in art has to offer, for is what I know best and feel most passionately for. This is why I decided to become an art teacher. Its my strong belief that the active manipulation of the senses that activities in art entail make other subjects more meaningful,' he said. 'A quality art experience in conjunction with academics will surely produce a more well-rounded, higher thinking individual. This makes teaching in a town like Westfield, which is so supportive of the arts, a pleasure and a great opportunity. Westfield School did not respond to DailyMail.com request for comment. Former acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller reveals he told Pentagon officials 'the Capitol has fallen' as he ordered them to 'lock down' Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021. In a new book detailing his near three decades in the Army and time in public service, Miller blames an 'utter failure' by civilian law enforcement for pro-Trump rioters breaching the Capitol and the death of Ashli Babbitt. 'My confidence that the system was working evaporated at 2:44 p.m. when the press announced that a rioter had been shot and killed inside the Capitol. That's when I knew civilian law enforcement had overpromised and underdelivered and that it was now my problem,' Miller writes in his forthcoming memoir, Soldier Secretary. Miller wrote that former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former Army Sec. Ryan McCarthy were 'freaking out' and he wanted to tell them to 'calm the f*** down.' In a new book detailing his near-three decades in the Army and time in public service, former Acting Defense Sec. Christopher Miller blames an 'utter failure' by civilian law enforcement for pro-Trump rioters breaching the Capitol 'The Capitol has fallen. We own this now,' Miller instead told them, according to excerpts obtained by DailyMail.com. 'Let's get forces moving towards the Capitol. We need to lock down the city.' McCarthy departed like a whirling dervish. Milley took a breath and changed his demeanor to match mine. It was all business now.' The book, published by Center Street, will be available for purchase on February 7. Miller said McCarthy confirmed a request for the National Guard from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at 3 p.m. The order to mobilize around 1,100 National Guard forces was issued at 3:04 p.m., according to Miller. 'I determined it was now a DOD mission and instead ordered the complete mobilization of the DC National Guard and movement to the Capitol of all available forces immediately,' he said. 'We were taking over. It was necessary but disappointingwhat a complete and utter failure by civilian law enforcement.' Ahead of the planned 'Save America' rally in Washington Bowser had requested only light backup from the National Guard - 340 troops who were mostly tasked with crowd control - not law enforcement. On January 6, 2021, Pro-Trump supporters and far-right forces flooded Washington DC to protest Trump's election loss Demonstrators steal a Metropolitan Police riot shield outside the U.S. Capitol building during a protest in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. Officials had to collect those Guardsmen and bring them back to the D.C. Armory to be refit for a crowd control mission once chaos erupted. She wanted to avoid the appearances that unfolded the summer before when forces responded to police brutality protesters outside the White House. National Guard backup did not reach the scene until 5:20 p.m., according to documents released by the House Oversight Committee. Capitol rioters had reached the complex hours earlier at about 12:40 p.m., breaching the building about 15 minutes later. The Capitol Police contingent, which numbered about 1,400 that day, were quickly overrun by some 8,000 rioters. Elsewhere in the country, a governor could simply call up the National Guard, but in D.C. such a request requires a sign-off from the executive branch. At 6 p.m., Miller authorized the mobilization of up to 6,200 National Guard members from Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. Guard members were parked outside the Capitol for months though no other major skirmishes erupted. In the two years since the deadly attack officials have descended into finger-pointing over what led to such a shocking turn of events. In testimony to the House committee in July, Miller - who was only Defense secretary from November 9, 2020 to January 20, 2021 - was asked about a claim former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows saying in an interview that 'as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the secretary of Defense.' Trump claimed on Truth Social he had 'offered' the 10,000 troops on January 3rd. 'Why didn't they use the 10,000 troops that I offered up on January 3rd? There would have been no January 6th?' 'I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature. So I was surprised by seeing that publicly. But I don't know the context or even where it was.' Miller indicated there were National Guard troops at the president's disposal to respond to January 6 but there was 'not anything more than contingency planning.' Following a speech where Trump revved up a crowd with false claims the election was stolen, the chaos that broke out left 5 dead and 140 police officers injured. After the attack then-Capitol Police chief Steven Sund resigned at the request of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He later blamed Pelosi for standing in the way of his January 3 National Guard request due to 'optics.' Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers said Monday that he is not leaving the House Republican Steering Committee after it was reported hours earlier that he was stepping down. The senior Republican lawmaker who lunged toward fellow GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz during a tense moment on the floor of the House of Representatives on Friday night said he was stepping down from the top committee post, Politico reported on Monday morning. Rogers told the outlet he was stepping down from panel, which is responsible for assigning committee posts to other GOP lawmakers. The expected chair of the House Armed Services Committee reportedly said the decision was his own and that he was free to change his mind. And it seems he did just a few hours later. Rogers told Politico's Olivia Beavers that an 'overwhelming number of members' pleaded with him to remain on the powerful committee. A day earlier, on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds revealed that he would be ascending to the Steering Committee in exchange for dropping opposition to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last week. Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers had a heated confrontation with Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Friday night after the fourteenth round Speaker vote GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who like Gaetz had opposed McCarthy's Speakership for many rounds, revealed on Sunday that he got a coveted committee position in exchange for flipping Four days of gridlock that paralyzed the 118th Congress ended just before 2am on Saturday when the new House was sworn in. McCarthy managed to convince 20 Republican holdouts to support him or at least vote 'present' to clinch the Speaker's gavel after 15 rounds of voting. To do so, he's made concessions that are expected to give the party's hardline right faction expanded influence over the rest of the conference. Donalds had initially voted for McCarthy in the first round before switching his vote to others including himself - and finally rejoining the 200-plus lawmakers in McCarthy's camp. He revealed on Sunday that he'd been offered a Steering Committee post in exchange for that support. 'Part of that is going to be to make sure the entire conference, the ideological spectrum if you will, is represented through all committees,' Donalds said. It's not immediately clear if Donalds' joining the committee is in coordination with Rogers' departure. DailyMail.com reached out to Rogers' office for comment. Rogers apologized to Gaetz after he needed to be restrained by fellow GOP Rep. Richard Hudson Tennessee Rep. Mark Green is filling in for Rogers in steering committee votes on Monday morning save for the one where he himself is up for a chairmanship, Politico reports. Rogers expressed 'regret' for his heated confrontation with Matt Gaetz on the House floor on Friday night. The Florida firebrand's vote of 'present' instead of for McCarthy in the fourteenth round narrowly tanked the now-Speaker's bid yet again, sending tempers flaring. McCarthy and Gaetz could be seen speaking intensely on the House floor after the fourteenth-round tally. The chamber was silent. Lawmakers on the Democratic side stood and craned their necks for a better look at the GOP crisis talks. After McCarthy turned to walk away from Gaetz, Rogers barreled toward him before being restrained by fellow Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of South Carolina. A shout of 'Be civil!' came from the Democratic side of the chamber. Rogers stormed into the Republican cloak room. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy himself denied having a 'heated exchange' with Gaetz during an impromptu press conference early on Saturday morning Rogers told the New York Post on Saturday, 'I just walked over to the end the aisle a few feet away from where he was seated and said, "Matt I am not going to forget this.'" The Alabama Republican tweeted on Sunday that he and Gaetz 'have a long and productive working relationship, that I am sure will continue.' 'I regret that I briefly lost my temper on the House Floor Friday evening and appreciate Matts kind understanding,' Rogers finished. It came after Gaetz told Fox News on Saturday night that Rogers has his 'forgiveness' and praised him as a 'terrific chairman' for the Armed Services Committee. 'We're going to work together wonderfully going forward. I don't think there should be any punishment or reprisal just because he had an animated moment,' Gaetz said. McCarthy himself denied having a 'heated exchange' with Gaetz during an impromptu press conference after his victory. 'Through all of this, people's emotions go up and down. And at the end of the night, Matt got everybody there,' the new House Speaker said. While he has not been convicted, locals and pupils are hoping to put the case 'behind them' Students at the University of Idaho say they are relieved that Bryan Kohberger has been arrested in connection with the quadruple murder as they return to the campus. Pupils studying at the university were left terrified for more than a month as police were working to arrest Kohberger, 28, after the slayings on November 13. Many are hoping that the brutal murders will be put behind them soon enough after the alleged killer appeared in court last week. Kohberger is accused of killing Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin. Kohberger, 28, was arrested on December 30 after weeks of thorough investigation by police in Moscow, Idaho, and the FBI Many students initially refused to return to the campus after the killings, staying at home after returning home for the Thanksgiving break Speaking to the TODAY show, student Isaac Sanchez said: I feel better, sort of, knowing that they have the suspect in custody that theres a chance that this might all be behind us soon enough. Another added: I think a lot of people are wondering how he planned it out how it all came together and why. Many students initially refused to return to the campus after the killings, staying at home after returning home for the Thanksgiving break. But despite the arrest and charges against Kohberger patrols are set to remain in place as the college town tries to overcome the shock of the bloody slayings. While there is a sense of relief with Kohberger in custody, there are no plans to scale anything back. Personnel increases are set to remain in place, which was beefed up as an incentive for students to return. It comes after the family of one victim, Kaylee Goncalves, say that they would support the death penalty in the case against Kohberger Many are hoping that the brutal murders will be put behind them soon enough after the alleged killer appeared in court last week Cops detail his every move on the day of the killings, helped by surveillance footage of his car and cell site data from his phone. Kohberger allegedly staked out the property on twelve occasions before the murders The University hired more campus police and increased the numbers on the ground with sources saying they are still getting tips about the killings and are handing information to the police and FBI. It comes after the family of one victim, Kaylee Goncalves, say that they would support the death penalty in the case against Kohberger. Her father Steve said that his vision of 'justice' is not to 'be in a prison cell', with her mother adding that she 'wished Kaylee and Maddie were serving a life sentence' because it would mean they could talk to them. Kohberger previously insisted that he would be 'exonerated' to his lawyer in Pennsylvania. The University hired more campus police and increased the numbers on the ground with sources saying they are still getting tips about the killings and are handing information to the police and FBI Despite the arrest and charges against Bryan Kohberger, 28, patrols are set to remain in place as the college town tries to overcome the shock of the bloody slayings Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger smiles at his attorney in court as he was denied bail. Kohberger will return to court on January 12 Law enforcement sources say the alleged killer was seen taking out garbage using surgical gloves several times at his parent's home. The officers were tasked with tracking Kohberger so they could arrest him as soon as a warrant was issued as well as trying to get hold of an object to compare DNA to a sample found at the scene. He was also seen cleaning the inside and outside of his car, with the source adding that he didn't 'miss an inch'. Kohberger was also reportedly seen taking out the trash to his neighbour's bins at around 4am with the contents being recovered by offices. matched the DNA found on the sheath to Kohberger's by comparing it to his father's DNA which was a 99.9998 percent match. The white Hyundai Elantra is one of the things that helped cops track down the alleged killer, as well as obtaining his phone records. The house in Moscow, Idaho. Bombshell documents reveal how police were led to the suspect Kohberger even returned to the scene of the crime at 9am on November 13 - just hours after he allegedly committed the quadruple murders. Pictured - Kaylee Goncalves and Maddie Mogen Personnel increases are set to remain in place, which was beefed up as an incentive for students to return He yesterday appeared in court charged with the four murders as well as a felony burglary after being extradited to Idaho. The criminal justice graduate only spoke to confirm his name and that he had representation during a hearing in Moscow, Idaho, on Thursday. A timeline issued by police indicates that Kohberger managed to break into the house and kill al four victims within a 15-minute period, before his car was seen speeding off in surveillance footage. Phone records show that Kohberger went close to the property just five hours after the murders were committed with his phone being turned off during the time of the murders. He is also accused of stalking the students and visiting the property or the area at least 12 times before the slayings on November 13. Prince Harry's two softball interviews Sunday night one with ITV's Tom Bradby, the other with Anderson Cooper of the toothless '60 Minutes' have made it clear: Harry is both delusional and appears cynically dishonest. Shame on both journalists for not calling out Harry on his many hypocrisies. Watch as Tom Bradby sits, incredulous yet unchallenging, through this jaw-dropping exchange: Bradby: 'In the Oprah interview, you accuse members of your family of racism.' Harry: 'No, we don't. The British press did that.' Bradby: 'Right.' Excuse me: Right?!?! Harry: 'Did Meghan ever mention they were racists?' Let's roll tape. Oprah: 'They were concerned that if [your unborn son] were too brown, that would be a problem? Are you saying that?' Meghan: 'If that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?' Well, maybe she didn't outright say that but that was the heavy implication, was it not? These two are exhausting, splitting hairs and parsing verbiage in ways not heard since Bill Clinton ('depends on what the meaning of the word of 'is' is.'). I mean, come on even Oprah looked shocked. That interview generated one major headline - you know, the one that went all over the world, that the royal family was racist. It's literally in Bradby's job description to challenge Harry here. It was incumbent on Bradby to speak for all of us who watched that interview to say the truth not Harry's truth, not Meghan's truth, but THE truth and say, 'Well, she did everything but.' Prince Harry's two softball interviews Sunday night one with ITV's Tom Bradby, the other with Anderson Cooper of the toothless '60 Minutes' have made it clear: Harry is both delusional and appears cynically dishonest. Watch as Tom Bradby (above, right) sits, incredulous yet unchallenging, through this jaw-dropping exchange: Bradby: 'In the Oprah interview, you accuse members of your family of racism.' Alas, Bradby did not. He allowed Harry to traffic in fake news, to move the goalposts, to say that, if anything, his family might have been guilty of 'unconscious bias,' to move on without the obvious follow-up questions: If Harry and Meghan don't believe the royal family is racist, why didn't they correct the record at any time over the past two years? Why not clear up that odious falsehood in their Netflix docuseries, or Meghan's podcast, or in this pathetic memoir Harry's flogging? Why did Harry and Meghan allow the woke media to fight what he now says is a non-existent battle? And why did they fly to New York City to accept a humanitarian award for standing up to the 'structural racism' within the British royal family? We cannot believe a word Harry says. Here he is on Lady Susan Hussey, who Buckingham Palace tossed aside after a race-related dust-up at a Camilla-hosted event when a black guest claimed Hussey was inappropriate. 'Meghan and I love Susan Hussey,' Harry said. 'We think she's great! And I also know that what she meant she never meant any harm at all.' You know, for someone who bangs on about wishing that the people who knew and loved him best would stand up for him, Harry's lack of self-awareness is beyond belief. Imagine if Harry and Meghan had raised their hands while Hussey was in the thick of it - the British media Harry loathes so much accusing Hussey of being an old white racist - and said, 'Hey, wait a minute that's not the woman we know.' But that wouldn't serve Harry and Meghan's agenda, would it? God, he is infuriating. You can see why his father and brother, as he told Anderson Cooper, haven't talked to him in ages. There is just no getting through. Harry is as thick as a plank, intransigent as a toddler not to mention self-pitying, self-righteous, and unable to stick to his own story. On 'GMA' Monday morning, Michael Strahan asked Harry a very straightforward question: Did the late Queen ever express anger towards Harry? Harry's answer: 'For what?' He's either just that stupid or just that defiant. But he can't be both. To Strahan's other obvious question you left the royal family, so why not just leave all these grievances behind? Harry lobbed another head-scratcher. 'I can't ever get out,' he said. I'm sorry was that not the entire point of Mexgit? What is this 'The Godfather'? This memoir he's peddling, one predicated on Charles and Camilla and William and Kate bullying Meghan out of the royal family, forcing their move to California? Actually, Harry told Bradby, not their fault at all. The British press did that, with 'the racism . . . the lies.' These two are exhausting, splitting hairs and parsing verbiage in ways not heard since Bill Clinton ('depends on what the meaning of the word of 'is' is.'). I mean, come on even Oprah looked shocked. 'I can't ever get out,' he said. I'm sorry was that not the entire point of Mexgit? What is this 'The Godfather'? This memoir he's peddling, one predicated on Charles and Camilla and William and Kate bullying Meghan out of the royal family, forcing their move to California? Over on '60 Minutes,' Cooper opened by reading from Harry's book, quoting back his words about William 'his familiar scowl . . . his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own, his famous resemblance to Mummy which was fading with time, with age.' 'That's pretty cutting,' said Cooper. Harry is or pretends to be shocked by that assessment. Which, by the way, is the only way to interpret those remarks. 'I don't see it as cutting at all,' Harry replies. '. . . Nothing is intended to hurt my family.' Again, at this point, you would think a veteran journalist such as Cooper would push back on that absurd comment. For what have the past two years been about Oprah, Netflix, Spotify, the book deals, the whining and moaning and commodifying his family's deepest secrets and private pain (Charles and his beloved teddy bear!), allowing the woke media to call the royal family racists as his grandfather lay on his deathbed, as the Queen suffered from increasingly poor health truly, that is the follow-up question. The only one: How can you say, Harry, that nothing is intended to hurt? Harry and Meghan have been on a campaign of terror ever since they flounced out of the palace, millions of dollars in hand, titles intact. About those titles, Cooper asked: 'Why not give them up?' Harry: 'And what difference would that make?' Again, for Cooper, the obvious pushback 'Because it would show you both have integrity, that you mean what you say, that you have principles' is left unsaid. Tom Bradby and Anderson Cooper, two ostensibly hard-hitting journalists, sacrificed what could have been a crackling interview for sycophancy and access. No real reporter would agree, as these two seem to have done, to allow their agendas to be dictated by this half-wit and his equally shameless wife. No real reporter would fail to ask Harry about bragging, as he does in 'Spare,' about how many Taliban he killed, or why this great, self-styled humanitarian calls them not human beings but 'chess pieces,' or why someone so concerned with his family's safety would go and paint big fat bulls-eyes on their backs. Moving on to yet another contradiction: Camilla, who he says in the book is hardly an evil stepmother, is, he tells Cooper, an evil stepmother. One who leaks like a sieve to the press. 'With her . . . on the way to being Queen Consort, there was [sic] going to be people or bodies left in the street because of that.' Bodies in the street! Cooper says that William was initially disdainful of Meghan, dismissing her as 'an American actress' yet in his book, Harry claims that William and Kate were starstruck as never before by one Meghan Markle, former game show briefcase girl-turned-supporting player on a mid-level basic cable drama. Over on '60 Minutes,' Cooper opened by reading from Harry's book, quoting back his words about William 'his familiar scowl . . . his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own, his famous resemblance to Mummy which was fading with time, with age.' 'That's pretty cutting,' said Cooper. Harry is or pretends to be shocked by that assessment. Which is it? It literally cannot be both. On and on it went, falsehood followed by contradiction by hypocrisy by a complete inability to understand cause and effect. Instead, Harry spouted such Markle-isms to Cooper as 'turning pain into a purpose' that would be serving in Afghanistan, a sentiment any wartime combatant can surely relate to doing psychedelics and mushrooms to 'clear the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss,' and castigating the 'tabloid media that literally radicalizes its readers to then potentially cause harm to my family, my wife, my kids.' The grandiosity. Bradby and Cooper did not, of course, ask what Harry was doing there, sitting across from them, opening himself and his family up to ever more scrutiny in the media and not just the white-glove treatment he got from his aforementioned journalistic servants, but the tabloid media that is, of course, also reporting on the Harry and Meghan sideshow. And Harry, after all, is a member of the media now. Not that either Cooper or Bradby said so. Cooper ended his '60 Minutes' sit-down by allowing yet another brazen falsehood to go unchallenged: When asked if there's any hope for reconciliation with his father and brother, Harry said yes. 'Meghan and I have continued to say that we will openly apologize for anything we did wrong.' Continued to say? They have never, ever publicly said they'd apologize before. Why would they? Nothing is ever their fault. And so Harry calling William old, balding and unattractive isn't a cutting remark. Harry and Meghan never led the world to believe the royals were racist. Someday soon, Harry and Meghan will apologize. 'In private,' Harry said, in a conversation 'that doesn't get leaked.' Right. Because if anyone's going to leak anything around here well, that's the province of Harry and Meghan. And they do it only for profit. Jack Ma is no longer the head of Ant Group. The China-based company recently announced it would be ending agreements that allowed the Chinese business magnate to control it following a shareholding restructure caused by a regulatory crackdown. Jack Ma previously criticized the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) "pawnshop" financial regulators and state-owned banks for their policies being similar to those found in an "old people's club," per Business Insider. Ant Group Shareholder Restructuring Details Ant Group mentioned in its announcement that its shareholder restructures resulted in Jack Ma losing control over the company despite not sitting on the company's board of directors, with him now holding 6.2% from his previous combined 50.5% company stake. Jack Ma was able to have this much control over Ant Group through his Hangzhou Yunbo and two other companies, according to the IPO prospectus cited by a CNN report. Instead of Jack Ma holding the controlling stake in the company, he and nine other company executives and employees would have voting rights to use independently of one another. Previously, Jack Ma had an acting-in-concert arrangement with fellow shareholders Eric Xiandong Jing, Simon Hu, and Fang Jiang to control the company's direction. Ant Group said that this "more transparent and diversified" structure would not result in any change to the economic interests of any shareholder. It also expects that this change will help create opportunities to steadily develop itself further. Additionally, the restructuring will also not affect the company's day-to-day operations.However, Ant Group didn't mention when it would implement its new shareholder structure. Read More: Delta Partners With T-Mobile to Bring Free In-Flight Wi-Fi to All SkyMiles Members The restructuring is the result of the CCP's latest crackdown on the company and the country's tech industry as a whole to curb its influence, per CNBC's interview with Trivium China tech analyst Linghao Bao. It also serves as a way to prevent it from creating "unfair market competition" in the country. You may remember that Jack Ma criticized the CCP and China's financial sector in a speech he delivered in Shanghai on Oct. 24, 2020. According to Jack Ma's speech, China's regulation system was hindering innovation while also comparing global banking rules to an "old people's club." Since then, the Chinese government, particularly its regulators, went down hard on Jack Ma's companies, preventing Ant Group from launching its $37 billion IPO in November 2020 - the largest the world had ever seen had it gone through. The Effects On The Company Some analysts believe that Jack Ma ceding his control over Ant Group could give the company the opportunity it needs to revive its $37 billion IPO. However, this change may also cause a delay in that plan due to listing regulations. China's domestic A-share market requires companies to wait three years after a change for it to list their shares publicly. Meanwhile, Ant Group would have to wait two years to launch its IPO on Shanghai's STAR market. The same is also true in Hong Kong's stock exchange, with companies waiting a year after implementing changes for them to launch an IPO. Related Article: Alibaba Group Holding May be Delisted from US Stock Markets - Here's Why While many men believe they have what it takes to be a Sperm Donor, less than four in 100 who apply to donate end up having their samples frozen and used, researchers have revealed. A University of Sheffield study of more than 11,700 would-be sperm donors found that the overwhelming majority of donors either withdrew from the process or were ruled out for health and lifestyle reasons. Lead author of the research, Professor Allan Pacey, a Sheffield University scholar and department head, said the largest study of donors outside China showed 'how hard it is to become a sperm donor.' 'It's not like blood donation where once it's done you can have a cup of tea and go home,' Pacey said in a statement. An international study of some 11,700 would-be sperm donors found that most either withdrew from the process or were ruled out for health and lifestyle reasons 'Sperm donation is a regular commitment with lots of screening and regular testing, as well as life-long implications for the donor if any children are born from their sample.' The findings, published in the journal Human Reproduction, show that over half of the men (54.9 percent) who applied to be donors at Cryos in the US and Denmark withdrew from the program before their samples were released for use. Another 17.4 percent were rejected due to health issues, including those carrying a genetic disease or with an untreatable infection. Another 11.7 percent failed a screening questionnaire about their lifestyle; while 11.2 percent were rejected due to poor sperm quality. Recent data from Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority show that more than half of new sperm donors registered in the UK were from imported sperm, mostly from sperm banks like Cryos in the US and Denmark. It's been illegal in Britain since 2016 to use sperm from donors who decline to be identified to their offspring. In the study, researchers examined how many Cryos donors agreed to be identifiable compared to those that did not. A Cryos International sperm bank. Samples from the group's sperm donors in the US and Denmark often end up being used in the UK, which imports a large share of its samples A file picture of a vacuum flask with liquid nitrogen straws with frozen embryos and egg cells at an infertility treatment clinic. They found that 41.3 percent initially agreed to be identifiable, with more Danes willing to wave their anonymity than Americans. Over the course of the screening and donation process, which takes many months, more donors were willing to be identified. 'More donors, who initially wanted to remain anonymous, were willing to be identifiable as the screening and donation process continued,' added Pacey, a professor of andrology. 'This is particularly good news for patients in the UK undergoing fertility treatment, as it is a legal requirement for sperm donors to be identifiable to any children born from their donations.' The study comes as growing numbers of single women and lesbian couples turn to sperm banks and fertility treatment, as experts say many women are struggling to find Mr Right or delaying motherhood to focus on their career. Tony Gonzales tore into Joe Biden for refusing to propose solutions to the southern migration crisis as Republicans slammed the president for his 'photo-op' trip. The Texas representative, whose district includes the longest stretch of southern border than any other jurisdiction, said it took Biden '80 years to visit the border' and claimed that the White House told him that he could not attend the president's visit to the border on Sunday. Several Republicans took to social media to claim Biden's trip nearly two years into his presidency was 'too little, too late.' 'The president essentially lied to my face,' Gonzales told Fox & Friends Monday morning, claiming that the president told him during a trip to Texas during the fallout from a Uvalde shooting that they would directly speak about the border crisis. Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales accused President Joe Biden of not visiting the border for '80 years' and said the trip on Sunday was just a 'photo-op' He also said that Biden's trip on Sunday 'wasn't about solving problems.' 'This was a partisan trip that was just made as a photo op,' Gonzales told Fox & Friends. 'It took the president 80 years to get to the border. I suspect it's going to take another 80 years before he comes back,' he added. 'Clearly this shows the administration has zero interest in solving this. They think it's a political problem. They don't think it's a policy problem.' Biden, 80, visited and surveyed the border between Mexico and El Paso, Texas on Sunday it was his first trip to physically see in-person the southern border first-hand nearly two full years after taking office. It followed years of demands from mostly Republicans that the president witness the southern border crisis and hear from front-line workers dealing with the massive influx in migration. Gonzales says the Biden administration won't be successful in their response to the border until they realize it's a policy problem. He noted that there was not a crisis at the border under former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. Biden visited the El Paso, Texas border barrier on Sunday in his first-ever trip to the southern border on Sunday, January 8 North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer said Biden's trip was 'two years too late.' 'He should have visited the southern border as soon as he caused this crisis,' the Republican lawmaker wrote in a Monday morning tweet, claiming 'it's time to secure our border' and help relieve overwhelmed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials. Biden's trip was added on to his visit to Mexico this week for the North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City with Mexican and Canadian leaders. The trip came just three days after Biden announced on Thursday new measures to address the southern border crisis and migration as it relates to asylum-seekers specifically. The president expanded use of the Trump-era COVID ban known as Title 42, which allowed for the instant deportation of asylum seekers from certain countries in the midst of the public health crisis. He did, however, launch a separate program that would allow 30,000 asylum seekers from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua to pre-apply for asylum and either fly or enter into the U.S. through legal points of entry. Russia's only aircraft carrier is in such a ruinous state that it would sink if it were to sail again, it was reported today. The Admiral Kuznetsov has been beset by fires and fatal accidents over the past five years as technicians have attempted a refit. On December 8 last year, the 1,000ft vessel suffered substantial damage when it caught fire while moored in the port city of Murmansk, in northwest Russia. Today, Ukraine's Defence Ministry stated the Admiral Kuznetsov is in such 'a state of emergency' that it 'cannot move under its own power'. The Admiral Kuzentsov was launched in 1985 but has been at the centre of a troubled 1billion refit since 2017, with several high-profile accidents and fires Fire engulfs the Admiral Kuznetsov in December 2019, in which two men lost their lives The ministry noted that a decision had been made to transfer the ship to the docks of a ship repair plant. However, it soon became clear the cruiser was not able to move without assistance. Attempts to tug the boat failed due to the poor condition of the ship's hull - which divers found was suffering deep corrosion below the third deck. The holds were also found to be filled with muddy water, making an internal check impossible. Now, according to Ukraine, ship repair specialists have warned the condition of Admiral Kuznetsov makes it impossible for it to launch and if it does, 'it is highly likely that it will tip over on its side and [sink].' In the incident last month, the Admiral Kuznetsov was docked in the Zvyozdochka shipyard in Murmansk for repairs when the blaze started in the cabins on the port side of the flagship of the Russian navy. The flagship of the Russian navy, the Admiral Kuznetsov now looks outdated compared with the nuclear-powered carriers of the United States A source told Russia's TASS news agency: 'There was a fire on board the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is in the dry dock of the Zvyozdochka shipyard. 'There were no casualties, 20 people were evacuated.' The Admiral Kuznetsov has suffered a series of disasters since its launch in 1985 and is notorious for chugging black smoke. It has been undergoing a 1billion refit since 2017, but it was seriously damaged in October 2018 when a 70-ton crane crashed on to its deck after a mammoth floating dock holding the ship sank. The crane left a hole of 215 square feet, and the loss of the dock significantly slowed down repairs on the carrier. One year later, in December 2019, the ship suffered a massive fire which saw two men lose their lives and 14 others were treated for smoke inhalation. With its turbines belching black smoke, the Admiral Kuznetsov now looks outdated compared with the nuclear-powered carriers of the United States. However, the Kremlin has used it to project military might far from Russia's shores. In early 2017, the Admiral Kuznetsov was deployed to the eastern Mediterranean as part of Russia's campaign in Syria, launching the first carrier-mounted attacks in Russian naval history. It lost two carrier-borne fighters in incidents during the Syria mission. A formal complaint has been filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Rep. George Santos for numerous campaign finance violations. In a civil complaint filed Monday the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center (CLC) accused the New York Republican of illegally using campaign donations for personal expenses, including to pay rent, and for concealing the origins of the $700,000 Santos said he loaned to his campaign. In 2022, Santos said he loaned his campaign $705,000 from his personal riches. CLC questioned how Santos could have had such a stash saved up. 'It is far from clear how he could have done so with his own funds, because financial disclosure reports indicate that Santos had only $55,000 to his name in 2020,4 and his claims of having earned millions of dollars in 2021 and 2022 from a supposed consulting business that he started in May 2021, Devolder Organization LLC (Devolder LLC), are vague, uncorroborated, and non-credible in light of his many previous lies.' A formal complaint has been filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Rep. George Santos (R-NY) for numerous campaign finance violations The complaint said that the circumstances indicate that Devolder was used to illegally funnel money to Santos' campaign. The FEC complaint said that the possible scheme could include foreign election meddling. 'The concealed true source behind $705,000 in contributions to Santos's campaign could be a corporation or foreign national both of which are categorically barred from contributing to federal candidates.' Santos has admitted in interviews to having 'embellished' his resume and education history. The complaint also took issue with the dozens of expenses Santos' campaign lists at $199.99 - just one penny below the $200 threshold when itemized receipts are required by the FEC. CLC raised suspicions about the fact the Santos campaign reported a bill of exactly $199.99 at Il Bacco Restaurante in Little Neck, New York on seven different occasions. The campaign reported five different Uber rides that conveniently amounted to $199.99, four different flights on Delta airlines and three separate Best Buy purchases that amounted to the same. On October 13, 2021 Santos reported a $199.99 hotel stay at the W Hotel South Beach of Miami, but the cheapest hotel room available for a midweek stay that week is priced at over $700. The campaign also reported a $199.99 parking charge at JFK airport in New York but there is no combination of fees at that parking garage that would end in $99.99. It reported a $199.99 charge for CLEAR identity verification at the airport, but CLEAR's standard annual membership is $189.28. CLC notes Santos listed six expenses totaling $13,500 that were listed as 'apartment rental for staff,' but a New York Times report found that Santos himself had been living there. 'One neighbor said Santos himself had been living there for months, and two others said that they had seen Santos and his husband coming and going,' the Times reported. A Santos spokesperson declined to comment on the new complaint. Meanwhile a former aide to Trump strategist Steve Bannon is set to join Santos' Capitol Hill staff. Vish Burra, who worked as a producer on Bannon's 'War Room' podcast, is set to join Santos' staff as operations director, according to Newsday. Burra also serves as executive director of the New York Young Republicans Club - which last month hosted Santos at a gala along with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and members of the far-right Austrian Freedom Party founded by a former Nazi SS officer. Tate brothers' lawyer said prosecutors had no evidence to back up allegations Andrew Tate refused to let women leave his compound without being escorted by one of his employees, according to WhatsApp messages filed by prosecutors. The messages are allegedly from women Tate and his brother are accused of forcing to create online sexual content. The former professional kickboxer turned controversial online personality, 36, and his brother Tristan, who grew up in Luton, Bedfordshire, were detained in Romania last month as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation. In the unearthed messages between Tate and his alleged victims, the infamous misogynist appears to boast about how he runs the operation. This comes after the lawyer of the Tate brothers claimed Romanian prosecutors had no evidence to back up the allegations of rape and human trafficking. Andrew Tate's lawyer has claimed Romanian police have no evidence to back up their allegations of rape and human trafficking against the infamous misogynist. Pictured: Andrew Tate is escorted by police after being arrested in Bucharest on December 29, 2022 The messages show Tate allegedly threatening a women in a WhatsApp group that includes his employees and the alleged victims. Filed by prosecutors and released by Gandul, they show one of the women asking to leave the compound. Andrew Tate tells the woman 'don't go anywhere' without one of three trusted employees. She then asks Tate: 'Why are you so cold to me?' Tate then tells her: 'Don't go out alone without telling me. Mall, supermarket, nowhere from now on.' The woman says that she had already told him that she 'wanted to go alone'. Tate then says this is her 'last warning!' In the other messages released by Gandul, Tate brags about how he runs the operation. One woman messages him: 'I heard you're the one running the Onlyfans and TikTok girls business.' Tate responds: 'Tristan and Georgiana [Georgiana Naghel, who was also arrested with the Tate brothers], but I lead them.' The released messages come after Tate's lawyer claimed Romanian police have no evidence to back up their allegations of rape and human trafficking against the infamous misogynist. Eugen Vidineac, who represents both brothers (pictured on December 30 in Bucharest), told Romanian online newspaper Gandul that Romanian police do not have evidence to back up the allegations of rape, human trafficking and organised crime against the Tate brothers Eugen Vidineac, who represents both brothers, told Romanian online newspaper Gandul he believed the character someone like Tate portrays on social media could not be 'used as evidence in a criminal trial' as it may not reflect who they really are. Mr Vidineac said it took the Tate brothers 'some time to understand' why they were in custody, and that there was no evidence to support the allegations, that also include organised criminal activity. Vidineac's comments - in a video with translated subtitles posted on Andrew Tate's Twitter account - came after Romanian authorities seized four more luxury cars on Thursday ahead of a court appearance in Bucharest on Tuesday, after 11 vehicles were previously taken in raids. At least seven of the seized cars are registered to the Tate brothers. Romanian anti-organised crime agency DIICOT said two British citizens and two Romanians were suspected of being part of a criminal group focused on human trafficking. Their appeals will be heard against a judge's decision to extend their arrest warrants from 24 hours to 30 days, DIICOT added. The Tate brothers, who Mr Vidineac said are not married but have children in Romania, will also appeal against the seizure of some of their belongings. Mr Vidineac told Gandul the defence had not been given the opportunity to study the prosecution file for the case. The lawyer said several electronic devices were seized in April last year which were subject to computer searches. He added: 'I will point this out from the beginning, that even up to the present moment, the criminal investigation file has not been made available to us to ensure the effective defence of our clients. 'In this sense, I would like to point out, at least from this point of view, I am also somehow amazed, there is not a single piece of evidence apart from the victim's statement that leads to the idea that a crime of rape was committed.' Vidineac's video came after Romanian authorities seized four more luxury cars on Thursday ahead of a court appearance in Bucharest on Tuesday, after 11 vehicles were previously taken in raids. Pictured: Tate is seen filling up one of his supercars in an Instagram photo Asked what evidence there was in support of a human trafficking offence, Mr Vidineac said: 'In my view, there is no evidence there either, and I'm talking about evidence leading, by itself or directly, to the formation of an opinion of reasonable suspicion regarding the commission of offences provided for and punishable by criminal law. 'In this case we are talking about human trafficking and organised crime.' Mr Vidineac said the documents they had seen did not 'accurately describe the hierarchy of the group, the functions of each person, who was part of this alleged criminal group'. He said the documents also did not 'comply with the legal requirements concerning the way in which the offence of human trafficking is committed'. Speaking about claims the men had contempt for women, Mr Vidineac said: 'They say that these issues are ripped out of context, out of some interviews they have done on social media. 'But they also say, if we live our lives surrounded by over 300 people, women and men, we have a lot of girlfriends and supporters all over the world, we've been out in public all the time with our girlfriends and there have been no complaints from our girlfriends. 'People have come out in public and said that they've been with one of the Tate brothers and he's not a violent, uneducated, abusive character as he is being portrayed at this point.' Speaking about what role social media may play in the case, Mr Vidineac said: 'In the case of the Tate brothers, I don't know what their intent was in promoting themselves on social media, but I sit here and wonder, can that intent from the social media stand as evidence in a criminal prosecution case, with respect to a criminal character?' Andrew Tate (left) - a professional kickboxer turned controversial online personality, 36 - and his brother Tristan, who grew up in Luton, Bedfordshire, were detained in Romania last month as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation. Two other female suspects - Georgiana Naghel and Luana Radu - were also taken into custody in Bucharest on December 29 Pictured: Andrew Tate is seen detained in Romania after being arrested in December On Sunday, Andrew Tate has tweeted a link to a Romanian article that stated one of the influencer brothers has been taken to hospital. He adding that the 'Matrix has attacked me'. In the ambiguous message, the 36-year-old said: 'The Matrix has attacked me. But they misunderstand, you cannot kill an idea. Hard to Kill.' One of the brothers is said to have informed a medic of a pre-existing health issue, resulting in a consultation at a hospital in Bucharest. They are now back in a detention centre, the website reports. Two other female suspects - Georgiana Naghel and Luana Radu - were also taken into custody in Bucharest on December 29 on suspicion of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group. They have denied all the allegations. DIICOTs said in a statement last week that it has identified six victims who were subjected to 'acts of physical violence and mental coercion' and were sexually exploited by group members. The agency said two British citizens in the case lured victims under the pretence of love, and later intimidation, constant surveillance, and other control tactics into performing pornographic acts intended to reap 'important financial benefits.' Tate was banned from most social media platforms, by his account was reinstated by Twitter after the company was bought by billionaire Elon Musk. He currently has 4.4 million Twitter followers, although the reach of his content on video platforms such as TikTok has been more of a concern. According to analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) in November, over 100 accounts that frequently promote Tate's content had amassed a total of 250 million video views, and 5.7 million followers. Three leaders said the riots were an attack on 'peaceful transfer of power' President Joe Biden was joined by the leaders of Canada and Mexico in condemning 'attacks' on democracy itself in Brazil after supporters of ousted President Jair Bolsonaro stormed government buildings. Their statement, issued in Mexico City, came after the military and police in Brazil cleared out a camp that Bolsonaro supporters had established across from the Army headquarters, after emptying seized buildings and making hundreds of arrests following violent clashes on Sunday. 'Canada, Mexico, and the United States condemn the January 8 attacks on Brazils democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power,' the leaders said. 'We stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions. Our governments support the free will of the people of Brazil. We look forward to working with President Lula on delivering for our countries, the Western Hemisphere, and beyond,' they said. President Joe Biden, left, walks with Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, condemned the attack on key government buildings by supporters of ousted Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro The statement came hours before Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are set to meet at the National Palace in Mexico City for a welcome ceremony. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Monday expressed confidence in the resilience of Brazil's democracy after the events. 'We have expressed confidence because we believe it that the democratic institutions of Brazil will hold. The will of the people in Brazil will be respected. The freely-elected leader of Brazil will govern Brazil and will not be deterred, or knocked off course by the actions of these people who have assaulted the instruments of governance in Brasilia, including Congress, the presidential palace in the Supreme Court. So we think Brazilian democracy is resilient, strong and will come through this,' he said. Sullivan said the administration had no direct knowledge of Bolsonaro's whereabouts or other status, following online posts of his doings in Florida. 'We're not, as far as I know, in direct contact with Bolsonaro. So, I can't speak definitively about his whereabouts,' Sullivan said. He said the U.S. had not received any 'official requests,' and said there were restrictions on speaking about visa matters. He also indicated a Biden call with Lula was in the works, but gave no immediate time frame. Mounted police watch as supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro depart their encampment outside army headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. President Joe Biden condemned the 'outrageous' attack on Brazil's governmental buildings, after supporters of ousted President Bolsonaro ransacked the Congress and presidential palace The joint statement came after Biden on Sunday condemned the 'assault on democracy' in Brazil, calling the situation 'outrageous' after supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro attacked the country's Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court. The violence represents an eerie echo of the way former President Donald Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021; an anniversary Biden just marked. Biden made his comments during a three hour visit to El Paso, Texas, just before he was due to fly to Mexico City for a summit of North American leaders. He later tweeted: 'I condemn the assault on democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power in Brazil. Brazils democratic institutions have our full support, and the will of the Brazilian people must not be undermined. I look forward to continuing to work with @Lulaoficial' Lula's Twitter handle. His remarks came after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan tweeted: 'The United States condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil. President Biden is following the situation closely and our support for Brazil's democratic institutions is unwavering. Brazil's democracy will not be shaken by violence.' Police and protestors are clashing in the streets outside of the government buildings after weeks of anger towards newly inaugurated President da Silva Protesters smashed their way into the buildings, smashing windows as they forced their way into the Congress building, the Supreme Court and presidential palace President da Silva - said there was 'no precedent in the history of our country' and called the violence the 'acts of vandals and fascists'. He is currently on an official state trip in Sao Paulo Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva, who was traveling in Sao Paolo as news of the violence emerged, has branded protestors who stormed Congress as 'vandals and fascists' - with the scenes being similar to that of Trump supporters January 6 take-over. He announced a federal security intervention for the Brazilian capital until the end of the month. 'These vandals, who we could call fanatical Nazis, fanatical Stalinists ... fanatical fascists, did what has never been done in the history of this country,' said Lula, defeated Bolsonaro in an election last year. 'All these people who did this will be found and they will be punished.' The left-wing veteran known as 'Lula' has only been in power for a week, after being inaugurated a week ago as supporters of the former president claim the election was stolen. Footage from the scenes strike an eerie similarity to those who stormed the Capitol building on January 6th after claims from former President Trump that the election was stolen. After Lula's win, Biden issued a statement that called his win free and fair, amid Bolsonaro's repeated attacks on its integrity, although Bolsonaro ultimately yielded. 'I send my congratulations to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on his election to be the next president of Brazil following free, fair, and credible elections. I look forward to working together to continue the cooperation between our two countries in the months and years ahead,' Biden said at the time. Republican hardliners in the House could aim their fire at Washington D.C., going after the city's legalization of marijuana, its abortion clinics, and its ability to self-govern. The Democratic-led capitol city has long been a GOP target due to its high crime rate and past financial corruption. And now their job may have gotten easier under a deal conservatives cut with Kevin McCarthy in exchange for their support of his bid to become House speaker. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Norton Holmes told DailyMail.com that Republicans' rule in the House marks a 'very dangerous time for the District of Columbia.' 'The district is a ripe target,' she said in a phone interview on Monday. 'We are in great danger with Republicans in charge.' Republicans in the House could target Washington D.C., going after the city's legalization of marijuana, its abortion clinics, and its ability to self-govern 'The district is a ripe target,' D.C. Delegate Eleanor Norton Holmes told DailyMail.com. 'We are in great danger with Republicans in charge' The GOP deal includes a promise for standalone votes on each of the 12 appropriations bills that fund the government. The bills would be considered under an 'open rule,' which allows amendments from any lawmaker. The District of Columbia is the only city in America under the jurisdiction of Congress as called for in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Under McCarthy's deal, a lawmaker, theoretically, could attach an amendment - known as a 'rider' - to any budget bill that would target the District. Such a move would hurt the bill's passage because many Democrats wouldn't support it. But if the budget bills aren't passed, the federal government shuts down. That could leave Democrats between the rock and the hard place of having to weigh a government shutdown against Republicans trying to roll back abortion access or criminalizing marijuana. Even with Democrats in control of the Senate and President Joe Biden able to wield the veto pen, the question remains over what the party would do when it comes to preventing a shutdown, particularly on an issue that only affects the deep-blue D.C. Past riders on budget bills that have passed included ones that bans D.C. from using local funds to subsidize abortions for low-income women and blocked marijuana sales, making pot legal in the city to possess but not sell. Biden signed budgets that included both of those measures. Washington D.C., like many cities, saw a spike in crime during the COVID pandemic. Metropolitan police data shows the district saw a 29% spike in violent crime last year. And carjackings in the District soared from 142 in 2019 to 426 in 2021. Additionally, lawmakers have noticed the increase in homeless people sleeping around the Capitol area. Conservative Republicans have been threatening to target Washington D.C. because of the high rates of crime and homelessness along with issues tied to retaining a police force. Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia has been a top critic of the management of the District of Columbia. He has threatened to go after D.C.'s home rule. The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act created D.C. government as it's known today - giving it a mayor and a city council. However, that is only limited control. Any bills passed by the council must still be approved by Congress. Holmes Norton, who represents D.C. in Congress but doesn't have voting rights because of its lack of a statehood, said the threat to repeal the city's home rule is 'a shot across the bow of what we can expect.' She said Republicans will 'find anything they can overturn that Democrats have supported and the district is a ripe target. So I'm gonna have to be on my guard.' She vowed to work with Senate Democrats and Biden to do what she can to protect the city and expressed her hope that taking away the little autonomy that D.C. has would be too much for her party to tolerate. Republican Rep. James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight committee, which oversees D.C., has vowed to address the increase in homelessness and violent crime in Washington. 'Simply put, D.C. is in crisis because of Democrats reckless policies,' he told the DailyCaller earlier this year. Neither Clyde nor Comer's office responded to DailyMail.com's request for comment on what their future plans are for the District. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also understands her city will become a GOP target. She conceded in a press conference on the city's future on Monday that she and her team will have to be 'very focused on protecting our democracy and home rule.' 'Sadly, we'll probably have to do that,' she noted. Republicans wish to target D.C. may have gotten easier under a deal conservatives cut with Kevin McCarthy in exchange for their support of his bid to become House speaker - above incoming House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (left) shakes hands with McCarthy D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser conceded in a press conference on the city's future on Monday that she and her team will have to be 'very focused on protecting our democracy and home rule' Republicans have long sought to outlaw abortion in Washington D.C. and have already forbid local funds to be used for them Last week, Holmes Norton again introduced legislation that would give D.C. statehood. The bill passed in the House twice when Democrats were in charge but always failed in the Senate where it would need at least 60 votes to proceed in the legislative process. Many Republicans oppose the measure because it would boost Democrats with the left likely winning elections to represent the area in the House and Senate. In the district, which is home to around 713,000 people, Democrats out-register Republicans by 77 per cent to 5 per cent. 'For years on end, the left has continuously demanded D.C. statehood, a politically motivated and wholly unconstitutional proposal that would radically revolutionize the balance of power in Congress to consolidate Democrats control over Americans lives,' Clyde told the DailyCaller earlier this year. But, ironically, Holmes Nort notes, the Republican actions against the District could help her cause. 'I'm going to use every single instance to show why the district should have statehood,' she said. The LAPD said body cam footage of the incident will be released after 45 days Cullors has famously advocated for the defunding of American police forces A co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement has claimed that her cousin was 'killed' by LAPD officers last Tuesday after he was tasered by police and died in their custody. Keenan Anderson - cousin of activist Patrisse Cullors - caused a car crash before standing in the middle of Venice Boulevard 'behaving erratically' and trying to run away officers carrying out a DUI investigation, Los Angeles police say. English teacher Anderson, 31, went into cardiac arrest and died in hospital after being tasered. Cullors is claiming that he was 'killed by the LAPD.' The LAPD have classified Anderson's death as 'in-custody' and said its Force Investigation Division will conduct an investigation. A co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement has said her cousin, Keenan Anderson, 31, was killed by LAPD officers after he was tasered by police and later died in their custody. He is pictured with his six-year-old son In a tribute post on Instagram BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors revealed that Anderson was her cousin The crash and subsequent tasering happened at around 3.30pm on January 3 in the area of Venice Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard, police said. A traffic officer saw Anderson 'running in the middle of the street and exhibiting erratic behavior,' as those involved 'motioned' to the officer that he had been responsible for a crash. Initially Anderson cooperated with the traffic officer, who then 'requested additional units for a DUI investigation.' As additional officers arrived at the scene Anderson allegedly tried to escape being brought into custody by running eastwards in the middle Venice Boulevard. 'My cousin was an educator and worked with high school aged children. He was an English teacher,' Cullors wrote of Anderson (pictured) 'Officers struggled with Anderson for several minutes, utilizing a TASER, bodyweight, firm grips, and joint locks to overcome his resistance. 'Anderson was subsequently handcuffed and hobbled at the ankles,' the LAPD said in a statement. After he was arrested the Los Angeles Fire Department was 'rendered medical aid for deployment of the TASER.' He was then taken to a hospital in Santa Monica where he died. In a tribute post on Instagram, Cullors revealed that Anderson was her cousin and posted a photo of him with his six-year-old son. The Black Lives Matter Network was founded in 2013 by three women: Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi 'This is my cousin Keenan Anderson. He was killed by LAPD in Venice on January 3rd, 2023,' she wrote. 'My cousin was an educator and worked with high school aged children. He was an English teacher,' she added. 'Keenan deserves to be alive right now, his child deserves to be raised by his father. Keenan we will fight for you and for all of our loved ones impacted by state violence. 'LAPD has killed three people this year. One of them is my family member.' On the same day, the LAPD fatally shot a man armed with a sharp object in South LA and the day before another man, holding a large knife, was shot dead. When asked for video of the events that lead to Anderson's death an LAPD official said that 'body worn video is released 45 days following a critical incident.' BLM Los Angeles wrote in a statement: 'A minor traffic incident shouldn't lead to death' BLM Los Angeles wrote in a statement: 'A minor traffic incident shouldn't lead to death.' The Black Lives Matter Network was founded in 2013 by three women: Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. As the movement grew a focus became advocating for the defunding of various police forces and law enforcement departments. Last May it was revealed that Black Lives Matter donated $200,000 during its 2021 fiscal year to a Chicago group run by famous defund the police activist Richard Wallace. In 2020 Cullors told WBUR: 'The demand of defunding law enforcement becomes a central demand in how we actually get real accountability and justice.' 'It means we are reducing the ability of law enforcement to have resources that harm our communities,' she added. A luxurious Studio City property that Cullors has now admitted she used for personal, non-BLM business, after previously denying doing so The property was bought as a haven for black artists - but Cullors used it to host a Biden-Harris inauguration party, and to celebrate her son's 21st birthday, she revealed in an interview Cullors has also attracted criticism for accumulating a property portfolio that appears to be at odds with her persona as a self-described 'trained Marxist.' In an interview with the Associated Press last year, Cullors denied accusations that she had personally benefited in the six years she guided the BLM foundation but admitted she had lied about the use of some of those properties. Notably, she admitted to using a $6million LA house purchased with BLM money for personal, non-BLM business, after previously denying doing so. A post on social media by Anderson's sister addressed her brother's death and expressed a similar sense of injustice. 'Keenan Anderson my brother was killed by LAPD I truly believe,' she wrote. 'Cant wait to see this body cam footage.' Muslim professor Amna Khalid said Hamline 'privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view' She gave students two minutes' warning to look away from the screen In an online art history class, she showed an image of the Prophet Muhammad Professor Erika Lopez Prater was fired by the university in Minnesota and had her class dubbed 'Islamophobic' in an astonishing rebuke after several students, including Aram Wedatalla (right) complained that she had shown a depiction of the Prophet Muhammed in an art history class Hamline University has been eviscerated for pandering to students' whims and tossing out seasoned professionals by firing a professor for showing an image of the Prophet Muhammad in an online art history class. Professor Erika Lopez Prater was fired by the university in Minnesota and had her class dubbed 'Islamophobic' in an astonishing rebuke after several students complained. On October 6, Prater was teaching an online class about Islamic art that was part of a wider curriculum on world art. She chose a 14th-century depiction of the angel Gabriel delivering the Prophet's first revelation. Conscious that in some branches of Islam it is blasphemous to look at any image of the Prophet, Professor Prater gave students two minutes to look away from the screen or log out before she projected the image onto her presentation. Aram Wedatalla, a student who is also the president of the university's Muslim association, chose to remain online in the class. She then complained to school officials that the image 'blindsided' her and made her feel marginalized. Despite being told by department head Allison Baker that she had done 'everything right', Prater was fired after more students - including some who were not in the class - complained. I am offended as a Muslim. In choosing to label this image of Muhammad as Islamophobic, in endorsing the view that figurative representations of the Prophet are prohibited in Islam, Hamline has privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view Professor Amna Khalid, who supports the fired Hamline professor The students viewed it as a victory. 'Hamline teaches us it doesnt matter the intent, the impact is what matters,' student DeAngela Huddleston told the school newspaper The Oracle. But there is growing outrage among other professors and supporters of Prater who say she was unfairly punished to appease students' whims. Among them is Amna Khalid, Associate Professor of History at Carleton College. In an essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Khalid - who is Muslim - argued that Hamline betrayed students by bending to allow only one view to exist - that of the complaining student. 'This case offends me on many levels... As a professor, I am appalled by the senior administrations decision to dismiss the instructor and pander to the students who claim to have been harmed. Nearly 8,000 people have signed this Change.org petition in support of the fired professor 'This kind of inclusive excellence permits DEI administrators to ride roughshod over faculty knowledge. 'But most of all, I am offended as a Muslim. In choosing to label this image of Muhammad as Islamophobic, in endorsing the view that figurative representations of the Prophet are prohibited in Islam, Hamline has privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view. Students do not relinquish their faith in the classroom Hamline University 'The administrators have flattened the rich history and diversity of Islamic thought. 'Their insistence that figurative representations of Muhammad are forbidden for Muslims to look upon runs counter to historical and contemporary evidence,' she wrote. There is also a Change.org petition in support of the fired professor which has gained 7,000 signatures. The petition calls on the university to launch an independent investigation and says it fired Prater without giving her the right to 'due process'. Muslim professor Amna Khalid said Hamline 'privileged a most extreme and conservative Muslim point of view' Prater has not commented on the scandal. After the incident in October, the university's associate vice president for inclusive excellence, referred to the lesson as 'undeniably Islamophobic' in an interview with the student newspaper. 'It was decided it was best that this faculty member was no longer part of the Hamline community,' he said. It remains unclear if Allison Baker, the department head who agreed with Prater and told her she'd done 'everything right', remains in her position. Hamline University did not respond to inquiries regarding criticism of the decision when contacted by DailyMail.com. Instead, a spokesman referred back to a December statement on the issue. 'Hamline University is composed of people with diverse views, expectations, and interactions. Our community, like many in higher education, is comprised of people with different lived experiences, including religious beliefs and traditions. 'We, as an institution, acknowledge the diversity among us and are committed to creating an environment of respect and care for each other. 'As has been reported, this past semester an adjunct instructor displayed images of the prophet Muhammad. Students do not relinquish their faith in the classroom. 'To look upon an image of the prophet Muhammad, for many Muslims, is against their faith. 'Questions about how best to discuss Islamic art have been raised by many academics and is certainly an issue worthy of debate and discussion. 'For those of us who have been entrusted with the responsibility of educating the next generation of leaders and engaged citizens, it was important that our Muslim students, as well as all other students, feel safe, supported, and respected both in and out of our classrooms,' a spokesman said. A six-year-old boy who shot his teacher in Virginia had stolen his mother's gun from their home before putting it in his backpack and pulling the trigger during class. The Richneck Elementary School student - who is still unnamed - is now being detained in a medical facility where professionals continue to psychologically evaluate him. Teacher Abby Zwerner, 25, is stable after the life-threatening attack on Friday. She was shot at point-blank range - and the bullet went through her hand and into her chest. She was giving her first grade class instructions when the child pulled the gun out of his backpack and shot her. Police have confirmed that the attack was intentional, not accidental. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said on Monday afternoon that more facts have to be gathered before the department can determine if charges will be filed against the boy's mother. Teacher Abby Zwerner, 25, is stable after the life-threatening attack on Friday. She was shot at point-blank range, and the bullet went through her hand and into her chest Zwerner was shot at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News around 2pm on Friday Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew told a press conference that the child shot one round, which went through the teacher's hand and then chest Drew also revealed that Zwerner made sure all of the children in her class were safe and out of the room before she attempted to get help for herself. He said that the teacher's first question when he visited her was 'do you know how my students are.' The six-year-old 'combative' boy was physically detained by another school employee following the terrifying shooting - who he then hit, police confirmed. When they arrived at the scene, they placed the child in a police car and later took him to be interviewed him with his mother. Police have confirmed that the gun which he brought into school was in fact his mother's. She had bought it legally in York County, and it was in their home. It's currently unclear how the child was able to obtain the weapon at home. The six-year-old 'combative' boy was physically detained by another school employee after the shooting - who he then hit, police confirmed The teacher has been hailed a hero in the local community Police have not released any details about the child - or his parents - but said that more interviews and probes are taking place. The six-year-old is now in a 'medical facility' and will appear before a judge in the coming days. Meanwhile, a grandparent of a student at the school claimed that the week prior to the attack, one child brought in 'shiny gold bullets' and told his class and teacher he was thinking about bringing in a gun. It is not clear if the student described by the grandparent is the same one who shot Zwerner. Speaking to DailyMail.com, the grandmother said: 'The parents outside stated that their child told them a kid brought golden shiny bullets to school and was thinking about bringing his gun. The student told the parent, who informed the school. 'And the school just yesterday got back to the parent saying the parent of the kid said it was a nerf bullet and the parent said nerf bullets aren't shiny and gold.' Zwerner was reportedly attempting to confiscate the gun from the young child when he shot her. Police said they were working to determine how the child got the weapon and why he shot his teacher. Richneck is remaining closed through Friday of this week as the school and community continue to ponder ways to get students through this crisis. One parent, Mark Anthony Garcia, whose young son attends Richneck, told CNN that the entire incident is a safety system failure of the education apparatus. He said that local parents have raised prior concerns to no avail. 'We've talked to the principal, we've talked to the guidance counselor, we've went to town hall meetings, we spoke on zooms, what else are we supposed to do?' he said. As a veteran, Garcia said that what happened at the school was the failure of multiple security measures, including metal detectors, of which he says the school has just one in the library. Garcia's son, Mark Jr., told CNN that just after the shooting, which he heard from his nearby classroom, 'we all stayed quiet.' 'Two people were crying,' he said. One key question, Mark Sr. said, is understanding if there were any issues in the classroom in the past. Dr. James Fedderman, President of the Virginia Education Association, said the problem is only going to get worse if the mental health needs of students are not met soon. 'We're going to see an increase in crime in our schools and we really needs to take the reins and do something about it,' he said, adding that schools do not currently have the capacity to address the 'social-emotional needs of our students.' Richneck Elementary will remain closed this week as administrative leaders continue to think through how to move students past the trauma experienced Friday Lawonda Sample-Rusk told a local outlet how she responded to the shooting of 25-year-old teacher Abby Zwerner Lawonda Sample-Rusk, a grandmother who was at the school early on Friday to pick up her two grandchildren, helped render aid to the wounded Zwerner. Rusk told local news outlet WKTR that she heard Zwerner cry out 'I'm shot, I'm shot. Call 911.' She and the school receptionist at first thought Rusk had just been wounded on her hand, but then she 'passed out on the floor.' Rusk and the receptionist stayed with Zwerner and helped put pressure on the wound while other administrators herded young students to designated safe zones. The terrifying Friday incident led Rusk to the area's second annual Stop the Violence Rally. Concerned residents, community activists and city leaders came together to share concerns about community safety following the shooting. Police have so far declined to comment on what, if any, contact they've had with Zwerner. In its most recent round of layoffs, Twitter reportedly fired more than a dozen international workers, including staff from the division in charge of the platform's disinformation policy. Those laid off include Nur Azhar Bin Ayob, who was appointed head of site integrity for the Asia-Pacific region, and Analuisa Dominguez, senior director of revenue policy at Twitter. The Recent Layoff Follows A String Of Employee Cuts Under Musk's Leadership Along with a few staff members working on the platform's worldwide appeals procedure and state media program, Twitter also let go of staffers in charge of managing the company's disinformation policy. According to Engadget, Twitter's head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, acknowledged that the company recently made additional job reductions, but she disputed which teams were affected. Irwin asserts that it made more sense to combine teams under a single manager and that Twitter cut positions in areas where the company didn't perceive sufficient "volume" to warrant the expense in people. She then adds that Twitter will continue to have a head of revenue policy and that its appeals department will now have more people. It can be remembered that early in November, Elon Musk reduced costs at Twitter by firing about 3,700 workers; a few hundred more followed suit. Despite Musk's promise, Twitter has made personnel reductions, even though the scale hasn't been as severe as it was in the immediate aftermath of his takeover. It can be remembered that halfway through the month, the social network let go of several employees in its infrastructure segment. According to Engadget, the company employs about 2,000 people, which is little over 25% fewer than it did before to Musk's acquisition. Only recently, a lawsuit was also filed against the platform last month, alleging that the social network company unfairly singled out female employees for layoffs, Reuters reports. Read More: Twitter Fails To Pay San Francisco Office Rent, Gets Sued By Landlord A Bunch Of Former Twitter Employees Are Receiving Severance Pays For The Layoffs After waiting for two months, hundreds of Twitter employees who were part of Musk's initial round of layoffs recently received severance paperwork. With that, they now have to decide if they want to file lawsuits against the business and its billionaire owner or whether to join them. However, many laid off workers were debating signing away their rights in exchange for one month of severance even before they got their agreements. According to Business Insider, one of the recipients of the agreement stated that they would not sign it and would instead take part in one of the numerous lawsuits currently in progress. Meanwhile, the separation agreements appear to be largely boilerplate and provide laid-off employees with one month of pay as severance. It can be remembered that this comes around after Musk tweeted on November 4 that "everyone exited" had been given a 3 month severance package, which he said was 50% more than what was legally required. Note that companies are required by state labor laws to provide specific notice periods for mass layoffs, Business Insider writes. Related Article: Twitter To Bring Back Political Ads To Potentially Increase Revenue A former U.S. defense intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying for Cuba more than 20 years ago has been released early from a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Ana Belen Montes, 65, was released Friday, Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Scott Taylor said on Saturday. She was granted early release, largely on account of good behavior. Montes was the top military and political analyst working on Cuban affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) when she was arrested in September 2001 and charged with spying for Cuba as a result of an FBI investigation. An undated handout image from a U.S. Department of Defense report dating back to 2005 shows Ana Belen Montes receiving a national intelligence certificate of distinction from George Tenet, who served as Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency Montes pleaded guilty in 2002 to conspiring to commit espionage as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She acknowledged revealing the identities of four undercover agents for the U.S. to Cuban authorities and had faced a possible death sentence if convicted. Federal prosecutors at the time said the four agents whose identities she revealed were not harmed. U.S. prosecutors also accused Montes of disclosing to Cuba secrets so sensitive they could not be described publicly. Court records said she provided documents that revealed details about U.S. surveillance of Cuban weapons. Officials at the time said Montes was believed to have been recruited by Cuban intelligence when she worked in the Freedom of Information office at the Justice Department between 1979 and 1985, and was asked to seek work at an agency that would provide more useful information to Cuba. She began working for the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1985, and was considered a top analyst on the Cuban military. Montes (pictured) was the top military and political analyst working on Cuban affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency when she was arrested in September 2001 and charged with spying for Cuba as the result of an FBI investigation 'Though I knew this day would come, it stings me Montes is now free,' said Pete Lapp, a retired FBI special agent who led the investigation with another agent, Steve McCoy, and arrested Montes. 'Having been in the room and helped the FBI build a very solid, prosecutable case that led to a hefty 25-year prison sentence, what we learned after from her in the debriefing shocked me.' The FBI arrested Montes 10 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The DIA was preparing to assign her to a team that would be privy to information concerning locations the U.S. might bomb in Afghanistan. 'Her intent to spy for the Cubans, if not arrested, against our warfighters in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks would have risked lives,' Lapp, who co-authored a book about the case, Queen of Cuba, scheduled to be published in October, told the Washington Post. Montes told the judge who sentenced her in 2002: 'I believe our government's policy toward Cuba is cruel and unfair, profoundly unneighborly, and I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system upon it.' Prior to her release, members of Montes's family said in a statement she had 'committed treason against this country and the people of our nation'. They added: 'We continue to disavow what she did and any statements she has made or may make.' Police described how Mortensen froze in fear after spotting the killer who is alleged to be Bryan Kohberger, 28 An affidavit revealed that Mortensen saw the murderer the night of the killings describing him as at least 5ft 10 tall and having 'bushy eyebrows' The University of Idaho sophomore was wearing shorts in chilly weather and had her hair pulled back Amid the torment of losing three of her roommates in a tragic murder, University of Idaho student Dylan Mortensen has been spotted for the first time since it was revealed she saw the killer at the scene. Exclusive DailyMail.com photos show the 19-year-old sophomore returning to her family's home in Boise after a Sunday morning coffee run. Dressed in shorts in chilly 44-degree weather, Mortensen had her blonde hair tied back for a brief outing to a Starbucks close to her home. She also wore a navy blue fleece top. Mortensen and Bethany Funke, also 19, both survived the November 13 bloodbath but lost three of their roommates Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, in the vicious attack. Xana's boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 21, was also murdered. DailyMail.com spotted Dylan Mortensen, 19, at her family home in Boise, Idaho, Sunday morning after a trip to Starbucks The University of Idaho sophomore was wearing shorts in chilly weather and had her hair pulled back This is the first time Mortensen has been seen since it was revealed she saw the killer at the scene (L-R) Mortensen is pictured with her slain roommate Xana Kernodle, survivor Bethany Funke, and victims Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen Last Thursday, a police affidavit released ahead of alleged killer Bryan Kohberger's first court appearance in Moscow, Idaho, revealed that Mortensen saw the murderer describing him as at least 5ft 10 tall and sporting a pair of 'bushy eyebrows.' Kohberger, 28, a PhD student at Washington State University, has been charged with the four murders and a charge of burglary. Idaho is a death penalty state. In the affidavit, police described how Mortensen froze in fear early on November 13 after spotting the killer, having opened her bedroom door after hearing noises in the six-bedroom rental home. She had opened the door twice before once after hearing Kaylee say someone was in the house and again after the sound of crying came from Xana's bedroom. The teen told police she had locked herself in her second-floor bedroom after the encounter with the killer who was wearing a ski mask at the time but didn't dial 911. Police weren't called to the scene until 11.58am seven and a half hours after the students died. Funke is believed to have slept through the attack in her ground floor bedroom. According to the affidavit, Mortensen said she was awoken at around 4am by what sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog in a third-floor bedroom. A short time later she heard Goncalves say 'there's someone here', the haunting affidavit reveals. Mortensen looked out of her bedroom door but didn't see anything. The second time she opened her door she heard a male voice say something like, 'it's ok, I'm going to help you.' Mortensen was one of two roommates who survived the brutal Idaho murder case that claimed four of her friends. Police described how Mortensen froze in fear after spotting the killer - who is alleged to be Bryan Kohberger, 28 An affidavit revealed that Mortensen saw the murderer the night of the killings describing him as at least 5ft 10 tall and having 'bushy eyebrows' (L-R) Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee's shoulders), Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke. Dylan and Bethany are the only two who survived the killing Investigators were pictured removing one of the mattresses from the crime scene on Friday The brutal slayings happened in the early morning of November 13. It took investigators more than a month to take Kohberger into custody At 4.17am, a neighbor's security camera picked up audio of 'what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times.' Mortensen 'stated she opened her door for the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her'. The family of victim Kaylee Goncalves have defended Mortensen's actions. Attorney Shanon Gray, who is representing the Goncalves family, said Mortensen was likely 'scared to death' when she encountered the man, and insisted that she was 'still a victim in this case.' Police unsealed an arrest affidavit revealing why they've pointed the finger at Bryan Kohberger more than a month after four students were stabbed to death 'The fact that she was able to give some additional identification, I think it's beneficial in this case,' Gray said. 'She was able to give, kind of, the type and build and what [the suspect] looked like a little bit bushy eyebrows, things along those lines.' The Goncalveses are the latest to defend Mortensen after the roommate of a woman who suffered a brutal 1992 attack said she also had a delayed response during a similar scenario. Alanna Zabel, 50, revealed the 'eerie similarities' of the attack she survived more than 30 years ago and exclusively told DailyMail.com that living with 'survivors guilt' has haunted her throughout her life. She has slammed critics of Mortensen, saying people 'don't know how they'd react' in a similar situation. Zabel lived in a house with five sorority sisters off campus from the University of Buffalo and said that she too had a delayed response and felt guilty that she went to sleep despite hearing muffled heavy breathing in her roommate's room and only called cops the next day. 'Someone was stalking us and broke in one night while we were out partying and drinking late,' she said. 'They brutally beat and raped my housemate. I found her six hours later and she nearly died.' The family of victim Kaylee Goncalves leave Latah County Court in Moscow Idaho, after Bryan Kohberger was formally charged last week. The Goncalves family have defended Mortensen's actions Zabel said she can relate having also had a delayed response as she pieced together the horrific 1992 attack. Alanna Zabel, 50, found her college roommate near to death in her blood covered room in 1992 and has defended the delayed reaction of University of Idaho quadruple murder survivor Dylan Mortensen 'For those coming down on the roommate who saw him inside the house and didn't call police, I understand completely, and I too am in anguish that she hadn't,' she said. 'But I can also say that you don't know how you would react or respond in a similar situation until you're there.' 'I can imagine the guilt this surviving roommate in Idaho must be feeling. I too called 911 reporting an unconscious person because I didn't understand the extent of what was happening.' She went on to say when you're living in an environment, like college, where having strangers in your house becomes normal it's hard to 'fathom' a tragedy like this. 'You don't want to believe it to be true. Being so young I can imagine she went into shock, it's a true defense mechanism for survival,' she said. 'I am praying for her healing and all families involved in this senseless tragedy. I request people not to judge her, she's going to be judging herself for the rest of her life.' A delivery driver accused of murdering a 71-year-old millionairess in her home told a murder trial that he woke up, went downstairs and found her dead in the living room. Romanian Mohammed El-Abboud, 24, was living in victim Louise Kam's house after his friend, a 28-year-old chef named Kusai Al-Jundi, promised to buy the property in a 6 million deal. Ms Kam drove her BMW to the house in East Barnet on July 26 2021, thinking a lawyer would be there to finalise arrangements with the pair, but would never leave home alive. El-Abboud and Al-Jundi strangled the woman and dumped her body in a bin which was found three days later outside Al-Jundis home, the Old Bailey heard. Romanian Mohammed El-Abboud (right), 24, was living in victim Louise Kam's (left) house, after his friend promised to buy the property in a 6 million deal Al-Jundi offered Ms Kam 6 million he did not have after conning another woman out of her Audi TT and a Toyota Rav 4 by promising to pay 57,000 and giving her nothing, it was said. Giving evidence today, El-Abboud told jurors he was living in Ms Kams home in Gallants Farm Road on the day she died. I came downstairs and I saw Ms Louise laid down in the living room,' he told jurors. I saw Ms Louise and I got scared and I was shocked and I started to cry. I felt a reaction I do not know how to explain. Graham Trembath, defending, asked El-Abboud: Was the body moving at all? This Audi TT was stolen from another woman by the two men, El-Abboud and Al-Jundi, who strangled Louise Kam and dumped her body in a bin, it is alleged El-Abboud said: I didnt pay attention because I was so shocked...I didnt have time to do anything because my phone was ringing. Al-Jundi had called El-Abboud using his friend Maria Amariucais number - with call records showing they spoke for more than 22 minutes, the court heard. El-Abboud told the court: I said What have you done? Have you killed a woman? I was crying and shouting and he said: Shut the f*** up the neighbours will hear you''. I was just shaking and crying and then he said shut up dont worry because I will clean up all of this mess''. At that time I started to shake again and I heard Maria say please calm down. I went up to my room, I was by my bed and I kept crying and I said: What should I do now you have destroyed my life? and he said dont worry. I said I will call the police and he said do not make this mistake because nobody will believe me. He said: Listen to me, youve got no house, no money, no family - youve got nothing and you dont even know how to speak English. But I do have money, I have power and I can sort out absolutely everything so dont worry, calm down. I can sort out this mess, I promise you I will not get you into trouble. El-Abboud continued and said he went back downstairs to the living room. The room was smelling very badly...her face was changed, it was black,' he said. I ran upstairs and I put my clothes on. I stayed thinking, what should I do? I was alone and I didnt know what to do. Mr Trembath, defending, asked: Mr El-Abboud, why did you not ring the police? He replied: I was afraid - I didnt know what to do. Mr Trembath asked: Why did you not call an ambulance? El-Abboud replied: I got scared - this was the first time I had experience anything like this. I just woke up, came downstairs and saw a dead woman in the living room. How did you know she was dead?,' Mr Trembath asked. El-Abboud said: I didnt know, but when I saw her, my phone was ringing straight away and the colour of her face had changed. I dont know how, but I knew she was dead. Al-Jundi, of Wood End Road, Harrow, and El-Abboud, whose last address was Gallants Farm Road, Barnet, both deny Ms Kams murder. Al-Jundi has chosen not to give evidence before the jury. The trial continues. Ministers were accused of a 'tin-eared' tax raid on struggling clubs, pubs and bars today that could force them to close or send costs for drinkers soaring. The Home Office wants to increase the use of a 'late night levy' paid by venues that sell alcohol between midnight and 6am to fund local policing and other costs incurred when they are open. It today launched a consultation on changes to the scheme, which has been in place for a decade but has only been brought in by nine local authorities. The changes would introduce more flexibility for reluctant local councils to target individual businesses and areas instead of across their entire area, as the rules currently demand. This blanket approach is blamed for local authorities' reluctance to introduce the tax in the first place. The fee ranged from 299 a year for smaller businesses to 4,449 for larger business. But the industry warned that change could force hospitality firms already struggling to go to the wall or pass the cost on to punters. UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said: 'It will make it easier to put in place the levy and businesses will be forced to pass this on to consumers ... it's tin-eared, there is no justification at this point in time.' The Home Office wants to increase the use of a 'late night levy' paid by venues that sell alcohol between midnight and 6am to fund local policing and other costs incurred when they are open. UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said: 'It will make it easier to put in place the levy and businesses will be forced to pass this on to consumers ... it's tin-eared, there is no justification at this point in time.' She added: 'The ineffective and costly late night levy continues to stifle the recovery of the night-time economy, which was among the hardest hit by the pandemic. 'Now is not the time to extend the levy and the economic harm it inflicts on our late-night venues, taking 365,000 from the industry last year. Instead, the levy should be abolished in order to free up much-needed cash for businesses to invest in their business or, in many cases, simply stay afloat. 'Some cities across the UK have reached that conclusion themselves, taking the decision to remove the levy, and the House of Lords Committee are of the same view; concluding the levy had failed to achieve its objectives and should be abolished. 'The night-time economy is part of the fabric of towns and cities across the country, attracting thousands of visitors and raising millions for the economy. I'd urge the Government to remove the levy as soon as possible to allow the night-time economy to flourish, recognising all the benefits it brings to local areas.' Plans to make the levy more flexible to increase its use were first mooted in 2017 but the project was put on the backburner due to the Covid pandemic, which hammered the hospitality industry. The money raised by the levy is split between the local licensing authority and the area's police and crime commissioner (PCC) and is used to pay for the costs associated with having venues open late night, such and policing and street cleaning. But its use has so far been very limited. Nottingham Council, which did introduce it in 2014, voted to remove in in September last year. The consultation document says: 'Since the levy was brought into force in 2012, the most recent 2022 statistical bulletin finds that only 9 LA's have implemented the levy. 'This may be because local authorities consider that the levy is inflexible and unfair in terms of which businesses pay the levy. In 2017, the Government committed to improve the late night levy in order to increase its use and raise more funds by making it more flexible for local areas, fairer to business and more transparent.' There are some limited exemptions to the levy, including for hotels open only to overnight guests, theatres and cinemas, bingo halls, some village pubs and venues that open late only on New Year's Eve. The head of the Border Patrol agents' union slammed President Joe Biden for failing to meet any migrants or rank-and-file officers during his Sunday visit to El Paso, Texas. Brandon Judd on Monday said his members were furious that Biden and the national media got a stage-managed view of conditions at the border. 'Every single Border Patrol agent that I've spoken with is extremely frustrated and upset about what just took place yesterday,' the president of the National Border Patrol Council told DailyMail.com. 'They are upset that he was not willing to see what's actually going on. They're upset that they cleaned everything up. 'They're upset that him knowing that he was going to bring the mainstream media with them, that we all of a sudden doubled the number of agents in the field so the mainstream media would say: "Hey, there's nothing going on here, nothing to see.' Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, slammed President Joe Biden's visit to the southern border on Sunday, saying he did not get a full picture of the crisis Immigrants sleep on the sidewalk near a migrant shelter on January 9, 2023, a day after the president's visit. He did not meet any migrants during his tour of border facilities It was Biden's first visit to the border since becoming president. For the past two years Republicans have used record numbers of illegal crossings to hammer his administration for what they say is an 'open border' policy. Biden's supporters hoped his visit would blunt the attacks. But it emerged that law enforcement agents conducted a sweep of the city last week, taking migrants off the street, in what critics said was an effort to give Biden a 'sanitized' tour. The number of illegal crossings has also plunged in the past two weeks, easing conditions in El Paso. And Biden got a frosty welcome from Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, who handed him a letter condemning his policies. Judd said Biden did not meet any migrants and the tour amounted to nothing more than 'optics.' 'He didn't tour any facilities where migrants would have been,' he said. 'So he didn't see anything. 'He did not see any of the chaos that he's created, that he's caused.' Biden was making his first visit to the southern border since becoming president. White House officials have been able to point to one other visit during his career in politics Just a short distance from where President Biden was taking a stroll along a 'sanitized' stretch of the border fence in El Paso, migrants continued to cross the Rio Grande river into the U.S. In December, this area was filled with migrants sleeping on the streets. Bon Saturday, the same streets had no sign of the migrants who had camped there after a clearance operation Biden flew into the border town en route to Mexico City for a North American leaders' summit. From the airport, Biden visited the Bridge of the Americas actually a series of bridges connecting El Paso with the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez for a close-up look at the border and a bustling port of entry. He watched border officers demonstrate how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. A yellow Labrador was shown detecting fruit and meat in a vehicle, before a chocolate Labrador retrieved what appeared to be a package of drugs from another car. As he toured the port of entry, a sign reading, 'Bienvenido a Mexico,' could be seen on the far side of the border. From there he took a stroll along the side of the border fence, and on to the El Paso County Migrant Services Center to hear about the services that were offered to new arrivals. During his tour Biden was shown how border officers search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband at the El Paso port of entry on the Bridge of the Americas Biden was shown a fake battery that was used in an attempt to smuggle drugs into the U.S. Abbott handed this letter to Biden at El Paso International Airport, ensuring a frosty welcome to Texas on Sunday as the president makes his first visit to the border since taking office He asked how many people came through the center and was told about 300 to 500 a day, although it sometimes reached as many as 1000. His drive to the center, along closed-off roads, actually brought him close to people who that day had crossed the Rio Grande river on to U.S. soil. They cheered as his motorcade thundered past the other side of the border fence from him. But he would have been oblivious to their presence as his convoy raced past. Judd said Biden claimed before the visit he wanted to get a better understanding of the problems at the border. 'He didn't get any more of an understanding that what he had before he went, and again, that's politics,' he said. 'It was just optics. It was a photo shoot.' He claims Kate was upset that Meghan took a day to respond to her text Harry has given his first full account of the infamous bridesmaid dress fitting at the heart of 'Megxit', claiming Princess Charlotte 'cried when she tried it on at home'. Directly referencing his niece a breach of privacy that is sure to anger his brother William Harry insists the incident was driven by his sister-in-law Kate, who appeared irritated that it had taken Meghan a day to get back to her about the problem. The disagreement between the two women was, he claims, further exacerbated by Kate's unwillingness to visit Meghan's tailor at Kensington Palace and suggestions that they hold a party for the page boys when his bride-to-be was busy dealing with a row with her father, Thomas Markle. Opening his latest salvo, the prince writes that Meghan received a text from Kate four days before their wedding saying there was a problem with the dresses for the bridesmaids and they needed altering. They were 'French couture' and had been hand-sewn from measurements only without a fitting so 'it wasn't a big shock' that they might not fit perfectly, he says. Harry and Meghan celebrate their wedding day in May 2018 despite tensions within the family and drama with Meghan's father Kate and Meghan exchanged a series of texts (re-created, above) about the bridesmaid dress, according to Harry Harry writes: 'Meg didn't reply to Kate straight away. Yes, she had endless wedding-related texts, but mostly she was dealing with the chaos surrounding her father. So the next morning she texted Kate that our tailor was standing by.' She told her that his name was Ajay and he was 'at the palace'. 'This wasn't sufficient,' Harry goes on to write darkly. After setting up a time to speak later that afternoon, Harry writes that Kate complained: 'Charlotte's dress is too big, too long, too baggy. She cried when she tried it on a home.' Meghan snapped back: 'Right, and I told you the tailor has been standing by since 8am. Here. At KP. Can you take Charlotte to have it altered, as the other mums are doing?' According to Harry's version of events, Kate replied: 'No, all the dresses need to be remade.' And said she had discussed the issue with her 'own wedding designer' who agreed. Pictured: Princess Charlotte in her bridesmaid dress after the Sussex wedding in 2018 Harry has given his first full account of the infamous bridesmaid dress fitting at the heart of 'Megxit', claiming Princess Charlotte 'cried when she tried it on at home' Harry writes: 'Meg asked if Kate was aware of what was going on right now. With her father. Kate said she was well aware, but the dresses. And the wedding is in four days!' 'Yes, Kate, I know....' his fiancee replied sharply. He also claims that his sister-in-law had 'problems with the way Meg was planning her wedding. Something about a party for the page boys? It went back and forth'. The prince reports his wife as saying: 'I'm not sure what else to say. If the dress doesn't fit then please take Charlotte to see Ajay. He's been waiting all day.' 'Fine', Kate is said to have replied. Harry states that he arrived home a short time later, which suggests that he and his ghost writer were given an account of the actual conversation by Meghan, to find his fiancee 'on the floor sobbing'. While he says he was 'horrified' to see her so upset, he didn't think it a catastrophe as emotions were understandably high. He told Meghan that 'Kate hadn't meant any harm'. The disagreement between the two women was, he claims, further exacerbated by Kate's unwillingness to visit Meghan's tailor at Kensington Palace. Pictured: the sisters-in-law in December 2018 He suggests his point was proved when the then Duchess of Cambridge came round the next morning with flowers and a card to say sorry. Harry makes a point of writing that Meghan's best friend, Lindsay, was in the kitchen when she turned up as if to suggest he can prove his version of events. There have been several different versions over the years of who made whom cry. It was initially claimed that Meghan made Kate weep, a suggestion that so incensed the Sussexes they went to war with their press office and demanded they put out a correction. When officials refused, saying it would spark more questions about the incident and set a precedent for speaking about private family matters, the couple decreed that it was another example of how the palace was unwilling to stand up for them. Indeed, it was one of the first issues to be tackled by Meghan in her Oprah interview, with Harry subsequently insisting in their Netflix docuseries last month that it demonstrated how the institution was willing to lie to protect his brother but not tell the truth for them. He was at it again today in his Good Morning America interview when asked for examples of how the palace put a negative spotlight on Meghan in order to protect other royals. Harry told the interviewer: 'It's so petty but the bridesmaids' dresses. While I was writing the book we were on version 29 or 30, all of which involved my wife supposedly making numerous people within my family cry which simply wasn't the case. For historical reference the truth needs to be there and it needs to come from me.' However sources have continued to suggest that Meghan was being difficult and that Kate went round with flowers not to 'apologise' but as a 'classy' gesture to 'keep the peace'. Read More: Will there be any way back for Harry and Charles after his searing attack on Camilla? Prince branded Queen Consort 'dangerous' and accused her of plot to marry his father in Tom Bradby sit down despite King 'warning him criticising his wife was a red line' Harry suggests he and Meghan will NEVER give up their royal titles after Anderson Cooper asked why they don't renounce them and live privately during explosive 60 Minutes interview: Prince blasts 'what difference would that make?' Royal family were horrible to him on the day the Queen died, Harry claims in score-settling ITV interview Toms sustained injuries to her hip and leg from the assault The man was hospitalized but it's not clear the injuries he sustained in the attack The physical assault took place on New Year's Eve at a hotel in San Diego Video captured the shocking moment a US Marine attacks two female San Diego hotel workers - including a woman who was 4-foot 10- inches - before being knocked out by a metal lamp. The video shows a male identified as Jason Frink approaching the hotel desk and asking for a room. When the two women behind the counter told him that there was no availability the man became hostile and began swearing at them. When Ronnie Toms, one of the hotel employees, asked Frink to leave he refused and continued to walk through the lobby. When the unidentified co-worker, a petite brunette told him he cannot pass, he shoved her in a rage as she appeared both stunned and terrified. On the video, she is heard saying, 'Please don't touch me,' as Toms, who was recording the disturbing scene yells out, 'Don't touch her bro. Don't f*****g touch her. You just pushed her. You just assaulted her and it is on camera.' The assailant then grew more aggressive and turned towards Toms saying ready to fight. 'Here we go. Put it up,' he said. 'I know where you are from. What's up,' he said before he started slugging Toms. A photo of the man identified by a US Marine by the Marine corps, assaulted two workers at a hotel in San Diego on New Year's Eve There is a loud commotion heard on the video as Toms grabs a metal lamp fighting back and she is seen bashing Frink with the lamp as he tries to grab her feet. Toms continues to hit Frink who was face down on the ground at this point using his hands to cover his head before he submitted. The video shows some pools of blood on the floor of the hotel. Both Toms and Frink were injured in the scuffle. Toms is heard on the video sharing her agony of hip and leg pain after the assault. Frink was hospitalized but it unclear the injuries he sustained, News Relationship reported, The Marine unit - I MEF COMMSTRAT located in Camp Pendleton, California- told DailyMail.com on Monday confirmed it was Jason Frink but did not provide his rank in the Marines and the number of years he has been serving. 'We are aware of and are actively investigating a video on social media of an incident potentially involving a Marine,' the statement said. 'The Marine Corps remains committed to holding its Marines to the highest standards and will not tolerate any violation of our institutional core values.' It is not clear what hotel in San Diego the incident took place in. A picture of the petite co-worker with her hands out telling Frink that he is unable to pass Seconds later Frink is seen aggressively pushes the unidentified co-worker who appears both stunned and terrified Frink face down on the ground holding his hands over his head as Toms is bashed with a metal pole Ronnie Toms was the hotel employee who jumped in to defend her co-worker after she was shoved by Frink after he became aggressive on December 31, 2022 Toms, a skateboard enthusiast, went to her Instagram and posted a statement after the disturbing ordeal. Though she did disclose her attacker she referred to him in a recent post as 'Aggressive Dare.' 'This is not a video to encourage violence. "Aggressive Daren" This is not how I wanted my year to end. I had no choice but to defend my 4'10 coworker and as well as myself,' she wrote. '(We are both women). After my adrenaline wore off I started feeling pain in my thighs shoulders and hips and neck. (I won't be able to skateboard for a bit doctors orders).' She asked her followers that if they want to show her 'love' they can 'throw a couple dollars' her way then put in the name of her Venmo account and cash app. 'My cash app is $thecollectivedrip I'm posting my Venmo/cash app because a closed mouth doesn't get fed also I've seen people do less and receive,' she wrote. 'Please restrain yourself from trolling my page. I'm a human with real emotions. So for the love of God Control yourself. Describe as an 'empowered woman,' many commended Toms for her bravery and for taking a stand to defend herself and her co-worker. The Georgia special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully sought to interfere in the state's 2020 U.S. presidential election results has issued its final report, a court filing showed on Monday, but it remained unclear whether criminal charges will follow. In an order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney dissolved the grand jury now that its work is complete and set a Jan. 24 hearing to determine whether the report will be made public. The jurors recommended that their findings be released, McBurney said in the order. The special grand jury, which was convened at the request of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, had subpoena power but not the ability to issue indictments. The Georgia special grand jury investigating whether former President Donald Trump and his allies unlawfully sought to interfere in the state's 2020 U.S. presidential election results has issued its final report. Trump is pictured at a November 2020 campaign rally in Georgia The special grand jury was convened by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, after Trump was heard on a phone call urging Georgia election officials to 'find' votes in the aftermath of the 2020 election Willis will ultimately decide whether to bring charges against Trump or anyone else, though the jury's report could include recommendations. Willis, a Democrat, opened a criminal investigation soon after a January 2021 phone call in which Trump, a Republican, urged top election officials to 'find' enough votes to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's statewide victory. The grand jury heard testimony from numerous state officials including Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as well as key Trump advisers such as U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and attorney Rudy Giuliani, many of whom unsuccessfully attempted to quash their subpoenas. Prosecutors have told Giuliani he is a target and could face criminal charges, as well as Trump allies who backed a scheme to appoint alternate electors in a bid to deliver Georgia's electoral votes to Trump, rather than Biden, in the Electoral College process that determines the outcome of presidential elections. A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. Trump has denied wrongdoing in Georgia and has continued to claim falsely that his 2020 election loss was the result of widespread voting fraud. A spokesperson for Willis's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Georgia investigation was one of several civil and criminal probes threatening Trump and his inner circle. The Justice Department has separate investigations into Trump's actions following the 2020 election and his retention of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021. In New York, Democratic Attorney General Letitia James has sued Trump, his children and his business, accusing them of lying to banks and insurers about the true value of his assets. Manhattan prosecutors are pursuing a parallel criminal investigation. The Trump Organization, his real estate business, was convicted of tax fraud last month in a New York court. Vatican officials are to reopen an investigation into the mystery disappearance of a teenage girl almost 40 years ago. Emanuela Orlandi, 15, vanished in Rome in June 1983 just two years after a failed assassination on the life of the then Pope John Paul II and there has been no trace of her ever since, with some linking her case to that of attempted hit. The Vatican's senior prosecutor Alessandro Diddi will lead the new probe, which will go over old case files and speak again to witnesses, although many are thought to have died - but Emanuela's brother Pietrro is still alive. Emanuela was the daughter of a Vatican employee and disappeared as she was on her way to a music lesson. There have long been suspicions that the Vatican knows more about what happened but has kept silent. The Vatican is to reopen the case of Emanuela Orlandi, 15, who vanished in Rome in June 1983 The Vatican's senior prosecutor Alessandro Diddi will lead the new probe, which will go over old case files and speak again to witnesses Some say it was an attempt to blackmail the Vatican to release Mehmet Ali Agca - a Turk jailed in 1981 for trying to kill Pope John Paul II. Another theory put forward in 2012 by an exorcist said she was kidnapped by a member of the Vatican police to be used as a sex slave and later murdered. Others said there is a connection to the grave of Enrico De Pedis, a mobster buried in a Rome basilica who was a boss inside the Magliana Band criminal organisation. Investigators looked into the possibility that she had been kidnapped by members of the Banda della Magliana (Magliana Band) in an attempt to recover money lost by crime groups when the Banco Ambrosiano, a Vatican-linked bank, collapsed. In 1982 Roberto Calvi, the bank's chairman, was found hanging from scaffolding underneath London's Blackfriars Bridge. Last year evidence linking De Pedis has emerged in testimony given in 2008 by a former mobster named Salvatore Sarnataro, who pointed the finger at his own son and De Pedis when speaking to police at the time. Sarnataro said his son - Marco, a gang member - had confessed to taking part in an operation to follow and kidnap Orlandi on the orders of De Pedis - who in addition to being a crime boss was also a member of the ultra-religious Catholic organisation Opus Dei. According to Sarnataro, Marco was ordered by De Pedis to tail the teenager for days before he and two others took her in a BMW to Rome's EUR district, before handing her off to another crime boss who took her away. A poster announcing the vanishing of Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee A handout picture provided by the Vatican Media shows experts opening the ossuary at the Teutonic Cemetery, to help solve the 36-year-old disappearance of Italian teenager Emanuela Orlandi, in Vatican City, 20 July 2019 People hold pictures of Emanuela Orlandi reading 'march for truth and justice for Emanuela' in St. Peter's square at the Vatican, in 2012 Sarnataro said Marco told him of his involvement in the infamous plot when the pair were serving time in prison on drugs charges. In October the mystery was the subject of a four-part series on Netflix called Vatican Girl: The Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi. Three weeks ago a senator in the Italian parliament called for a commission to be investigate the disappearance and the reopening is thought to be linked to his request. Senator Carlo Calenda said the aim of a commission would be to pressure the Vatican to finally turn over everything it knows about Orlandi's disappearance to Italian law enforcement authorities, saying its longstanding official claim of ignorance was 'hardly credible'. 'We are a great secular nation that treats the Vatican with respect, but this case certainly cannot be considered closed in this way.' In July 2019 the tombs of two princesses in the Vatican's Teutonic Cemetery, opened in a search for Orlandi's body, were found empty. Speculation on Orlandi's disappearance, and that of another 15-year-old girl in the same summer of 1983, has been rife over the years. In late November 2018 Rome prosecutors said bones found in an annex to the Vatican's nunciature to Italy do not belong to Orlandi or the other girl, Mirella Gregori who disappeared a month before Orlandi vanished. Former McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook has been charged by federal regulators with making false and misleading statements to investors about the extent of his employee romances when he was fired in 2019. In an order on Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hit Easterbrook with a $400,000 fine, and a five-year ban on serving as a corporate officer or director. McDonald's fired Easterbrook in November 2019 for exercising 'poor judgment' by engaging in a sexting relationship with an unnamed McDonald's employee, and the official separation agreement said he was terminated 'without cause.' But Easterbrook failed to disclose additional secret romances with other employees in violation of corporate policy, the SEC said in its order. Former McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook has been charged by federal regulators with making false and misleading statements to investors about his firing Easterbrook's former girlfriend Denise Paleothodoros (with him above) expressed shock when he was accused of carrying on romances with multiple employees The agency also charged McDonald's with 'shortcomings' in its public disclosures related to Easterbrook's ouster, but did not impose any fines on McDonald's due to the firm's 'substantial cooperation' with the investigation, the SEC said. Attorneys for Easterbrook, who consented to the order but did not admit or deny the SEC's findings, did not respond immediately to calls for comment. McDonald's said in a statement that the settlement reinforced the fact it held Easterbrook 'accountable for his misconduct.' In 2021, Easterbrook returned over $105 million he received as a severance package in 2019 and apologized to the company to settle a lawsuit over the alleged cover-up. 'We fired him, and then sued him upon learning that he lied about his behavior,' the firm said in its statement on Monday. 'The company continues to ensure our values are part of everything we do, and we are proud of our strong 'speak up' culture that encourages employees to report conduct by any employee, including the CEO, that falls short of our expectations,' the statement added. In 2021, Easterbrook returned over $105 million he received as a severance package in 2019 and apologized to McDonald's to settle a lawsuit over the alleged cover-up McDonald had fired Easterbrook in November 2019 after he acknowledged exchanging videos and text messages in a non-physical, consensual relationship with an employee. Easterbrook told the Chicago company at the time that there were no other similar instances. The SEC said that Easterbrook knew or was reckless in not knowing that his failure to disclose additional violations of company policy before his firing would influence McDonalds disclosures to investors related to his exit and compensation. 'When corporate officers corrupt internal processes to manage their personal reputations or line their own pockets, they breach their fundamental duties to shareholders, who are entitled to transparency and fair dealing from executives,' said Gurbir Grewal, the SEC director of the Division of Enforcement. 'By allegedly concealing the extent of his misconduct during the company's internal investigation, Easterbrook broke that trust with - and ultimately misled - shareholders.' In 2020, Easterbrook's former girlfriend spoke out in his defense and said the accusations against him 'are not the gentleman I knew', in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com. Easterbrook is credited with revitalizing the company after profits fell, doing so by simplifying menus, improving the quality of ingredients and introducing healthier products such as more salads, fresh fruit and juices Easterbrook's former girlfriend Denise Paleothodoros spoke out in his defense and said the accusations against him 'are not the gentleman I knew' Denise Paleothodoros, 47, who was with Easterbrook from 2014 into early 2018, described their relationship as an intense romance, where she was whisked away on vacation on McDonald's private plane and had plans of moving into his $2.5 million condo in Chicago. The former PR executive met Easterbrook in 2014 while working for Golin, one of the many companies McDonald's hired to handle its PR. At the time, Easterbrook was McDonald's Global Chief Brand Officer. 'Steve disclosed our relationship to the board and I told my bosses at Golin, I was taken off the McDonald's account,' Denise said. She added: 'We didn't flaunt our relationship but we didn't really hide it either. Our relationship was above board and McDonald's knew about it and my company knew about it. People within both of our companies knew about our relationship.' In light of his firing, Denise said she was 'shocked and disappointed', adding: 'His actions described are not the actions of the person I knew. He was very careful about his image.' The couple even had plans to move in together and in 2017 Easterbrook plunked down $2.5 million for a sprawling 19th floor 3500 sq. feet, 3 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom luxury condo in Chicago Steve Easterbrook and his daughters, Rebecca, Katie and Lauren, are seen in Chicago's Miracle Mile after leaving his $2.5 million 19th floor luxury condo Easterbrook was spotted in January 2022 eating out with his daughters. He had previously agreed to return cash and stocks that he had been given after the fast food chain discovered he had had affairs with company underlings Easterbrook was credited with revitalizing McDonald's after profits fell, doing so by simplifying menus, improving the quality of ingredients and introducing healthier products such as more salads, fresh fruit and juices. His rise to the top of the world's most famous fast food brand was an extraordinary one. The Brit joined the company in 1993 as a branch manager, working his way up to become its UK chief in 2006 and then becoming president of its northern European business, putting him in charge of 1,800 restaurants. In 2011 he became boss of UK's Pizza Express and then Wagamama but then went back to McDonald's as Chief Brand Office in 2013. He then became overall boss in 2015, running the business from its $250 million headquarters in Chicago. Easterbrook was spotted in January 2022 for the first time since agreeing to hand back the huge severance package. His three daughters from Easterbrook's marriage to Susie Jennings which ended in divorce in 2015 had flown in from England to spend the holidays with their father. According to published reports, the two oldest, Katie and Lauren, attended the University of Bristol in southwest England. They stayed with him at his luxurious 19th floor, $2.5million penthouse condo overlooking Millennium Park - the same place he'd planned to move in with Paleothodoros years earlier. South Africa: Health Department discussing new COVID-19 variant This story has been published on: 2023-01-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Higher Education and Training Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, has warned prospective students, who want to register at institutions of higher learning, not to fall for bogus colleges. These institutions, also known as fly by night colleges, are not registered with the Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas), the Department of H... See more Facts about Russia-Ukraine conflict: Russia blames Ukraine for breaking ceasefire Xinhua) 10:24, January 09, 2023 A worker removes snow at the Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 21, 2022. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/Xinhua) Despite Russian troops' observance of the truce, Ukraine continued artillery shelling of populated areas and Russian positions, the Russian Defense Ministry said. MOSCOW/KIEV, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments in the Ukraine crisis: In accordance with instructions of the Russian president and the defense minister, a ceasefire regime has been declared along the entire line of contact in Ukraine from Friday noon to Saturday midnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a daily report on Friday. Despite Russian troops' observance of the truce, Ukraine continued artillery shelling of populated areas and Russian positions, while Russian forces responded with fire, the ministry said. - - - - Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Thursday that Kiev will agree on a ceasefire with Russia only after Russian troops are withdrawn from Ukraine. The Russian Federation must leave and only then will it have a "temporary truce," Podolyak said on his Twitter account. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a temporary ceasefire along the frontline of fighting, the Kremlin press service said in a statement. According to the statement, the truce will last for 36 hours starting at noon local time (0900 GMT) on Jan. 6, when Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas. Putin also called on Kiev to declare a ceasefire based on the fact that a large number of Orthodox citizens live in the combat areas. - - - - The United States and Germany will send Ukraine armored fighting vehicles built respectively by the two countries to bolster Kiev in its ongoing conflict with Russia, the White House said Thursday. The announcement was made in a statement about a telephone conversation between U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier in the day. During the call, Biden expressed the intent to supply Ukraine with armored fighting vehicles without specifying how many will go to Ukraine. Scholz said Germany was also prepared to aid Ukraine. The United States and Germany will train Ukrainian forces on how to operate the respective vehicles being given to Ukraine. - - - - In a phone call on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed a Ukrainian grain export deal and natural gas cooperation, Turkiye's presidential office said in a statement. Turkiye will improve its infrastructure in order to build a natural gas center, Erdogan told Putin, adding that calls for peace and negotiations should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a vision for a fair solution to the Ukrainian conflict. - - - - On Wednesday, the Russian armed forces destroyed two depots of artillery ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov told a daily briefing on Thursday. The Russian Aerospace Forces shot down a Su-24 aircraft and a Su-25 aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, he said, adding that 21 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed. In addition, five U.S. HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and four U.S. HARM anti-radar missiles were intercepted in Lugansk and Kherson, Konashenkov said. - - - - Russia struck Ukrainian forces in the Kupyansk direction, taking out more than 40 Ukrainian servicemen, two motor vehicles, and one sabotage and reconnaissance group in Kharkov, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a daily report on Wednesday. In the Krasny Liman direction, Russia launched artillery strikes at two assault detachments as well as manpower and hardware concentration areas of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which lost over 150 soldiers, one armored personnel carrier, seven armored fighting vehicles and three pickups. Russian forces continued their offensive in the Donetsk direction and the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 100 personnel, one tank, four armored fighting vehicles and five motor vehicles. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Earmarks are back and theyre costing American taxpayers a bundle. In case youve forgotten, earmarks, says FactCheck.org, "are government funds that are allocated by a legislator for a particular pet project, often without proper review." Often attached to the 12 large appropriation bills that Congress by law is supposed to pass each year to fund the federal government for the next year, earmarks tend to be concealed. That way, members of Congress from both parties can slip in funding for pricy or dubious projects in their districts or states that benefit themselves politically and, for the most part, nobody notices. People and the media especially dont notice earmarks when Congress fails to establish a proper budget for each of the 12 separate appropriation bills something it has managed to do only three times in the last 47 years, most recently in 1997. What Congress usually does is wait until the last minute and then lazily bundle the 12 funding bills into a single massive "omnibus" spending bill, such as the stinker that was just passed to fund the government in fiscal 2023. That $1.7 trillion monstrosity is 4,155 pages long and filled with 7,200 earmark projects costing $15 billion that, like the rest of the budget, nobody had time to review and question before hastily voting "aye!" The spending on earmarks was less than 1% of the cost of the overall omnibus bill. But the danger is that the earmarks can be used to persuade bribe? legislators to support massive bills that do spend ridiculous amounts of money and keep our $31 trillion in government debt ballooning. An omnibus bill also allows a lame-duck Congress to "pass" legislation it wanted to pass in 2022 but couldnt legislation that should be debated and voted upon in the light of day, but was not and never will be. SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY JWR UPDATE. IT'S FREE. Just click here. According to the Wall Street Journal, the omnibus bill included sizable changes to retirement savings rules, cosmetics regulation, Electoral Count Act reform, healthcare and goodness only knows what else. To be sure, earmarks euphemistically referred to by our government as "Community Project Funding" can fund useful or worthwhile projects, such as improvement to medical care, education and other important services. But they are just as likely to fund things they have no business funding. According to Reason magazine, the omnibus bill President Biden just signed earmarks $750,000 for fire alarm modernization at the Metropolitan Opera, funds the creation of a Ukrainian Independence Park, whatever that is, and will spend more than $3.6 million to build a Michelle Obama Trail. include_once "/home/jwreview/public_html/templates/double_ads.asp"; ?> Actually, I favor borrowing money to build such a trail, as it well may be our only opportunity to tell our legislators to take a hike! Youd think Republicans the party that pretends to be for fiscal responsibility and against wasteful spending would understand the dangers of earmark bribery. Youd think they would vote to ban them. In fact, Republicans did just that in 2011. But House Republicans voted to reverse their ban in March of 2021. And this past November, House Republicans voted by a 158-52 margin against a bill that would have banned earmarks again in the new118th Congress, in which they will hold the majority. I suppose the best we can hope for, then, is that House Republicans will be only slightly less reckless with earmark bribery than the 117th Congress, which was the most recklessly spending Congress in U.S. history. But considering that Republicans were rewarded with almost half of the earmark largesse packed into the latest omnibus bill, I have my doubts. (COMMENT, BELOW) A former Tory minister has quit the party and heaped praise on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on her way out. Claire Perry O'Neill, who served as Minister for Energy from 2017 to 2019 under Theresa May, accused the Conservative party of being overcome by 'ideology and self-obsession'. She was sacked from her role assisting Britain's preparations for the Cop26 summit in 2020 by Boris Johnson, but remained in the party until this month. Ms Perry O'Neill said, according to The Times: 'As much as I like and admire the prime minister and chancellor, they are too beholden to a party dominated now by ideology and self-obsession to deliver the big changes we need in a fact-based, competent way.' Claire Perry O'Neill, who served as Minister for Energy from 2017 to 2019 under Theresa May, accused the Conservative party of being overcome by 'ideology and self-obsession' 'As one of the longest-serving UK energy ministers, I want to applaud Keir Starmer and the Labour Party for putting energy at the top of their proposed new government inbox.' She said she was excited about the policy proposals Sir Keir has made, particularly for green technologies and a low carbon wealth fund. Ms Perry O'Neill also commended the proposed focus on a new way of governing, criticising 'short-term shout-outs'. 'Building a low-carbon, secure, affordable energy system for the UK is an immense challenge that needs sober, fact-driven, competent political leadership. I sense that is exactly what we will get should Labour win the next general election,' she said. She said she was excited about the policy proposals Sir Keir has made, particularly for green technologies and a low carbon wealth fund She was sacked from her role assisting Britain's preparations for the Cop26 summit in 2020 by Boris Johnson , but remained in the party until this month After Ms Perry O'Neill was sacked by Mr Johnson in 2020, she issued a withering warning to her former colleagues. At the time, she said: 'We have seen a huge lack of leadership and engagement. 'My advice to anybody to whom Boris is making promises - whether it is voters, world leaders, ministers, employees or indeed to family members - is to get it in writing, get a lawyer to look at it and make sure the money is in the bank.' She went on to be appointed managing director for climate and energy at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, where she remains. He is the fifth California Guard official to be fired or resign in four years Magram also had a subordinate complete his cybersecurity training for him Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Magram used troops to run his errands and give him rides A National Guard general was fired after an investigation into his behavior A California National Guard top commander was fired after officials received reports that he used subordinates for personal errands. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Magram used troops to take his mother grocery shopping and complete mandatory online cybersecurity training. Reports also indicate the general put an F-15C fighter jet on standby in a way that some said could be used in a way that might frighten civilian protesters. Magram is set to be 'involuntarily transferred' to the U.S. Air Force retired reserve, which is considered 'parallel' to a firing, according to National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Brandon Hill. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Magram used troops to take his mother grocery shopping and complete mandatory online cybersecurity training Reports also indicate the general put an F-15C fighter jet on standby in a way that some said could be used in a way that might frighten civilian protesters When looking into the allegations against the general, National Guard officials also found out that Magram also had one Guard member drive him 120 miles roundtrip for a dentist appointment. The serviceman who complained is cited in one document, saying: 'My job is to take care of the airmen in the state of California and not be a chauffeur for a general.' Officials also said they heard accusations Magram readied a fighter plane for a 'possible domestic mission' in 2020. The group said they feared his order would be considered 'buzzing' and solely an attempt to disperse crowd members during the George Floyd protests. Maj. Gen. David Baldwin suspended Magram with pay in 2021 after a report on the incident was shared by the Los Angeles Times. At the time, Baldwin denied that the jet had been prepared to fly and insisted the suspension had nothing to do with the LA Times report. When looking into the allegations against the general, National Guard officials also found out that Magram (third from left) also had one Guard member drive him 120 miles roundtrip for a dentist appointment The general said he believed the trips fell under the Air Force' 'wingman concept,' about looking out for fellow servicemen and women The Guard member who took Magram's mother to the grocery store spoke with officials and described the trip. 'She was particular. When I say particular, it had to be at Whole Foods. It just took her a long time to decide what she wanted, a lot of comparison shopping amongst products,' the unnamed Guard member stated. The report stated that Magram did not deny the claims, and even generally confirmed the accounts. The general said he believed the trips fell under the Air Force' 'wingman concept,' about looking out for fellow servicemen and women. 'I want to reiterate that had I ever heard of any ethics issues like this from subordinates, peers or commanders, or perceptions of such, I would have corrected or addressed it on the spot,' Magram said in a statement to an inspector general. 'I want to reiterate that had I ever heard of any ethics issues like this from subordinates, peers or commanders, or perceptions of such, I would have corrected or addressed it on the spot,' Magram said An internal inquiry done by the National Guard also reported Magram failed to take his annual cybersecurity training An internal inquiry done by the National Guard also reported Magram failed to take his annual cybersecurity training. The report found the general had lower-ranking Guard members each day request he be given temporary access to get into his computer. That system went on for two weeks until a lower Guard member eventually did the training for him. Magram said it was his 'tremendously busy operational tempo' that did not allow him to complete the training in a statement. A Guard memo obtained by the Los Angeles Times stated the man 'let a subordinate click through the training questions and obtain a certificate of completion for' him. Officials also said they heard accusations Magram readied a fighter plane for a 'possible domestic mission' in 2020 In 2017, the now-fired general was counseled for similar behavior. 'Your conduct has caused me to lose faith, trust, and confidence in your ability to continue serving,' Maj. Gen. Matthew Beevers, the Guard's acting adjutant general, wrote in a memorandum to Magram. According to his bio on the National Guard's website, Magram first enlisted in the California Air National Guard in 1985 as a musician in the 561st Air Force Band. The general has served at bases in Moffet and Sacramento in his nearly 40-year career with the service branch. Magram is now the fifth general to resign, retire, or be fired from the California National Guard All of the officials were fired or resigned after scandals reported on by the LA Times Magram is now the fifth general to resign, retire, or be fired from the California National Guard in the last four years as a result of scandals reported on by the LA Times. In July 2022, Baldwin resigned after an investigation into wrongdoing by high ranking officials. In April of 2019, not one but two colonels were relieved of duty over misconduct. Maj. Gen. Clay L. Garrison was dismissed on April 5 for being unable to 'maintain a positive command climate,' said Lt. Col. Thomas Keegan at the time. Less than one week later, the LA Times reported Col. Victor Sikora was relieved of command after engaging in 'conduct unbecoming of an officer' over complaints he he made whistleblowers feel threatened. In April of 2021, Maj. Gen. Gregory Jones resigned as commander of the California Air National Guard after Baldwin said he 'lost faith, trust, and confidence in [Jones] ability to foster an inclusive and healthy command climate.' Furious parents are speaking out after another Virginia school allegedly scrapped high school merit awards to advance 'equity' policies. Carrie Lukas and Asra Nomani spoke out about Langley High School's decision to withhold handing out the awards that recognize students for academics ahead of college applications. The school was the second in the state to hand out the awards months later than usual. 'We now have two high schools in the same school district - in the school district that has just been nakedly political, nakedly focused on things that are not about advancing kids' interests, but about this idea of equal outcomes for everyone,' Lukas told Fox News host Ashley Strohmier. 'They want them all to be equal. That means they don't want the top 3%.' Carrie Lukas, a parent, critiqued Langley High School's alleged decision to scrap high school merit awards to advance 'equity' policies The school is the second in the state accused of pushing 'equity' policies and delaying handing out awards to protect the feelings of non-recipients Kimberly Greer, Langley High School principal, apologized for the delay to some parents in an email last week while informing them their student received the award. 'I am delighted to let you know that your student was designated as committed a student by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation,' she wrote. 'I must apologize that certificates were not distributed to these students in the usual way this past fall. I am deeply sorry for this mistake.' Lukas didn't take the apology lightly and accused school officials of not wanting their children to succeed. 'What does that mean for those kids? It means that the school doesn't want them to succeed, or certainly the superintendent and Fairfax County Public School Board doesn't,' Lukas said. Meanwhile, Nomani called the delay a 'tragedy' on more than just a local level. 'On a national scale in terms of this war on merit that's happening, but in the personal lives of kids,' Nomani told the news outlet. 'They're waiting right now for answers from colleges, and there was this critical data point that was missing, which is this amazing honor of being in the top 3% of kids nationwide.' Asra Nomani also condemned the school's decision and called it a 'tragedy.' Nomani claimed the school didn't care about the students' success The Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Virginia Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology's policy was the first school in Fairfax, Virginia, to withhold handing out merit awards to protect the feelings of students who didn't receive them. Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears said last week that the policy was 'not the way,' during an impassioned appearance on Fox and Friends. 'This is not America,' she added. Parents have demonstrated outside the school, and called for the firing of Principal Ann Bonitatibus and Director of Student Services Brandon Kosatka, who they allege are responsible. Lt. Governor Sears called for an official probe into the allegations against Thomas Jefferson High. 'I'm astounded, and if these allegations are true, you know, I'm just livid,' she told Fox and Friends on Tuesday. 'I am hopping mad because imagine as a parent you tell your child, son, study hard, daughter, work hard, do well. This is what these children are trying to do. 'And how dare some of these educators keep these children's future in jeopardy like this.' 'You don't take the bread out of one child's mouth for another child. We've done that in America. It doesn't work,' she said. Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears said the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology's policy was 'not the way,' during an impassioned appearance on Fox and Friends Parents of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology demonstrate outside the school in December Only awarded to 50,000 of 1.5million high-schoolers who scored well on the PSATS - an SAT precursor usually administered in the 10th grade - the prestigious National Merit Scholarship award helps students compete for scholarships, honors accolades, and college admissions. It is not the first time officials the Fairfax County Public School network - which encompasses 198 schools and centers - has come under fire for guidance touted as progressive. In 2021, the school and its board found themselves in federal court after it changed its admission requirements to limit the number of Asian-American students enrolled to improve the chance of admission of other students regardless of academics. Billed as a means to boost equity, the guidance immediately sparked controversy for scrapping merit-based admissions - and was subsequently found to be against federal law. In February, a federal judge ruled Fairfax County school officials guilty of racial discrimination. But plans to overturn those rules have been put on hold thanks to a successful legal challenge by their supporters, with a court set to consider an appeal next year. The 55-year-old Brit was fined 328k for 'misleading statements to investors' The former boss of McDonalds has been fined 328,000 by American regulators after allegedly lying about the extent of his sexual relationships with employees. Steve Easterbrook was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over 'false and misleading statements to investors' about his November 2019 departure. The fast food chain fired the 56-year-old Brit after finding he had entered a consensual relationship with a senior female employee. However he initially received a severance package worth more than 86million following an agreement with McDonald's that concluded his termination was 'without cause'. The SEC said Easterbrook and McDonald's were both not honest with investors about the cause of Easterbrook's termination. Steve Easterbrook has been fined 328,000 by an American regulator for 'concealing the extent of his misconduct' over a relationship with an employee McDonald's fired Easterbrook two years ago when the company discovered he had a non-sexual but close relationship with one worker. The board ruled he was axed without cause which entitled him to nearly $42million in compensation, benefits and stock. At the time, the company claims, he denied he had had affairs 'physical or non-physical' with any other McDonald's worker. Easterbrook even agreed with the decision, sending an email to all staff saying: 'Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is the time to move on.' Eight months later, board chairman Enrique Hernandez got a tip that Easterbrook had been seeing another employee and after an internal probe, McDonald's discovered emails and messages with nude photos and videos confirming affairs with at least two other employees. The chain said he had tried to cover up the affairs by deleting the messages from his company-issued cell phone, but they still existed on the firm's email servers. McDonald's conducted an investigation and then accused and sued the businessman over having lied about three secret relationships with other staff. The identity of the employees that Easterbrook had affairs with has never been revealed. However Denise Paleothodoros, who worked for a PR company that worked with McDonald's, told DailyMail.com in 2020 that they had had an affair shortly before he was promoted to the top spot. Denise Paleothodoros told DailyMail.com that Easterbrook whisked her on luxury vacations, taking her to Cabo San Lucas, New Orleans, Lake Tahoe and New York among other places Paleothodoros, 49, said both McDonald's and her company, Golin, knew about their romance, and Golin moved her off the McDonald's account. Here they are pictured at a Chicago Cubs game Paleothodoros, 49, said both McDonald's and her company, Golin, knew about their romance, and Golin moved her off the McDonald's account. 'We didn't flaunt our relationship but we didn't really hide it either. Our relationship was above board. 'Steve's a great guy,' she added. 'Kind hearted, giving, almost the perfect guy. The Steve I knew is normal, a guy's guy. He's into sports and likes to drink beer.' Paleothodoros said Easterbrook whisked her on luxury vacations, taking her to Cabo San Lucas, New Orleans, Lake Tahoe and New York among other places. She said he flew her on McDonald's private jet three times and that he reimbursed McDonald's for the costs of the plane, and that they planned to move in together in his 3.500 sq. ft. Chicago condo. McDonald's board sued Easterbrook in August 2020, saying it wouldn't have terminated him without cause if it had known the extent of his misconduct. 'That evidence consisted of dozens of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photographs and videos of various women, including photographs of these company employees,' the complaint stated. Easterbrook returned equity awards and cash, worth 86million, and apologised for having failed 'at times' to uphold McDonald's values Easterbrook brought in Chrissy Teigen to be the face of the McDonald's Dollar Menu in the US. They are pictured in New York in 2017 In December 2021, after some legal proceedings, Easterbrook returned equity awards and cash, worth 86million, and apologised for having failed 'at times' to uphold the firm's values. Gurbir Grewal, the director of the SEC's division of enforcement, said: 'When corporate officers corrupt internal processes to manage their personal reputations or line their own pockets, they breach their fundamental duties to shareholders, who are entitled to transparency and fair dealing from executives. 'By allegedly concealing the extent of his misconduct during the company's internal investigation, Easterbrook broke that trust with and ultimately misled shareholders.' The SEC said it found that Easterbrook violated the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. 'Without admitting or denying its findings, Easterbrook has consented to entry of the SEC's cease-and-desist order, which imposes a five-year officer and director bar and a $400,000 civil penalty,' it said. The SEC's order also found that McDonald's violated Section 14(a) of the Exchange Act and Exchange Act rule 14a-3, and the company has consented to the SEC's cease-and-desist order. The couple even had plans to move in together and in 2017 Easterbrook plunked down $2.5 million for a sprawling 19th floor 3500 sq. feet, 3 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom luxury condo in Chicago Steve Easterbrook and his daughters, Rebecca, Katie and Lauren, are seen in Chicago's Miracle Mile after leaving his $2.5 million 19th floor luxury condo Easterbrook, was spotted in January 2022 since he agreed to return cash and stocks that he had been given after the fast food chain discovered he had had affairs with company underlings However, the agency said the firm had 'substantially co-operated' with the investigation and would not be hit with any fines as a result. McDonald's said the SEC order reinforced the fact it held Mr Easterbrook 'accountable for his misconduct'. 'We fired him, and then sued him upon learning that he lied about his behaviour,' it said. 'The company continues to ensure our values are part of everything we do, and we are proud of our strong 'speak up' culture that encourages employees to report conduct by any employee, including the CEO, that falls short of our expectations.' A month after the proceedings were settled, Easterbrook was spotted out and about in his adopted hometown of Chicago along with his three daughters. The girls from Easterbrook's marriage to Susie Jennings which ended in divorce in 2015 had flown in from England to spend the holidays with their father. According to published reports, the two oldest, Katie and Lauren, attended the University of Bristol in southwest England. They stayed with him at his luxurious 19th floor, $2.5million penthouse condo overlooking Millennium Park - the same place he'd planned to move in with Paleothodoros years earlier. The White House on Monday indicated that a plan to take in 30,000 additional legal migrants each month wasnt a fixed number after the president of Mexico signaled his country might be willing to take more border crossers than announced previously that the US plans to send back. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke to reporters Monday after the Biden Administration announced a plan to accept 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti who apply for asylum online. We are in the early days of the implementation of that, and we will see how that goes and then make determinations about where to take the next step. So I don't think we have a fixed number in mind, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters from the presidents luxury hotel in Mexico City, hours after Biden landed here. He was asked about the Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obradors own statement earlier that Mexico might take more than 30,000 migrants from the U.S. than previously indicated. President Joe Biden met Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Monday night. The two men shared an hour-long ride into town We dont want to anticipate things, but this is part of what we are going to talk about at the summit, Lopez Obrador said. We support this type of measures, to give people options, alternatives, he continued, adding that the numbers may be increased. For his part, Sullivan said the numbers, announced by the White House last week, had been an iterative process. The concept is to have the U.S. encourage people from the countries to apply for asylum online, while those who appear at the southern border would be sent back. Lopez Obrador indicated openness to accepting more than 30,000 migrants per month to be sent back from north of the border. Migrants stand behind barbed wire to keep them from crossing into El Paso, Texas, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Tuesday. The White House wants people to apply for asylum online The U.S. plans to send about 30,000 migrants a month back to Mexico, according to a plan announced before Biden's trip Long road: Biden and the Mexican president rode together for an hour in 'the Beast' He spoke of how the administration began the program for those fleeing oppression in Venezuala, then extended it to Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians. Biden landed Sunday at at the new Felipe Angeles International Airport, a pet project of the president, although it has few flights and had issues with running water. That subjected Biden, who is accustomed to zipping through downtown areas, to a nearly hour-long ride to his hotel. But he was accompanied by the president for the hour-long ride in 'the Beast,' Biden's presidential limo. That constituted Biden's biggest chunk of diplomacy yet. He doesn't have any public events until after 4 pm local time, although he was to get his presidential daily brief. Sullivan indicated the limo ride was useful, but wouldn't disclose details. 'Yesterday, he had the opportunity to ride with President Lopez Obrador from the airport back into town, which gave them the chance to just have a one on one chat. Kind of how they're seeing the world right now what's on their minds. I think they both got a lot out of it,' he said. A Canadian news reporter became faint and appeared to suffer a medical emergency live on air this weekend. Jessica Robb was presenting a segment on CTV's six o'clock news on Sunday when she appeared faint, began repeating her words, and told the host: 'I'm not feeling well.' Her report was cut short and the host in the studio, Nahreman Issa, reassured viewers that Robb was not alone and had support. Hours later both Robb and CTV Edmonton, where Robb works, put out tweets suggesting her recovery was underway, but not long after Robb's tweets were made private. In a statement shared with DailyMail.com on Monday afternoon she said: 'On Sunday night, a very personal and vulnerable moment unfolded as I reported live on air.' Jessica Robb (pictured on air on Sunday) became faint and appeared to suffer a medical emergency live on air this weekend In a tweet that has since been made private, Robb said she was 'okay' Robb began the segment speaking coherently about how families of victims feel three years on from the downing of Flight PS752 by the Iranian military. 'Families are pushing the feds to... pushing the feds to...' she said, as she tripped over her words and stuttered. As she became increasingly faint and seemed to lose her balance, she said: 'Sorry Nahreman. I'm, I'm, I'm not feeling very well right now, and I'm about to just...' She was then interrupted by Issa, who said: 'Okay, we'll come back to you and we'll make sure that Jessica, you are doing okay. Thank you.' CTV Edmonton said on its official Twitter page that Robb was 'better' and 'resting' In the moments before the camera returned to Issa, Robb began inching forward with a wobble. A few hours later CTV Edmonton said on its official Twitter page: 'Thanks to everyone who inquired about our reporter who became ill during the 6 p.m. News. Jessica Robb is feeling better and is now resting.' At around the same time Robb posted on her own Twitter saying that she was 'okay.' 'Thank you to everyone who has reached, my cameraman, @Stmcclune for being there for me, & @NahremanIssaCTV for being an absolute pro (as usual),' she said. The anchor's Twitter profile then went private soon after, but it is not clear why. Robb works as a news anchor for Canadian broadcaster CTV in Edmonton 'To everyone who has reached out with supportive messages of well wishes and concern, thank you. It's been overwhelming, and while I cant get to all the messages, please know Ive seen them and appreciate every single one,' she said in the statement. She added: 'I have also received an overwhelming amount of harassment and hatred, tied to false theories about the reason for the incident. 'While I will not share private medical information publicly, I can say that there is no cause for concern, and that my understanding of my own medical background provides a reasonable explanation for what happened. 'I can, however, confirm that the situation was in no way related to the COVID-19 vaccine.' In October last year a news anchor in Oklahoma also started gargling her words on air as she started to suffer from a stroke. Julie Chin, of Tulsa NBC affiliate KJRH, was delivering a story about NASA's cancelled Artemis-I launch when she suddenly found herself unable to speak the words she was reading off her teleprompter. Some days after Chin took to Facebook to explain that she was in good health, and that doctor's believed she suffered 'the beginnings of a stroke, but not a full stroke.' The death penalty trial has begun for the man who allegedly murdered eight innocent people in New York City by ramming into them with a truck on a Lower Manhattan bike path in 2017. Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, 34, repeatedly proclaimed his support for ISIS following the attack, including to an FBI agent who is scheduled to testify at Saipov's trial in Manhattan federal court. At the start of the trial on Monday, a federal prosecutor told the jury that shortly following the 2017 attack, the terrorist delivered a proud confession to an FBI agent and smiled as he asked for an ISIS flag to hang in his hospital room. Assistant US Attorney Alexander Li told jurors in his opening statement: 'He smiled at the memory of his attack and asked for an ISIS flag to hang in his hospital room.' Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, 34, repeatedly proclaimed his support for ISIS following the 2017 attack, during which he allegedly plowed through a crowd of people on an NYC bike path Defendants Sayfullo Saipov (second left) sits at the defense table on the opening day of his trial Monday. He is facing 28 counts for his 2017 alleged act of terror in Lower Manhattan Investigators inspect the truck Saipov used to plow down hoards of people in New York City on October 31, 2017 Li added that Saipov delivered a 'proud confession' that he had been eager to give to an FBI agent. It became the deadliest terror attack to occur in New York City since the September 11, 2001 attack. He described for the court the horror that had unfolded on the late October afternoon in Manhattan, when Saipov decided to indiscriminately and at 60 mph, ram his truck through crowds of pedestrian and cyclists after driving onto the bike path from the West Side Highway. 'It was a scene of destruction and horror. Mangled bikes covered the bike path, their riders - human beings - law unconscious or dead. Survivors staggered around searching for family and friends,' said Li. 'Scream filled the air.' Evidence presented at the trial - which is expected to be a months-long affair - will include Saipov, an Uzbeki immigrant - expressing his devotion to the global terror group. Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack is seen in this handout photo released November 1, 2017 Prosecutors say Saipov repeatedly committed himself to ISIS' mission, in phone calls with his family from prison, in statements made in court during post-arrest appearances, and to FBI investigators. After plowing through a crowd of victims on the lower West Side bike path, Saipov ended his rampage by crashing his truck into a school bus that was carrying two children. One of the children suffered 'serious brain damage' and another passenger suffered broken ribs and an injury to her liver, according to the prosecutor. He also killed five tourists visiting from Argentina who were pedaling along the bike path that day. Emergency personal respond after the Lower Manhattan tragedy on October 31, 2017 US prosecutor Alexander Li describes the 2017 terror attack perpetrated by the defendant in front of a court on Monday in Manhattan Marion Van Reeth, who lost both of her legs in the West Side Highway terror attack, arrives at Manhattan Federal Court with her husband Aristide Melissas on January 9 After his vehicle came to a stop, Saipov hopped out of the destroyed truck wielding a fake gun that he pointed at a responding police officer, who promptly shot him. Another victim, Marion Van Reeth, a Belgian mother who lost both her legs in the attack, was seen arriving at court Monday with her husband. Her then-16-year-old son was also injured in the attack. Saipov is facing the death penalty if convicted of the 28 counts he stand accused of in the terror trial. The jury will ultimately have to vote unanimously to sentence him to death. They were found after plunging into a waterfall in the Brecon Beacons, Wales The body of one woman was recovered from the water within a short time The second woman was discovered five days after two women went missing A second woman has been found dead after plunging into a waterfall at a beauty spot at a national park in Wales. The tragic body was discovered five days after two women went missing after going into the fast-flowing waterfall walk in the countryside. Police were deployed to Ystradfellte Falls on the rugged Four Waterfalls Walk in Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales at about 11.45am on Wednesday after the alarm was raised by passers-by. A full search for the two women was launched in the area after the rivers were swollen by heavy rain - including using underwater cameras and mountain rescue experts. The body of a woman has been recovered after police were called to a waterfall near Ystradfellte, Wales. Pictured: A fire service vehicle and an inflatable near the scene in Wales The tragic body was discovered five days after two women went missing after going into the fast-flowing waterfall walk, near Ystradfellte, Wales The body of one woman was recovered from the water within a short time. The search for the second carried on until police announced it has been recovered more than a mile downstream. A spokesman for Dyfed Powys police said: 'We can confirm that officers searching for two women who are believed to have entered the water in the Ystradfellte area on Wednesday sadly recovered a second body from the river in the Glynneath area on Sunday. 'Next of kin has been informed with the families being supported by specialist officers. 'We would like to the thank colleagues from mountain rescue, the fire service and members of the public for their support during what has been a difficult operation.' Officers said it included 'high, fast flowing water' on the waterfall walk. The fire service, mountain rescue and National Police Air Support were all involved in the search. Police were deployed to Ystradfellte Falls on the rugged Four Waterfalls Walk in Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales at about 11.45am on Wednesday after the alarm was raised by passers-by Ystradfellte Four Waterfalls Walk is a 4.5mile (7.2km) trail rated as 'moderate' difficulty. But one regular walker said: 'It is notoriously slippery on the rocks and can get very muddy. 'The waters can surge very suddenly and would need a lot of care at the moment. We can only pray the other woman is safe somewhere.' The trail is primarily used for hiking and walking and is accessible year-round. Essex Police has officially taken over the search for a missing mother and her newborn baby after they were spotted in both Harwich Port and Colchester after their disappearance. Constance Marten, her partner Mark Gordon and the baby have been missing since their vehicle broke down near junction four of the M61, near Bolton, on Thursday evening. The family left the vehicle and the motorway safely walking to the Anchor Lane bridge which links the Highfield and Little Hulton areas. Initial enquiries suggest that Ms Marten has very recently given birth and neither she or her baby have been assessed by medical professionals. Constance Marten, left, went missing with her partner Mark Gordon and newborn baby on Thursday evening. Neither Ms Marten or her baby have received professional medical assistance since the birth, it is believed The mother 'may have been spotted twice in Essex' - once in Harwich Port and again in Colchester Essex Police have been liaising with colleagues of Greater Manchester Police in search for the missing couple after a number of sightings were reported in north Essex on Saturday - around 200 miles away from where their car broke down. Ms Marten was possibly seen first wrapped in a red blanket near Harwich Port at 9am on Saturday and then again in Colchester around an hour later. Detective Chief Inspector Rob Huddleston of Essex Police said: 'Clearly, the overriding concern that we share with our colleagues at Greater Manchester Police is for Mark and Constance's new-born child. 'We do not wish to interrupt their family life; this search is primarily to ensure the welfare of the couple's child. After her car broke down on the M61 near Bolton on Thursday evening, Ms Marten was possibly first spotted wrapped in a red blanket in Harwich Port, Essex on Saturday at 9am 'We are carrying out a number of enquires in and around Colchester in order to locate them. We're also liaising with colleagues at British Transport Police around potential onward travel from Colchester.' He added: 'I would ask the people of Colchester, and indeed wider north Essex, to please familiarise yourself with Mark and Constance's faces and report any sightings to us immediately.' Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the couple and their child is urged to call 101 immediately. Harvey Weinstein's Los Angeles sentencing has been delayed while his attorneys seek a new trial. The disgraced movie mogul was found guilty of rape and other counts of sexual assault in December. It was his second conviction; he was notoriously found guilty of rape and sexual assault in February 2020. Weinstein, 70, is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York. His lawyers are appealing that conviction. Weinstein is depicted in court today in an L.A. County wheelchair. His sentencing was postponed until February while his lawyers seek a new trial In a second challenge to the courts, his attorneys are now also seeking a new trial in California. Their intention to file a that request is what has delayed Weinstein's second sentencing. He is facing 18 years in prison on the charges he was convicted of. Weinstein, who has always pleaded not guilty to every charge, was convicted on December 19 of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object of a woman identified in court as Jane Doe #1. The trial heard graphic descriptions of encounters between the once-powerful producer and women who were trying to make their way in the world of movies. Prosecutors painted a picture of a predatory ogre, who for years used his professional heft to rape and abuse women with impunity. His victims were left terrorized and afraid for their careers if they spoke out against a man who dominated Tinseltown, prosecutors said. While he was convicted in the Los Angeles case of assaulting one woman, the jury acquitted him of sexual battery involving a second. Weinstein, on another depiction from the courtroom today. He has always denied any wrongdoing Victims' attorney Gloria Allred outside court in Los Angeles on Monday They did not reach a verdict on charges relating to the alleged assaults of two other women, one of whom was identified by her lawyers as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the now-wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom. A hearing on a defense motion for a new trial was scheduled for February 23. Judge Lisa Lench said Monday that if the motion is denied, sentencing will take place that day. In New York last June, Weinstein lost his first appeal against his verdict and sentence in the state's intermediate appellate court. But he has further appealed to the higher New York Court of Appeals. Rumors of Weinstein's behavior had circulated in Hollywood for years, but his position at the apex of the industry meant few were prepared to challenge him. That all changed in 2017 with the publication of bombshell allegations against him, ushering in the #MeToo movement and opening the floodgates for women to speak out against sexual violence in the workplace. Dozens of women have since alleged they fell victim to Weinstein's predatory behavior. Officials from the Korea Exchange, brokerage houses and Kakao Pay celebrate the mobile payment firm's listing on the benchmark KOSPI, at a Seoul office of the exchange, Nov. 3, 2021. Joint Press Corps-Yonhap By Lee Min-hyung Kakao Pay is forecast to join the MSCI Index in February, as the company has met the key criteria for its long-awaited inclusion in the global equity index, market analysts said Monday. The MSCI Quarterly Index Review will be announced on Feb. 9. The requirements for the inclusion are stocks with a total market capitalization of more than 2.6 trillion won and a float market capitalization of over 1.3 trillion won. The mobile payment service operator will be able to join the index, as it meets both of the standards due to a recent stock recovery. Kakao Pay's total market capitalization reached 8.9 trillion won as of Monday, and its float market capitalization also came in at around 1.6 trillion won. "Kakao Pay has met both standards on its recent stock rebound," Huh Yul, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said. "The company will be included during the upcoming index review unless its stock price drops by more than 15.5 percent from the current level." The securities firm also expected Kakao Pay to enjoy an additional capital inflow of around 82.5 billion won after its inclusion in the index. Kakao Pay was frequently mentioned as a candidate for inclusion in the MSCI Index after it went public in November 2021. But it has so far failed to do so, as its stock price suffered a sharp decline up until recently. Kakao Pay was traded at around 67,000 won per share as of Monday. The firm's stock price soared to a historic high of around 230,000 won soon after the listing in late 2021, but has since been on a drastic downward trajectory, hit hard by the current market doldrums and a series of moral hazards scandals among its top management. However, starting from 2023, the company has been rapidly recovering its valuation as, in addition to its possible inclusion in the MSCI Index, it is believed that the stock has already hit rock bottom and can only improve going forward. A total of 10 stocks were excluded in the latest MSCI review in November. "But not a single stock here will be excluded from the index during the upcoming review," the analyst said. The 51-year-old has admitted the offences and received a conditional caution Accountant Justine Morrison went on a racist rant as she left Vine Bar in Halifax A married mother-of-two who burst into a finger-jabbing, racist rant as she left an upmarket cocktail bar can be revealed as accountant Justine Morrison. The 51-year-old lives with her husband and two daughters on farmland outside Halifax in West Yorkshire and had worked with Shine Theatre Arts, a local childrens dance school. It was reported the dance school had sacked her after a video went viral on social media of her jabbing her finger at a bouncer and saying: 'You, black man,' before spitting out the word 'black' again. Ms Morrison has admitted the offences and accepted a conditional caution, which involves taking part in a restorative justice programme and accepting responsibility for her actions. Justine Morrison, a married mother-of-two, burst into a finger-jabbing, racist rant as she left an upmarket cocktail bar. Pictured with her husband, Anthony The incident happened on Friday night outside Vine Bar, set among Halifaxs historic mills, after Ms Morrison was escorted out of the venue for upsetting other customers The incident happened on Friday night outside Vine Bar, set among Halifaxs historic mills, after Ms Morrison was escorted out of the venue for upsetting other customers. When contacted by MailOnline, a spokesman for Shine said: This is all really, really upsetting. I have been told by the police that I should make no comment about this. I cant say any more. In the video, Ms Morrison, wearing a blue blouse, says to the bouncer: 'Oh my god you must be so proud. You're working on a door,' clapping her hands in mock applause. A man standing behind her, believed to be her husband Anthony, tells her: 'Come on, let's go.' Before walking off, she points her finger at the doorman and says: 'You, black man.' As she walks away, staggering on her heels, she turns and spits out the word black before continuing: 'That's why you get a name. Black.' The video was posted on Facebook by a user called Dally Whylie, who said: Love the first week [back] on the door after Xmas. Please can I make it quite clear that the dance class Shine [is] no longer employing this woman and it should not affect the dance school in any way at all. It was shared over 4,300 times, with viewers appalled by her attitude. Laura Corrigan wrote: Cant believe this still happens in 2023, disgusting! What a role model for her two daughters. While Karen Holt posted: No doubt shell say shes not racist and say her third cousin on her husband's side has a black boyfriend. And Heidi Molloy mocked: Wonder if she's clapping hands now, oh you must be so proud Justine hope you enjoyed your night in the cells. Police confirmed that a woman had been arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated public disorder and been held over the weekend. On her Twitter profile Ms Morrison writes that she loves Schofe, the Twitter handle for Philip Schofield. She has also posted a picture of herself and her sister with Schofield and Holly Willoughby at a This Morning event Vine Bar in Halifax, where the racist attack took place 51-year-old Ms Morrison lives with her husband and two daughters on farmland outside Halifax in West Yorkshire West Yorkshire Police said: 'A 51-year-old woman was arrested and interviewed in relation to an incident of causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress which took place at Vine Bar, in Stainland Road, West Vale, Halifax on Friday 6 January. 'She admitted the offences and received a conditional caution, as a criminal justice outcome with conditions. 'This includes taking part in the restorative justice programme and accepting responsibility for her actions.' Ms Morrison is understood to be the daughter of a retired policeman. Her Twitter profile says she has been married to Anthony for '23 wonderful years' and that she loves Schofe, the Twitter handle for Philip Schofield. It reveals a love of Jersey and family holidays abroad. Vine Bar owner Lynda Gionotti said in a statement that staff were 'truly appalled', 'shocked' and 'saddened' over the abuse. The statement read: 'All the staff and management at Vine are truly appalled at the behaviour of the customer who racially abused our doorman last Friday evening. 'This kind of behaviour towards our staff will not be tolerated and we are thankful that West Yorkshire Police took swift and decisive action. 'Abuse of hospitality staff is unfortunately a problem that needs stamping out. No one should have to go to work and endure abuse it's just not acceptable.' He pled guilty to fraud charges after trying to sell a friend a fake Andy Warhol painting after stealing the originals Thomas died in India , aged 71, in 2018 and was a doctor in Massachusetts The husband of missing Massachusetts mother Ana Walshe looted Dali artwork from his father's property after his death after breaking into his house and destroying his will, court documents show. Brian Walshe, 46, was charged on Monday with 'misleading police' who are investigating the disappearance of his wife Ana, 39, on New Year's Day. DailyMail.com can reveal he was accused by his family of stealing nearly a million dollars from his father Dr Thomas Walshe before the pair became estranged in 2009. Thomas died in India, aged 71, in 2018 with his lawyer contacting his son to inform him of the news. Legal documents show Walshe asked for a key to the $710,000 beachfront property in Hull, Massachusetts, after the attorney went himself and took pictures of the original will dated May 2016. They add the younger Walshe raided his father's home, stealing thousands of dollars worth of artwork and luxury items including paintings by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro as well as a car. Brian Walshe, 46, was charged on Monday with 'misleading police' who are investigating the disappearance of his wife Ana, 39, on New Year's Day DailyMail.com can reveal that he was accused by his family of stealing nearly a million dollars from his father Dr Thomas Walshe before his death. He then broke into his property after his passing to destroy his will - which had disinherited him He is accused of taking a Salvador Dali painting - The Horseman of Death - from his father's property in Hull The father-of-three then allegedly tried to sell his father's home for $140,000 more than it was worth after he was wrongly named executor of the will. He was also accused in the papers of immediately tried to sell the other items online, advertising a sale in January months after his father's death. The discrepancies were only caught after his cousin, who had been named the executor of Thomas' will, contacted a friend of his uncle's in 2019 to discover he had passed away. Walshe failed to inform other family members of his father's passing, with another family member taking over the estate in July 2019. Legal documents show that serial fraudster Walshe then asked for a key to the $710k beachfront property in Hull, Massachusetts Thomas died in India, aged 71, in 2018 with his lawyer contacting his son to inform him of the news. Serial fraudster Walshe then asked for a key to the $710k beachfront property in Hull, Massachusetts Prosecutors confirmed that Ana has still not been found during the court hearing on Monday morning TIMELINE LEADING TO DISAPPEARANCE November 2016: Brian Walshe was arrested in connection with an $80,000 art fraud of Andy Warhol paintings. He is ordered by a court to remain under house arrest until sentencing. Walshe has yet to be sentenced for the fraud. January 1. 2023 Ana reportedly booked a rideshare car to take her to Logan International Airport at 4am, but it is unclear if she ever got into the vehicle. Her husband claims he went to Whole Foods and CVS, but there is no surveillance or receipts to prove he went. January 2: Walshe tells authorities that he only left the family home in Cohasset to take his son for ice cream. He is caught on surveillance footage buying $450 worth of cleaning supplies in Home Depot. Ana's phone pinged in the area of the house on Jan 1 and 2. January 4: Ana's employer reports her as missing. January 5: Police say Walshe is cooperating with the investigation into his missing wife. January 8: Walshe is seen leaving the property on Sunday in a red Volkswagen. His three children were taken away in a separate vehicle. Officers executed a search warrant at their home and found blood in the basement, along with a broken knife. The officers loaded a Volvo SUV onto the back of a truck while others searched the grounds of their home. Police arrested Walshe on suspicion of 'misleading' authorities but have not charged him with anything else. January 9: Walshe grins at reporters as he is transported to his arraignment at Quincy District Court. He was held on $500,000 cash bail. Advertisement He tried to object to the appointment a month later, with a probate court ordering him to submit an inventory of the items he took from the property, which he has refused to do. Meanwhile Walshe was also previously charged with fraud after selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings for $80,000 in 2016, and was on house arrest ahead of a later sentencing hearing. The fraudster is accused of 'misleading' the court regarding his assets in the Warhol case. Court documents show he failed to inform probation about two IRA's at Fidelity one of which he contributed $91,000 and left off a 2014 Fiat and 2015 Maserati, which his wife Ana drove. She posted that the car, worth $120,000, was the 'best Valentine's present of her life' in a post online, adding 'kiss to my husband who makes all of my childhood dreams come true'. In a letter to the judge overseeing the Warhol case, Ana said that she was 'grateful' to him for allowing her husband to spend the 'last eight months at home supporting his children and closest family members.' She wrote: 'During these eight months, our family was able to be together during many milestones. 'On December 21, 2021, my mother suffered a major neurological event which caused a heavy hemorrhage. 'Brian was the one who heard my mother's sighs (sic) for help within seconds and immediately called me and emergency. 'She keeps repeating that she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her son-in law. Not only did he save her life, but he also brought her and the entire family comfort and joy during the course of her illness. 'Brian has been working consistently on breaking the past habits of his family and we are all looking forward to the new chapter of his life.' Walshe is accused of 'misleading the court' and Ana is accused of 'benefiting from the fraud' with her husband transferring her $115,000, which the court says link back to his victims. The court claims that he stole more than $100,000 from his dead father's bank accounts, with the asses quickly 'converted to cash'. A ruling said he 'was not legally entitled' to any of the items that he took, adding that it was to 'sustain his lavish lifestyle.' Court documents also show Walshe used the funds from the Warhol fraud to go shopping with his wife in Prada while in France - after receiving $145,000 from a victim. Walshe failed to inform other family members of his father's passing, with another family member taking over the estate in July 2019 She worked for real estate behemoth, Tishman Speyer, and the couple owned several properties together their home in Cohasset and a $1.3million house in DC (pictured) Legal documents show that the younger Walshe raided his father's home, stealing thousands of dollars worth of artwork and luxury items including paintings by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro as well as a car. Court documents linked to Walshe's Warhol fraud claim that his wife Ana benefited from the the fraud Walshe is accused of 'misleading the court' and Ana is accused of 'benefiting from the fraud' with her husband transferring her $115k, which the court says link back to his victims Money also allegedly went towards paying credit card debt, which included charges for travel and restaurants. Walshe has still not told the FBI what he did with the Shadows paintings and led the FBI on a 'multi-year' investigation because of his 'multi-year crime spree.' One of his victims Ron Rivlin, the owner of Revolver Gallery in Los Angeles - found Walshe selling two Andy Warhol paintings for $100,000 each in November 2016. Walshe told Rivlin he was selling the works at a great loss in order to pay for home renovations, with Rivlin agreeing to purchase both paintings for $80,000. The pair signed a contract, which explicitly stated that Rivlin had three days to get a full refund, according to the Massachusetts DA's office. Rivlin made several attempts to contact Walshe after discovering they were inauthentic but contacted authorities after Walshe only refunded him $30,000. A ruling said that he 'was not legally entitled' to any of the items that he took, adding that it was to 'sustain his lavish lifestyle' Court documents show that he failed to inform probation about two IRA's at Fidelity one of which he contributed $91k and left off a 2014 Fiat and 2015 Maserati, which his wife Ana drove Walshe has still not told the FBI what he did with the Shadows paintings and led the FBI on a 'multi-year' investigation because of his 'multi-year crime spree' The legal documents say of his Warhol fraud: 'The crime was devious, complicated and planned. 'He traveled to multiple countries. He enlisted multiple artists to prepare fake paintings, with multiple lies. Brian Walshe, 46, the husband of Ana Walshe, 39, who disappeared on New Year's Day after failing to catch a work flight to Washington D.C. is a convicted art swindler 'He involved private galleries, auction houses and even eBay in his scheme. He manipulated and stole from people who trusted him, welcomed him into their homes, and considered him a close friend. 'He crafted stories and lies about the paintings to make the fraudulent sales believable. Walshe proved so successful, in fact, that the FBI has not yet recovered the artwork despite an investigation of several years and the defendant's guilty pleas.' Ana was reported missing to police on January 4 by her employer in DC and her husband - a stay-at-home father - three days after she was last seen on January 1. She worked for real estate behemoth, Tishman Speyer, and the couple owned several properties together their home in Cohasset and a $1.3million house in DC. They also owned another property in Massachusetts, worth $1.4million which they sold last year before she went missing. It went up in flames days after she vanished, but cops investigating the matter said it was not linked to her disappearance. They add that the younger Walshe raided his father's home, stealing thousands of dollars worth of artwork and luxury items including paintings by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro as well as a car Brian Walshe (right), pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Boston in 2021 after being arrested a few years earlier for selling two fake Andy Warhol paintings to a South Korean buyer for $80,000 Court documents also show that Walshe used the funds from the Warhol fraud to go shopping with his wife in Prada while in France - after receiving $145,000 from a victim Police searched the couple's home, finding blood in an area of the basement before finding a 'damaged' knife with blood on it On Monday, cops announced that they had found blood on a damaged knife and in the basement of their home in Cohasset. Walshe told officers that he last saw his wife on January 1 at 6am when she left to get a flight to Washington DC for work. Police told a judge that Walshe was spotted spending $450 on cleaning products in a nearby Home Depot on January 2. He claims that he only left the house once on January 2 the day after she vanished to take his son for ice cream. Authorities say it allowed him time to clean up evidence and dispose of it, with his bail being set at $500,000 in cash. Prosecutors at Quincy District Court say that Walshe's statements, including claiming that he didn't leave the house, delayed the investigation He failed to list his 'substantial' assets that were linked to his wife, with court documents claiming that he should have listed them accordingly The legal documents say of his Warhol fraud: 'The crime was devious, complicated and planned. Ana was reported missing to police on January 4 by her employer in DC and her husband - a stay-at-home father - three days after she was last seen. Prosecutors at Quincy District Court say that Walshe's statements, including claiming that he didn't leave the house, delayed the investigation. Police searched the home, finding blood in an area of the basement before finding a 'damaged' knife with blood on it. It is unclear who the blood belongs to, with prosecutors adding that Walshe bought himself time to 'either clean up evidence, dispose of evidence, in causing a delay.' Walshe told officers that he last saw his wife on January 1 at 6am when she left to get a flight to Washington DC for work Authorities say it allowed him time to clean up evidence and dispose of it, with his bail being set at $500,000 in cash Prosecutors say surveillance footage, which has not been released, from Home Depot prove he was lying to officers, which showed him buying taps, mops, buckets, cloths and various kinds of tape. Court documents claim that he was wearing a black surgical mask, blue surgical gloves, and made a cash purchase in the store. It comes as cops removed items from the couple's home in Cohasset eight days after Ana disappeared. The officers loaded a Volvo SUV onto the back of a truck while others searched the grounds of their home. Disney CEO Bob Iger has ordered all employees to work in the corporate offices at least four days per week, two months after he returned to lead the company. In an email on Monday, Iger said the new rule would take effect on March 1, and stressed the importance of in-person collaboration, CNBC reported citing a copy of the memo. 'As I've been meeting with teams throughout the company over the past few months, I've been reminded of the tremendous value in being together with the people you work with,' Iger reportedly wrote. 'And in a creative business like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors,' he added. Disney CEO Bob Iger has ordered all employees to work in the corporate offices at least four days per week starting on March 1 In November, Iger returned to lead Disney and replace his own hand-picked successor Bob Chapek, after the company posted lackluster financial results and suffered public relations embarrassments over its battles with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Iger was tasked with renewing the company's growth over a two-year term, and his surprise comeback coincided with Disney's efforts to boost investor confidence and profits at its streaming service Disney+. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, during which most office workers went fully remote for an extended period, companies have grappled with setting new policies on working from home. Disney's four-day mandate for working in the office is relatively strict compared with other major companies, most of which require workers to be in the office two or three days per week. Google-parent Alphabet and Apple both instituted three-day requirements for working in the office last year. Facebook's parent company Meta asks workers to spend at least half their time in the office, though any employee who is able to work from home can seek approval to work remotely full time. Disney 'Imagineers' are seen at work in a company photo. The company's workers will have to return to corporate offices at least four days a week from March 1 Over the past 12 months, Disney's stock price has declined about 40 percent. The company is currently valued at about $173 billion New Twitter owner Elon Musk has laid down the strictest rules, requiring all workers to work full-time in the office after laying off more than half the company's workforce. A Gallup poll last summer found that among employees capable of working remotely, on 22 percent were on-site full time. Forty-nine percent worked in a hybrid arrangement mixing remote and in-office work and 29 percent were fully remote, the survey found. Since returning to Disney in November, Iger has been tasked by the board with returning revenue to growth and leading Disney+ to profitability. The streaming business lost nearly $1.5 billion in the last quarter, more than twice the previous year's loss, overshadowing subscriber gains. The streaming unit has yet to turn a profit since its 2019 launch, and Disney has said it expects Disney+ to become profitable in fiscal 2024. Over the past 12 months, Disney's stock price has declined about 40 percent. The company is currently valued at about $173 billion. The Reedy Creek district is governed by its 19 landowners, the biggest of them being Disney World. Disney's status as majority landowner means it choose members of the district board DeSantis launched an overhaul of Disney's self-governing status within Reedy Creek after the company's former CEO publicly criticized Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' Bill Iger, 71, who was chief executive for 15 years and retired as chairman in 2021, has agreed to serve as CEO for two more years. In returning, he has also inherited the messy culture war battle that his predecessor Chapek waded into with DeSantis. Chapek was reportedly chided by the board for Disney's muddled reaction to Florida's so-called 'Don't Say Gay' bill. The company initially didn't comment on the bill but under pressure from employees, Chapek eventually condemned it. In response, DeSantis has pushed forward with plans to strip Disney World of its self-governing status. The overhaul would also force the company to pay $700 million dollars in unsecured debt that might otherwise have been paid by taxpayers. Last week, a notice posted to the website of Osceola County said legislation would be introduced to create a state-controlled board for Reedy Creek, the district that includes Disney World. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Monday that President Joe Biden seemed 'non-committal' about a letter the Republican handed him during the commander-in-chief's trip to the southern border. Abbott dismissed the visit to the border city of El Paso, Texas as a 'dog and pony show' during an appearance on Fox News the day after it happened. Biden met with border officials and other state and local authorities on Sunday after nearly two years of pressure on him to see the migrant crisis firsthand. He's since moved on to Mexico for a 'three amigos' summit with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts. Upon Biden's arrival in the Lone Star State, Abbott handed him a letter blaming his administration for the ongoing crisis and outlining a series of hardline measures to curb undocumented migration. 'I pointed to several issues in the letter I wanted him to focus on. I wanted to make clear he was receiving a sanitized review of what was going on in the border,' Abbott told Fox. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said President Joe Biden was 'cordial' but 'non-committal' during his Sunday border trip The governor said he 'pleaded' with Biden to speak to ranchers who lived along the border or to loved ones of cartel murder victims, and added it was 'outrageous' that Biden did not meet with migrants themselves. Abbott suggested Biden was relatively unfazed by his letter and recommendations. 'He said he looked forward to working with us,' the Republican leader said. 'He was cordial about it, but obviously non-committal about anything.' The governor added that Biden's response meant little until action was taken. Abbott handed Biden a letter upon his arrival blaming him for the border crisis Immigrants sleep on the sidewalk near a migrant shelter on January 9, 2023 in El Paso, Texas The five border demands in Gov. Abbott's letter Gov. Greg Abbott made five demands in the letter he handed to President Joe Biden on Sunday: You must comply with the many statutes mandating that various categories of aliens 'shall' be detained, and end the practice of unlawfully paroling aliens en masse. You must stop sandbagging the implementation of the Remain-in-Mexico policy and Title 42 expulsions, and fully enforce those measures as the federal courts have ordered you to do. You must aggressively prosecute illegal entry between ports of entry, and allow ICE to remove illegal immigrants in accordance with existing federal laws. You must immediately resume construction of the border wall in the State of Texas, using the billions of dollars Congress has appropriated for that purpose. You must designate the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Advertisement 'Until they step up and start doing this, all these other things they are doing is nothing more than a dog and pony show, and is not going to stop anybody from coming across the border illegally,' Abbott said. In the letter Abbott blasted Biden's visit his first to the border as president saying that the city had been cleaned up for his trip. And he characterized the trip as '$20 billion too little and two years too late' in a scathing description of Biden's failure to control illegal migration. 'Even the city you visit has been sanitized of the migrant camps which had overrun downtown El Paso because your administration wants to shield you from the chaos that Texans experience on a daily basis,' he wrote Biden touched down in the border city around midday on Sunday in what officials hoped was a chance to underscore his commitment to tackling illegal immigration. Republicans have used record numbers of illegal arrivals to bludgeon the Biden administration during the past two years. But any slight hopes that they might welcome the president's attention to the issue quickly evaporated as Abbot could be seen on the asphalt handing a letter to the president. 'Under your watch ... America is suffering the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country,' it says. 'Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings.' He urged Biden to resume building the border wall that was begun under President Donald Trump. And he said the Biden administration must designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. 'When you finish the photo-ops in a carefully stage-managed version of El Paso, you have a job to do,' added Abbott. A 10-year-old boy remains fighting for life in hospital after losing his mother in a horrific helicopter crash as his father asks the community to pray for his little boy. Nicholas Tadros, 10, remains in a critical condition at the Queensland Children's Hospital after two Eurocopter EC130's collided over Sea World on January 2. His mother, 36-year-old Vanessa Tadros, UK newlyweds Ron and Diana Hughes, 65 and 67, and 40-year-old pilot Ashley Jenkinson, died after their helicopter plunged into a sandbank after its main rotor detached. Besides Nicholas, the two other survivors in the chopper, Leon de Silva, 9, and mother Winnie, 33, remain in hospital in a stable condition with multiple injuries. Simon Tadros, who watched the tragedy unfold, has asked the community to pray for Nicholas as he remains on life support in hospital. Nicholas Tadros, 10, remains in a critical condition in Queensland Children's Hospital after the sightseeing helicopter he was riding in collided with another at about 2pm on January 2 (pictured, Nicholas with his mother Vanessa moments before the helicopter ride) One of the helicopters involved in the mid-air collision was able to land on a sandbank in Southport Broadwater, in Queensland's Gold Coast The grieving dad has predicted his son would be on life support for 'some time'. 'I have amazing support by my side, though you can only imagine the nightmare we are living. I'm not in a good headspace at all,' he told the Courier Mail last week. Two women visiting from New Zealand also survived the crash but were left with glass shrapnel injuries after the windscreen of their chopper was damaged. The women, in their 40s, had been holidaying with husbands Riaan Steenberg and Edward Swart when the accident occurred. Their pilot, Michael James, miraculously managed to land their damaged helicopter on a sandbank in Southport Broadwater. Simon Tadros, pictured with his wife Vanessa and son Nicholas, has asked the community to pray for the 10-year-old as he remains on life support in hospital Sydney woman Vanessa Tadros, pictured with her son Nicholas, sadly died in the horror crash In a statement on the weekend, the Steenberg and Swart families expressed their 'deepest sympathies' and condolences to the other victims and their families, saying they continued to pray for Nicholas, Leon and Winnie. They said the reality of the crash was sinking in but the support from strangers had touched them deeply. 'Elmarie and Marle have sustained significant injuries and, at present, are feeling the weight of the recovery journey ahead of them,' the statement said. 'We are willing and able to continue to assist the ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) and Queensland police with their investigation as needed. 'As we return home to New Zealand, we feel eternally grateful to have been spared and thank God for every day we can spend with our loved ones.' Two women visiting from New Zealand (pictured) also survived the crash but were left with glass shrapnel injuries after the windscreen of their chopper was damaged Elmarie Steenberg and Marle Swart were visiting Queensland's Gold Coast on January 2 when the two Eurocopter EC130s collided over the theme park (crash pictured) Leon de Silva, 9, and mother Winnie, 33, remain in hospital in a stable condition with multiple injuries. Ms De Silva revealed Leon's first words out of his coma were 'my leg' They described their pilot, Mr James, as a 'hero', along with the Good Samaritans who raced to help - including an off-duty paramedic. The couples are planning to return to Auckland where they will continue to recover from their injuries after being released from hospital last week. The ATSB is probing the crash and expects to complete the investigation between July and September 2024. Video footage from one of the choppers shows a passenger trying to warn pilot Michael James about the oncoming helicopter before the collision. Friends and family of pilot Ashley Jenkinson are preparing to farewell him in a service on Friday in Southport. The first mission to launch satellites into orbit from UK soil has failed after an 'anomaly' prevented the rocket from reaching its destination height. In chaotic scenes, the team behind Virgin Orbit's ambitious launch announced they had succeeded in reaching orbit. But moments later they said the LauncherOne didn't get far enough into space. It was thought history would be made in the UK on Monday night as the first-ever orbital space launch took off from Cornwall just after 10pm. British astronaut Tim Peake branded the mission's outcome 'disappointing' and said: 'Getting to space is hard and valuable lessons will be learned.' History was made in the UK on Monday night when a repurposed 747 jumbo jet named Cosmic Girl by Virgin (pictured) took off from Newquay Airport in Cornwall The rocket was successfully released from the jumbo jet at 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland at 11.10pm Virgin Orbit announced the rocket failed to reach it's destination height on Monday night. Officials are pictured sharing the devastating news British astronaut Tim Peake branded the mission's outcome as 'disappointing' and said: 'Getting to space is hard and valuable lessons will be learned' Matt Archer, from the UK Space Agency, said the second stage of the launch suffered an 'anomaly', the cause of which was under investigation. 'In effect the rocket has not reached the required altitude to maintain its orbit or deploy the satellites and therefore the mission was unsuccessful,' he told reporters at Spaceport Cornwall. 'Over the coming days, there will be an investigation involving the Government and various bodies, including Virgin Orbit, to make sure we understand what caused that technical failure and again we'll work out what to do next.' A repurposed 747 jumbo jet named Cosmic Girl by Virgin took off from Newquay Airport at 10.02pm on Monday, after all the commercial flights had ended. Viewers whooped and danced to Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones as the jet took off, with people climbing onto each other shoulders to see the launch. Named in tribute to the Stones' 1981 hit, the mission involves a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 and Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket. The Cosmic Girl jet took off horizontally from the new facility while carrying the rocket under a wing. Shortly after the launch, Virgin Orbit tweeted: 'LauncherOne has once again successfully reached Earth orbit!' The rocket was successfully released from the jumbo jet at 11.10pm over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland at 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters). The rocket was carrying nine small satellites meant for UK defence monitoring, while others were for businesses such as those working in navigational technology. In a series of tweets, Virgin Orbit said: 'We appear to have an anomaly that has prevented us from reaching orbit. We are evaluating the information. 'As we find out more, we're removing our previous tweet about reaching orbit. We'll share more info when we can.' Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, told reporters: Im not going to lie, its gutting - we all heard at different times, so once we all got together, there were tears, and it was very upsetting. She said: Im absolutely devastated. We put our heart and soul into this, it's such a personal journey for me as well - my family were here so yeah, it's pretty rough.' While engineers tried to establish what went wrong, the plane returned to Spaceport Cornwall safely. The Virgin Orbit mission to deploy satellites into space failed on Monday night after an 'anomaly' prevented the rocket from reaching it's destination height The operator later deleted the message after the rocket failed to reach orbit A video grab taken from the Virgin Orbit live feed of the LauncherOne rocket after it took off from a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, at 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland, as part of the first rocket launch from UK A repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, carrying Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, takes off from Spaceport Cornwall Cosmic Girl is pictured early Tuesday morning after having successfully landed back at the spaceport in Cornwall People at Newquay Airport react as Britain's first satellite failed to reach orbit A launch watcher looks disappointed after learning Britain's first satellite failed to reach orbit Those who attended the launch are seen reacting to the devastating news of failure Richard Branson's firm launches a rocket from Cornwall: Click here to read more Virgin Orbit's specially-adapted 747 jumbo jet (pictured) with a rocket attached to its belly took off from Cornwall Spaceport Advertisement Despite the hiccup, it has still been a momentous night for the country's space industry, as the UK officially entered the space race more than 70 years after the British space programme was established in 1952. Cosmic Girl reached an altitude of 35,000ft and deployed LauncherOne when it reached the launch zone above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the south coast of Ireland. Matthew 'Stanny' Stannard, an RAF squadron leader who is on secondment as Virgin Orbit's chief pilot, was at the controls, while his co-pilot Eric Bippert pushed the 'big red button' to drop Sir Richard Branson's rocket at about 23:10 GMT. This made the jumbo bank hard to the right, taking it away from the moment the rocket ignited four seconds after falling. LauncherOne then hurtled towards space at 8,000 mph, heading in the direction of Portugal as it ascended, before breaking through the Earth's atmosphere. To prepare Cosmic Girl for the launch, the interior of the main deck was gutted of all seats and overhead bins to reduce the weight. The upper deck, which was the former premium and economy cabin, has been converted into a small mission control room for launch engineers to oversee the mission the during flight. Once the Boeing 747 reached the drop site, the pilots flew her in a looping 'racetrack' pattern ahead of the rocket launch. Cosmic Girl returned to Cornwall Spaceport at about 23:55 GMT. A former Virgin passenger plane took off from Newquay Airport on Monday night, before heading out to the Atlantic and dropping a rocket that will fly nine satellites into space A former passenger plane had been modified to release a Virgin Orbit rocket carrying nine small satellites into space A long exposure captures the Virgin Orbit plane Cosmic Girl over Beacon Cove and Newquay as it heads out to launch the UK's first satellites on Monday night A repurposed 747 jumbo jet named Cosmic Girl by Virgin took off from Newquay Airport at 10.02pm on Monday, after all the commercial flights had ended Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, gives a speech during an event around Britain's first satellite launch in Newquay A silent disco was held before the launch. Participants were seen dancing in a conga line alongside a replica of the rocket Celebrating the historic launch, science minister George Freeman told The Daily Mail before news of the hiccup: 'We've been a powerhouse in space for years but I'd liken us to a Formula One pit lane, but without a car in the race, and tonight we have that car, and it's just the start, and we're already planning the next launches. 'This is genuinely historic, the UK winning the European race to be the first country to launch satellites, with our allies the Norwegians close behind us. 'The Norwegians beat us in two races to the North and South Pole, so this is a nice chance to level the field. 'Tonight marks the dawn of a new era for UK space that will inspire a new generation of space scientists and innovators, and lay the foundations for technological leadership, just as the Apollo mission did for the USA in the 1960s.' Business, Energy and Industrial Secretary Grant Shapps said after the launch: 'We think over the next decade or so there will be huge opportunities - probably about 50billion worth - of launches of these satellites.' Approximately 2,000 people attended the launch including a person dressed as a green alien, with a sign saying 'take me home' Only 2,000 tickets were available for the launch and they were all snapped up shortly after being released. Pictured: Spectators gathered at the airport for the launch Spectators gather to watch the first ever UK launch of Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket from Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay One family told Sky News it was 'exciting' to be able to witness 'history in the making' Viewers attending Monday night's launch included a person dressed as a green alien, with a sign saying 'take me home'. Only 2,000 tickets were available for the launch and they were all snapped up shortly after being released. A further 75,000 people watched the take-off online. 'It is exciting,' a mother who came to the launch with her family told Sky News. 'We're waiting for history in the making.' One of her sons, Oliver, said: 'I'm really, really excited. It's like a once in a lifetime experience isn't it? To see this, first time in the UK as well, so it's really exciting.' George, 11, said he was 'most excited' to see the repurposed 747 take off. Their brother Kieran added: 'I've never seen anything like this before. I've never even been in an airport before, let alone seen a rocket. A silent disco was held before the launch, featuring space-themed hits including: Rocket Man by Elton John, Space Oddity by David Bowie, The Final Countdown by Europe, Walking on the Moon by The Police, Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones - the name of the Mission, the theme from Thunderbirds, The Imperial March by Star Wars, Dancing in the Moonlight by Toploader and Moondance by Van Morrison. Silent disco participants were also seen dancing in a conga line alongside a replica of the rocket. The Virgin Orbit space plane - named Cosmic Girl - left Newquay Airport at 22:02 GMT and made its way out to the Atlantic, where it dropped the 70ft-long LauncherOne rocket that was hoped to blast into orbit with a payload of nine satellites A repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 aircraft, named Cosmic Girl, carrying Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket, takes off from Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay Around an hour into the flight, the plane released the rocket at 35,000 feet (around 10,000 meters) over the Atlantic Ocean to the south of Ireland Several of the satellites being launched have been built in the UK, including a research satellite from RHEA Group (pictured), which was built by Open Cosmos in Oxfordshire A model of the LauncherOne rocket as Cosmic Girl, a Boeing 747-400 aircraft, prepares to take off at Cornwall Airport Newquay The mission was a collaboration between the UK Space Agency, the Royal Air Force, Virgin Orbit and Cornwall Council. It marks the first orbital space launch from UK soil and the first international launch for Virgin Orbit, founded by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson. It was also the first commercial satellite launch from western Europe. In the past, satellites produced in the UK had to be sent to spaceports in other countries to make their journey into space. 'This is the start of a new era for the UK in terms of launch capabilities,' said Ian Annett, deputy chief executive at the UK Space Agency. He said there was strong market demand for small satellite launches and that the UK has ambitions to be 'the hub of European launches.' The launch was originally planned to fall on the same weekend as the Boardmasters music festival in Newquay, but it was postponed because of technical and regulatory issues. Organisers had feared crowds may have attended the festival instead. Mr Annett told The Daily Mail on Monday night: 'I had a tear in my eye when I saw how many people had turned out to support this. 'The tickets went faster than Glastonbury.' Rosemary Coogan, the latest of the new astronauts for the European Space Agency, was one of those at the event. A person browses Spaceport Cornwall merchandise for sale during a spectator event for Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne Spaceport Cornwall merchandise was available for sale during the spectator event on Monday Adrian Grint, a 46-year-old IT consultant from St Austell in Cornwall, is pictured at the launch The development of Spaceport Cornwall (pictured in an artist's impression) is expected to create around 150 jobs and allow the UK to compete in the global market for deploying small satellites into orbit In 2021, Sir Richard flew to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Space X's Elon Musk in the billionaire space race Scientists discover two supermassive black holes side-by-side with just 750 light-years between them: Click here to read more One black hole is mind-boggling enough a region in space where gravity is so immense that nothing, even light, can escape from it. Now astronomers have discovered something even more remarkable, as two black holes have been spotted 'dining' side-by-side Advertisement Spaceport Cornwall's development is expected to create around 150 jobs and allow the UK to compete in the global market for deploying small satellites into orbit an industry expected to be worth 3.9billion by 2030 which Branson is hoping to tap into. Virgin Orbit has already completed four similar launches from the US. Sir Richard also has Virgin Galactic, which is based in the US and focused on space tourism. In 2021, Sir Richard flew to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Space X's Elon Musk in the billionaire space race. Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit chief executive, has also previously told MailOnline that human spaceflight was 'not currently part of the company's plans' for the Newquay facility. But he said Spaceport Cornwall could be used to send probes to Mars, Venus and the moon within the next three or four years. 'Lunar missions and smaller craft bound for Venus and Mars could be launched [from Spaceport Cornwall] within the next three or four years,' he said. 'We're not going to launch a Perseverance rover (currently being used by NASA to search for signs of ancient life on Mars), for example, but smaller interplanetary probes that explore or carry out landing missions are a possibility.' It is still too early to say whether more missions are planned in coming months, the UK Space Agency has added. The control room is pictured after the launch of Cosmic Girl this evening Excitement at Newquay Airport ahead of the first orbital space launch on British soil last night Viewers at the launch included a person dressed as a green alien, with a sign saying 'take me home' Monday's launch intended to mark the birth of a home-grown launch industry more than 70 years after the British space programme was established in 1952. In the past, satellites produced in the UK have needed to be sent to foreign spaceports to make their journey into space. The Soviet Union was the first nation to carry out a successful space launch, with Sputnik 1 in October 1957, before the United States, Japan, France, China, India, Israel and Iran all followed. North Korea achieved the feat in 2012, along with South Korea earlier this year, so Britain would be the 11th nation to carry out a space launch on its own soil. Not only is the mission the first of its kind from UK soil, it will also come five decades after a British-made rocket, Black Arrow, last reached space following its lift-off from Australia. Named in tribute to the Stones' 1981 hit, the mission involved a repurposed Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 and Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne rocket LauncherOne catapulted its onboard satellites into space at 8,000 miles per hour (pictured in an artist's impression) Spectators watch on a big screen at Cornwall Airport Newquay as the LauncherOne rocket took off from Cosmic Girl Britain did launch a rocket 50 years ago, but the launch didn't actually occur in the UK. In 1971, a British-made rocket called Black Arrow reached space after blasting off from Australia. Developed during the 1960s, the satellite carrier was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971, but it was its final flight which was the first and only successful orbital launch conducted by the UK. The first and third failed, while the second was a suborbital test. No UK built rocket has been launched to space since, and never has one blasted off from British soil. That is despite the fact that Britain is known for its expertise in manufacturing satellites. Until now, the country lacked a way of getting its own hardware into space, but Virgin Orbit's Spaceport Cornwall could provide a massive jolt to the UK's satellite sector. Shocking photos have emerged of the moment a fisherman reeled in a massive bull shark from Sydney Harbour. James Murray was fishing with partner Nikita Gore and their friend at Birchgrove, in the city's inner-west, on Sunday when he hooked something big. After a 25-minute battle with his catch, the Zetland man pulled in a three-metre bull shark. Mr Murray told Radio 2GB host Chris O'Keefe on Tuesday that he tagged the shark and released it back into the water. James Murray reeled in a monster three-metre bull shark while fishing in Sydney Harbour (pictured) 'I reeled mine in and got mine up on the boat ramp,' Mr Murray said. 'Got a sample, a tag, a photo and sent him back on his way to live another day.' The trio documented the catch and tagged the bull shark with fobs from the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Mr Murray explained the tags help track different species, their growth and the areas in which they live. 'When you tag a shark they give you a card and you fill out the details, what kind it was, the size it was, male or female,' Mr Murray said. 'It is only when someone else recaptures that shark they can see where it is caught and if it has grown'. He said swimming in the Harbour was a 'pretty bad idea' from December to early March when bull sharks enjoy warmer waters. 'It could eat you alright if you go down in the water. I'd avoid it by staying out of Sydney Harbour,' Mr Murray said. Bull sharks - along with tiger sharks and great whites - are among the three species responsible for the highest number of fatal shark attacks. Bull sharks are the only species that can tolerate fresh water for long periods of time to feed and breed. Mr Murray said it took 25-minutes to reel in the bull shark before he measured, tagged and took a photo of his catch (pictured) The Zetland man then released the bull shark back into the water so that it could 'live another day' (pictured) It comes after the NSW government opened up the first 'beach' west of the Harbour Bridge in decades on Monday. The netted public harbour swimming spot is located at Marrinawi Cove at the northern end of Barangaroo Reserve. Signage and a new shower were installed so swimmers can safely enjoy the facility. Mr Murray said the swimmers should be 'pretty okay' going for a dip at Marrinawi Cove with shark nets in place. A database collated by the Taronga Conservation Society Australia ranks bull sharks third - behind tiger and great white sharks - for the number of recorded shark attacks on humans with 148 in Australia since the 1900s. Worldwide, it is believed the species is responsible for 26 fatalities since 1580, according to the Florida Museum's International Shark Attack File. Researchers believe the number of bull shark attacks are higher as many incidents of shark bites are commonly attributed to other species. Harry is locked in a legal battle with the Home Office over security in the UK Some critics suggest he made revelations to boost chances of getting security Prince Harry has been accused of revealing the amount of Taliban soldiers he killed as a means of getting extra security at the taxpayer's expense. The Duke of Sussex is locked in an ongoing legal battle with the Home Office over his security detail in the UK. Now, critics have suggested Harry may have thought it would benefit his case to detail his exploits during two tours in Afghanistan. In his memoir Spare, Harry detailed 'six missions that ended in the taking of human life', noting they were 'all deemed justified' by he and his superiors. The decision to include such graphic details in his book sparked widespread outrage and even calls in Afghanistan for Harry to be put on trial. Prince Harry on patrol in the deserted town of Garmsir, southern Afghanistan, in 2008 on the left, and during his deployment in 2012 on the right The Duke is locked in an ongoing legal battle with the Home Office over his security in the UK. Pictured: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in Rotorua, New Zealand, in 2018 Dr Alan Mendoza, from the Henry Jackson Society think tank, told The Sun the comments seem 'calculated'. 'Prince Harry's claims about the number of Taliban he may have killed - whether true or not - seem calculated to achieve just one objective: to secure extra security for himself at the UK taxpayer's expense. 'All he has succeeded in doing is to allow a despicable regime a free PR hit in response to his poorly framed comments.' Mawlavi Mohammad Qasim, a media director for the Taliban, sought to capitalise on the details in Harry's memoir, suggesting they 'exposed the real face of the Western world'. Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams earlier told MailOnline Harry's admission could be seen as a tactic 'to get the security he feels he needs when he visits Britain'. Now, questions are being asked as to whether Harry thought it would benefit his case to detail his exploits during two tours in Afghanistan. Pictured: Prince Harry making early morning pre-flight checks in the cockpit of a helicopter in 2012 'It occurred to me that he might be using this highly unusual admission to pressurise the Home Office into granting him what he wants, either to pay for round-the-clock police protection when he is here, or, alternatively, to be favourably assessed for taxpayer funded security which he lost when he and Meghan stepped down as senior working royals. 'He is challenging the Home Office in court on this issue at the moment, the level of threat is assessed by the Executive Committee for Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which falls under the Home Office.' 'Now it could credibly be claimed there is a new threat.' The last update in his legal challenge against the Home Office took place in July, when Harry won a bid to bring a High Court claim against the department. The challenge concerns the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) over his security. The decision to include such graphic details in his book sparked widespread outrage and even calls in Afghanistan for Harry to be put on trial. Pictured: Harry sitting in an armoured vehicle in Helmand province in February 2008 At the time, he was told he would no longer be given the 'same degree' of personal protective security when visiting. The prince's frank admissions have also made it dangerous for westerners who remained in Kabul. Animal charity boss Pen Farthing revealed on Friday night he's been forced to flee the city over fears of reprisal attacks. Ex-Army chief Colonel Richard Kemp also warned Harry's admissions could 'provoke' pro-Taliban sympathisers 'to attempt revenge' against him and possibly 'incite some people to attempt an attack on British soldiers anywhere in the world'. His revelations marked the first time Harry specified the number of insurgents he personally killed during his time in Afghanistan, where he went in both 2007-8 and 2012 and flew an Apache attack helicopter during his second tour. In the memoir, Harry acknowledged that many of his fellow soldiers would not be able to say precisely how many people they killed during the war. Prince Harry pictured alongside an Apache helicopter on October 31, 2012. He revealed in his memoir all of the kills were caught on video, which was later played back and analysed But he said he made it a priority to keep tally from the moment he arrived, to keep himself accountable and to keep his conscience clear. The prince was first deployed to Helmand province as a forward air controller in 2007, but his first tour of duty was cut short when an Australian magazine broke a media embargo by mistake. He returned in 2012 with the Ministry of Defence publicising his second deployment on the understanding that the media would allow him to get on with the job at hand. After he learnt to fly Apache helicopters, Harry was deployed to Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan in 2012 where he stayed for 20 weeks. During his 2012 tour, Harry helped provide helicopter support to the International Security Assistance Force and Afghan forces operating throughout Helmand province. Based out of Camp Bastion, 662 Squadron Army Air Corps, to which he belonged, flew more than a hundred deliberate missions over 2,500 flying hours, providing surveillance, deterrence and, when required, close combat attack capabilities as well as escort duties for other aircraft. Captain Wales qualified as a co-pilot gunner in February 2012. He was posted to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps, part of 16 Air Assault Brigade, to gain further flying experience and to operate the Apache on a number of exercises before deploying to Afghanistan in September 2012. Harry trained to fly in the front seat as the mission or aircraft commander but the majority of the time operated the Apache's sights, sensors and weapons systems. Upon his return to the UK, he was hailed by his colleagues and superiors as being 'on top of his game' during the tour. The Duke of Sussex pictured in Helmand province during his first tour of duty in 2008 He was given no special treatment and worked, ate and slept in the same basic conditions as the other pilots. It was, in his own words, 'as normal as it's going to get. I'm one of the guys, I don't get treated any differently'. Spare will hit shelves January 10 The Taliban have already taunted Harry and described him as a 'big mouth loser' for his revelation. In the summer of 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan with a lightning offensive that swept across the country in a matter of weeks, overthrowing the Western-backed government that was installed by the US, UK and their allies. Leaders of the government fled the country as Western coalition forces pulled out, culminating in the collapse of the Afghan military and the Taliban capturing Kabul on August 15, 2021. Despite promising a more progressive regime than when they were last in power in 2001, the Taliban have eroded the rights of women and minority groups in the country, most recently banning women from attending university - a move that drew fierce condemnation from the international community. Roberts described the separation as 'traumatic' and 'disruptive' in the interview The pair met while students at Oxford University and have four children Justine Roberts, 55, separated from Ian Katz in 2019 after 30 years together Justine Roberts, co-founder of parenting website Mumsnet, has revealed she left her husband after being hit like a tornado by love for someone else. Roberts, 55, who has been married to Channel 4 executive Ian Katz, 54, for 25 years, is now living with a new partner. She has four children aged between 16 and 23 with Katz, the chief content officer at Channel 4, whom she met while they were students at Oxford University. I just fell in love although I dont want to go into with who, she says. Justine Roberts, co-founder of parenting website Mumsnet, has revealed she left her husband after being hit like a tornado by love for someone else (pictured in 2015) Roberts, 55, who has been married to Channel 4 executive Ian Katz (pictured), 54, for 25 years, is now living with a new partner Obviously, what happened was not planned or ideal. I wasnt sitting there thinking, Ive got to get out of [this marriage], but, [Love] literally hit me like a tornado. Im sure menopause has something to do with that you put your head up a bit from nurturing your children, youre a little less tired and you think, Actually, I may have half a life left. 'It was subliminal in my case, but I was open to another way of living and another relationship. Their separation, she tells the Daily Telegraph, was traumatic and disruptive. Because were not as a society set up to believe that separation and divorce is anything other than failure. [Ian and I] had a fantastic time. I felt Id had the best of marriages and I wish in a way our society would accept and celebrate that, rather than make people feel theyre failures because their relationship ended after 30-odd years. But I also think there have been some upsides if you can be civil and put the family first, which we did, its possible for both parties to come out [of the marriage] and have the rest of their lives and this new exciting experience. Asked how their children have taken it, she insists: Great. In many ways theyre seeing the benefits of having two Christmases, things like that. The pair separated in 2019 after 30 years together but this is the first time she has spoken out about the relationship ending. Katz was previously the deputy editor of the Guardian and editor of Newsnight on BBC Two before he left to join Channel 4 in 2017. As CEO of parenting advice website Mumsnet, Roberts interviewed then Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May Mumsnet, which was founded in 2000, is an online forum offering advice for middle-class parenting dilemmas. It calls itself 'the UK's most popular website for parents' and aims to make parents' lives 'easier'. It features blog-style content, product reviews and community forums to talk about issues facing parents and boasts eight million monthly visitors. In 2018 the business generated 8.6million in revenue. The website has met with controversy in recent years after The New York Times described it as 'transphobic' due to discussion on the 'Feminism: Sex and Gender' topic. Some have argued stricter moderation is necessary but Mumsnet saw a loss in advertising following the backlash. In May, Roberts put Mumsnet users' questions to then Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to 10 Downing Street. She appeared on the Today programme earlier this week for a discussion about proposals to drop Liz Truss' free childcare plans. Katz declines to comment. At 4.17am on the morning of Sunday, November 13, university student Dylan Mortensen heard the sound of crying, opened her bedroom door and looked out. She found herself staring straight into the face of a masked stranger dressed in black a man who is now alleged to have committed one of the most perplexing multiple murders in recent U.S. history. Dylan and her flatmates lived in a notorious party house in the college town of Moscow, Idaho. But, even so, it had been a particularly disturbed night since she'd gone to bed at around 1am. Bryan Kohberger, 28, is the prime suspect to the killing of four University of Idaho students The 21-year-old student was woken at around 4am by what she later said sounded like flatmate Kaylee Goncalves playing with her dog in her bedroom on the floor above. A short time later she thought she heard Ms Goncalves say something like: 'There's someone here.' She opened her bedroom door to look for the first time that night but saw nothing. She opened it again when she thought she heard what sounded like crying coming from the bedroom of another housemate, Xana Kernodle. As she later told police, she then heard a man's voice saying words to the effect of, 'It's OK, I'm going to help you.' The crying seemed to continue and a neighbouring house's security camera picked up the sound of a dog barking and what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud. Minutes later she opened the door again, and there was the man in black walking towards her. She says she stood 'frozen' in shock, but he walked past her. As he made for a sliding door apparently to leave the house, she says she went back into her room and locked the door. The four University of Idaho students who were found dead in off-campus housing were identified on Monday as Madison Mogen, 21, top left, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, bottom left, Ethan Chapin, 20, center, and Xana Kernodle, 20, right It remains unclear why Dylan Mortensen didn't alert the authorities for another eight hours, or indeed why she escaped the gruesome fate of her University of Idaho housemates. Three of them Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, both 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20 along with Xana's boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, were savagely stabbed to death in their beds, almost certainly by the masked man. Bethany Funke, 21, survived. As for his identity, officials have little doubt that Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminologist with an unnerving personality and, it turns out, a strange fascination with police forensic science and serial killers, is the prime suspect. His arrest on December 30 at his parents' home, 2,500 miles away in Pennsylvania, brought some relief to a town that had been living on edge for seven weeks as police apparently struggled to find either a suspect or a motive for the horrific quadruple killings. Kohberger, who was seized after a SWAT team broke through the front door and windows of the family home in a 'dynamic entry' reserved for high-risk suspects, faces four counts of first-degree murder and burglary. He has yet to enter a plea, although his lawyer has said he expects to be 'exonerated'. Police say they were first led to Kohberger, a PhD student living 15 miles from Moscow while attending Washington State University after identifying his car near the victims' house on the night of the murder. His driving licence picture provided strong similarities with Dylan Mortensen's description of the masked man, and then detectives discovered from his mobile phone records that he had been behaving suspiciously, driving close to the victims' home on a number of occasions more of which later. Finally, they were able to match DNA found on the sheath of what appears to have been the still-missing murder weapon, a combat knife, with DNA samples in rubbish left outside the family house in Pennsylvania. A crucial piece of evidence obtained by investigators was a DNA match. They found it on the sheath of a U.S. Marines KA-BAR 'fighting knife' that the murderer in what appears to have been a major slip-up left on a bed near the bodies of two of his victims And yet while they are convinced they have their man, they are still no closer to establishing a motive or even whether he actually knew the students he allegedly killed. A case that was mystifying in the weeks before his sudden arrest continues to grip the U.S. as it faces up to the possibility that, not for the first time, someone schooled in the workings of the criminal mind and the conduct of criminal investigations has turned to murder himself. If Kohberger is the killer, it seems unlikely that his criminology studies are a mere coincidence given his decision to slaughter four young people he apparently never knew. He was, by common account, a 'brilliant' student who loved to show off to classmates and teachers alike that he knew better than them when it came to crime. Except he was clearly not brilliant enough. Despite allegedly going to great lengths to cover his tracks, he left a trail of clues. Just as in the pages of whodunnits and Hollywood scripts, the annals of U.S. crime are not short of examples of killers who studied subjects such as criminal behaviour and forensic science. Two of America's most notorious serial killers, Dennis Rader, the 'BTK Killer', and Joseph DeAngelo, the 'Golden State Killer', both had criminal justice degrees. Bryan Kohberger was arrested on December 30 at his parents' home, 2,500 miles away in Pennsylvania Investigators have also reportedly admitted to being 'puzzled' with questions still surrounding the case Between 1974 and 1991, Rader killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes. 'BTK' was an abbreviation he gave himself it stood for 'bind, torture, kill'. DeAngelo's spree lasted nearly as long, with at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986. Perhaps Kohberger thought he could emulate them or maybe Richard Speck, an American mass murderer who stabbed and strangled eight students in their Chicago dormitory one night in 1966 and whose case is cited by some experts looking for parallels with Kohberger. The latter has a degree in criminology from DeSales University and had moved to Washington State to study for a PhD at the criminal justice and criminology department. Experts told the Mail that Kohberger may have known just enough about forensics to convince himself he could get away with it but not enough to escape detection. At high school he was bullied for being overweight, and later struggled with heroin addiction. Intriguingly, while he was there, one of his two older sisters appeared in a low-budget 'slasher movie', Two Days Back, about a group of students murdered viciously by a serial killer. But he appeared to have turned around his life at college. He studied at DeSales under Katherine Ramsland, a celebrated forensic psychologist whose books include The Mind Of A Murderer and How To Catch A Killer. Michelle Bolger, a teacher at DeSales who helped him with his master's thesis a study of people's thoughts and feelings while committing crimes described him as a 'one of my best students ever'. Kohberger lost 100 pounds in high school, and was previously bullied, according to his former friends His fellow students have been less complimentary, noting that his obvious intelligence came with an intense arrogance and sometimes abrasive personality. They say he showed a particularly intense interest in crime scenes and serial killers. 'At the time it seemed as if he was just a curious student, so if his questions felt odd we didn't think much of it because it fit our curriculum,' said Brittany Slaven, who took classes with Kohberger at DeSales. At Washington State University, he'd been studying DNA evidence and forensics only weeks before the killings, and he was described as a contrarian, frequently getting into arguments with other students, particularly women. Indeed, he appeared to have problems connecting with women in general. The owner of a bar near his parents' home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, said Kohberger had been a regular until he started harassing the women who worked there. According to bar owner Jordan Serulneck, while Kohberger usually sat alone at the bar 'observing and watching', after a few drinks he would start making 'creepy comments'. In the months before the Moscow killings, Kohberger had applied for an internship with local police in Pullman, Washington, where he was living, and had written an essay outlining his interest in helping rural police forces collect and analyse evidence. As for his identity, officials have little doubt that Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminologist with an unnerving personality and, it turns out, a strange fascination with police forensic science and serial killers, is the prime suspect As revealed in a prosecution affidavit released last Thursday, he first appeared on the radar of police and FBI investigators in Moscow as he had a white Hyundai Elantra the same car that had been caught in surveillance footage passing the victims' home three times shortly before the killings and finally stopping for around 15 minutes before speeding away at 4.20am. By then, most of the occupants had gone to bed, having returned home just before 2am from their usual Saturday night of boozy student socialising. However, at least one of them, Xana Kernodle, was still up even two hours later, receiving a food delivery at around 4am, according to her phone records, and looking through the social media site TikTok 15 minutes later. Although surveillance cameras hadn't captured the Elantra's number plate, just such a vehicle was spotted by college police in a campus car park at Washington State University and found to be registered to Kohberger. Dylan Mortensen hasn't been able to say too much about the masked figure she says she saw pass her bedroom door but she had told police he was fairly tall and had 'bushy eyebrows' a detail that investigators noticed tallied with Kohberger's driving licence photo. By the last week of December, investigators had obtained Kohberger's mobile phone records which showed that, since June, he had visited the neighbourhood of the crime scene at least 12 times before the night of the killings. Victim Kaylee Goncalves had complained of a 'stalker' shortly before her death. Had she spotted him? On the night of the killings, Kohberger's phone was detected in Pullman, where he lived, at around 2.47am but was then switched off for two hours before being reconnected (at 4.48am) to the network some miles south of the University of Idaho and then back in Pullman. Disconnecting a phone is a common tactic for criminals who know their movements can be tracked via nearby mobile-phone towers. It would certainly be known to a student of police investigations. At around 9.12am several hours after the killings Kohberger's phone was detected back in Moscow, near the scene of the murders, for nine minutes before returning to Pullman. He would have seen that police had still not been called to the scene. The final but crucial piece of evidence obtained by investigators was that DNA match. They found it, they say, on the sheath of a U.S. Marines KA-BAR 'fighting knife' that the murderer in what appears to have been a major slip-up left on a bed near the bodies of two of his victims. Kohberger would know about the importance of DNA evidence and indeed Locard's Exchange Principle, a cherished rule of forensics that 'every contact leaves a trace' and that DNA can be obtained from hairs, skin cells and saliva. While America was in a state of ferment over the killings, a discreet FBI surveillance operation continued as in mid-December Kohberger drove home from college with his father in the Elantra for the holidays. Back in Pennsylvania, Kohberger was watched by an FBI team which reportedly saw further evidence of his caution when he repeatedly wore surgical gloves outside his home. He had changed his car number plates within days of the killings but was also observed on several occasions intently scrubbing clean the car interior. He was also seen putting his family's rubbish into the dustbins of their neighbours, said sources. The ruse didn't succeed, according to investigators, who say they managed to obtain a DNA sample from Kohberger's father, Michael, a former maintenance worker, from the family rubbish. A sample which, on analysis, indicated that he was the biological father of whoever left DNA on the knife sheath. And yet, even while he was allegedly doing his best to elude detection, it is claimed that Kohberger could not resist showing off his criminal intelligence. According to some of the army of online sleuths, including a former FBI agent, who have been speculating about the case, Kohberger used an alias Pappa Rodger to discuss the quadruple murder in social media discussion groups. Back in November, he tweeted that he believed police had found the murder knife's sheath and, according to the administrator of a Facebook discussion group on the killings, 'argued incessantly with people and said some really creepy stuff'. Based on his resemblance to a man in the crowd in a video clip posted online, some also believe that Kohberger was present at a vigil for the victims at their university. Investigators admit that questions remain. They are reportedly 'puzzled' as to why it took the victims' surviving flatmates nearly eight hours to alert police having first summoned friends after Ms Mortensen ran into the black-clad intruder. They have said the delay may have been down to intoxication or fear but have apparently ruled out the possibility that Mortensen was connected to the killer. The more pressing mystery is motive. What prompted Kohberger to kill four people to whom, evidence suggests, he had no connection? He is some years older than they were, and doesn't seem the sort of person who would have come to any of their many parties. Their friends had never heard of him. Prosecutors don't need to establish a motive to get a conviction but it would certainly throw much-needed light on an impenetrably dark crime that continues to disturb America. North Korea's Korean Central Television reports that COVID-19 cases have shot up in South Korea, China and Japan during the winter, in this image captured from footage from the TV station, Jan. 8. Yonhap North Korea has called for strengthening quarantine measures against the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the fast spread of the virus in such neighboring countries as South Korea and China, according to its state media Monday. The state-run Korean Central Television reported Sunday that virus cases shot up in the winter season in the South, China and Japan due to the fast spread of Omicron subvariants, saying, "The virus situations in those regions are the most serious in the world." It called on North Koreans to step up quarantine measures against the COVID-19 pandemic in a bid to "thoroughly" prevent infections. The North has recently raised its guard against the latest spike in virus cases in the South and China apparently due to concerns that potential imported infections could further deal a blow to its economy. In August last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared victory against the COVID-19 crisis, claiming the pandemic was brought under control three months after the county reported its first virus case in May 2022. In September last year, Kim called for a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 and advised people to start wearing masks in November as immunity levels could fall around October. (Yonhap) Three Labour MPs have received more than 340,000 from MPM Connect Ltd An obscure company has handed more than 340,000 to three senior Labour figures. Analysis of political funding has revealed that MPM Connect Ltd has been the third-biggest donor to MPs since the general election. It has given 183,317 to shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, 100,000 to former South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis and 60,000 to health spokesman Wes Streeting. Despite being set up back in 2010 and having more than 13 million in investments, according to its latest accounts, the firm has zero public presence with no office, website or phone number. The only address registered for the firm at Companies House is that of its accountants, who are based in a small building in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. Analysis of political funding has revealed that MPM Connect Ltd has given 183,317 to shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. Pictured: Yvette Cooper speaking in the House of Commons, December 19, 2022 Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Health was given 60,000 by MPM Connect Ltd. Pictured: Wes Streeting outside BBC Broadcasting House in London, December 12, 2022 Under pressure from Sky News, which is investigating MPs' second jobs and donations, the three Labour MPs said the firm was run by Peter Hearn, a long-standing party supporter who runs headhunting firms. Mr Hearn is a director of MPM Connect as well as a dozen other firms including recruitment giant Odgers Group Ltd. Separately to the recent donations made through his company, Mr Hearn personally donated 75,000 to Miss Cooper when she stood for Labour leader in 2015 and has given her thousands more since then. Her spokesman said: 'As has been reported many times, Mr Hearn kindly donates money to fund Yvette's office staff and has done so for many years. It has all been fully declared and compliant with all the rules.' A spokesman for Mr Streeting who is believed to have been a pupil at the same east London primary school that 69-year-old Mr Hearn attended decades earlier said: 'Peter kindly funds staff for Wes's office. Wes is proud to have successful business people supporting the Labour Party.' Analysis of political funding has revealed that MPM Connect Ltd has given 100,000 to former South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis. Pictured: Dan Jarvis in London, May 15, 2015 Another 138,801 was given to MPs by a little-known broadband firm from Blackburn. IX Wireless Ltd gave the money in small donations averaging about 5,000 to northern Tory MPs and constituency groups. One recipient claims he was told by party bosses that there was a pot of money available from a donor if he submitted an application, and discovered where it was from only after his bid was successful. Christian Wakeford, who defected to Labour a year ago, told Sky News: 'It was only at that time we were told the money had come from IX Wireless. I'd never heard of them.' Analysis by Sky News found that the two biggest donors to Westminster since December 2019 were major unions that also support Labour MPs. Unite has given 636,313 while GMB has handed over 397,738. Hannah White, of the Institute for Government, said MPs should be more transparent about donors' identities. Mr Hearn did not respond to requests for comment. A mother missing for five days along with her partner and newborn baby is descended from wealthy landowners with close links to the Royal Family, it emerged last night. Several sightings have been made of Constance Marten, 35, since police raised the alarm on Friday, saying her baby needed to be assessed by medical professionals. As forces around the country remained on high alert after Miss Marten and her baby were seen close to a shipping port, new details emerged about her background. She is the granddaughter of Mary Anna Marten, whose godmother was the late Queen Mother. The family used to own the Crichel estate in Dorset. Miss Marten's great-grandfather was Captain Napier Sturt, the third and final Baron Alington. Her father, Napier Marten, was a page to Queen Elizabeth, and gave up the 115 million family fortune, saying a voice in his head told him 'to shave my head and go to Australia'. Constance Marten, who is missing along with her newborn baby, is descended from wealthy landowners with close links to the Royal Family Constance's ancestors: Lt. Cdr George Marten with wife Mary and daughters Victoria, Charlotte and Georgina After her car broke down on the M61 near Bolton on Thursday evening, Ms Marten is believed to have been spotted wrapped in red blanket in Harwich Port, Essex on Saturday at 9am Miss Marten, her baby and partner Mark Gordon have been missing since their vehicle broke down near Junction 4 of the M61, near Bolton, last Thursday evening, after which they set off on foot. Police believe Miss Marten was then seen in Essex, first near Harwich Port on Saturday at 9am and then in Colchester an hour later. Miss Marten, who was wrapped in a large red garment at the Harwich Port sighting, has been urged to seek medical assistance as it appears that neither she nor the baby has been assessed by medical professionals. Napier Marten's parents were Toby Marten, a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy, and Mary Anna, daughter and heir to the third Baron Alington. The mother 'may have been spotted twice in Essex' - once in Harwich Port and again in Colchester Police have issued an urgent appeal for help to find Constance Marten and the baby's father Mark Gordon (pictured) Mary Anna had close links to the Royal Family, attending the Brownies pack at Buckingham Palace alongside Princess Margaret, The Independent reported last night. After an archaeology career which saw her travel the world, Mrs Marten was awarded an OBE in 1980 and made a trustee of the British Museum. She died in 2010. From her father who died in 1940 on active service in North Africa she had inherited the sprawling Crichel House estate. After Napier Marten renounced his inheritance and set off travelling the world, the 5,000-acre estate was expected to pass to his eldest son Max younger brother of Constance. However, in 2013 the house was bought by American billionaire Richard Chilton. Patients could be treated in cabins in car parks under plans to beat overcrowding and improve ambulance response times. Health Secretary Steve Barclay said hospitals would be given 50million to rent or buy temporary 'modular units' to boost capacity within weeks. The NHS has a list of approved 'modular unit' suppliers, one of which is Portakabin. They became a fixture of school playgrounds in the 1970s and 80s to accommodate space for extra pupils. Units will be fitted with additional beds or chairs where patients can be treated and observed or wait to be seen or sent home. It is hoped the move will make it easier for doctors to admit patients and free up space in A&E so paramedics are not forced to queue for hours to drop off new arrivals. Health Secretary Steve Barclay said hospitals would be given 50million to rent or buy temporary 'modular units' to boost capacity within weeks. Pictured: Steve Barclay in the House of Commons, January 9, 2023 Mr Barclay expressed regret as he admitted NHS emergency care had 'not been acceptable'. He told the Commons that the 'worst flu season for ten years' has made this winter 'particularly tough' and outlined a series of measures aimed at alleviating the crisis in the NHS. These include spending up to 200million buying thousands of extra places in care homes so medically fit patients can be discharged from hospital faster. Regulators will temporarily reduce inspections so busy hospital staff are free to focus on patients, rather than bureaucracy. Hospitals will make more use of 'virtual wards', which involve treating people at home but enabling them to return to wards if their condition deteriorates. Mr Barclay said it had been an 'extraordinarily difficult time' made worse by rises in Covid, scarlet fever and Strep A. Some of the strain is the result of bed-blocking with 13,000 patients remaining in hospital despite being fit for discharge, he added. Mr Barclay expressed regret as he admitted NHS emergency care had 'not been acceptable'. Pictured: Ambulances wait outside the Royal London Hospital in London, January 8, 2023 Mr Barclay said an emergency recovery plan for the NHS had been drawn up with the aim of addressing the immediate crisis, preparing for next winter and longer-term prevention of ill health to safeguard the system. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned that up to 500 people a week are dying due to treatment and ambulance delays. Its president Dr Adrian Boyle said: 'While we welcome this new investment and the Government's action, these are deep-rooted long-term problems such as the workforce recruitment and retention crisis that cannot be fixed quickly or easily.' In other health news... Medical outrage at Harry for claiming psychedelics like ayahuasca have any medicinal effect for grieving relatives as experts accuse Prince of 'trying to justify drug-taking with flimsy notions of therapeutic value' Woman went to Turkey for a cut-price boob job but her double-D implants ended up bursting through her chest Middle-class families could face 'modest' charges to see GP and have routine ops under plans put forward by veteran Tory Ken Clarke to save the NHS The hidden toxins in your favorite foods and treats REVEALED: From heavy metals in dark chocolate to lighter fluid in chicken nuggets Former President Trump congratulated Kevin McCarthy on winning the Speaker's gavel while he called on Republicans to 'stop' Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and any who voted for the $1.7 trillion omnibus deal. 'Great job Kevin! We must now stop Mitch McConnell and his China flagrant boss, Coco Chow,' Trump wrote on Truth Social, repeating an often-used racist moniker for the Kentucky Republican's wife and Trump's former Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao. The yearly spending bill came together at the 11th hour of the last Congress and will keep the government funded through September 2023. House Republicans, led by McCarthy did not want the Senate GOP to get on board with the massive spending bill and wanted them instead to pass a short-term deal that punted negotiations to this month when the GOP-controlled House would have more say. Trump continued: 'Its as though he just doesnt care anymore, he pushes through anything the Democrats want. The $1.7 TRILLION quickly approved Bill of the week before was HORRIBLE. Zero for USA Border Security. If he waited just ten days, the now United Republican Congress could have made it MUCH BETTER, or KILLED IT. Something is wrong with McConnell, and those Republican Senators that Vote with him. PRIMARY THEM ALL!!!' Trump attacked Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Truth Social The funding package includes fiscal victories for both parties - including an increase in defense spending for Republicans. It was negotiated in the Senate by now-retired Sens. Richard Shelby, Ala., and Pat Leahy, Vt. Many on the right who voted for it made clear that it was not the fiscal agenda they preferred but believed it was necessary to keep the military and other critical aspects of the government running smoothly. Trump said Senate Republicans should be primaried if they voted for the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill in the last Congress Eighteen Republican senators approved the 4,500 page bill. It includes $858 billion for defense, $787 billion for non-defense domestic programs and more than 7,200 earmarks costing over $15 billion. Nine Republicans in the House voted for the bill, though it would have passed with no Republican votes. All but two of the House Republicans who voted for the bill are no longer in Congress this term. There was a concern among some Senate Republicans that the divided caucus in the House would not be able to come to agreement this term on a spending deal. Those fears were reaffirmed by the Speaker's race last week, where it took McCarthy 15 ballots and bending over backwards to make right-wing defectors happy to win the gavel. MPs have agreed to suspend a Tory MP after he was found to have displayed a 'very cavalier' attitude to the rules in a series of lobbying breaches. Andrew Bridgen will be suspended from the Commons for five sitting days from Tuesday. The Standards Committee recommended the suspension for failing to declare a financial interest in a company he was lobbying on behalf of. The MP for North West Leicestershire's actions were described as 'careless and cavalier' and led him to breach the MPs' code of conduct. Andrew Bridgen will be suspended from the Commons for five sitting days from Tuesday The standards committee found he approached MPs and public officials on behalf of Mere Plantations, a reforestation company with links to Ghana but based in the UK. But a report conducted by the committee states he failed to declare that he was paid 12,000 by the company during 'eight emails to ministers, and in five meetings with public officials'. The committee also determined he attempted to influence Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone, who conducted the investigation. He reportedly told her he had heard a 'rumour' that she would only receive a peerage if she ruled against him. Mr Bridgen's suspension was decided on Monday night and will begin Tuesday. The MP for North West Leicestershire was sanctioned over his 'careless and cavalier attitude' to lobbying rules which led him to breach the MPs' code of conduct The report found Mr Bridgen 'breached rules of the House on registration, declaration and paid lobbying on multiple occasions and in multiple ways' in a 'significant litany of errors'. 'Each of these breaches could have led us to recommend a suspension from the service of the House. 'Mr Bridgen has demonstrated a very cavalier attitude to the House's rules on registration and declaration of interests, including repeatedly saying that he did not check his own entry in the register.' Last month the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) dismissed Mr Bridgen's appeal against his proposed suspension. He will not be paid during the suspension. Donald Trump has led the chorus of condemnation after it emerged that classified documents had been found in the offices of Joe Biden's Washington DC think tank. The ten files were found in early November, by Biden's lawyers, and handed over. The Justice Department has now opened an investigation, which The New York Times said could lead to a special counsel being appointed - as has happened in the case of Donald Trump and the hundreds of documents he kept at Mar-a-Lago. Biden was in Mexico City on Monday for a meeting with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and refused to answer shouted questions as to how the documents ended up inside the offices. Trump was among the many Republicans demanding answers, and pointing out that his own home was raided by the FBI for having classified documents stored there. 'When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified,' he wrote on social media. Joe Biden looks down at his briefing files on Monday in Mexico City, as a reporter yells a question about the classified documents found in the Washington DC offices of his think tank. Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, looks up as the press pack is ushered out Trump's son, Donald Jr, also asked when Biden's home would be raided. 'When will the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team storm one of Biden's many vacation homes bought and paid for somehow by a lifetime of being a humble public servant?' asked Trump Jr. Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor turned Texas congressman, said the news was 'incredible'. 'It's just been discovered that Biden had HIGHLY CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS that were improperly stored in one of his private offices,' he tweeted. 'INCREDIBLE! WHERE is the FBI? WHERE is the dramatic raid? We have two systems of justice in this country: one for them and one for us.' As the press in Mexico City was being ushered out of the meeting room, one reporter yelled out: 'Mr President, any response to the discovery of classified documents?' How the Biden documents were discovered NOVEMBER 2: 10 documents were found while Biden's attorneys were packing up the DC think tank office to leave. The files were said to be in a folder inside a locked closet, in a box with other unclassified documents. NOVEMBER 8: The midterm elections see Biden and his party perform better than expected. NOVEMBER 18: The Justice Department announces that Jack Smith, former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, will lead an investigation into Trump's storage of classified documents in his Florida home. JANUARY 9: The Justice Department announces an investigation has been launched into how the classified documents ended up at Biden's think tank. Biden says he was unaware there were any classified documents being held there, and his supporters point out that his own lawyers handed them over - noting that Trump's team fought to keep hold of his stash. Advertisement Biden, flanked by his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the Attorney General Merrick Garland, did not respond to the question, which was shouted as a Mexican government official began thanking the visiting US delegation. Garland has asked the US attorney in Chicago to review the 10 files discovered by Biden's personal attorneys at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. The classified materials included some top-secret files with the 'sensitive compartmented information' designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources. Biden has not yet commented on the discovery. The White House special counsel said in a statement on Monday: 'The White House is cooperating with the National Archives and the Department of Justice regarding the discovery of what appear to be Obama-Biden admin records, including a small number of documents with classified markings.' The documents were located in November, six days before the midterms. It is unclear what the classified documents contain, but their discovery follows the raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort last year and comes as Republicans begin their investigations into the Biden family. James Comer, the Republican congressman currently serving as chairman of the Oversight Committee, said late on Monday he would send a letter to the White House and National Archives looking for answers. The House Judiciary GOP tweeted the news with warning sirens. Conservative radio host Clay Travis said: 'They just announced Joe Biden illegally kept classified documents from his vice-presidency in his possession. 'I'm old enough to remember when the media told me this was impossible. So much for that Trump indictment. Between Hillary and now Biden, this story is over.' The Department of Justice has launched an investigation to review classified documents from Joe Biden's Vice Presidency found in a Washington DC office for his think tank Texas congressman Troy Nehls tweeted: 'BREAKING: Classified documents from Joe Biden's Vice Presidential days found at his private office. When will the FBI raid his home?' Arizona congressman Andy Biggs said that Biden 'stole' the documents, and referenced an April report in The New York Post, which pointed out that the University of Pennsylvania - home of the Biden center - received donations from China. 'Biden stole classified documents and stored them at his think tank while he was VP. The VP does not have any authority to declassify classified documents. 'And this 'think tank' received $54 million in funding from the CCP.' Jenna Ellis, who was part of Trump's legal team trying to overturn the election, tweeted: 'Biden's DOJ is reviewing Biden's classified docs? Maybe should *checks notes* consider a special master.' Podcaster Steve Hilton, who served as an advisor to British former prime minister David Cameron, said that Biden's actions were worse than Trump's. He did not say why, but vice presidents are not able to declassify documents - as presidents are. 'Joe Biden's theft of classified documents is clearly worse than anything Trump has been accused of,' he said. 'If Merrick Garland doesn't pursue Biden with at least as much ferocity as he's pursuing Trump, we'll know that Equal Justice Under Law is dead: killed by hyper-partisan Democrats.' Yet others insisted that Trump's storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago was a more serious crime than Biden's. Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior advisor to Barack Obama, tweeted: 'Team Biden found the documents, immediately contacted the archives, and returned them. 'Trump and his lawyers repeatedly deceived authorities and did everything possible to avoid returning them. 'These are not the same thing.' Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, agreed. 'Big differences between this & Trump's Mar-a-Lago situation: they were found in an office setting, not in Biden's home,' she said. 'Biden's team immediately volunteered news of the discovery to the Archives & turned them over immediately. It's apples to oranges.' Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked the US attorney in Chicago to review 10 files discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, six days before the midterms in November The report stated that the documents were found while Biden's attorneys were packing up the office to leave. The files were said to be in a folder inside a locked closet in a box with other unclassified documents. The CBS report states that Biden is unaware of the contents and there will now be a review into how the documents got to the office - a mile away from the White House. The Presidential Records Act requires all president and vice-presidential documents be handed over to the National Archives when the term in office ends, so they can be kept secure. After the discovery, the White House counsel's office notified the National Archives, which then took possession of the documents on November 3. US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch will now consider next steps, including whether a further investigation or a special counsel is needed. Lausch is one of two US attorneys nominated by Trump. The other, Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, is in charge of the investigation into Hunter Biden. US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch will consider next steps, including whether a further investigation or a special counsel is needed Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, told CBS: 'The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President's personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives'. In September, Biden was asked on 60 Minutes about the photo showing documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago during the FBI raid last August. 'How that could possibly happen? How anyone could be that irresponsible,' the president said. 'And it just totally irresponsible'. More than 300 classified documents were recovered from Trump's Palm Beach estate. Biden used the office in DC from 2017 until he announced he was running for president in 2019. It also used to be the home of his cabinet officials and closest aides. Blinken was the center's Managing Director in 2018, while top White House aide Steve Richetti was managing director in 2019. Biden is on leave from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor in 2017. He has been paid $917,643 for speeches and for heading the center, CBS reported. His granddaughter Naomi, his late son Beau, and daughter Ashley all got degrees there, and his granddaughter Natalie is an undergraduate. Tragic victim scheduled to appear in a Melbourne court on Wednesday Shylah had been working at the show and had been on her break at the time Despite the tragedy, the offending rollercoaster ride opened just days later She is now awake and has been moved out of intensive care but is unable to talk Tragic rollercoaster victim Shylah Rodden is scheduled to appear in a Melbourne court this week on theft charges. Shylah remains bedridden at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where she has been recovering since a rollercoaster ploughed into her at the Melbourne Royal Show on September 24. Police sources have told Daily Mail Australia the charges relate to an incident that occurred before the 26-year old's accident. Shylah Rodden (pictured) is due to appear in court on theft charges despite being seriously injured by a rollercoaster Shylah Rodden faces a long battle to recovery after being hit by a rollercoaster in September Horrifying footage shows Shylah Rodden (pictured in black) moments before being hit by the Rebel Coaster at the Melbourne Royal show on September 24 Despite her dire condition, public court records show Shylah is due to appear in court on Wednesday alongside lawyers from Melbourne's SLKQ Lawyers, who could not be contacted on Monday. Hospital staff told Daily Mail Australia just days before Christmas that Shylah remained in a stable condition after being brought out of a medically-induced coma in November. The court hearing is likely to be adjourned as Shylah remains unable to communicate with friends and family. The allegations surrounding the charges will remain unavailable to the public until the matter either proceeds or is withdrawn before a magistrate. It was revealed last year Shylah had endured a tumultuous life, which had seen her previously convicted over dishonesty matters. Both Victoria Police and Shylah's family refused to comment when questioned by Daily Mail Australia. Shylah faces years of rehabilitation after suffering a massive brain injury when she was flung nine metres into the air by the fast-moving ride while trying to retrieve a dropped phone. Shylah's father Alan Rodden told Daily Mail Australia soon after the incident that his daughter had suffered life-changing injuries. 'I can't talk to my daughter. She's going to be in a coma for quite a while,' he said. 'The injuries are horrific. Horrific. She's brain damaged. It's pelvic, her arms, legs, back, neck - there's hardly a thing that's not broken. I just can't work out how the hell so much damage has been done. 'Even the doctors have said they haven't seen anything as bad as this for a long time.' While Shylah's condition is classed as stable, close friends of hers have told Daily Mail Australia she remains trapped in her body, unable to communicate with anyone. A Melbourne Royal Show spokeswoman claimed 'the safety and well-being of our visitors to the show continues to be our number one priority' (pictured, the Royal Melbourne Show) Her supportive family remain committed to caring for her upon her eventual release from hospital. The Rodden family endured a nightmare end to 2022 and face further anguish just days into the new year. Trolls have mercilessly added to the family's grief, with people continuing to slam Shylah's actions after each and every article on her is published. So vile has been the abuse, a video of Shylah being hit by the rollercoaster went viral after being posted on TikTok accompanied by ridiculous music. A GoFundMe fundraiser established to help with Shylah's recovery has now raised more than $23,000 and remains open despite reaching its $20,000 target. The money is just a drop in the ocean to what will be needed to keep Shylah comfortable for the remainder of her life. A friend in close contact with Shylah and her family told Daily Mail Australia the money raised from the fundraiser would go towards helping Shylah's long road to recovery. 'People are under the impression that this money is just for her family. But people need to know this money is for Shylah's recovery,' the friend said. 'This money will go towards her therapy, her rehabilitation, things they need to change around the house for showering and toilet needs.' Questions over the height of fences around the ride (pictured) remain unanswered by Show management Shylah Rodden was charged with theft before her tragic accident in September On the day she was struck by the rollercoaster, Shylah had been working at a friend's stall at the Melbourne Royal Show. The pair had been on a break when they decided to go on a few rides to kill time. It is understood Shylah dropped her phone while on the rollercoaster and police believe she walked onto the tracks of the high-speed ride to retrieve the device. Government sources told Daily Mail Australia last year that whatever drove Shylah to jump onto the tracks was not a concern of the safety watchdog. It is understood WorkSafe is investigating what the ride's operators were doing when Shylah made her way onto the tracks. 'Her toxicity levels are not relevant to the investigation into whether the duty holder was doing everything reasonably practicable to provide a safe and healthy workplace,' a source told Daily Mail Australia. A WorkSafe inspection concluded that The Rebel Coaster was 'safe' to re-open just days after the accident, allowing operators to re-open the ride to the public. The move was slammed at the time by Shylah's family, who branded it 'shameful'. A Melbourne Royal Show spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia at the time that WorkSafe had declared the ride was safe to be re-opened. Renovation projects can often appeal to buyers who are looking for a blank canvas that they can put their stamp on, or even to sell and make a profit. We look at three different renovation projects around the country, including one in South East London, one in Wokingham and a third in West Yorkshire. They have contrasting price tags, ranging from the highest at 825,000, and moving through to the lowest at just 10,000. We list three renovation projects with price tags between 10k and 825k, including this one in South East London (scroll down for more details) However, something that they all have in common is the amount of money required to renovate them. Buyers will require deep pockets if they want to turn any one of them into a comfortable family home. And they will also need to do their due diligence before taking the plunge, with getting a thorough survey done being a good starting point. There is also the cost of materials and labour, along with making sure you budget for any contingency funds. Daniel Copley, of Zoopla, said: 'January is the perfect time to start a new project. For those on the hunt for a new home, there are currently some properties for sale that are brimming with potential. 'A renovation property can provide a unique opportunity for a buyer to create a home that's truly their own - but if you do decide to invest, ensure you budget as costs can quickly mount up.' Three renovation projects for sale... 1. Three-bed house, South East London, 825k This house in South East London's Petts Wood is on the market for 825,000 and is being sold by Proctors estate agents The house needs to be completely renovated in order to turn it into a comfortable family home The three-bedroom property is on the market for the first time in more than 60 years The property is extremely dated but is functioning, with this family bathroom in working order This three-bedroom house in South East London's Petts Wood is on the market for the first time in more than 60 years. It is a spacious cottage within walking distance of Petts Wood and Orpington mainline stations. It is on the market for 825,000 and is being sold by Proctors estate agents. It describes the property as requiring 'substantial interior and exterior modernisation'. It adds that the property offers 'outstanding re-development opportunities as a lovely family home or re-build subject to planning consents'. 2. One-bed bungalow, Bradford, 10k This one-bedroom bungalow in West Yorkshire, Bradford, is on the market for just 10,000 The property needs a complete overhaul and cannot be lived in while it is in its current state It is being sold at auction - via Auction House North West - where properties can often be sold for much more than the guide price The floors of this room in the property need to be fixed as they cannot be currently safely walked on This one-bedroom bungalow in West Yorkshire, Bradford, is on the market for just 10,000. However, it is being sold at auction where properties can often be sold for much more than the guide price. Auction House North West described the property as in need of 'complete renovation'. It is 1.5 miles from Bradford city centre. 3. Two-bed house, Wokingham, 345k This two-bedroom property in Berkshire's Wokingham has an asking price of 345,000 The house is described by David Cliff - the estate agent handling the sale - as 'a little gem' The property needs to be renovated, with this kitchen torn out and redone from scratch The property has a blocked brick fireplace that could be uncovered as part of the renovation This two-bedroom house in Berkshire's Wokingham is described by estate agent David Cliff as 'a little gem'. It has a bay window, a separate entrance hall and a blocked fireplace that could be uncovered. It is half a mile from Wokingham train station and has an asking price of 345,000. The countdown is on to the first ever orbital space launch on UK soil, with the county of Cornwall just hours away from ushering in a defining moment for the British space industry. A former Virgin passenger plane is scheduled to take off from Newquay Airport tonight, before heading out to the Atlantic and dropping a rocket that will fly nine satellites into space. It will see the UK officially enter the space race and comes more than 70 years after the British Space Programme was established in 1952. So what time is the Virgin Orbit launch, what are Sir Richard Branson and co looking to achieve on this galactic mission, and how can you watch the iconic moment? MailOnline has all the answers. How will it work? History could be made as early as tonight (Monday), when Cornwall could host the first ever orbital space launch on UK soil. A former Virgin passenger plane is scheduled to take to the skies and drop a rocket that will fly off into space (shown above) The mission, which will be the first commercial launch from Europe and the first international launch by Virgin Orbit, has been named Start Me Up in tribute to the iconic British band, the Rolling Stones What time is the launch? A repurposed 747 jumbo jet named Cosmic Girl by Virgin is expected to take off sometime between 21:45 and 22:45 GMT, after all the commercial flights at Newquay Airport have ended. It will head out to the Atlantic Ocean, just south of Ireland, before releasing a rocket packed full of satellites when it reaches 35,000 ft. The LauncherOne rocket is set to be dropped between 22:54 and 23:54 and will make its ascent in the direction of Portugal. Cosmic Girl will then return to Cornwall Spaceport between midnight and 01:00 GMT on Tuesday. Although tonight is when the window for lift-off opens, Virgin Orbit has back-up launch dates on January 13, 15, 18, 19 and 20. This is just in case weather, or any technical gremlins, thwart the current plan. Is there a live stream? There is! All tickets for the viewing area at Newquay Airport were snapped up shortly after they became available, while many more people living nearby are expected to turn out to see the launch. The rocket can even be spotted from across the UK when it is ignited. But what if you want to watch the whole launch in full? Well, the good news is that you can, because a live stream will be available on Virgin Orbit's YouTube channel. Viewers can tune in via the company's website here. So can I actually see the rocket in the night sky? Virgin Orbit says it should be possible for most people in the UK and Ireland to see LauncherOne within 60 seconds of ignition, while those living on the coast of France, Portugal, and Spain will get a good view within two to three minutes. The company has released maps that show the route of the rocket and the timings for when people across Britain and beyond might be able to catch a glimpse of it in the sky. However, it is expected to be cloudy tonight, especially over Cornwall, with a massive band of rain moving in towards the UK overnight into Tuesday. Virgin Orbit has released maps that show the route of the rocket (the blue line) and the timings for when people across Britain and beyond might be able to catch a glimpse of it in the sky The company says it should be possible for most people in the UK and Ireland to see LauncherOne within 60 seconds of ignition, while those living on the coast of France, Portugal, and Spain will get a good view within two to three minutes However, it is expected to be cloudy tonight, especially over Cornwall, with a massive band of rain moving in towards the UK overnight into Tuesday (pictured is the forecast at 23:00 GMT) What is Sir Richard Branson looking to achieve with the mission? Spaceport Cornwall's development is expected to create around 150 jobs and allow the UK to compete in the global market for deploying small satellites into Earth orbit an industry expected to be worth 3.9 billion by 2030 which Branson is hoping to tap into. He also has Virgin Galactic, which is based in the US and focused on space tourism. In 2021, Branson flew to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Space X's Elon Musk in the billionaire space race. Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, has also previously told MailOnline that human spaceflight was 'not currently part of the company's plans' for the Newquay facility. But he said Spaceport Cornwall could be used to send probes to Mars, Venus and the moon within the next three or four years. 'Lunar missions and smaller craft bound for Venus and Mars could be launched [from Spaceport Cornwall] within the next three or four years,' he said. In 2021, Sir Richard Branson flew to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Space X's Elon Musk in the billionaire space race 'We're not going to launch a Perseverance rover (currently being used by NASA to search for signs of ancient life on Mars ), for example, but smaller interplanetary probes that explore or carry out landing missions are a possibility.' How does LauncherOne work? The upcoming Cornwall launch will involve Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl, and LauncherOne, a two-stage orbital launch vehicle tucked into Cosmic Girl's belly. Once Cosmic Girl is at a high enough altitude around 35,000 feet LauncherOne is unleashed. It is angled skyward about 27 at the moment of release and freefalls for 4 seconds before the first stage engine accelerates the rocket to 8,000 miles per hour. Once its fuel is spent, the first stage detaches. LauncherOne will be between 310 to 745 miles above the Earth when its second engine engages, kicking off a series of burns to circularise its orbit. As it reaches space, a hatch then pops open to expose the payload of satellites, before the nose cone is jettisoned and the second stage ejects the satellites into low-Earth orbit. The Virgin Orbit Launcher One rocket will be equipped with Ministry of Defence observation kit among other payloads Several of the satellites being launched have been built in the UK, including a research satellite from RHEA Group (pictured), which was built by Open Cosmos in Oxfordshire THE 'PROMETHEUS-2' MISSION The 'Prometheus-2' mission will send two cube-shaped satellites ('cubesats') into space by Virgin Orbit, although there will be other payloads aboard. The Cubesats will operate in low Earth Orbit, around 340 miles above the Earth and 30-60 miles apart at 17,000mph. Cubesat 1 includes a hyperspectral imager, a laser detector and a GPS receiver. The hyperspectral imager will capture multiple slivers of pictures over different wavelengths of light for higher definition images. The GPS receiver confirms the precise time and position of the satellite over the area of the Earth to be photographed. Cubesat 2 includes two optical imaging cameras, a laser range finder, and a GPS receiver. One camera will be fitted with a wide-angle lens for a 180-degree view of Earth's surface with the second camera observing the other Cubesat 1 to support space situational awareness and enables us to understand what else orbits the Earth. Advertisement What satellites are being carried by the rocket? Virgin Orbit will send two UK governments cubesats measuring about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide and 4 inches deep into space along with seven other payloads as part of a mission named Prometheus-2. Built by In-Space Missions Ltd, based in Hampshire, and designed with Airbus Defence and Space, Prometheus-2 is a collaboration between MoD and international partners, including the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). A number of the satellites are doing research and development (R&D), proving technologies for use on later operational spacecraft. The cereal box-sized Cubesat 1' and 'Cubesat 2' spacecraft will test new equipment to image the Earth, as well as new types of radio. They will be able to monitor the transmission environment and could one day be used to detect the communications of smugglers or illegal fishers at sea. Has Britain ever launched a rocket before? Well technically, but it was 50 years ago. And it didn't happen in the UK. In 1971, a British-made rocket called Black Arrow reached space after blasting off from Australia. Developed during the 1960s, the satellite carrier was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971, but it was its final flight which was the first and only successful orbital launch conducted by the UK. The first and third failed, while the second was a suborbital test. No UK built rocket has been launched to space since, and never has one blasted off from British soil. That is despite the fact that Britain is known for its expertise in manufacturing satellites. Until now, the country lacked a way of getting its own hardware into space, but Virgin Orbit's Spaceport Cornwall could provide a massive jolt in the arm to the UK's satellite sector. Where does the UK rank when compared to other space-faring nations? The Soviet Union was the first nation to carry out a successful space launch, with Sputnik 1 in October 1957, before the United States, Japan, France, China, India, Israel and Iran all followed. North Korea achieved the feat in 2012, along with South Korea earlier this year, so Britain would be the 11th nation to carry out a space launch on its own soil. Is Britain, and more specifically Cornwall, a good place to launch a rocket? Ian Jones, CEO of Goonhilly Earth Station, explains why Cornwall is the perfect place for the UK's first orbital space launch, and for further lift-offs in the future. 'We're on a peninsula, surrounded by the ocean with the ability to get into, and communicate, with space,' he said. 'It's like living on our own little spaceship here. It's also the sort of environment that makes our services exportable to the rest of the world.' The south-west coast of the UK is also reasonably well situated for launches into polar or low-earth orbit, although the weather obviously isn't ideal. Launch controllers don't have to worry about hurricanes like they do at Cape Canaveral in Florida, but for Cornwall and the other spaceports coming online in Scotland in 2023, it could spring up some issues. The good thing about Cornwall's site, however, is that because it carries out horizontal launches, these are not impacted as much by adverse weather as vertical ones are. How will the county benefit from the launch site? Spaceport Cornwall's development is expected to create around 150 jobs and allow the UK to compete in the global market for deploying small satellites into Earth orbit an industry expected to be worth 3.9 billion by 2030 which Branson is hoping to tap into. Spaceport Cornwall (pictured in an artist's impression) will be the first such hub in the UK to enter service when the repurposed Newquay Airport hosts the space plane lift-off at night, after all the commercial flights have ended Sam O'Dwyer, managing Director of Cornwall Airport Newquay, said: 'We are incredibly proud to be involved in this innovative project to enable space launch from Cornwall Airport Newquay with Spaceport Cornwall and Virgin Orbit. 'The team effort that has gone into developing a fully licensed Spaceport facility which will deliver safe and secure space operations for the UK's first ever space launch has been simply inspiring and I'd like to say a massive well done to my team.' What's next for Spaceport Cornwall? The site is targeting two unmanned commercial space flights a year from this year, but has a licence for up to 12. Virgin Orbit, which has performed three commercial flights in the US, wants Cornwall to be its first base outside America. If you enjoyed this article... What other space launches will take place in 2023? MailOnline looks at the exciting missions blasting off this year Why haven't aliens contacted Earth yet? Scientists say it's because there's no sign of intelligence here! Stargazers will have a once-in-a-generation chance to see a new comet at the end of January Advertisement Britain's historic first ever orbital space launch on UK soil dramatically failed last night, after Virgin Orbit revealed that an 'anomaly' had prevented its rocket from reaching orbit. Sir Richard Branson's company originally appeared to announce that it had succeeded in its goal to deliver nine satellites to space on Virgin's 70ft-long LauncherOne rocket. But about 40 minutes later the firm said an 'anomaly' had occurred and it deleted its tweet about reaching orbit. A repurposed Virgin 747 jumbo jet had taken off from Cornwall Spaceport shortly after 22:00 GMT on Monday and just over an hour later dropped LauncherOne from its belly. Devastating: Britain's historic first ever orbital space launch on UK soil dramatically failed last night, after Virgin Orbit revealed that an 'anomaly' had prevented its rocket from reaching orbit. Pictured is the moment the rocket ignited TIMELINE: HOW VIRGIN'S CORNWALL SPACE LAUNCH WENT WRONG 22:02 GMT: Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl space plane takes off from Spaceport Cornwall 23:10 GMT: After reaching its launch zone just off the coast of Ireland, Cosmic Girl deploys the rocket attached to its belly 23:11 GMT: The rocket heads past Portugal as it ascends to space 23:18 GMT: Virgin appears to suggest on Twitter that the mission has succeeded in reaching orbit 23:50 GMT: But it then emerges that an 'anomaly' has occurred which prevented the rocket from deploying its payload of satellites into orbit 23:55 GMT: Cosmic Girl returns to Cornwall Spaceport as disheartened spectators watch on Advertisement The rocket then hurtled towards space at 8,000 mph, heading in the direction of Portugal as it ascended, before seemingly breaking through the Earth's atmosphere. However, it later emerged that something had gone wrong on what was supposed to be a momentous night for the UK space industry. Virgin Orbit did not elaborate on the problem, saying only that it was 'evaluating the information'. It had been hoped that the launch would officially mark the UK entering the space race more than 70 years after the British Space Programme was established in 1952. The mission had been going smoothly as Virgin's space plane named Cosmic Girl reached its target launch zone just off the south coast of Ireland and deployed LauncherOne at an altitude of 35,000ft above the Atlantic. Mathew 'Stanny' Stannard, an RAF Squadron Leader who is on secondment as Virgin Orbit's chief pilot, was at the controls, while his co-pilot Eric Bippert pushed the 'Big Red Button' to drop Branson's rocket at about 23:10 GMT. This made the jumbo bank hard to the right, taking it away from the moment the rocket ignited four seconds after falling. All seemed well as Virgin celebrated its 'successful' UK launch, only for there to be a conspicuous lack of information before the company revealed details of the 'anomaly'. Confusion then broke out among the spectators who had gathered to witness the historic launch in person or via Virgin Orbit's live stream, as Cosmic Girl returned to a somewhat lukewarm reception at Cornwall Spaceport at about 23:55 GMT. Matt Archer, from the UK Space Agency, revealed that it was the second stage of the launch which suffered an 'anomaly', the cause of which was under investigation. 'In effect the rocket has not reached the required altitude to maintain its orbit or deploy the satellites and therefore the mission was unsuccessful,' he told reporters at Spaceport Cornwall. 'Over the coming days, there will be an investigation involving the Government and various bodies, including Virgin Orbit, to make sure we understand what caused that technical failure and again we'll work out what to do next following that. 'At this stage there's not a lot more that I can say. 'We don't know what caused the anomaly and the data will be ongoing from now but we've achieved the launch. We set out to do that and create the conditions for horizontal launches at Spaceport Cornwall. 'So lots of positive things have been achieved and while it is obviously disappointing not to achieve orbit will continue to press on. 'The launch is really important for our sector and well get there in the end.' Mathew 'Stanny' Stannard, an RAF Squadron Leader who is on secondment as Virgin Orbit's chief pilot, was at the controls, while his co-pilot Eric Bippert pushed the 'Big Red Button' to drop Sir Richard Branson's rocket at about 23:10 GMT Shortly after the launch, Virgin Orbit tweeted: 'LauncherOne has once again successfully reached Earth orbit!' The Virgin Orbit mission to deploy satellites into space failed on Monday night after an 'anomaly' prevented the rocket from reaching its destination height The company later said that it had deleted its tweet about reaching orbit 'as we find out more' about what happened Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, said: 'I'm absolutely devastated. 'We put our heart and soul into this, it's such a personal journey for me as well my family were here so yeah, it's pretty pretty rough. 'But I feel okay, and I think it will just be a few days and just kind of letting it sink in a little bit. She added: 'I got to see everybody picking up on the excitement, the kids, the conga line that was out. 'It was so brilliant, I don't think that (the failure) should take away from it. We saw how much this could attract people. I've had so many kids taking videos of themselves, making their own rockets. 'For me, for Cornwall, it hasn't exactly gone to plan but we've done everything that we were going to do as a spaceport here. Stay with us, please.' Asked if the spaceport would try again, she said: 'Of course we do. That's space.' Space X and other companies had got in touch, she said, to say 'we've been there'. How the launch worked: Cornwall hosted he first ever orbital space launch on UK soil, despite it ultimately ending in failure. A former Virgin passenger plane took to the skies and then dropped a rocket that flew towards space (shown above), only to suffer an 'anomaly' The Virgin Orbit space plane - named Cosmic Girl - reached an altitude of 35,000ft and deployed LauncherOne when it reached the launch zone above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the south coast of Ireland Cosmic Girl left Newquay Airport at 22:02 GMT and flew out to the Atlantic. It then dropped a 70ft-long LauncherOne rocket Virgin Orbit's specially-adapted 747 jumbo jet with a rocket attached to its belly took off from Cornwall Spaceport at 22:02 GMT. A live stream of the mission was available to view via the company's YouTube channel (pictured) Rather than the iconic vertical launches we're accustomed to from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this one had been a horizontal launch because it involved a plane taking off and releasing a rocket mid-air. Earlier, spectators whooped and danced to Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones as the jet took off, with people climbing onto each other shoulders to witness a moment which had promised to deliver the birth of a home-grown space launch industry. A further 75,000 people watched online via a live stream on Virgin Orbit's YouTube channel. In the past, satellites produced in the UK have needed to be sent to foreign spaceports to make their journey into space. The Soviet Union was the first nation to carry out a successful space launch, with Sputnik 1 in October 1957, before the United States, Japan, France, China, India, Israel and Iran all followed. North Korea achieved the feat in 2012, along with South Korea earlier this year, so Britain is the 11th nation to carry out a space launch on its own soil although the fact it failed makes it somewhat of a hollow claim. Not only was the mission the first of its kind from Britain, it also came five decades after a UK-made rocket, Black Arrow, last reached space following its lift-off from Australia. The launch followed months of delays, with Virgin Orbit citing technical and regulatory challenges in getting ready for take-off. There was huge excitement at Newquay Airport ahead of the first orbital space launch on British soil yesterday evening Viewers attending the launch included Adrian Grint, a 46-year-old IT consultant from St Austell in Cornwall, who dressed as a green alien. He held a sign saying 'take me home' People at Cornwall Airport Newquay react to the news that Britain's first orbital space launch on UK soil has failed Disappointed: Cosmic Girl returned to a somewhat lukewarm reception at Cornwall Spaceport at about 23:55 GMT as disheartened spectators looked on WHAT SATELLITES WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DELIVERED TO SPACE? Virgin Orbit was supposed to be sending two UK governments cubesats measuring about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide and 4 inches deep into space along with seven other payloads as part of a mission named Prometheus-2. A number of the satellites were designed to carry out research and development, proving technologies for use on later operational spacecraft. The cereal box-sized Cubesat 1' and 'Cubesat 2' spacecraft were supposed to test new equipment to image the Earth, as well as new types of radio. The hope was that they would be able to monitor the transmission environment and one day be used to detect the communications of smugglers or illegal fishers at sea. Advertisement Dan Hart, chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said: 'We knew this was not going to be a piece of cake when we took up on the opportunity. 'We worked very closely with the UK Space Agency, the Civil Aviation Authority and Spaceport Cornwall, as well as the international airspace community. 'I think we have learned a lot doing that. I think, like any first, the first time you do it is difficult, the second time you already know and can anticipate. 'The short answer is we are excited to be here, and we're excited about the future and coming back as soon as later this year to launch again.' Virgin Orbit was trying to deliver two UK governments cubesats measuring about 12 inches long, 8 inches wide and 4 inches deep into space along with seven other payloads as part of a mission named Prometheus-2. Built by In-Space Missions Ltd, based in Hampshire, and designed with Airbus Defence and Space, Prometheus-2 is a collaboration between MoD and international partners, including the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). A number of the satellites were meant to carry out research and development, proving technologies for use on later operational spacecraft. The cereal box-sized Cubesat 1' and 'Cubesat 2' spacecraft were designed to test new equipment to image the Earth, as well as new types of radio. Ahead of the launch, science minister George Freeman said: 'This really is a genuinely big moment for UK science & Technology, a momentous occasion: the first time in history that there has even been a satellite launch from European soil. 'It's the delivery of our first major milestone in my UK Space Industry Strategy I set out 18 months ago. 'It's a big sign of UK commitment to be a fully integrated player in the rapidly emerging commercial Space sector.' He added: 'Tonight marks the dawn of a new era for UK space that will inspire a new generation of space scientists and innovators, and lay the foundations for technological leadership, just as the Apollo mission did for the USA in the 1960s.' Virgin Orbit had released maps that showed the route of the rocket (the blue line) and the timings for when people across Britain and beyond might be able to catch a glimpse of it in the sky The company said it would be possible for most people in the UK and Ireland to see LauncherOne within 60 seconds of ignition, while those living on the coast of France, Portugal, and Spain would get a good view within two to three minutes, it added Cornwall horizontal's launch site is one of three spaceports in the UK that aim to start satellite launches in 2023, with two more in Scotland due to come online later this year. Its development is expected to create around 150 jobs and allow the UK to compete in the global market for deploying small satellites into Earth orbit an industry forecast to be worth 3.9 billion by 2030 which Branson is hoping to tap into. The site is targeting two unmanned commercial space flights a year from this year, but has a licence for up to 12. Virgin Orbit, which has performed three commercial flights in the US, wants Cornwall to be its first base outside America. Mr Hart previously told MailOnline that human spaceflight was 'not currently part of the company's plans' for the Newquay facility. But he said Spaceport Cornwall could be used to send probes to Mars, Venus and the moon within the next three or four years. 'Lunar missions and smaller craft bound for Venus and Mars could be launched [from Spaceport Cornwall] within the next three or four years,' he added. The Virgin Orbit Launcher One rocket had been equipped with Ministry of Defence observation kit as part of its payload Spaceport Cornwall (pictured in an artist's impression) is the first such hub in the UK to enter service Britain's first ever orbital space mission explained: MailOnline's step-by-step guide to Virgin Orbit's launch of its 70ft-long LauncherOne rocket from Spaceport Cornwall By Sam Tonkin for MailOnline Britain officially entered the space race after Cornwall hosted the first ever orbital space launch on UK soil on Monday night (January 9) although it was a hollow achievement as Virgin Orbit's rocket failed to reach orbit. Want to know more about the ill-fated launch, what was supposed to be launched into orbit and whether humans could one day travel to space from Spaceport Cornwall's Newquay Airport base? MailOnline provides a step-by-step guide of everything you need to know. When did the launch take place? The first ever orbital space launch on British soil took place on Monday, January 9. It happened at night, after all the commercial flights at Newquay Airport had ended. The Virgin Orbit space plane named Cosmic Girl left Newquay Airport at 22:02 GMT. Sir Richard Branson's modified Boeing 747 took off from Spaceport Cornwall with a 70-foot-long rocket packed full of satellites Was it a traditional rocket launch? No. Rather than the iconic vertical launches we're accustomed to from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, this one was a horizontal one. The way that works is that a modified Boeing 747, which used to be a passenger aircraft in Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic fleet, took off from Spaceport Cornwall like a normal plane would. When it reached the desired altitude of 35,000ft just off the coast of Ireland, the co-pilot hit the 'Big Red Button' and a rocket attached to the plane's belly was released over the Atlantic. It was in freefall for four seconds, before igniting and heading south past Portugal as it made its ascent. LauncherOne was supposed to release its payload of satellites when it reached low-Earth orbit, but an 'anomaly' prevented this from happening. How long did the launch take? The LauncherOne rocket was dropped at 23:10 GMT and the entire launch phase was supposed to last around 10 minutes. Cosmic Girl then return to Cornwall Spaceport at about 23:55 GMT. LauncherOne was supposed to catapult its onboard satellites into space at 8,000 miles per hour (pictured in an artist's impression) What was Sir Richard Branson looking to achieve with the mission? Spaceport Cornwall's development is expected to create around 150 jobs and allow the UK to compete in the global market for deploying small satellites into Earth orbit an industry expected to be worth 3.9 billion by 2030 which Branson is hoping to tap into. He also has Virgin Galactic, which is based in the US and focused on space tourism. In 2021, Branson flew to the edge of space and back in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Space X's Elon Musk in the billionaire space race. Dan Hart, Virgin Orbit CEO, has also previously told MailOnline that human spaceflight was 'not currently part of the company's plans' for the Newquay facility. But he said Spaceport Cornwall could be used to send probes to Mars, Venus and the moon within the next three or four years. 'Lunar missions and smaller craft bound for Venus and Mars could be launched [from Spaceport Cornwall] within the next three or four years,' he added. 'We're not going to launch a Perseverance rover (currently being used by NASA to search for signs of ancient life on Mars ), for example, but smaller interplanetary probes that explore or carry out landing missions are a possibility.' In 2021, Sir Richard Branson flew to the edge of space in his Virgin Galactic rocket plane beating Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Space X's Elon Musk in the billionaire space race How does LauncherOne work? The Cornwall launch involved Virgin Orbit's carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 called Cosmic Girl, and LauncherOne, a two-stage orbital launch vehicle tucked into Cosmic Girl's belly. Once Cosmic Girl is at a high enough altitude around 35,000 feet LauncherOne is unleashed. It is angled skyward about 27 at the moment of release and freefalls for 4 seconds before the first stage engine accelerates the rocket to 8,000 miles per hour. Once its fuel is spent, the first stage detaches. LauncherOne will be between 310 to 745 miles above the Earth when its second engine engages, kicking off a series of burns to circularise its orbit. As it reaches space, a hatch then pops open to expose the payload of satellites, before the nose cone is jettisoned and the second stage ejects the satellites into low-Earth orbit. Has Britain ever launched a rocket before? Well technically, but it was 50 years ago. And it didn't happen in the UK. In 1971, a British-made rocket called Black Arrow reached space after blasting off from Australia. Developed during the 1960s, the satellite carrier was used for four launches between 1969 and 1971, but it was its final flight which was the first and only successful orbital launch conducted by the UK. The first and third failed, while the second was a suborbital test. No UK built rocket has been launched to space since, and never has one blasted off from British soil. That is despite the fact that Britain is known for its expertise in manufacturing satellites. Until now, the country lacked a way of getting its own hardware into space, but Virgin Orbit's Spaceport Cornwall could provide a massive jolt in the arm to the UK's satellite sector. What's next for Spaceport Cornwall? Once the cause of this failure has been established, the site is targeting two unmanned commercial space flights a year from this year. However, it has a licence for up to 12. Virgin Orbit, which has performed three commercial flights in the US, wants Cornwall to be its first base outside America. If you enjoyed this article... What other space launches will take place in 2023? MailOnline looks at the exciting missions blasting off this year Why haven't aliens contacted Earth yet? Scientists say it's because there's no sign of intelligence here! Stargazers will have a once-in-a-generation chance to see a new comet at the end of January President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks next to drone models during a visit to the Agency for Defense Development in the central city of Daejeon in this Dec. 29, 2022, file photo. Yonhap Presidential officials have granted meetings with North Korean human rights activists last year and will continue to keep dialogue channels with them open in a departure from the preceding Moon Jae-in administration, an official said Monday. Last year, members of Fighters for Free North Korea and other activist groups requested a meeting with the presidential office and had one, a presidential official told Yonhap News Agency. "We haven't met again this year yet, but we are keeping the channel open," the official said. Under the Moon administration, the presidential office did not recognize such activist groups, many of whose members are North Korean defectors, as dialogue partners, treating them with hostility, according to the official. Yoon, meanwhile, promised during his presidential campaign to work with the international community to enhance North Koreans' human rights, while also vowing under his administration's key tasks to facilitate the launch of a North Korean human rights foundation that has been delayed. The presidential office is also looking into the activists' calls to allow the resumption of leaflet flying across the border to help inform North Koreans of the brutality of their regime. Such considerations are taking place as the government weighs suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military tension reduction agreement in the event North Korea carries out more provocations similar to last month's drone infiltration of South Korean airspace. (Yonhap) It saw spray deodorants, solvents and fridges containing CFCs being banned A 1980s ban stopping people use aerosol sprays, solvents and even refrigerators is helping heal the Earth's ozone layer, a new report by the UN has revealed. The ozone layer protects us from dangerous ultraviolet rays from the sun which can lead to long-term health issues, including sunburn and even skin cancer. It is a natural layer of gas located in the stratosphere the second layer in Earth's atmosphere that began depleting in the 1970s, with a large, gaping hole in the layer being discovered above Antarctica by scientists in 1985. This led to an international agreement in 1987 called the Montreal Protocol, banning the use of products containing harmful chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons found in spray deodorants, insulating foam and air conditioning. Earth's ozone layer is recovering after more than 35 years since the world agreed to ban the ozone-eating CFC-11. n this NASA false-color image, the blue and purple shows the hole in Earth's protective ozone layer over Antarctica in October 2022 What was the Montreal Protocol and why was it introduced in 1987? The Montreal Protocol was introduced in 1987 and signed by 46 nations. The pact agreed to ban CFCs and other harmful gases, causing damage to the ozone layer, within two years. It came after three scientists from the British Antarctic Survey published shocking findings in 1985 that low levels of ozone were being detected over the South Pole. The hole above Antarctica was later confirmed by NASA. CFCs were being found in spray aerosols, fridges and air conditioning systems. When chlorine molecules from the chemical reached the stratosphere, they were destroying ozone molecules. The new report from the UN has confirmed that nearly 99 per cent of these ozone-eating substances have been phased out. While a weakening ozone layer is not a major cause of climate change, it has a positive knock-on effect on global warming. Stopping the use of CFCs and other harmful chemicals will prevent the planet warming 1C by the middle of the century. Advertisement This pact has helped the ozone layer heal at a pace that would see the layer between the polar regions reach pre-1980 levels by 2040, the United Nations revealed Monday. Scientists said that global emissions of CFC-11 had declined since 2018 after increasing for several years. The assessment found that the 8.91-million-square-mile hole over Antarctica will close by 2066 and the atmospheric layer above the Arctic will return to normal by 2045. Five years ago this was predicted to be around 2060. John Pyle, author of the report and professor at the University of Cambridge said: 'The processes of the Montreal Protocol recognised a problem and something has been done about it. 'So that's a good thing'. Although warmer-than-average stratospheric weather conditions have reduced ozone depletion during the past two years, the current ozone hole area is still large compared to the 1980s - when the depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica was first detected. In the 1970s, it was recognized that CFCs were destroying ozone in the stratosphere. Petteri Taalas, World Meteorological Organization secretary-general professor, said in a statement: 'Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done - as a matter of urgency - to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase.' According to the report, the first signs of ozone healing were observed four years ago. Chlorine levels are down 11.5 percent since they peaked in 1993, and bromine, which is more efficient at eating ozone but is at lower levels in the air, dropped 14.5 percent since its 1999 peak, the report said. What are CFCs? The chemicals depleting the Earth's ozone Across the world, the use of the harmful chemical chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) started to be phased out in 1987. CFCs were found in a number of products including: Spray deodorants Hair spray Fridges Air conditioners Styrofoam packaging Fire extinguishers Solvents Advertisement That bromine and chlorine levels 'stopped growing and is coming down is a real testament to the effectiveness of the Montreal Protocol,' Paul Newman, co-chair of the scientific assessment, said. Natural weather patterns in the Antarctic also affect ozone hole levels, which peak in the fall. And the holes have been a bit bigger the past couple of years because of that, but the overall trend is one of healing, Newman said. The recovery is 'saving 2 million people every year from skin cancer,' United Nations Environment Program Director Inger Andersen told The Associated Press earlier this year in an email. As well as harmful radiation causing skin damage, it is also linked to cataracts and crop damage. While Monday's announcement is good news, it has not been without challenges. Illegal factories operating in China have delayed recovery by almost three years by producing CFC-11 in 2018. The UN has now said this issue appears to be resolved, with emissions falling to their expected level. At the same time, industries were attempting to replace CFCs with a third generation of chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which were found to be just as harmful. This sparked another international agreement to reduce use, and the new report shows that the ban avoided additional warming of 0.5 to 0.9 degrees. David Fahey, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is a lead author of the new assessment, told The Guardian that although the world took action in 1987 to reduce the use of CFCs, the chemicals are still lingering in the atmosphere and will be there for about a century. The announcement comes more than 35 years after every nation in the world agreed to stop producing chemicals that chop on the layer of ozone in Earth's atmosphere that shields the planet from harmful radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts and crop damage When will the ozone layer be restored? If current policies controlling the use of harmful chemicals is maintained, the ozone layer, the UN expects it to be restored to its 1980s values. The UN predicts: By 2040 the near-global average will be restored Around 2045 the ozone above the Arctic to be restored Around 2066 the ozone in the Antarctic is expected to be restored Advertisement The report also warns that efforts to artificially cool the planet by putting aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect the sunlight would thin the ozone layer by as much as 20 percent in Antarctica. Artificially cooling the planet has been a new topic in the scientific community, known as solar geoengineering. The UN Environment Programme looked into the effects of injecting aerosols into the stratosphere, which would reflect some of the sun's energy, in a last-ditch bid to offset global warming if plans to reduce green house gases fail. Numerous studies propose injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, noting these could be a viable and safe option in combating global warming. The idea is to block sunlight in a way that the ozone manages, but critics believe this method would do more harm than good. It is considered a controversial concept due to links that it could effect rainfall patterns. Experts warned in 2018 that the technique is a 'risky strategy' that could wreak havoc on our weather patterns, triggering severe droughts or devastating cyclones. It could also have an impact on the recovery of the ozone layer. Mr Pyle told The Times: 'Were you to put a lot of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, there will definitely be an impact on ozone recovery. 'In the calculations we report, Antarctic ozone will recover much, much more slowly than anticipated, and we might actually continue to have these very large Antarctic ozone depletions, essentially for the foreseeable while.' If you enjoyed this article... International treaty signed in 1987 to protect the ozone layer helped save our planet from 4.5F global warming that could have resulted in a 'scorched Earth', study finds SpaceX and Virgin Galactic space ships could destroy the ozone layer again: Soot particles from the rockets could reverse regrowth of the shield that protects life on Earth from UV rays, study finds Closing the gap! The hole in the ozone layer has SHRUNK by more than 700,000 square miles - the size of Texas - thanks to ban on chemicals used in aerosols More than 4,000 were released, but the AI found the parole board should have released nearly 50 percent more The AI was tested on data from the New York State Parole Board from 2012 to 2015, a time when more than 19,000 inmates had parole hearings Scientists trained the AI to analyze 91 variables to determine if an inmate is at high or low risk of rearrests after being released on parole It may sound like the plot of the 2002 movie Minority Report, but artificial intelligence can predict any arrest within three years of a prisoner being released on parole. The machine learning was designed to determine the risk of releasing a prisoner early by analyzing 91 variables, including age, race and previous arrests. Scientists from The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) used the data of more than 19,000 inmates scheduled with the New York State Parole Board from 2012 to 2015. Court documents show 4,168 individuals were released, but that AI determined the board could have released double the inmates without increasing the subsequent arrest rate. The machine learning was designed to assess the risk of releasing a prisoner early by analyzing 91 variables, including age, race and previous arrests The AI echoes the storyline of Minority Report, which starred Tom Cruise. The film, set in 2054, is about a specialized police department that apprehends criminals using foreknowledge provided by three psychics called 'precogs.' The machine learning algorithm found the predicted risks for those denied parole and those released are very similar. This suggests that low-risk individuals may have remained incarcerated, while high-risk individuals were released. Hannah Laqueur, an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and lead author of the study, said in a statement: 'We conservatively estimate the board could have more than doubled the release rate without increasing the total or violent felony arrest rate. 'And they could have achieved these gains while simultaneously eliminating racial disparities in release rates.' A total of 19,713 individuals had parole hearings from 2012 through 2015. During these years, 4,561 individuals were granted parole and 16,068 were denied one or more times. Along with age and race, the AI also looked at specific offenses, such as those involving minors, drugs, hate crimes and larceny. And the AI was fed information regarding arrest history. This included offenses that lead to the period of incarceration for which individuals are being considered for parole. While human parole staff have used statistical analysis for decades to determine if an inmate should be released, this technology is able to quickly look at every variable possible to 'know' for sure. The AI determined that the number of inmates released on parole should have been nearly 50 percent more. 'Our findings are consistent with the Vera Institute of Justice report finding that the Board denies parole to many individuals with low-risk COMPAS scores, and the common complaint that the Board is driven by retributive impulses, risk aversion, and fear of the political repercussions that they might face were they to release an individual convicted of murder, for example, who went on to be arrested for murder again,' according to the study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology. 'This suggests that the Board is either pursuing retribution or protecting themselves against political backlash.' The authors note they are not advocating replacing human decision-makers with algorithms to assess who should be released from prison. Instead, they see a role for algorithms to diagnose problems in the current parole system. Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise, is about a specialized police department that apprehends criminals using foreknowledge provided by three psychics called 'precogs' (pictured) 'This study demonstrates the utility of algorithms for evaluating criminal justice decision-making,' Laqueur said. 'Our analyses suggest that many individuals are being denied parole and incarcerated past their minimum sentence despite being a low risk to public safety. We hope that by providing data on predicted risks, we can aid reform efforts.' If you enjoyed this article... AI detective Valcri solves crimes using deductions made from MILLIONS of pieces data AI can successfully identify the likelihood of domestic violence in 90% of cases AI that studies CCTV to predict violent crimes BEFORE they happen will be rolled out in the UK Ted describes the pistes at both resorts as having good snow coverage He went to Les Arcs 1950, followed by Val d'Isere, which sits at 1,850m The death of the ski season has been greatly exaggerated. I have just returned from a snowboarding trip to the resort of Val d'Isere in the French Alps and can happily report that the winter season is alive and kicking there with plenty of snow from top to bottom. I was in the ski resort of Les Arcs, to the north, the week before and enjoyed similarly good conditions. I arrived in Val d'Isere - which together with neighbouring Tignes, offers 300km (186 miles) of slopes on Friday (January 6) to the joyful sight of snow-covered chalet roofs in the village, which lies at an altitude of 1,850 metres (6,069ft). Ted Thornhill has just returned from Val d'Isere in France, where he discovered superb snow coverage. The image above is a still from a video clip he shot from a chairlift in Val D'Isere on Saturday, January 7 I was staying in the uber-luxury Chalet Blackcomb, operated by Consensio, and once I'd prised myself away from its cosy interiors the following day enjoyed a superb morning's snowboarding with brilliant guide Antoine from the Oxygene Ski & Snowboard School. The pistes were well-groomed, with lots of soft patches of snow to turn on. (And, as is the way with us snowboarders - to sit on.) Lots of Alpine resorts have been struggling with poor conditions this year, as we've reported, but Val d'Isere was most definitely in good nick. And it got better. On Sunday (January 8), we breakfasted as snow began falling and by the time we reached mid-mountain, it was practically a white-out. Lower down in the woodland, a picture-postcard winter scene awaited. I even found a few small stretches of fresh powder to glide along at the edges of the piste. Ted describes Val d'Isere as having 'picture-postcard winter scenes' during his recent trip Ted's 'brilliant' guide Antoine (right) from the Oxygene Ski & Snowboard School in Val d'Isere. Pictured left is Helen, one of his group Ted took this picture in Val d'Isere on Sunday, January 8. Winter is coming? It's already here Ted in Les Arcs, which he visited in December/January In Les Arcs - between Tuesday, December 27, and Monday, January 2 - I stayed at the impressive VIP Ski property Bear Lodge hotel in Arc 1950. It was billed as ski in/ski out - and that's exactly what was possible. I've seen better conditions in Les Arcs - the snow was a tad heavy on lower slopes - but further up the mountain, the pistes were in great shape. Will the good conditions continue? It's looking hopeful for Val d'Isere and Les Arcs and resorts elsewhere in the Alps. Val d'Isere is due 24cm of snow at mid-mountain level 2,700m/8,858ft today (Monday) and another 8cm on Wednesday, with temperatures ranging between -1C and -11C. Ted describes the pistes in Les Arcs (above, during his trip) as being 'in great shape' Ted stayed at the 'impressive' Bear Lodge hotel in Arc 1950 (right). He writes: 'It was billed as ski in/ski out - and that's exactly what was possible' Les Arcs is due 33cm of snow today at mid-mountain level 2,390m/7,841ft and 12cm of snow on Wednesday, with temperatures ranging between -1C and -9C. Fresh snow is also due in the next six days, according to Ski Club UK, in French resorts including Avoriaz, Courchevel, Flaine and Les Deux Alpes; Austrian resorts including Kitzbuhel, Mayrhofen and St Anton; Italian resorts including Cervinia, Cortina and Courmayeur; Swiss resorts including Davos, Grindelwald and Zermatt; and in the Spanish resort of Baqueira. Full reviews of Bear Lodge hotel and Chalet Blackcomb to come. Brooke Vincent looked incredible in a satin green co-ord as she gave fans a glimpse into her family getaway to Tenerife, Spain, on Instagram on Sunday. The former Coronation Street star, 30, dressed to impress flashing her toned midriff in a glamorous full skirt and crop top while posing with her son, Mexx, three. The actress was all smiles as she posed up a storm with her little boy who cut a smart figure in a blue shirt and shorts. All smiles! Brooke Vincent looked incredible in a satin green co-ord as she gave fans a glimpse into her family getaway to Tenerife, Spain, on Instagram on Sunday Brooke added inches to her frame in a pair of towering orange heels before swapping into shorter yellow ones but admitted in the caption she later had to change again into her purple Birkenstocks which were more 'practical'. The TV star toted her belongings around in a large colourful clutch and accesorised with a chic gold chain belt. She styled her long brunette lock in loose waves and applied a flawless palette of makeup to showcase her beauty. Family time: The former Coronation Street star, 30, dressed to impress flashing her toned midriff in a glamorous full skirt and crop top while posing with her son, Mexx, three Brooke was joined on the trip by her fiance Kean Bryan and their two sons, 12-month-old Monroe and Mexx. She penned to the snaps: 'Going out Brooke V Brooke The Mum. I absolutely loved this outfit and so many people have been asking where its from. The outfit & the bag is from @riverisland , the shoes are @katmaconie .. this was the outfit I loved whilst I was packing to come away Vs finally being away and realising Im going nowhere in those heels with the boys. 'I changed to smaller mustard mules then eventually my lilac @birkenstock. Practically is actually key! Especially when you get caught up in the 3 kings parade with a double pram.' Stunning: The TV star toted her belongings around in a large colourful clutch and accesorised with a chic gold chain belt while adding inches to her frame in towering orange heels 'Brooke the mum': She admitted she later had to change into her purple Birkenstocks which were more 'practical' as she pushed the double pram up the busy street It comes after the former soap star frolicked on the beach and posed for snaps with son Mexx last week. The beauty looked sensational in a plunging orange swimsuit which she teamed with a matching macrame skirt. The tot, who donned stripped swimming trunks, could be seen holding a crab before being lifted onto his famous mother's shoulders. Fun in the son: It comes after the former soap star frolicked on the beach in a plunging orange swimsuit as she posed for snaps with son Mexx last week Brooke shielded her eyes from the sun behind oversized shades and let her brunette tresses tumble past her shoulders in open curls. She captioned the snaps: 'The best way to start 2023'. Brooke previously share a stunning sunset photograph, after she had documented their family day out to waterpark Siam Park. Australian viewers will soon have the chance to watch Prince Harry's explosive interviews with ITV's Tom Bradbury and CBS' Anderson Cooper. The sit-downs will see the Duke of Sussex, 38, address his upcoming memoir Spare and its controversial revelations about royal rifts, sex and drugs. Harry's ITV interview has already aired in the UK, and will be screened in Australia on Monday, January 9, at 7:30pm AEDT on Channel Seven and 7Plus. Australian viewers will soon have the chance to watch Prince Harry's explosive interviews with ITV's Tom Bradbury and CBS' Anderson Cooper. (Pictured: Harry's ITV interview) Meanwhile, his 60 Minutes sit-down with Cooper will air in Australia on Channel 10 during a special edition of The Project on Monday, January 9, at 6.30pm AEDT. This episode of The Project will also be the first to feature the program's new line-up of Sarah Harris, Waleed Aly and comedian Sam Taunton. Harry's interview with Cooper will also be available to stream on 10 Play and Paramount+. The 60 Minutes sit-down with Cooper will air in Australia during a special edition of Channel 10's The Project on Monday, January 9, at 6.30pm. Pictured: Harry's 60 Minutes interview In the U.S., CBS will broadcast its interview with Harry on 60 Minutes on Sunday. Another American network, ABC, is scheduled to air its interview on Monday. TV networks have already released interview clips in which Harry speaks about his fractious relationship with his brother Prince William and accuses his family of planting negative stories about him and wife Meghan Markle in the media. TV networks have already released interview clips where Harry speaks about his fractious relationship with William and accuses his family of planting negative stories about him and wife Meghan Markle (right) in the media In previous clips, he focused on his combative relationship with William, saying his elder brother physically attacked him as they argued over Meghan, and 'I saw this red mist in him'. Pictured: Prince William (right) and Prince Harry (left) in 2005 In the latest clip released by ITV, Harry revealed he 'cried once' after his mother Diana was killed and said he felt guilty at being unable to express grief while greeting crowds of mourners whose hands were wet with tears. In previous clips, he focused on his combative relationship with William, saying his elder brother physically attacked him as they argued over Meghan, and 'I saw this red mist in him'. Extracts from Harry's memoir Spare were published after it accidentally went on sale in Spain. A copy of the book is seen here at a store in Barcelona 'I want reconciliation, but first there has to be accountability,' Harry said. The interviews were recorded before Harry's book was widely leaked Thursday, prompting a backlash from media, royal commentators, military veterans and even the Taliban. It comes after Spare was widely leaked after it mistakenly went on sale in Spain ahead of the official publication date. Details include an allegation that his brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, attacked him during a row about his wife Meghan; an account of how he lost his virginity; an admission of drug use; and a claim he killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan. According to various reports, the book has deeply hurt William and the boys' father, King Charles III, but the monarch wants to reconcile with his son. The palace has not reacted officially. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak declined any comment on the scandal in a BBC interview while stressing his 'enormous regard for the Royal Family'. Real estate agent Tash Candyce is putting her heart on the line on the upcoming season of The Bachelors - but it won't be her first reality TV rodeo. The 30-year-old, also known as Natasha Zuanetti, has previously dated two Bachelorette contestants, once appeared on First Dates, and was infamously lined up to star on Married At First Sight before backing out at the eleventh hour. Tash pulled out of MAFS to pursue a relationship with Michael Turnbull, who was the runner-up on Sam Frost's debut season of The Bachelorette in 2015. Real estate agent Tash Candyce (pictured) is putting her heart on the line on the upcoming season of The Bachelors - but it won't be her first reality TV rodeo Tash and Michael went public with their relationship in September 2018, before getting engaged two months later. 'I was so surprised, I didn't know what to expect,' Natasha told WHO magazine after her boyfriend proposed. They ended their engagement in February 2019, but had reconciled by August. The 30-year-old, also known as Natasha Zuanetti, has previously dated two Bachelorette contestants, once appeared on First Dates, and was infamously lined up to star on Married At First Sight before backing out at the eleventh hour Daily Mail Australia understands Tash will discuss being in a relationship with a former Bachelor, but Turnbull's name won't be mentioned. In July 2021, she made headlines when she announced her engagement to Agostino 'Aggi' Guardiani, who appeared on Becky and Elly Miles' season of The Bachelorette. She shared a photo on Instagram of herself with Aggi, 31, along with the caption: 'Just Married!!!!' Tash pulled out of MAFS to pursue a relationship with Michael Turnbull (left), who was the runner-up on Sam Frost's debut season of The Bachelorette in 2015 In July 2021, she made headlines when she announced her engagement to Agostino 'Aggi' Guardiani, who appeared on Becky and Elly Miles' season of The Bachelorette Meanwhile, Daily Mail Australia can reveal Channel 10 has decided to take inspiration from the U.S. version of the show by introducing the 'Bachelor Pad'. All three men will now be able to invite the contestants back to their penthouse at the Q1 resort on the Gold Coast. This is where the contestants go if they want to have a secret tryst. There is a giant bed, a hot tub, and a few sex toys to add some excitement. Tash first turned to reality TV to find love in 2017 with a brief appearance on First Dates They have been dating since 2019 after falling in love on the set of Home and Away. And soap stars Sophie Dillman, 29, and Paddy O'Connor, 30, are considering eloping in Las Vegas. The couple told New Idea wedding bells would ring soon, but they have different ideas about their nuptials. Home and Away's Sophie Dillman, 29, and Paddy O'Connor, 30, have said they are considering eloping in Las Vegas 'I've recently had a few girlfriends wed and seeing them go through all the stress of planning their big days maybe we'll just elope in Vegas...the full Las Vegas Elvis drive-through wedding experience,' Sophie said. But Paddy said he was worried about the repercussions of an elopement. 'I don't think our families would ever forgive us,' he said. Sophie and Paddy have known each other since their teenage years which were spent in Queensland. Later they rekindled their friendship on the set of Home and Away before their on-screen romance turned into a real-life romance. Their characters Ziggy and Dean are set to become parents on the show, and the pair have hinted they may also start a family in the future. 'I hope Dean and Ziggy have a baby girl, it would be hilarious to watch Dean try and navigate that,' Paddy said. Sophie and Paddy have known each other since their teenage years which were spent in Queensland. Later they rekindled their friendship on the set of Home and Away before their on-screen romance turned into a real romance 'As Dean and Ziggy have been going through that process, having discussions about baby names and dealing with morning sickness and health issues, we've been coming home and having talks about what we'd do in that situation,' Sophie added. Sophie recently revealed how her and Patrick's first date was not as romantic as she had hoped. Sophie had been rushed to hospital due to an endometriosis flare-up so was in excruciating pain when they went for dinner at Newtown burger joint Mary's. She felt so bad she was forced to sit on the footpath at one stage. 'I said, "I have to sit down, right now." And [Patrick] was like, "Sophie, we're on King Street, you can't sit down!"' she recalled. 'So I was sitting in a laneway, and I rang my mum and I was like, "Mum, I've got to go to hospital, it's so bad, I don't have enough painkillers." 'My sister was giving me all this advice as well, and he'd never seen anything like that before, the poor guy!' She said that despite the fact Patrick 'went white', he did everything he could to support her, which was a major green flag. Today reporter Renee Bargh may never work in the United States again. The TV personality, 36, quit her role as Extra's long-serving red carpet correspondent before moving back to Australia during the Covid pandemic. She was asked about her career prospects in America during an Instagram Q&A on Sunday, and revealed she had no plans to return. Renee Bargh (left, with actor Jake Gyllenhaal) has no plans to return to America after she quit her long-term role as Extras red carpet correspondent during the Covid pandemic Renee posted a photo of herself with actor Jake Gyllenhaal on the red carpet and said that while she'll 'miss' interviewing Hollywood stars, her focus right now is on raising a family in Sydney. 'As much as I miss moments like this, at this stage there no plans to return anytime soon... but that could always change,' she wrote. 'Right now I'm just focusing on bringing a little human into the world and being in mama land for a while. The TV personality, 36, was asked about her career prospects in America during an Instagram Q&A on Sunday, and revealed she had no plans to return 'It's definitely a change of pace from two to three red carpets a week.' Renee is expecting her first child with her partner Andrew Lange. In December, Renee showed off her baby bump in a bikini while she spent a relaxing day at the beach with her photographic artist beau. Renee (pictured on set of Nine's Today show, for which she serves as a fill-in presenter) is expecting her first child with her partner Andrew Lange Two years after hanging up her microphone at Extra, she is now the regular fill-in for showbiz reporter Brooke Boney on the Today show. Her other notable roles include co-hosting the ninth season of The Voice Australia in 2020 alongside Darren McMullen. She started her career as a presenter for Australian music network Channel [V]. Former politician-turned-talkback radio host Scott Emerson called Prince Harry and Meghan Markle 'the ginger and the whinger' on Nine's Today show on Monday. The 58-year-old was discussing Harry's explosive interview with ITV's Tom Bradbury with Today host Alex Cullen and the member for Warringah Zali Steggall. Emerson said he was 'tired' of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's endless broadsides against the Royal Family. Former politician-turned-radio host Scott Emerson called Prince Harry (right) and Meghan Markle (left) 'the ginger and the whinger' on Nine's Today show on Monday 'I'm sick and tired of Harry. What do the Royal Family do? Dignified silence is the response at this stage,' he said. 'King Charles can't be silent for the rest of the time on his throne. Neither can [Prince] William. Eventually they'll have to respond.' 'The dirty laundry is being aired, well and truly. This is a disaster for the Royal Family,' he continued. 'I don't know if it's necessarily going to bring on some sort of movement for a republic here in Australia.' Cullen then asked him: 'Do you think he should go to his father's coronation in May?' Emerson said this was unlikely given Harry and Meghan's presence would likely overshadow King Charles. 'Imagine the scenes there,' he remarked. 'No one is going to have cameras on King Charles. They are going to be on the ginger and winger.' Emerson (pictured) was discussing Harry's explosive interview with ITV's Tom Bradbury with Today host Alex Cullen and the member for Warringah Zali Steggall The Duke of Sussex sat down with his friend and ITV journalist Tom Bradby for a primetime TV interview as part of a publicity blitz for his controversial memoir Spare. During the 90-minute interview, which aired in the UK on Sunday, Harry suggested senior royals helped to 'trash' his and Meghan's reputations, forcing them to move to California, and have 'shown no willingness to reconcile'. But he sensationally conceded his family were not racist, although he believes them guilty of 'unconscious bias'. 'Do you think he should go to his father's coronation in May?' asked Cullen (centre, with Emerson, right, and Zali Steggall, left). Emerson said this was unlikely given Harry and Meghan's presence would likely overshadow King Charles He also backed the Queen's former lady in waiting, Lady Susan Hussey, who was embroiled in a toxic race row last month, saying she 'never meant any harm'. Harry was not paid for the interview, which saw him alternate between answering questions from Bradby and reading sections from his memoir. The duke also claimed that his brother William and sister-in-law Kate's 'stereotyping' of his wife Meghan meant she was not welcomed as a member of the Royal Family. He said that there was a 'lot of stereotyping' of Meghan after she was introduced to the Royal Family, because she is an 'American actress, divorced, biracial', adding that even he was 'guilty' of it. This photo shows one of the balloons containing 1 million anti-Pyongyang leaflets that Fighters for Free North Korea, a Seoul-based organization of North Korean defectors, claimed it sent toward North Korea in the South Korean border town of Gimpo, north of Seoul, on April 25-26, 2022. Newsis A North Korean defectors' group said Monday it plans to fly unmanned aerial vehicles soon carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for Free North Korea (FFNK), told Yonhap News Agency that his group will use drones to send the anti-Pyongyang leaflets "at the earliest date possible," citing difficulty in flying them in the usual giant plastic balloons during the winter. He did not elaborate on when his group would send the leaflets. In April 2020, he claimed that his group had flown a drone carrying leaflets to the North's capital. Park's remarks came as five North Korean drones intruded into the South's airspace late last month, with one of them even entering a no-fly zone around the presidential office in the central Seoul district of Yongsan. The conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration warned that it would suspend a 2018 inter-Korean agreement on reducing military tension if North Korea violates the South's territory again. The unification ministry earlier said it has also begun a legal review on resuming loudspeaker broadcasting and the distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Since the revision of the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act in 2021, the South's government has banned the sending of propaganda leaflets across the border, with violators subject to a maximum prison term of three years or a fine of 30 million won ($24,100). (Yonhap) Bella Hadid had a productive Sunday afternoon, as she visited upscale health-food store Erewhon in Santa Monica to promote her new smoothie collaboration. The model, 26, looked incredible for the outing, as she showed a glimpse of her trim tummy in a bright yellow t-shirt and a 90s style maxi tan skirt belted at the waist. The runway maven got behind the counter and whipped up her own concoction, a fruity smoothie named Kinsicle, featuring her brand Kin Euphorics' non-alcoholic beverage 'High Rode' that costs $19. New collaboration: Bella Hadid had a productive Sunday afternoon, as she visited upscale health-food store Erewhon in Santa Monica to promote her new smoothie collaboration Erewhon is know for its celebrity-inspired smoothies, and have previously launched Hailey Bieber's Strawberry Glaze smoothie and Kourtney Kardashian's Poosh Potion Detox Smoothie. Bella wore her blonde tresses down down and styled into light waves, and accessorized with a white headband. The beauty opted for minimal makeup, wearing only a touch of mascara and gloss on her pout. Bright sight: The model, 26, looked incredible for the outing, as she showed a glimpse of her trim tummy in a bright yellow t-shirt and a 90s style maxi tan skirt belted at the waist Working hard: The runway maven got behind the counter and whipped up her own concoction, a fruity smoothie named Kinsicle, featuring a drink from her brand Kin Euphorics Gigi Hadid's sister sported bright red nail polish for the occasion, and accessorized with an array of gold jewelry, including multiple rings and bracelets. She paired the outfit with knee-high socks with black and yellow stripes and black boots. The Vogue cover girl appeared to have a blast behind the counter and even took some selfies with customers. Expert: Bella was seen expertly handling the blender as she added ingredients that included orange juice, coconut yogurt, aloe vera juice, dates and more Stylish: Bella wore her blonde tresses down down and styled into light waves, and accessorized with a white headband Minimal: The beauty opted for minimal makeup, wearing only a touch of mascara and gloss on her pout Having a blast! The Vogue cover girl appeared to have a blast behind the counter and smiled up a storm Accessories: Gigi Hadid's sister sported bright red nail polish for the occasion, and accessorized with an array of gold jewelry, including multiple rings and bracelets She was later seen leaving the store bundled up in a tan coat that matched her skirt and wearing sunglasses, as she sipped on her delicious creation which is meant to taste like a creamsicle. Bella was joined by her business partner Jen Batchelor, who looked chic in a cozy yellow coat. The star also took to her own Instagram to document the smoothie-making adventure, and shared a video of the process. Sweet: Bella was seen happily interacting with her many fans at the store Selfies: She even snapped a few selfies with some lucky fans Concentrated: The beauty focused while adding coconut cream to the cup She was seen preparing behind the counter with a worker and Batchelor, as they helped her assemble all the ingredients. 'We're making the Kinsicle smoothie right now,' the fashionista announced. She proceeded to tell the audience that the first ingredient was organic almond milk. That was followed by orange juice, a shot of her Kin drink, coconut kefir, and Lily of the Desert aloe vera juice. The next ingredient was lions mane from OM Mushrooms, a touch of vanilla, turmeric, and dates, as well as mangos and a frozen banana. Leaving: She was later seen leaving the store bundled up in a tan coat that matched her skirt and sipping on her delicious creation which is meant to taste like a creamsicle Stylish: She paired her outfit with knee-high socks with black and yellow stripes and black boots, as well as sunglasses Co-partners: Hadid is the co-founder of Kin Euphorics, along with her partner Jen Batchelor, who joined her for the day and looked chic in a yellow coat Businesswoman: Batchelor started Kin Euphorics in 2018, and Hadid came on board in 2021 as a co-founder and partner Bella then began to blend all the ingredients together while dancing. After blending they added coconut cream to the cup, before pouring the smoothie into it. Bella then said she would be autographing some of the cup sleeves for her fans. Proud of her skills: Bella also took to her own Instagram to document the smoothie-making adventure, and shared a video of the process Yummy: High Rode - which is one of the drinks within her beverage line that's used in the smoothie - is lightly caffeinated and non-alcoholic, and is infused with adaptogens High Rode - which is one of the drinks within the beverage line - is lightly caffeinated and non-alcoholic, and is infused with adaptogens and botanicals that are meant to deliver energy. Hadid is the co-founder of Kin Euphorics, along with her partner Jen Batchelor. Batchelor started Kin Euphorics in 2018, and Hadid came on board in 2021 as a co-founder and partner. Hadids smoothie will be available at Erewhon Markets until January 25 Wes Bentley and some of his Yellowstone co-stars are starting to make the rounds as awards season gets into full swing. On Friday, the actor, 44, appeared with fellow castmates Gil Birmingham, Dawn Olivieri and Kelsey Asbille at a panel discussion for member of the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles. Wes, who plays Jamie Sutton in the hit modern western series, looked dapper in a pair of mustard tone slacks, a forest green T-shirt and a leathered denim jacket. Wes Bentley and his Yellowstone co-stars Gil Birmingham, Dawn Olivieri and Kelsey Asbille looked stylish as they attended a panel discussion at the Screen Actors Guild on Friday in Los Angeles Kelsey, 31, stars as Jamie's Native American sister-in-law, Monica. She looked hip in a green and black print top and gray leather pants. The former Disney star's dark bob was styled in loose layers and she accentuated her flawless complexion with a natural red lip. Dawn, 41, looked sophisticated in a black sheathe and black jacket with an asymmetrical zipper. Her chestnut hair was styled in loose layers and she accessorized the look a gorgeous silver and turquoise necklace. Characters: Both Gil, 69 and Kelsey, 31 star as Native Americans in Yellowstone. Gil's character, Chief Thomas Rainwater, wants to reclaim the land that make up the Yellowstone Ranch for his tribe The 1883 actress joined season five as Sarah Atwood, a business heavy hitter brought in to take down the powerful Dutton family. Gil, 69, looked handsome in black pants and a black denim jacket with a white button down shirt. The veteran actor stars as Thomas Rainwater, chief of the neighboring Broken Rock Indian Reservation. His character considers the land that makes up the Yellowstone Ranch to be stolen from the Native Americans who originally inhabited it and his mission is to reclaim it. Popular: The popular modern Western series is in its fifth season and recently added Dawn Olivieri, 41, to the cast. Her character, Sarah Atwood, a business heavy hitter brought in to take down the Dutton family Season five of Yellowstone debuted in November, before taking time off for the winter break. The mid-season finale served as the debut of cast member Luke Grimes country song No Horse to Ride. Last year, Yellowstone was nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series by SAG members. The 2023 SAG Award nominations will be announced Wednesday, January 11. Watch Yellowstone Season 5 available now only on Stan in Australia. Director Steven Spielberg's iconic blockbuster Jurassic Park celebrates its 30th anniversary this summer, though Laura Dern found herself being recognized for a more recent role. The 55-year-old actress - who recently revealed she hopes her kids are older than she was if they decide to pursue acting - was promoting her new movie The Son last Friday on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where she opened up about a surreal experience in Hawaii. The actress revealed she was visiting a friend's farm near some of the real Jurassic Park filming locations, where she was recognized by a young fan... for being in Taylor Swift's Bejeweled music video that debuted in October. Recognized: Director Steven Spielberg's iconic blockbuster Jurassic Park celebrates its 30th anniversary this summer, though Laura Dern found herself being recognized for a more recent role Video: The actress revealed she was visiting a friend's farm near some of the real Jurassic Park filming locations, where she was recognized by a young fan... for being in Taylor Swift's Bejeweled music video that debuted in October Kimmel joked that since 'tens and tens of millions' of fans have watched the Bejeweled music video (currently at just over 40 million views on YouTube), more people may have seen that than the original Jurassic Park, which, at the time was the highest-grossing movie of all time. She added that Swift asked her to play the evil stepmother in the Cinderella-themed music video, while the Haim sisters played the evil stepsisters and Swift portraying Cinderella. 'Taylor asked me and it sounded like such an incredible time and I was amazed by what a great filmmaker she is, how prepared she was, how improvisational and fun it was. I had the time of my life, so it was amazing,' Dern said. Jimmy: Kimmel joked that since 'tens and tens of millions' of fans have watched the Bejeweled music video (currently at just over 40 million views on YouTube), more people may have seen that than the original Jurassic Park, which, at the time was the highest-grossing movie of all time Stepmother: She added that Swift asked her to play the evil stepmother in the Cinderella-themed music video, while the Haim sisters played the evil stepsisters and Swift portraying Cinderella Filmmaker: 'Taylor asked me and it sounded like such an incredible time and I was amazed by what a great filmmaker she is, how prepared she was, how improvisational and fun it was. I had the time of my life, so it was amazing,' Dern said She added, 'When you do it, it's this amazing, isolated experience of this fun day with your friend,' before explaining that she was recently at a friend's organic farm in Oahu, Hawaii, near the original Jurassic Park filming locations. 'I was coming out of their farm, and there's a guided tour of the sights of Jurassic Park with a little sign saying "Welcome to Jurassic Park." And as I was post-beach and seeing our friends, we're getting in the car, and I'm standing right in front of the sign, and here comes a group of people,' Dern explained. 'This girl comes running up to me and says, "Oh, my god! Oh, my god!" I was just like... "I just want to be with my family, let's not do a whole Jurassic Park [thing]." She goes, "Aren't you the girl in the Taylor Swift video?"' Dern said with a laugh. Farm: 'I was coming out of their farm, and there's a guided tour of the sights of Jurassic Park with a little sign saying "Welcome to Jurassic Park." And as I was post-beach and seeing our friends, we're getting in the car, and I'm standing right in front of the sign, and here comes a group of people,' Dern explained Girl: 'This girl comes running up to me and says, "Oh, my god! Oh, my god!" I was just like... "I just want to be with my family, let's not do a whole Jurassic Park [thing]." She goes, "Aren't you the girl in the Taylor Swift video?"' Dern said with a laugh Dern added it, 'was amazing,' and the fan wanted, 'a picture with me because she loves Taylor Swift, and there was Welcome to Jurassic Park right behind us.' She also revealed how she helped convince one of her frequent collaborators - director David Lynch - to work with another, director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg wanted Lynch to portray another famous director - John Ford - in his new film The Fablemans, though Lynch turned him down, leading Spielberg to turn to Dern and have her try to convince him. Amazing: Dern added it, 'was amazing,' and the fan wanted, 'a picture with me because she loves Taylor Swift, and there was Welcome to Jurassic Park right behind us' Convince: She also revealed how she helped convince one of her frequent collaborators - director David Lynch - to work with another, director Steven Spielberg 'I cannot take the credit of maestro Spielberg, but he had this dream of David Lynch in the film, and both of them together paying homage to John Ford, who means so much to both of them as filmmakers,' Dern said. Kimmel mentioned that Lynch originally said no to the role before Spielberg called her and asked her to help. 'Yes and I had the time of my life, both bringing them together and perhaps supporting David in feeling comfortable acting in this movie. Just the idea that the two of them together pay tribute to Ford in that way, and it was such an incredible scene in the movie,' Dern added. Derek Hough and fiancee Hayley Erbert have had their hands full in recent months trying to finalize plans on their upcoming wedding, all while keeping up with their respective careers as dancers and television personalities. But over the weekend, the Dancing With The Stars couple appeared to take a brief time out from all the hustle and bustle and spend some quality time with each other walking around town shopping. And while out and about, the pair had no problem packing on the PDA moments after making their way out of a Fred Segal store in Los Angeles. LOL: Derek Hough, 37, and fiancee Hayley Erbert, 28, spent part of their weekend shopping in Los Angeles, and after browsing at a Fred Segal store paused at a street corner when they both broke out into laughter The duo had made it to a street corner, staring at Erbert's phone, when something made them both break out into laughter. Still holding her phone up so Hough could see, the Topeka, Kansas native couldn't stop giggling and smiling, which was basically the case for her fiance. Erbert, 28, showed off her casual-cool weekend look dressed in faded blue jeans with a light brown sweater and black leather boots. Rounding out her overall look, the So You Think You Can Dance alum pulled her long dark tresses up off her shoulders and into a bun with a partial part in the middle. Look of love: The loved up couple were walking along street when Erbert showed Hough something on her phone that caught his attention Fashion-coordinated: The two dance pros looked nearly identical in the fashion department in faded blue jeans and light brown sweaters, while out enjoying some downtime Funny moment: After looking at Erbert's phone, the two stars busted out laughing, giggling and smiling, long enough that they ended up standing on the street corner for all to see Having been an item for seven years and counting, the couple appeared to have fashion-coordinated, as Hough wore a nearly identical outfit, consisting of faded blue jeans and a brown sweater, but he opted for black sneakers instead of boots. The Utah native, 37, had his short blonde hair looking near perfect, styled back off his face, in a pseudo pompadour, with a slight part on the right. Eventually, the Hough and Erbert were able to compose themselves long enough to start walking back to their parked vehicle, but all the while still exuding their beaming smiles. From the looks of all the smiles and laughs, the couple appear to be on the rebound, physically and emotionally, in the wake of the 'scary' car accident they were involved in last month. Scary crash: The pair appear to have recovered from their 'scary' car accident that happened in December that resulted in Erbert suffering injuries to her face, but nothing too serious Life affirming: The pair explained how the accident involved 'a steep hill, icy roads, a tree, and worst of all, the fear that we would slide off the mountain' in an Instagram post December 23 Erbert took to her instagram page to share some of the details that led up to the crash, which happed less than two weeks before Christmas. 'On December 12, Derek and I got into a pretty scary car accident in the mountains,' she wrote in the caption of their video post on December 23. 'Our accident involved a steep hill, icy roads, a tree, and worst of all, the fear that we would slide off the mountain. Given the circumstances, we have so much to be grateful for,' she explained. 'First, that there were no other people involved. Second, the quick response from paramedics. And lastly, that we are both okay and that I only walked away a little banged up, a swollen face, and four stitches above my eyebrow. Feeling humbled and grateful, the couple ended the post by sharing about how life can change from moment to moment. Dancing to the alter: The engaged couple first met after Erbert was cast as one of the dancers in his and sister Julianne Houghs Move Live Tour in 2014; they became a couple in 2015 and she made her debut on DWTS the following year 'Now, more than ever, we realize how fragile life is and how important it is to love those around you. We hope that everyone has a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season. XO,' they wrote at the time. After meeting in 2014, Hough and Erbert started dating the following year, and then this past June they decided it was time to take their love to the next level and get engaged. 'It's only the beginningthe beginning of forever,' Hough wrote on Instagram along with a photo of him holding his lady up in front of a stunning backdrop of flowers and candles. The pair's engagement actually came right after they returned home from a week of high-profile events in Monaco, which included watching the Formula 1 Grand Prix and attending the Top Gun: Maverick movie premiere. Sir Paul McCartney was nearly hit by a car on the iconic crossing from his Abbey Road album cover during his time in the Beatles. The anecdote was shared by Sir Paul's daughter Mary, 53, who revealed her father was almost knocked down at the area where the 1969 cover was shot. Mary revealed the near-miss happened when she wanted to recreate the zebra crossing moment in her new documentary, If These Walls Could Talk. Oh no! Sir Paul McCartney was nearly hit by a car on the iconic crossing from his Abbey Road album cover during his time in the Beatles Mary recalled in an interview with the Mirror: 'The bit where the car nearly ran him over on the zebra crossing, that was so funny. 'As we were leaving [the studio], I said, 'I'll film you [on the crossing],' and he went over and this car totally didn't stop for him!' Mary, who is the daughter of the late Linda McCartney, worked with her father on the new documentary which looks at the famous London recording studio. Family: The anecdote was shared by Sir Paul's daughter Mary (pictured), 53, who revealed her father was almost knocked down at the area where the 1969 cover was shot It comes weeks after Sir Paul revealed that he 'couldn't talk about' his friend and bandmate John Lennon's death after his murder in 1980. He said he found it 'so difficult' after his former Beatles bandmate was gunned down outside his New York City apartment. Sir Paul detailed how he returned home from the studio the day of his friends death and turned on the TV to see people reflecting on 'what John meant' to them. Sir Paul admitted he was not able to do the same due to the loss being 'too deep' and he was not able to 'put it into words'. He said: 'When John died it was so difficult. It had hit me so much that I couldn't really talk about it. 'I remember getting home from the studio on the day that we'd heard the news he died. Turning the TV on and seeing people say, "Well, John Lennon was this" and "What he was, was this" and "I remember meeting him". 'It had hit me so much': He said he found it 'so difficult' after his former Beatles bandmate was gunned down outside his New York City apartment 'I was like, "I can't be one of those people. I can't go on TV and say what John meant to me." It was just too deep. I couldn't put it into words.' Sir Paul added how he managed to express his grief about losing John in his 1982 song Here Today. The artist revealed her 'sat on the wooden floor in the corner with my guitar' and came up with the opening chords to the track. Sir Paul also added that the line "the night we cried" referred to when he and his late pal, who was killed over 40 years ago, had a drunk heart-to-heart and 'told each other a few truths' and how much they loved each other. Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon on the night of December 8, 1980, as he and Yoko Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment. He said: 'When John died it was so difficult. It had hit me so much that I couldn't really talk about it. It was just too deep. I couldn't put it into words.' The killer is serving a 20-years-to-life sentence at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New Yorks Hudson Valley. He has repeatedly expressed remorse during his parole hearings over the years and has recently been denied parole for the twelfth time. In denying him release, the board mentioned Chapman's action has left 'the world recovering from the void of which you created.' His next parole board appearance is scheduled for February 2024. Sir Paul is currently promoting documentary If These Walls Could Sing - a love letter to Abbey Road studios, where The Beatles recorded all of their albums - directed by his photographer daughter, Mary McCartney. The Disney + film reveals the 'untold story of the Abbey Road studio' which is still considered 'the heart of the music industry.' 'In this personal film of memory and discovery, Mary McCartney guides us through nine decades to see and experience the creative magic that makes it the most famous and longest-running studio in the world,' the synopsis reads. The documentary features all-star appearances from the likes of Sir Elton John and Oasis legend Noel Gallagher, along with carefully curated archival footage and session tapes. 'These conversations, paired with vivid archive footage and session tapes, give exclusive access to these famously private studios,' the synopsis concludes. If These Walls Could Sing is set for a global December 16 release on the streaming platform, but it has been delayed until January 6 for UK and Ireland viewers. Kendall Jenner bared her toned tummy in a series of social media snaps on Sunday. The 27-year-old model and socialite donned a blue and red patterned underwear set with matching elbow-length gloves. Her light brown hair was parted in the middle and brushed the top of her tanned back as she posed for several sultry photos. Baring some skin: Kendall Jenner bared her toned tummy in a series of social media snaps She laid down on the couch, one hand supporting her head. Her plump lips were painted light pink. Kendall's social media post came after her long winter trip in Aspen, Colorado. The 818 Tequila founder recently rang in the New Year with Justin and Hailey Bieber during a snowy getaway to Aspen together. They were also accompanied by Kylie Jenner and Stassie Karanikolaou. They all shared numerous photos and videos onto their social media accounts to document special moments during the lavish trip. Matching outfit: The 27-year-old model and socialite donned a blue and red patterned underwear set with matching elbow-length gloves Cut short: Her light brown hair was parted in the middle and brushed the top of her tanned back as she posed for several sultry photos Kendall, who began horseback riding as a child, shared an Instagram photo series of herself riding a horse with the snowy landscape surrounding her. Hailey also filled her Instagram account with memorable moments, such as an adorable black and white snap as she posed for a picture with Justin near a slope while sitting on his lap. They all shared numerous photos and videos onto their social media accounts to document special moments during the lavish trip. Kendall, who began horseback riding as a child, shared an Instagram photo series of herself riding a horse with the snowy landscape surrounding her. Hailey also filled her Instagram account with memorable moments, such as an adorable black and white snap as she posed for a picture with Justin near a slope while sitting on his lap. Passion: Kendall, who began horseback riding as a child, shared an Instagram photo series of herself riding a horse with the snowy landscape surrounding her Special memories: Hailey also shared an adorable black and white snap as she posed for a picture with Justin near a slope while sitting on his lap New stylish snaps: In a recent Instagram photo series, Hailey modeled a Pink Panther leather jacket and turned her back towards the camera to show off the colorful design Pop of color: The Rhode founder also shared a close-up snap of herself modeling an eye-catching red hat that partially covered her long locks Later on Saturday, Hailey uploaded an Instagram photo series to her 49.9 million followers which she captioned as, 'cozy fuzzy things.' The first snap showcased the model with her back turned towards the camera, as she flaunted the colorful Pink Panther design on the back of her leather, cropped jacket that she donned. Hailey's head was slightly turned to glance over her shoulder for the stylish pose, while she also threw on a pair of black shades and eye-catching, gold earrings. The beauty additionally uploaded both a close-up snap and clip of herself modeling a 'fuzzy' red cap. The beauty mogul also shared a photo showing off a scrumptious plate of creamy, freshly made pasta that she was able to indulge in. Having fun: She also shared a clip in the photo series as she sported the hat, and captioned the post as, 'cozy fuzzy things' Elvis Presley's only child Lisa Marie Presley was flanked by Elvis actor Austin Butler and director Baz Luhrmann as they attended a pre-Golden Globe Awards party at the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood on Sunday. The Formosa Cafe was an old haunt of The King, who would've turned 88 on Sunday had he not tragically passed away, age 42, in 1977 from cardiac arrhythmia due to a toxic reaction to codeine. The 31-year-old Anaheim native - who's dating Cindy Crawford's daughter Kaia Gerber - put a protective arm in front of the Memphis-born 54-year-old as they headed inside the historic restaurant. Surrounded: Elvis Presley's only child Lisa Marie Presley was flanked by Elvis actor Austin Butler (R) and director Baz Luhrmann (L) as they attended a pre-Golden Globe Awards party at the Formosa Cafe in West Hollywood on Sunday Gone but not forgotten: The Formosa Cafe was an old haunt of The King, who would've turned 88 on Sunday had he not tragically passed away, age 42, in 1977 from cardiac arrhythmia due to a toxic reaction to codeine Lisa has had nothing but praise for Austin's portrayal of her famous father in the $287.3M-grossing biopic, and he'll compete for the best actor in a drama trophy at the Golden Globes this Tuesday. Also sweetly supporting Presley at the industry event was her eldest daughter Riley Keough from her five-year marriage to musician Danny Keough, which ended in 1994. It was a rare public sighting of the Calabasas heiress whose only son Benjamin Storm Keough committed suicide, at age 27, in 2020. Back on August 30, Lisa revealed she makes a conscious choice every single day to stay alive for her 33-year-old daughter and 14-year-old fraternal twin daughters Harper Vivienne Ann and Finley Aaron Love (with ex-husband #4 Michael Lockwood). Chivalrous: The 31-year-old Anaheim native - who's dating Cindy Crawford's daughter Kaia Gerber - put a protective arm in front of the Memphis-born 54-year-old as they headed inside the historic restaurant First-time nominee: Lisa has had nothing but praise for Austin's portrayal of her famous father in the $287.3M-grossing biopic, and he'll compete for the best actor in a drama trophy at the Golden Globes this Tuesday Family function: Also sweetly supporting Presley at the industry event was her eldest daughter Riley Keough from her five-year marriage to musician Danny Keough, which ended in 1994 Funerial black attire: It was a rare public sighting of the Calabasas heiress whose only son Benjamin Storm Keough committed suicide, at age 27, in 2020 'It's a real choice to keep going, one that I have to make every single day and one that is constantly challenging to say the least,' Presley wrote in a People essay in honor of National Grief Awareness Day. 'But I keep going for my girls. I keep going because my son made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind. 'He absolutely adored them and they him. My and my three daughters' lives as we knew it were completely detonated and destroyed by his death. We live in this every. Single. Day.' Benjamin died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the family's $1.8M Calabasas home after an argument with his girlfriend of three years, Diana Pinto. 'I keep going for my girls': Back on August 30, Lisa revealed she makes a conscious choice every single day to stay alive for her 33-year-old daughter and 14-year-old fraternal twin daughters Harper Vivienne Ann and Finley Aaron Love (pictured in 2021) Presley wrote in a People essay in honor of National Grief Awareness Day: 'I keep going because my son (L, pictured in 2010) made it very clear in his final moments that taking care of his little sisters and looking out for them were on the forefront of his concerns and his mind' 'My and my three daughters' lives were completely detonated and destroyed by his death': Benjamin (pictured in 2018) died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the family's $1.8M Calabasas home after an argument with his girlfriend of three years, Diana Pinto 'He absolutely adored his sisters': Keough - who had cocaine and alcohol in his system - attempted to take his life six months earlier and he had been to rehab four times but never completed his recovery Keough - who had cocaine and alcohol in his system - attempted to take his life six months earlier and he had been to rehab four times but never completed his recovery. Riley was joined at the Formosa Cafe by her husband Ben Smith-Petersen, with whom she'll celebrate eight years of wedded bliss on February 4. Keough and the Australian 31-year-old originally met in 2012 on the desert set of Mad Max: Fury Road, for which he won a SAG Award for best stunt ensemble. The Cannes Camera d'Or winner looked lovely in a wearing Paco Rabanne bra-top, matching striped skirt, and black stilettos selected by stylist Jamie Mizrahi. Still going strong! Riley was joined at the Formosa Cafe by her husband Ben Smith-Petersen, with whom she'll celebrate eight years of wedded bliss on February 4 The look of love! Keough and the Australian 31-year-old originally met in 2012 on the desert set of Mad Max: Fury Road, for which he won a SAG Award for best stunt ensemble Babe! The Cannes Camera d'Or winner looked lovely in a wearing Paco Rabanne bra-top, matching striped skirt, and black stilettos selected by stylist Jamie Mizrahi No extensions needed! Hairstylist Gregory Russell coiffed Riley's naturally long dark blonde mane and make-up artist Mai Quynh brought out her natural beauty That same evening, Keough - who boasts 523K Instagram followers - Instastoried a snap of her famous mother captioned: 'How beautiful is my mama?!' Hairstylist Gregory Russell coiffed Riley's naturally long dark blonde mane and make-up artist Mai Quynh brought out her natural beauty. That same evening, Keough - who boasts 523K Instagram followers - Instastoried a snap of her famous mother captioned: 'How beautiful is my mama?!' The Terminal List actress will next play the Stevie Nicks-inspired titular character in the 10-episode mockumentary Daisy Jones & The Six, which premieres March 3 on Amazon Prime Video. Also attending the pre-Golden Globes festivities was Finish Line songstress Rita Ora and Oscar-winning screenwriter Taika Waititi. Premieres March 3 on Amazon Prime Video! The Terminal List actress will next play the Stevie Nicks-inspired titular character in the 10-episode mockumentary Daisy Jones & The Six The Kosovo-born West Londoner left little to the imagination in a purple lace dress over pasties, black panties, and matching Louboutin stiletto heels. At 47, the Kiwi triple-threat is 15 years older than Rita, but they allegedly wed last August after four years of dating - according to People. Eight-time Grammy winner Beck arrived to Elvis' birthday party in a black suit. Wow! Also attending the pre-Golden Globes festivities was Finish Line songstress Rita Ora and Oscar-winning screenwriter Taika Waititi Scantily clad: The Kosovo-born West Londoner left little to the imagination in a purple lace dress over pasties, black panties, and matching Louboutin stiletto heels Still going strong! At 47, the Kiwi triple-threat is 15 years older than Rita, but they allegedly wed last August after four years of dating Shimmery: She accessorized with a sparkling rhinestone clutch Beautiful: Adding more drama to the outfit were her large heart-shaped earrings Updo: Her tresses were styled into a beautiful updo, with strands left to frame her face Other guests of the Netflix-sponsored soiree included Instagram model Kara Del Toro in a cleavage-boosting white mini-dress and TikToker Addison Rae in a plunging pink halter dress. Oscar-nominated producer Danny DeVito attended the event with his 37-year-old daughter Grace Fan DeVito. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's son Jaden Smith, 24, was also in attendance. Man in black: Eight-time Grammy winner Beck arrived to Elvis' birthday party in a black suit Influencers: Other guests of the Netflix-sponsored soiree included Instagram model Kara Del Toro in a cleavage-boosting white mini-dress Breathtaking: Kara showed off her long legs and her ample cleavage in a busty white mini dress and strappy black stilettos Pink: TikToke star Addison Rae, 22, wowed in a plunging pink halter dress Family first: Oscar-nominated producer Danny DeVito attended the event with his 37-year-old daughter Grace Fan DeVito The musician sported a black blazer over a white button-up and a black tie. He paired the outfit with black pants featuring a white graphic. Billie Eilish's brother Finneas O'Connell, 25, looked dapper in an all-black look and was seen leaving with a mystery woman who rocked a sexy black bustier, matching pants and chunky boots. Edgy: Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith's son Jaden Smith, 24, was also in attendance. The musician sported a black blazer over a white button-up and a black tie All black: Billie Eilish's brother Finneas O'Connell, 25, looked dapper in an all-black look and was seen leaving with a mystery woman who rocked a sexy black bustier First outing: It was his first outing since a suspect was taken into custody after reports of a burglary at his and Billie's childhood home in Los Angeles on Thursday night Trendy: The musician rocked a smattering of facial hair for the night It was his first outing since a suspect was taken into custody after reports of a burglary at his and Billie's childhood home in Los Angeles on Thursday night. Officers responded to a call in the Highland Park area after it was claimed that a man in dark clothing hopped over a fence, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. It was unclear if anything was taken or if Billie, 21, or anyone else was present at the home when the incident occurred. For help and support in the US call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on 988. If you are in the UK contact Samaritans on 116 123 She's preparing to welcome a baby girl with boyfriend Jimmy Bartel in the coming months. And on Monday, Amelia Shepperd showed off her growing baby bump in activewear as she stepped out in Melbourne. Amelia wore black shorts and a matching coloured shirt as she walked to her car outside their suburban home. Jimmy Bartel's pregnant girlfriend Amelia Shepperd showed off her growing baby bump in activewear as she stepped out in Melbourne on Monday She completed her look with a pair of black sandals and dark sunglasses. Amelia left her blonde locks out and held a black bag as she walked to her parked car. Jimmy and Amelia announced that they were having a girl during an intimate gender reveal party in October. His sons Henley and Aston were at the party, popping a balloon that exploded to reveal a flurry of pink confetti. Amelia wore black shorts and a matching coloured shirt as she walked to her car outside her suburban home in Melbourne 'Baby Bartel, you're already so incredibly loved,' the footy star captioned the short video. Countless celebrities shared their congratulations, with Rebecca Maddern: 'Jimmy congratulations, beautiful news.' 'Congratulations guys xx,' commented Joel Selwood. She completed her look with a pair of black sandals and dark sunglasses Jimmy and Amelia celebrated their one-year anniversary together back in August. At the time, Jimmy shared a blurry photo of the couple kissing to Instagram and wrote: 'It's been a blur, but what a year with you. Love you.' He debuted his relationship with Amelia in December 2021, with the announcement also confirming his split from former girlfriend Lauren Mand. According to her LinkedIn profile, Amelia worked as the executive assistant to the managing director and chief operations officer of Queensland Rugby League from July 2019 to March 2021. Jimmy and Amelia announced that they were having a girl during an intimate gender reveal party in October Jimmy's sons Henley and Aston were at the party, popping a balloon that exploded to reveal a flurry of pink confetti She recently returned to her home city of Melbourne after spending several years in Brisbane for her job. According to a well-placed source, Amelia met Jimmy after they began following each other on Instagram. They have reportedly been together ever since he split from Lauren, 32, whom he began dating after his separation from ex-wife Nadia Bartel in 2019. AFL WAG Jesinta Franklin has unveiled a hair transformation. The star, 31, took to Instagram on Monday to showcase her newly red tresses after visiting celebrity favourite Koda Cutters in Bondi. Jesinta, who is visiting Sydney after spending the holidays in Perth, showed herself in the salon chair getting balayage. AFL WAG Jesinta Franklin, 31, showcased a hair transformation to Instagram on Monday. Left, last year. Right, Monday The model then unveiled the finished product in a hair car selfie as she offered a half smile while sitting in the chair. The star had silky and high-shine tresses as she tilted her head while wearing a pair of sunglasses. She then shared a photo of herself holding daughter Tullulah, two, in an elevator selfie. 'Holidays are over. We've had the best off season,' she captioned the image She then shared a photo of herself holding daughter Tullulah, two, in an elevator selfie. 'Holidays are over. We've had the best off season,' she captioned the image. It comes amid a new push for influencers to stop using filters and editing apps to combat the rise of body image issues among their fans. Jesinta, who is visiting Sydney after spending the holidays in Perth, showed herself in the salon chair getting balayage Jesinta recently threw her support behind the cause, telling Stellar Magazine her strong opinions. 'I won't ever alter my photos, as in [use] those filters that can change your nose and your lips and your cheeks'. 'That's one thing I just won't do. I think it's really, really toxic. You've got to realise not everything you see online is real,' she continued. Jesinta recently threw her support behind the cause, telling Stellar Magazine: 'I won't ever alter my photos, as in [use] those filters that can change your nose and your lips and your cheeks' Jesinta went on to say that she quickly discards any social media accounts that make her uncomfortable. 'If I see anything that makes me start to question my own self-worth around my body, then I just unfollow those accounts. It's not worth it,' she said. Anyone needing support with eating disorders or body image issues is encouraged to contact: Butterfly National Helpline on 1800 33 4673 (1800 ED HOPE) Just days before vying for her first Golden Globe Award on Tuesday, Wednesday star Jenna Ortega started her week with pre-awards show party. The 20-year-old actress was spotted taking pictures and signing autographs for fans outside of a soiree at a Netflix bash at Catch Steak in West Hollywood on Sunday, mirroring her Nevermore Academy schoolgirl look. She was also joined by her co-star Emma Myers, who plays her werewolf roommate Enid Sinclair on the show, which was renewed for a second season last week. Party time: Just days before vying for her first Golden Globe Award on Tuesday, Wednesday star Jenna Ortega started her week with pre-awards show party dressed in a look that appeared to be inspired by her character Mirror: The 20-year-old actress was spotted taking pictures and signing autographs for fans outside of a soiree at a Netflix bash at Catch Steak in West Hollywood on Sunday, mirroring her Nevermore Academy schoolgirl look Jenna and Emma: She was also joined by her co-star Emma Myers, who plays her werewolf roommate Enid Sinclair on the show, which was renewed for a second season last week Ortega stepped out with a unique and stylish schoolgirl outfit seemingly inspired by her character's Nevermore Academy look, rocking a cropped white dress shirt that slightly exposed her midriff. She accessorized with small silver hoop earrings with wireless headphones and a loose black necktie around her neck. The actress completed her look with a knee-length grey pleated skirt, matching grey socks and shiny black dress shoes for the party. Jenna's look: Ortega stepped out with a unique and stylish schoolgirl outfit, rocking a cropped white dress shirt that slightly exposed her midriff The outing comes just days after Netflix renewed the hit series, which follows Ortega's title character from The Addams Family as she moves into the boarding school Nevermore Academy. 'It's been incredible to create a show that has connected with people across the world,' creators and showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar said in a statement. 'Thrilled to continue Wednesday's tortuous journey into season two,' they added. Renewed: The outing comes just days after Netflix renewed the hit series, which follows Ortega's title character from The Addams Family as she moves into the boarding school Nevermore Academy 'We can't wait to dive head first into another season and explore the kooky spooky world of Nevermore. Just need to make sure Wednesday hasn't emptied the pool first,' the creators joked. The show debuted in November, setting a new Netflix record for hours viewed in a week for an English-language series with 341.2 million viewing hours. The show also crossed 1 billion hours watched in mid-December, and tied a record set by Season 4 of Stranger Things by being the #1 show in 83 countries. Show: The show debuted in November, setting a new Netflix record for hours viewed in a week for an English-language series with 341.2 million viewing hours Ortega will also reprise her role as Tara Carpenter from last year's Scream reboot in Scream 6, set in New York City, arriving in theaters March 10. She is also currently in production on Miller's Girl with Martin Freeman and voices Brooklynn in Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. She has two more movies in post-production, Finestkind with Ben Foster, Tommy Lee Jones and Ismael Cruz Cordova and Winter Spring Summer or Fall with Marisol Nichols. President Yoon Suk Yeol gives an opening speech during a joint New Year policy briefing by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Ministry of Employment and Labor, Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, held at Cheong Wa Dae, the former presidential office, in Seoul, Monday. Joint Press Corps President stresses inclusive welfare policies By Lee Hyo-jin The Ministry of Health and Welfare will expedite its pension reform plan, which has been set as one of the Yoon Suk yeol administration's top three agendas for this year, along with labor and education. During a New Year's policy briefing to the president, Monday, Health Minister Cho Kyu-hong said his ministry will announce detailed estimates of the state-run pension fund by the end of this month, two months earlier than its initial plan to unveil the data in March. Based on the forecast, the ministry will lay out a comprehensive pension management plan to be submitted to the National Assembly by October. The reform plans will focus on achieving sustainability of the pension funds and fairness across generations, as well as guaranteeing subscribers with sufficient retirement income. Due to structural problems as well as uncontrollable factors like the rapidly aging population, the state pension fund is expected to be depleted by 2055. Under the current framework, the young generations, or those born in the 1990s, may not be able to receive any retirement income even if they pay monthly premiums. Despite the looming pension crisis, however, previous governments have failed to carry out bold reform projects, as plans to overhaul the pension system which would likely entail increases in premium rates have led to public backlash. Yoon stressed in his New Year's speech that overhauling the state pension system is among the three major reform projects along with education and labor that "cannot be delayed any longer." During the briefing, Yoon pointed to the importance of universal welfare policies that can support all members of society. "The national health insurance system could be the best example of universal welfare policies. Everyone, regardless of their social status or income, should be guaranteed access to healthcare services for the public interest," Yoon said. "In that sense, welfare policies should be devised based on a scientific approach solely for the benefit of the people, without any political or ideological interventions." In addition to the pension reform, the health ministry will also come up with detailed health insurance reform plans in the latter half of this year, seeking to ensure the financial stability of the National Health Insurance Service. The plans will include rectifying the medical service fee scheme, improving fiscal transparency, ensuring fairness among Korean and foreign nationals, as well as ways to prevent exploitation by certain subscribers. During the policy briefing, the health authorities also unveiled a set of response measures to the imminent ultra-aged society. The nation is expected to become a super-aged society in 2025, in which 20 percent of its population will be aged 65 and over. In addition to more expanded policies for the elderly in regard to their income and employment, the health authorities seek to introduce a co-housing environment for the seniors, where they will be able to receive integrated welfare services including access to healthcare and leisure activities. Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic measures, the ministry plans to focus its capacity on preventing the influx of infections from China through tightened quarantine measures on those traveling from the neighboring country, along with consistent monitoring of the virus situation in different countries. Beginning next week, the government will discuss roadmaps for lifting the indoor mask mandate, one of the last remaining pandemic restrictions here. "We may begin to discuss in earnest next week an adjustment of the indoor mask requirement if we see the number of critical patients decrease further to a stable level this week," Jung Ki-suk, head of the government's COVID-19 special response team, said during a briefing, Monday. His remarks came as the country met two out of four criteria set by the health authorities last month, based on which the government can relax the mask mandate. The four criteria are: a stable number of daily infections, a reduction in the number of critical cases, a sufficient capacity of ICU beds to treat critically ill patients, as well as sufficient booster vaccination rates among the elderly. Former Today weatherman Stevie Jacobs enjoyed a dip with former model Laura Csortan at Bondi Beach on Monday. The star, 56, proved he is certainly no slouch as he stripped off his top to reveal his shredded stomach in just a tight pair of shorts. Steve and Laura, who are known to be friends, looked happy as they chatted with each other as they jumped in the surf before heading for a walk. Ex-Today show weatherman Steve Jacobs stripped off and took a dip with model Laura Csortan at Bondi Beach Both on Monday. Both pictured Steve looked deep in conversation at one point with the former Great Outdoors host. Laura looked incredible after slipping into a skimpy black bikini which showcased her flat stomach and slender pins. Steve and Laura, who are known to be friends, looked happy as they chatted with each other as they jumped in the surf before heading for a walk At one point, the star looked to have a wardrobe malfunction after being forced to adjust her minuscule bikini top. Laura is known to be single with her speaking about her private life on the Kinda, Sorta, Dating podcast with Jana Hocking. 'It's hard being a single mum and trying to date,' Laura said in September, 2021. The star, 56, proved he is certainly no slouch as he stripped off his top to reveal his shredded stomach in just a tight pair of shorts Steve looked deep in conversation at one point with the former Great Outdoors host 'I have found it harder since having a little girl, but I don't know whether it is coming from me or the dude,' she added. It comes more than two years after Steve was rumoured to be dating mother-of-two Amanda King, who he met at his daughter's primary school. Steve was seen numerous times in 2020 and 2021 packing on the PDA with King, despite shutting down romance rumours and claiming their relationship was strictly platonic. Laura looked incredible after slipping into a skimpy black bikini which showcased her flat stomach and slender pins At one point, the star looked to have a wardrobe malfunction after being forced to adjust her minuscule bikini top Laura basked in the sun in the skimpy bikini Laura has spoken about dating in Sydney's eastern suburbs on the Kinda, Sorta, Dating podcast 'Sorry to disappoint, but there's nothing romantic happening between the two of us,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'We're great mates.' Steve was previously married to TV presenter Rosie Jacobs, who is the mother of his two daughters, Isabella and Francesca, but they separated in 2017. They split just months after relocating to Vanuatu in what friends described at the time as a 'last-ditch attempt' to save their seven-year marriage. It comes more than two years after Steve was rumoured to be dating mother-of-two Amanda King, whom he met at his daughter's primary school 'I think there were a few people who sensed something was up when they moved to Vanuatu,' a friend told Daily Mail Australia in 2018. 'The sea change was basically a last-ditch attempt to make things work, but it wasn't to be unfortunately.' Steve married Rosie in 2010 and their divorce was finalised in 2019. Steve was previously married to TV presenter Rosie Jacobs, who is the mother of his two daughters, Isabella and Francesca, but they separated in 2017 They split just months after relocating to Vanuatu in what friends described at the time as a 'last-ditch attempt' to save their seven-year marriage Steve famously quit the Today show in 2016 to work on his marriage, before returning to the network in 2017 as a weather presenter on Weekend Today They married three years after meeting on the set of the Today show, where he was a star weather presenter and she was a behind-the-scenes producer. Steve famously quit the Today show in 2016 to work on his marriage, before returning to the network in 2017 as a weather presenter on Weekend Today. He rejoined the Today show for its 2019 relaunch, but was let go later in the year and replaced by Tim Davies. A new trailer has been released for the highly anticipated 10-part series The Last King of the Cross, based on Sydney nightclub identity John Ibrahim's 2017 prize-winning book. It starts with a tense exchange between John, who is portrayed by former Home and Away star Lincoln Younes, and his brother Sam. 'I don't know how to help you anymore,' says John. The Last King of the Cross: A new trailer has dropped for the highly anticipated series starring Lincoln Younes as Sydney nightclub identity John Ibrahim. Pictured: Younes The trailer then cuts to the brothers childhood in war-torn Lebanon, and on to bustling Kings Cross in the 1990s. 'Don't worry. The last thing I ever wanted in the world was for you to help me,' Sam, portrayed by Claude Jabbour, replies. The Last King of the Cross follows John's formative years as an immigrant and his ultimate rise to being one of Sydney's best known nightclub identities. 'We can't let them forget who runs the street,' an older John then says to Sam in the teaser. 'Don't worry they won't,' Sam replies back. 'I don't know how to help you anymore,' says John. The trailer focuses on the relationship between brothers Sam and John The Last King of the Cross follows John's formative years as an immigrant and his ultimate rise to being one of Sydney's best known nightclub identities The trailer goes on to show the gritty underside of King's Cross which includes run-ins with the police and guns. 'What're you trying to do John, are you trying to start a war?' an adult Sam asks, to which John replies: 'It's business, Sam.' Last King of the Cross has a budget of $50million and will be streamed exclusively worldwide on Paramount+. The trailer shows the gritty underside of Kings Cross which includes run-ins with the police and guns. It has a special focus on the brothers British actor Tim Roth, who scored an Oscar nomination for the film Rob Roy in 1995, plays fictional crime boss Ezra Shipman on the show. The cast also includes Damian Walshe-Howling (Underbelly), Tess Haubrich (Alien: Covenant) and Matt Nable (Arrow). Award-winning writer-director Kieran Darcy-Smith will helm the crime-drama. Hailey and Justin Bieber were all smiles as they headed out for a cheese and wine date night in Beverly Hills on Sunday evening. The married couple stepped out in casual ensembles for the night at Wally's, with Hailey opting for a grey sweatshirt and leather trench coat. Justin donned his signature shabby-chic style, wearing an oversized t-shirt underneath a baby blue and yellow checkered shirt. Romance: Hailey and Justin Bieber were all smiles as they headed out for a cheese and wine date night in Beverly Hills on Sunday evening Supermodel Hailey, 26, slipped her slim pins into a pair of blue wide-legged light wash denim jeans. To match her stand-out jacket, she opted for a pair of black chunky platform shoes, which paired perfectly with her leather handbag. She slicked her warm brown tresses into a low bun which showcased her gorgeous features. Beauty Hailey decided against a full-glam look for their chilled evening out for some food, and accessorised with gold hoop earrings and her necklace. Looking good! The married couple stepped out in casual ensembles for the night at Wally's, with Hailey opting for a grey sweatshirt and leather trench coat Justin looked effortlessly cool with his bright ensemble, adding a pair of khaki green straight-leg pants. He slipped his feet into a pair of white and grey comfy sneakers and added a cream coloured cap over his blonde locks. Their appearance on Sunday comes after Hailey spoke out about struggling with PTSD following her a mini-stroke last year. The 26-year-old model - who was admitted to the hospital with stroke-like symptoms caused by a blood clot in her brain - detailed the scary experience in The Run-Through With Vogue podcast released Friday. 'I struggled with a lot of anxiety after': It comes after Hailey Bieber (pictured in November) spoke candidly about struggling with PTSD after suffering a mini-stroke last year as she detailed the scary experience in The Run-Through With Vogue podcast released Friday She said: 'I struggled with a lot of anxiety after. I struggled with a little bit of PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] of just like the fear of maybe it was gonna happen again. 'It was just a feeling that I was, like, I never want to experience that ever again. I mean, it was so terrifying, so jarring, so discombobulating in every single way that you could imagine.' She added that even if she is 'open to talking about the experience if it could help somebody else' it was still 'really hard to talk about' shortly after the experience. 'I look back at it and it could've been so much worse': The 26-year-old model added that even if she is 'open to talking about the experience if it could help somebody else' it was still 'really hard to talk about' shortly after the experience, she is pictured in LA on Friday Hailey explained: 'Even the Youtube video that I had made for my Youtube channel was hard for me. It brings back the feelings for me of going through that experience. It gets easier, and easier with time to be able to talk about it. 'I'm just really grateful that I was able to have had amazing doctors, and nurses, and people that helped me get to the bottom of what actually happened.' She went on to say that she has slowly begun to enjoy life again without the anxiety of what may happen health-wise in the future. Hailey is optimistic as she said: 'I look back at it and it could've been so much worse. So many worse things could have happened in that moment.' Back in April, Hailey revealed how she underwent a procedure to fix a hole in her heart after suffering a 'mini-stroke' the month previously, while she was having breakfast with her husband Justin. In a video posted to her YouTube Channel at the time, the supermodel recalled feeling a 'weird sensation' in her right arm and numbness in her fingertips before she was admitted to hospital. Scary: Back in April, Hailey revealed how she underwent a procedure to fix a hole in her heart after suffering a 'mini-stroke' the month previously, while she was having breakfast with her husband Justin After explaining to her fans that she wanted them to hear about terrifying incident in 'own words,' the Vogue cover girl said her spouse noticed that something was off and repeatedly asked if she was okay. When she tried to respond, Hailey revealed she 'couldn't speak' but was thinking she must be 'having a stroke.' 'The right side of my face started drooping, I couldn't get a sentence out,' she said. Quickly, Justin had someone call 911 and a medic nearby came to examine her as she struggled to formulate words as he asked if he knew her name and other basic questions. Scary: In a new video, posted to her YouTube Channel on Wednesday afternoon, the 25-year-old supermodel recalled feeling a 'weird sensation' in her right arm and numbness in her fingertips Alarming: After explaining to her fans that she wanted them to hear about terrifying incident in 'own words,' the Vogue cover girl said her spouse noticed that something was off and repeatedly asked if she was okay She also noted that her anxiety made 'everything worse' but by the time she made it to the emergency room she 'was pretty much back to normal.' Ultimately, she was kept overnight at the hospital to be tested for the cause of her blood clot in her brain. Thankfully, she scored a 0 on the stroke checklist in the ER and her scary symptoms stopped. 'Perfect storm': Hailey, who has a history of migraines, says she was told by doctors that the combination of her new birth control, a recent battle with COVID and traveling 'from Paris and back in a really short amount of time' likely caused the blood clot The hospital confirmed that she suffered a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA), more commonly referred to as a mini-stroke. Hailey, who has a history of migraines, says she was told by doctors that the combination of her new birth control, a recent battle with COVID and traveling 'from Paris and back in a really short amount of time' likely caused the blood clot. While medical professionals were unable to determine how the blood clot had traveled to her brain, they believe that she had a small opening, known as a PFO, in the heart that usually closes after birth. Eamonn Holmes opened up about being a victim of identity theft on Monday morning, revealing a fraudster impersonated him and stayed in a luxury hotel for two weeks at his expense. The presenter, 63, was speaking about the experience on GB News as he returned to breakfast television screens following back surgery and suffering an injury to his shoulder. He revealed the con artist lived at the Europa Hotel in Belfast for two weeks with a credit card which had Eamonn's name on, stealing money from his bank account and buying building materials including slabs and concrete. Con artist: Eamonn Holmes has opened up about being a victim of identity theft, revealing that a fraudster impersonated him and stayed in a luxury hotel for two weeks at his expense Eamonn described the judge who dealt with his case as 'out of touch', as he told him the incident was 'victimless' and did not send the perpetrator to prison. He revealed that the judge had told the presenter to meet up with the con artist and reconcile with him. Eamonn said of the judge: 'I basically told him where to stick it. It isn't a victimless crime. 'You begin to suspect people around you, people who work for you, all sorts of things. So you suspect lots of things and there's the stress about it. Scam: He revealed that the con artist lived at the Europa Hotel in Belfast for two weeks with a credit card which had Eamonn's name on 'I was very lucky in the fact that the bank reimbursed me but the idea that this is victimless is wrong.' Eamonn said: 'In Belfast, there may only be one Eamonn Holmes, yet a guy was able to go and live in a hotel using my name for two solid weeks at the top hotel in Belfast.' The presenter added: 'No one thought of saying, "You're not as handsome as Eamonn Holmes, you just couldn't be Eamonn Holmes" but he went and he lived in a central Belfast hotel for two weeks.' The perpetrator, John Cartmill, 32, admitted in 2014 to running up thousands of pounds on Eamonn's card including 17,000 of building materials. Incident: Eamonn described the judge who dealt with his case as 'out of touch', as he told him the incident was 'victimless' and did not send the perpetrator to prison Also during Eamonn's long-awaited return to GB News, he showed off a lunchbox prepared by wife Ruth Langsford. Talking about his comeback he said: 'I'm not better, but I'm better than I was and I hope that work will help in the healing process.' The Northern Irish breakfast show anchor has been open with fans in explaining his health woes and most recent fall which broke his shoulder and told his fans about his return to television on Sunday morning. Speaking to his 764,000 followers on Instagram, the host said in a sit-down video: 'Hello there everybody, just to say that after nearly four months away off the telly, I'm back tomorrow. 'Sounds like a threat doesn't it! No, I mean you may or may not be aware of what happened to me, I had back surgery, I've had disc problems. 'I then got some back surgery which affected one of my legs which led to me falling down stairs, which led to me breaking my shoulder. 'So I had a leg that didn't work and a shoulder that didn't work and lots of other things in-between but here I am. Heartbreak: Eamonn's GB News co-presenter Isabel Webster, 39, said it's been 'heartbreaking' to see how pain he has endured (pictured together in 2022) 'I feel there are only so many box sets that I can watch and recommend to you - I'm not better, but I'm better than I was. 'And I've decided to make an attempt to go back to work, on GB News from tomorrow on the basis that work will hopefully heal me. 'Any of you that are long-term sick or in any way convalescing particularly at home will know that there's a lot of frustration involved in it. 'For me I think I'm going to give it a go, be back to work and hopefully get better as a result of doing day-to-day things. 'So on a day-to-day basis all I need is you to be there, GB News, with Isabel, from tomorrow, from 6 through to 9.30am, hope you can join me,' he said. Breakfast buddies: Eamonn and Isabel have presented the breakfast show on the cable news channel since January 2022 (pictured last year) In November, his GB News co-host Isabel Webster revealed that he'll be absent from work until the New Year as he recovers. Speaking about his injury, the much-loved Breakfast show anchor, 62, discussed the 'amazing' NHS workers he have been taking care of him throughout his ordeal. Eamonn said of fracturing his shoulder during the fall: 'It was a massive setback and means I'm going to need to take some extra time off to get myself better. 'It's been a hellish few weeks. But day by day I'm improving and I am remaining positive and trying to look on the bright side.' Praising the NHS, Eamonn added: 'Also, I really must say a heartfelt thank you to the doctors and nursing staff who have been looking after me. They all are amazing. God bless.' Eamonn also insisted that he is 'determined' to keep speaking up for all of the people suffering with chronic pain. Kourtney Kardashian looked incredible in a tight striped swimsuit as she posed for a mirror selfie as part of a Sunday photo dump. The reality star, 43, shared the slew of Instagram snaps from her recent escapades - as well as a throwback bikini snap during her 2006 stint in MTV's Girls Gone Wild. She went on to share further sizzling shots taken from within her closet, where she flashed her legs in a black hoodie, as well as a cream-and-black trench coat. Hot stuff: Kourtney Kardashian looked incredible in a tight striped swimsuit as she posed for a mirror selfie as part of a Sunday photo dump The Poosh founder also took a photo of her mic pack while filming season three of Hulu's The Kardashians before snapping herself on the monitor. Kourtney's son Reign Disick, eight, looked glum while having his head shaved while an X-ray showed a dislocated shoulder bone - however it is unclear whose it is. In her caption, she wrote: 'blah blah blah.' Kourtney fired up her Insta Stories on Saturday and posted a video of her working out, enthusiastically doing boxer sit-ups. Back in the day: The reality star, 43, shared a throwback bikini snap during her 2006 stint in MTV's Girls Gone Wild Busy bee: Kourtney shared the slew of Instagram snaps from her recent escapades Out of this world: She went on to share further sizzling shots taken from within her closet, where she flashed her legs in a cream-and-black trench coat The TV personality shared: 'mornings with @donamatrixtraining almost a year after last IVF attempt, energy finally back.' Last year, she revealed that she and her new husband Travis Barker had given up on their struggle to conceive by in vitro fertilization. Kourtney is working with trainer-to-the-stars Don Brooks, whose showbiz clientele has included Travis, Josh Duhamel and Fergie. Both she and Travis are already parents - Kourtney shares her children Mason, 13, Penelope, 10, and Reign with her ex-partner Scott Disick. Work day: The Poosh founder also took a photo of her mic pack while filming season three of Hulu's The Kardashians before snapping herself on the monitor Mystery: An X-ray showed a dislocated shoulder bone - however it is unclear whose it is Moody: Kourtney's son Reign Disick, eight, looked glum while having his head shaved Having fun: In her caption, she wrote: 'blah blah blah' She has been indulging in a spot of quality time in the desert with her children this weekend, taking them across the sand on youth ATVs. Meanwhile Travis shares his son Landon, 19, and daughter Alabama, 17, with his blonde ex-wife Shanna Moakler, a former beauty queen and Playboy Playmate. Shanna also has a daughter called Atiana, 23, by former boxer Oscar De La Hoya, and Travis has continued to play a stepfather role in her life. Kourtney and Travis, who got engaged in October 2021, threw themselves into the process of trying to conceive a child during their romance. Making it happen: Kourtney fired up her Insta Stories on Saturday and posted a video of her working out, enthusiastically doing boxer sit-ups However before they eventually got married - first in a drunken Vegas wedding with an Elvis impersonator on April Fool's Day 2022, then in a glamorous ceremony at a castle in Italy that May - they decided to forswear IVF. 'We started an IVF journey, but I stopped,' Kourtney told the Wall Street Journal. 'It was a lot. I took a break to just focus on our wedding and getting married.' Last month Kourtney shared a black-and-white selfie from her home gym, declaring that she was beginning to physically return to her pre-IVF levels of vigor. 'Finally stared getting my energy back 10 months after stopping IVF, for anyone going through it, it gets better!' she assured her public. She is expecting a baby with her boyfriend Mark O'Connor. And on Monday, Montana Brown praised natural birth control for 'changing her life' as she discussed her fertility journey while sharing a sweet video. Taking to her Instagram, the Love Island star, 27, explained how her decision to come off hormonal birth control two years ago, taught her 'so much' about her cycle. Fertility journey: On Monday, Montana Brown, 27, praised natural birth control for 'changing her life' as she discussed her fertility journey while sharing a sweet video to Instagram In the montage video, the reality star included photographs of herself holding up a temperature monitor, used to track a woman's cycle. She finished it with a clip of herself happily displaying her baby bump while on a beach with her boyfriend. Montana penned alongside her video: 'New year reflections. It was almost two years ago that I shared my natural birth control journey with you. 'I remember the feeling of getting off hormonal birth control - and feeling I was in control of my body again - I was so grateful for finding naturalcycles. Pregnant: The Love Islander finished it with a clip of herself happily displaying her baby bump while on a beach with her boyfriend Mark O'Connor Life-changing: Montana explained how her decision to come off hormonal birth control two years ago, taught her 'so much' about her cycle. Expecting! Montana said of using natural birth control: 'It taught me so much about my cycle that when the time came to make the switch and plan for a baby, I felt so in tune with my body' 'Two years later I'm even more grateful for starting my hormone-free journey when I did. It helped me prevent pregnancy without having to worry. 'It taught me so much about my cycle that when the time came to make the switch and plan for a baby, I felt so in tune with my body. 'Every single one of our fertility journeys is so different. And whilst I've been open about mine taking a little longer than expected to get pregnant, I truly believe it would have taken me even longer if I didn't make that switch 2 years ago and I didn't start using Natural Cycles. 'There's not many products that can make such a big impact and change your life, but Natural Cycles has. The best thing is that I can go back to using it to prevent pregnancy once Baby O'Connor is here.' Two years ago: Montana included photographs of herself from two years ago, when she came off hormonal birth control and began tracking her cycle instead Future planning: 'The best thing is that I can go back to using it to prevent pregnancy once Baby O'Connor is here' shared Montana Montana recently told her followers how she has been experiencing bad cramps, saying: 'I was waking up last night because I had cramping. Ive had cramps since the start and they feel like my normal period pains. 'I dont hear too many people talking about it during the pregnancy. Its taken up a notch over the last couple of days unfortunately. 'Im so tired all the time and I dont need an extra excuse to stay in bed because I was also a lazy b***h before pregnancy.' Montana recently revealed she and Mark have not found out the sex of their child yet, penning: 'Also we don't know the gender for all those asking... lots of people say they can tell due to the bump which is cool. Candid: Montana recently told how she has been experiencing bad cramps 'I'm not sure if you can tell with my bump being quite small at the minute but I'd love to hear your theories! I feel like it may be a girl tbh just feeling in my bones! Place your bets!' It comes after Montana admitted that she has 'thought a lot' about how her heritage and race will impact her unborn baby. She said she sometimes forgets where she's from after being raised in 'predominantly white areas' as she took to her Instagram Stories on New Year's Day to share her thoughts. Montana shared a snap of her blossoming baby bump while getting candid as she shared her musings about race and parenthood. Mother-to-be: The Love Islander said she is 'tired all the time' and wants to stay in bed She wrote: 'So excited for this new year, so many feelings ran through my head at the strike of midnight. I'm so excited and can't wait for this new chapter. 'I feel grateful for this year and everything it's brought to our life. It's so crazy how your body is changing and growing something so special. I feel very blessed as I know it's not possible for a lot of people. 'I also feel like I'm growing a lot as a person and my values are shifting. I'm seeing a lot more importance on things going on in the world and how on an individual level we can make the world a better place. 'I'd like to do more for racial inequality. I sometimes forget where I'm from as I've grown up in predominantly white areas my whole life! Candid: It comes after Montana admitted that she has 'thought a lot' about how her heritage and race will impact her unborn baby 'Especially since I've been pregnant; I've thought a lot about my race, my heritage and how that will impact my child. 'It's crazy how bringing life into the world makes you really look inwards and made me realise I've still got a lot of self development and work to do.' It comes after the reality star revealed she was 'so shocked' to find out she was pregnant because she had been trying to conceive at the start of the year but it didn't happen. She took to Instagram to do a Q&A when she told how her and beau Mark struggled to get pregnant due to her low oestrogen levels. Montana took to Instagram on Christmas Eve to share the jovial news of her pregnancy with her 1.2million followers. She shared a video montage documenting the initial stages of her pregnancy, including her and her boyfriend grinning with their positive test. In her caption, she wrote: 'Baby O'Connor coming next summer [white heart, baby emoji].' Other clips in the post saw the reality star undergo an ultrasound scan and cosy up to Mark on the beach as he cradled her bump during a recent getaway. Montana was seen lifting a small child into her arms, whose identity is unknown, before writing 'Baby O'Connor' in the sand. Jess Wright looked sensational as she showed off her slim physique in a stunning green swimsuit on Instagram on Sunday. The former TOWIE star, 37, has been enjoying a luxury getaway in Barbados with husband William Lee-Kemp and their son Presley. Sharing the snap, she wished her 1.5M followers a happy new year and said the holiday is something she'd 'dreamt of for many years'. Stunning: Jess Wright looked sensational as she showed off her slim physique in a stunning green swimsuit in Barbados with son Presley and husband William on Instagram on Sunday Jess penned: 'Happy new year from me & my little family. 'We have been away enjoying time with family & had our feet in the sand when the clock struck midnight which is something Ive dreamt of for many years. Wishing you all a wonderful 2023.' Jess looked sensational in the snap as she showed off a leggy display and accentuated her tan with the bright green swimsuit. Husband William, 39, and eight-month-old Presley looked adorable as they donned matching blue swimming trunks. Idyllic: The former TOWIE star, 37, has been enjoying a luxury getaway in Barbados with husband William Lee-Kemp and their son Presley Jess also shared some more pictures of Presley and the idyllic scenes from her luxury getaway. Among them was a fireworks display from New Year's Eve and stunning sunsets on the island. Prior to their holiday, Jessica couldn't contain her smile as she shared a sweet family Christmas snap with husband William Lee-Kemp and their son Presley on Instagram . Sweet: Sharing the snap on Sunday, she wished her 1.5M followers a happy new year and said the holiday is something she'd 'dreamt of for many years' She looked incredible in a crisp white jumper and black mini skirt which she teamed with sheer tights and towering boots. She beamed as she held her eight-month-old baby boy in her arms while her businessman beau, 39, and her mum Carol, 62, beamed at Presley. William cut a casual figure in a grey sweatshirt which he teamed with black skinny jeans while his son was dressed in a festive checked romper and knee high socks. Dreamy: Jess also shared some more pictures of Presley and the idyllic scenes from her luxury getaway. Among them was a fireworks display from New Year's Eve and stunning sunsets on the island Meanwhile, Carol looked sensational in an eye catching red long sleeved maxi dress which she teamed with comfy brown fluffy sliders. The family posed up a storm in front of Jess's lavish tree as she gave fans a glimpse into Presley's first Christmas. Jess later swapped Presley for a glass of fizz and also held a white Christian Dior handbag as she posed in front of her Christmas tree. Festive: Jessica couldn't contain her smile as she shared a sweet family snap with husband William Lee-Kemp, their son Presley and her mum Carol on Instagram on Tuesday She styled her long dark tresses in loose curls which cascaded past her shoulders and she applied a radiant palette of makeup to showcase her beauty. The former Only Way Is Essex star was joined by her brother Josh's family as she shared an adorable snap of his son Joshua James, 10 months, with Presley. Joshua and Presley twinned in coordinated navy pyjamas with their names written across the front as they relaxed on the sofa during the family get together. Eamonn Holmes was pictured walking with crutches following his first day back at GB News on Monday morning. The broadcaster, 63, had returned to his Breakfast show hosting gig following back surgery and an injury to his shoulder, which saw him takes four months off work. Looking smart in a light grey suit, he was aided by his co-star Isabel Webster, 40, who cut a chic figure in a houndstooth coat, as they departed the London studio. Frail: Eamonn Holmes, 63, walked with crutches while aided by his GB News co-star Isabel Webster on Monday - as he returned to work four months after back injuries On the show, Eamonn opened up about being a victim of identity theft on Monday morning, revealing a fraudster impersonated him and stayed in a luxury hotel for two weeks at his expense. The presenter revealed the con artist lived at the Europa Hotel in Belfast for two weeks with a credit card which had Eamonn's name on, stealing money from his bank account and buying building materials including slabs and concrete. Eamonn described the judge who dealt with his case as 'out of touch', as he told him the incident was 'victimless' and did not send the perpetrator to prison. He revealed that the judge had told the presenter to meet up with the con artist and reconcile with him. Double act: Looking smart in a light grey suit, he was aided by his co-star Isabel Webster, 40, who cut a chic figure in a houndstooth coat, as they departed the London studio Eamonn said of the judge: 'I basically told him where to stick it. It isn't a victimless crime. 'You begin to suspect people around you, people who work for you, all sorts of things. So you suspect lots of things and there's the stress about it. 'I was very lucky in the fact that the bank reimbursed me but the idea that this is victimless is wrong.' Eamonn said: 'In Belfast, there may only be one Eamonn Holmes, yet a guy was able to go and live in a hotel using my name for two solid weeks at the top hotel in Belfast.' Back in action: The broadcaster, 63, had returned to his Breakfast show hosting gig following back surgery and an injury to his shoulder, which saw him takes four months off work The presenter added: 'No one thought of saying, "You're not as handsome as Eamonn Holmes, you just couldn't be Eamonn Holmes" but he went and he lived in a central Belfast hotel for two weeks.' The perpetrator, John Cartmill, 32, admitted in 2014 to running up thousands of pounds on Eamonn's card including 17,000 of building materials. Also during Eamonn's long-awaited return to GB News, he showed off a lunchbox prepared by wife Ruth Langsford. Talking about his comeback he said: 'I'm not better, but I'm better than I was and I hope that work will help in the healing process.' Oh dear: The Northern Irish breakfast show anchor has been open with fans in explaining his health woes and most recent fall which broke his shoulder The Northern Irish breakfast show anchor has been open with fans in explaining his health woes and most recent fall which broke his shoulder and told his fans about his return to television on Sunday morning. Speaking to his 764,000 followers on Instagram, the host said in a sit-down video: 'Hello there everybody, just to say that after nearly four months away off the telly, I'm back tomorrow. 'Sounds like a threat doesn't it! No, I mean you may or may not be aware of what happened to me, I had back surgery, I've had disc problems. 'I then got some back surgery which affected one of my legs which led to me falling down stairs, which led to me breaking my shoulder. Heartbreak: Isabel said it's been 'heartbreaking' to see how pain he has endured (pictured together in 2022) 'So I had a leg that didn't work and a shoulder that didn't work and lots of other things in-between but here I am. 'I feel there are only so many box sets that I can watch and recommend to you - I'm not better, but I'm better than I was. 'And I've decided to make an attempt to go back to work, on GB News from tomorrow on the basis that work will hopefully heal me. 'Any of you that are long-term sick or in any way convalescing particularly at home will know that there's a lot of frustration involved in it. Breakfast buddies: Eamonn and Isabel have presented the breakfast show on the news channel since January 2022 (pictured last year) 'For me I think I'm going to give it a go, be back to work and hopefully get better as a result of doing day-to-day things. 'So on a day-to-day basis all I need is you to be there, GB News, with Isabel, from tomorrow, from 6 through to 9.30am, hope you can join me,' he said. In November, his GB News co-host Isabel Webster revealed that he'll be absent from work until the New Year as he recovers. Speaking about his injury, the much-loved Breakfast show anchor, 62, discussed the 'amazing' NHS workers he have been taking care of him throughout his ordeal. Eamonn said of fracturing his shoulder during the fall: 'It was a massive setback and means I'm going to need to take some extra time off to get myself better. 'It's been a hellish few weeks. But day by day I'm improving and I am remaining positive and trying to look on the bright side.' Praising the NHS, Eamonn added: 'Also, I really must say a heartfelt thank you to the doctors and nursing staff who have been looking after me. They all are amazing. God bless.' Eamonn also insisted that he is 'determined' to keep speaking up for all of the people suffering with chronic pain. Richard Madeley has slammed Prince Harry after he denied accusing the Royal Family of racism. Speaking on Good Morning Britain on Monday, the TV presenter, 66, blasted the Duke for not correcting the shocking claim - adding he 'doesn't buy the rewrite'. This comes after Prince Harry denied calling the Royal Family racist on Sunday night in his bombshell interview with Tom Bradby, despite Meghan's claim that an unnamed royal had expressed 'concern' about son Archie's skin colour. Unimpressed: Richard Madeley has slammed Prince Harry after he denied accusing the Royal Family of racism (pictured with co-host Susanna Reid on Monday's show) Richard said: 'If we misunderstood it and it was the front page story in the world, why didn't they correct it? 'Why didn't Harry or Meghan say at some point on one of their podcasts or one of the opportunities that they've had and say "By the way, we didn't mean it the way you guys took it, we weren't accusing the family of racism". 'Why didn't they correct it, the day after it went out?' Co-host Susanna Reid then interjected: 'He blames the press for saying it was racism. He says they never said it was racism. Controversial: This comes after Prince Harry denied calling the Royal Family racist on Sunday night in an interview with ITV's Tom Bradby (pictured) 'There was a clarification that was issued in the wake of that Oprah interview because the day after it went out Oprah herself told CBS that the accusation wasn't against the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh.' Reflecting on the Duke's recent claims, Richard added: 'Sorry, I don't buy that rewrite in the interview, there was a clear implication at the very least that there was a racist element about the skin colour of the forthcoming baby. 'It was never corrected, it was corrected last night, but two and a half three years too late. You can't have it both ways Harry, I'm sorry.' In 2021 Harry and Meghan's tell-all Oprah Winfrey interview was one that shocked the world. Angry: Richard said, 'If we misunderstood it and it was the front page story in the world, why didn't they correct it?' One moment that remained in people's minds over the years was when Oprah asked Meghan in 2021: 'They were concerned that if he were too brown, that would be a problem? Are you saying that?'. Meghan responded at the time: 'If that's the assumption you're making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand, right?' It prompted a worldwide guessing game about the senior royal who said it and hours later Harry's estranged brother, Prince William, was forced to publicly remark that they were 'very much not a racist family'. The Queen also gave a rare statement and said 'the issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning' but stressed that 'recollections may vary'. But on Sunday night, in an interview to plug his new memoir, he told ITV's Tom Bradby that the Royal Family is not racist. Confusion: Bradby a friend of Harry's, raised the 2021 Oprah interview and said: 'You accused members of your family of racism' Mr Bradby was visibly stunned - as were millions of viewers - by his screeching U-turn from previous incendiary claims. The British broadcaster, a friend of Harry's, raised the 2021 Oprah interview and said: 'You accused members of your family of racism.' But Harry snapped back: 'No I didn't. The British press said that. Did Meghan ever mention that they're racist?'. Harry then insisted the comments made about his son Archie's skin colour were 'unconscious bias'. Mr Bradby appeared taken aback by the answer - while experts said that Harry clearly didn't understand the term he was now using. Harry, promoting his autobiography Spare, asserted: 'There was there was concern about his skin colour.' He was then asked: 'Wouldn't you describe that as essentially racist?' Unforgettable: In 2021 Harry and Meghan's tell-all Oprah Winfrey interview (pictured) was one that shocked the world But the 38-year-old replied: 'I wouldn't, not having lived within that family.' Harry and Meghan's 'tell-all' conversation with Oprah in 2021 marked their first major interview since they stepped down as senior members of the Royal Family in 2020. In the couple's Netflix series Harry & Meghan, the Duke claimed:'In this family, sometimes you are part of the problem rather than part of the solution. There is a huge level of unconscious bias. 'The thing with unconscious bias, it is actually no one's fault. But once it has been pointed out, or identified within yourself you then need to make it right. It is education. It is awareness. It is a constant work in progress for everybody, including me.' She has just returned from a festive family break in Mauritius. And, Amanda Holden, 51, commanded attention as she left Heart FM wearing scarlet head-to-toe for a bold Monday morning look. The BGT judge sashayed along in a slim-fit red pencil dress and coordinating long-line coat after hosting the radio station's Breakfast show. Lady in red! Amanda Holden, 51, commanded attention as she left Heart FM wearing scarlet head-to-toe for a bold Monday morning look Amanda's form-fitting frock was ribbed throughout and boasted contrast gold buttons at the neckline. The radio host opted to keep the red colour theme for her pointed stiletto heels and small clutch bag. She recently enjoyed a winter break in Mauritius at a luxurious five-star LUX Grand Baie, which was designed by Kelly Hoppen CBE. Stylish: The BGT judge sashayed along in a slim-fit red pencil dress and coordinating long-line coat after hosting the radio station's Breakfast show Matchy-matchy: The radio host opted to keep the red colour theme for her pointed stiletto heels and small clutch bag Amanda rang in the new year at the holiday hotspot, along with her husband Chris Hughes - who she wed in 2008 - and their two daughters, Lexi, 16, and Hollie, 10. Their stunning hotel featured four swimming pools, three bars, a private beach and a stunning spa. When food is included, room prices can reach 3,000-a-night thanks to its prime location on the beach. Details: Amanda's form-fitting frock was ribbed throughout and boasted contrast gold buttons at the neckline The Britain's Got Talent judge helped do up two flats in Sicily last summer with comedian pal Alan Carr, 46, for their new BBC show, Amanda & Alan's Italian Job. Last month, Amanda revealed that The Italian Job was born out of her desire to do something nice for close pal Alan. The presenter shared that she was hoping to give the Chatty Man star a project to help him get through his split from husband Paul Drayton earlier in the year. Alan and his Party Planner husband announced their separation in January 2022 after 13 years together and three years of marriage. Talking to The Mirror, Amanda said of Alan: 'Hes been through a lot of personal stuff. I want to give him a project thats going to start with something in tatters much like him and at the end therell be this beautiful building.' Foreign Minister Park Jin, front row 10th from left, poses with envoys from around the Indo-Pacific region during a briefing announcing the details of Korea's new Indo-Pacific strategy at the ministry headquarters in central Seoul, Dec. 28. Yonhap By Kwon Mee-yoo Korea has unveiled a new strategy for expanding its global influence in the Indo-Pacific region, as the country's elevated international standing now requires it to take on a larger role in promoting freedom, peace and prosperity in the region. The unveiling of the details received noteworthy attention from the diplomatic community in Seoul, as Foreign Minister Park Jin invited over 50 envoys to the announcement held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters, Dec. 28. Other Indo-Pacific nations recognized that they share the same values and perspectives as Korea in its new strategy and looked for opportunities for further cooperation through the new strategy. Australian Ambassador to Korea Catherine Raper agreed with Park that the announcement "marks a watershed in Korea's foreign policy," welcoming Korea's strategy announcement as a fellow Indo-Pacific nation. "The strategy aligns with Australia's own vision for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific, where small and middle powers can work together to preserve our choice and strategic space," the Australian ambassador said in an email interview with The Korea Times. She noted that cooperation with Australia would be crucial in implementing this strategy. "Our close cooperation and coordination will be important given Australia is a fellow U.S. ally, a comprehensive strategic partner with ASEAN and has longstanding and deep relationships with our Pacific neighbors," Raper said. Australia is also a significant security player in the region through its participation in security arrangements such as AUKUS and the Quad. "We welcome the strategy's recognition of efforts to further deepen Australia-ROK ties on security issues and in national defense. We are already comprehensive strategic partners and we think the strategy will give us even more opportunities to collaborate on our shared regional security interests," she said. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) showed keen interest in Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy as well. Vietnamese Ambassador to Korea Nguyen Vu Tung believes that the strategy may lead to Korea playing a larger role in the region, new opportunities for cooperation in various fields such as traditional and non-traditional security challenges and economic prosperity and more cooperative platforms at different levels. Ambassador Tung said Vietnam and other ASEAN countries are content with the introduction of the strategy as the country is the coordinator for ASEAN-Korea cooperation for 2021 to 2024. "Because it is a sustained and upgraded version of the New Southern Policy, which indicates that the ASEAN and South Korea can boost greater cooperation in the context of the ROK Indo-Pacific strategy. The elevation of the ROK-ASEAN cooperative framework into a strategic and comprehensive partnership in 2024 becomes more feasible," Tung said. "It recognizes and supports the ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), which suggests that South Korea and ASEAN support the inclusive approach to cooperation in the region, utilize the ASEAN-led institutions and hence adopt the ASEAN Way in promoting peace and stability in the region. (Third,) it widens the scope that ASEAN and ROK interact with other regional countries, especially those who have introduced their respective Indo-Pacific strategies." He also sees the potential for Vietnam and Korea working together to enhance the ASEAN Centrality and support the ASEAN-led arrangements in the Indo-Pacific region with Vietnam being more proactive in ASEAN and Korea being more committed with ASEAN. "The ROK and ASEAN will elevate the existing cooperative framework into a strategic and comprehensive partnership in 2024. These are the platforms that Vietnam and Korea can work together to implement the South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy in Southeast Asia and beyond," Tung said. Foreign Minister Park Jin, front row fourth from left, poses with envoys from the Indo-Pacific region during a briefing announcing the details of Korea's new Indo-Pacific Strategy at the ministry headquarters in central Seoul, Dec. 28. Yonhap James Bond actor George Lazenby believes that Liam Hemsworth is ballsy enough to take on the role of 007. The gig has been left vacant by the departure of Daniel Craig, 54, from the franchise and Australian actor Lazenby - who played Bond in 1969 - thinks his fellow countryman Liam, 32, is a perfect fit. The 83-year-old told TMZ this weekend that Aussie star Hemsworth is 'crazy enough, arrogant enough, confident enough, ambitious enough to take on the role'. James Bond actor George Lazenby (pictured) believes that Australian actor Liam Hemsworth is ballsy enough to take on the role of 007 George also said that the new Bond needs to be someone who resides 'under the Commonwealth' so an Australian actor fits the bill. The star added Liam is a 'good-looking Aussie dude' and young enough to continue appearing in the series for years to come while retaining his looks. George previously said he believed that Australian actress Margot Robbie could make a 'ballsy' James Bond. The gig has been left vacant by the departure of Daniel Craig and Lazenby - who played Bond in 1969 - thinks Liam (pictured) is 'crazy enough, arrogant enough, confident enough, ambitious enough to take on the role' He said at the time he wants the person who replaces Daniel Craig in the spy thriller franchise to be a female. He has tipped the Birds of Prey star, 32, for the iconic part, saying: 'I would rather see a woman on screen than a man, so it might be a good idea having a woman play James Bond... Jane Bond. I think it's a good idea.' He added: 'I mean, why not? There's an Australian actress that I was just listening to on the television today, Margot Robbie. She would be good. She's ballsy. Lazenby played the spy in just one film, 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service (pictured) 'She comes across like she's very confident... if you can pull that off, people will believe you.' However, James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has insisted she is 'not interested' in a female superspy. Daniel Craig has starred in five of the Bond films, from Casino Royale to No Time to Die, and his exit has created hot competition for the role. George previously said he believed that Australian actress Margot Robbie (pictured) could make a 'ballsy' James Bond Last week Aaron Taylor-Johnson met with 007 producers amid rumours he's tipped to be the next James Bond. The actor, 32, met to discuss the iconic role following Daniel Craig's exit from the franchise after his fifth appearance as the secret agent in 2021 smash No Time To Die. According to Puck News Aaron's sat down with producer Barbara Broccoli and sources claim the meeting went 'very well' after he reportedly filmed a secret audition late last year. Last week Aaron Taylor-Johnson (pictured) met with 007 producers amid rumours he's tipped to be the next James Bond Lazenby played the super spy in just one film, 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service. By his own admission, he never watched his successors as Bond because he is 'just not interested' in the franchise. The actor, who was also a male model, was at the time the youngest ever actor to play the secret agent, being just 29 years old at the time. The actor met to discuss the iconic role following Daniel Craig's (pictured) exit from the franchise after 2021's No Time To Die He received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of 007, but turned down making another Bond film. Quitting resulted in a career dive for the actor, and for a time he worked in real estate in the 1970s, before making a return to screens. George will be getting back into the espionage game, starring in an audio series as reluctant spy Dr Jason Love. He's been filming for new crime-mystery A Haunting In Venice over the last few weeks. And Kenneth Branagh once again transformed into his role of Hercule Poirot on Monday as he was snapped on set in the Italian city with his period costume on. The British actor, 62, took to the city of water in a police waterboat while reprising the detective role, which he has famously sported before in 2017's Murder On the Orient Express and 2022's Death On The Nile. Filming: Kenneth Branagh sported his character Hercule Poirot's signature moustache on Monday as he continued filming for A Haunting in Venice alongside co-star Riccardo Scamarcio Kenneth was seen filming alongside Riccardo Scamarcio for scenes on the water as they travelled via a wooden police boat - with 'Polizia' added on the side. The duo protected from the winter rain as they both held black umbrellas above their heads during the scenes. Kenneth layered a double-breasted navy coat over his matching suit, which was teamed with a crisp white shirt and red tie. The actor and filmmaker added a homburg hat and leather gloves while carrying his detective character's cane. During the scenes, he strolled through Venice before acting out some on a rustic balcony. Chic: Tina Fey was also spotted on set, wearing a long green coat and a pair of matching heels Beauty: The actress sported a glam makeup look while her short brunette locks were styled in loose waves Character: He's been filming for new crime-mystery A Haunting In Venice over the last few weeks Open water: The actor took to the city of water in a police waterboat while reprising the detective role Winter weather: The duo protected from the winter rain as they both held black umbrellas above their heads during the scenes Off they go: They made their way through Venice's grand canal for the filming Conversation: The duo appeared to be enjoying a chat on the boat during the day Helping hand: Kenneth was aided onto the boat as they prepared to begin filming Period costume: Kenneth layered a double-breasted navy coat over his matching suit, which was teamed with a crisp white shirt and red tie On the job: During the scenes, he strolled through Venice before acting out some on a rustic balcony He was juggling actor and director duties during the day of filming, spending time behind the lense as he swapped his costume for a warm jacket to work off-screen. Crowds of extras filled the city's streets too, all dressed in period costumes as the film went back in time. Riccardo was dressed similarly to his director and co-star, donning a black overcoat and smart suit underneath. Both sides: While the Academy Award winner also spent some time behind the camera as he was snapped having a look through the lense Layers: Kenneth braved the city's rainy weather as he wrapped up with a black jacket and boots during the filming as he juggled directing and acting The cast and crew appeared to be filming outside of one of the city's old custom buildings, Dogana da Mar. It's Kenneth's third Hecule Poirot movie, and is being adapted from Agatha Christie's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party, set in post-World War II Venice on All Hallows Eve. The story follows Poirot who is now retired and living in self-imposed exile, before he is lured in to solve yet another mystery. Spooky: Kenneth was then seen standing next to a someone dressed all in black with a scary mask on Filming: Later in the evening, he was spotted with the same spooky man on a boat Spot of coffee: He enjoyed a hot drink while having a break from acting out scenes Details: Kenneth walked the streets with his character's signature cane in hand Busy days: Kenneth was surrounded by crew from the film as they set up shop for another day on set, after filming consecutively this week Location: The cast and crew appeared to be filming outside of one of the city's old custom buildings, Dogana da Mar Stalls: The crew also appeared to have set up a vintage market in the streets On the hunt: Kenneth's character did some digging as he chatted to 'locals' for some scenes More characters: Extras dressed as nuns all got into position for the scenes too It began filming at London's Pinewood Studios in November, before moving to location work in Venice, Italy, over the last few weeks. While the project from 20th Century Studios has a September 2023 release date. Kenneth will star alongside Tina Fey in the film, as well as Jamie Dornan, Michelle Yeoh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly and Riccardo Scamarcio. Famous faces: Riccardo Scamarcio was also spotted on the set as the duo prepared to fim together Quick fix: A crew member adjusted Kenneth's costume and microphone underneath his blazer and jacket during a time out Back again: The flick is Kenneth's third Hecule Poirot movie, and is being adapted from Agatha Christie's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party, set in post-World War II Venice on All Hallows Eve Decorated: The set has been decorated with rustic props to ensure the post-world war II setting comes through It comes after Kenneth's co-star Jamie admitted that he found his signature moustache 'intimidating'. Speaking on The Graham Norton show he said: 'I felt very insecure and inferior the whole time because his moustache was unbelievable'. '[His facial hair is] the best in film history as Poirot, while mine was a wee attempt at one.' Jamie said it was also 'very different' acting alongside the Oscar winner, after only previously being directed by him. Plot: The story follows Poirot who is now retired and living in self-imposed exile, before he is lured in to solve yet another mystery Moving along nicely: It began filming at London's Pinewood Studios in November, before moving to location work in Venice, Italy , over the last few weeks Cast: Kenneth will star alongside Tina Fey in the film, as well as Jamie Dornan, Michelle Yeoh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly and Riccardo In March 2021, she fiercely defended Piers Morgan on The Talk against backlash from the panel who said he'd been 'racist and sexist' in his coverage of Meghan Markle. And Sharon Osbourne, 70, recalled being cancelled and 'blacklisted' in America after defending her friend, as she insisted: 'I've never spoken with hate.' Appearing on This Morning on Monday, the TV personality told Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that she's living proof you can get blacklisted in America, adding: 'I got threats!' I got threats! on Monday, Sharon Osbourne, 70, recalled being cancelled and 'blacklisted' in America after defending Piers Morgan, as she insisted: 'I've never spoken with hate' Asked why she's returned to the UK, Sharon quipped: 'I can't get arrested in America. It went wrong. It went vert, very wrong. 'They say there isn't blacklisting in America but I'm living proof that there is. Not that I'm resentful or whatever. It's just a fact of life, it happens doesn't it?' Phillip asked: 'So did you actually got cancelled?' to which the former X Factor judge insisted: 'Yes I did.' Sharon continued to discuss the fallout after she defended Piers Morgan following his remarks about Meghan Markle's Oprah interview. Living proof! Appearing on This Morning, the TV personality told Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield that she's living proof you can get blacklisted in America Blacklisted: Asked why she's returned to the UK, Sharon quipped: 'I can't get arrested in America. They say you can't get blacklisted in America but I'm proof you can' I did! When asked if she 'actually got cancelled,' the former X Factor judge insisted: 'Yes I did' She said: 'I got threats and things like that It's like I can look at myself in the mirror, and I know I can talk and I'm loud and I know that about myself. 'But I've never spoken with hate and I stick up for my friends and that's what I was doing. I know who I am. Back in March 2021, Sharon and her former The Talk co-host Sheryl Underwood got into a heated discussion over comments Piers Morgan who was being accused of being racist in his public critique of Meghan Markle. Sharon claimed that the seemingly impromptu TV moment was actually carefully orchestrated by a CBS show executive who wanted to create controversy by telling her co-hosts to ask her if people now thought she was a racist. As a result, Osbourne lost her job, and was forced to hire 24 hour security and underwent months of ketamine therapy to deal with the trauma of the subsequent death threats. Fired: CBS fired Sharon after she and The Talk co-host Sheryl Underwood argued over Sharon's support of Piers Morgan (Pictured in March 2021 during the argument) Clash: Piers quit GMB after co-star Alex Beresford challenged his comments about Meghan Stylish: Sharon looked chic for her TV appearance, dressed in all-black with a pearl necklace CBS said at the time: 'Sharon Osbourne has decided to leave THE TALK. The events of the March 10 broadcast were upsetting to everyone involved, including the audience watching at home. 'As part of our review, we concluded that Sharon's behavior toward her co-hosts during the March 10 episode did not align with our values for a respectful workplace. 'We also did not find any evidence that CBS executives orchestrated the discussion or blindsided any of the hosts.' The fallout: Speaking of what happened after she defended Piers, she said: 'I got threats and things like that' I know who I am! 'I've never spoken with hate and I stick up for my friends and that's what I was doing. I know who I am' stated Sharon Moving on: Speaking on This Morning of why she now enjoys working at TalkTV, Sharon explained: 'we all say what we feel in a respectful way' Speaking on This Morning of why she now enjoys working at TalkTV, Sharon explained: 'At TalkTV I don't have to [hide what I think] because everyone has different opinions. 'And we all say what we feel in a respectful way. There's no hate speech or ''I'm really secretly part of this party''. People say what they feel and you've got a space to feel it and its great.' Elsewhere, Sharon explained in more detail why she's decided to move back to the UK, saying: 'Age, life changes and everything changes so quickly. 'I stopped one day and it's like: ''what are we doing here? We don't belong here!'' 'I've always been very English and I've never been a brit that goes there that has a bi-coastal accent. It's just not me. I'm British and I belong here.' Moving home: Elsewhere, Sharon explained in more detail why she's decided to move back to the UK, saying: 'Age, life changes and everything changes so quickly British: 'I've always been very English and I've never been a brit that goes there that has a bi-coastal accent. It's just not me. I'm British and I belong here' she explained She revealed that Ozzy, however, took more convincing on her desire to move home, saying: 'It's been so long since he spent time here. It's like for him ''I don't know where to go any more!'' 'But I'd rather have the grey and drizzle than the sunny life there. The best place in the world to go for a holiday is LA. But to live there when you're still very British. It's not for us.' Asked how their kids feel about her decision, Sharon admitted: 'They're not happy. They say ''you can't do this'', but I just don't feel content there anymore.' Sharon previously skewered The Talk executives for 'destroying her' and slammed its showrunners for being 'weak women' after her unceremonious exit. Ruby Wax has sparked concern amongst fans with her latest appearance from a hospital bed as she promoted her latest book discussing mental health. The comedian, 69, has been very open with her audiences in her battle with depression over the years, only last year admitting that the illness that made thoughts 'so agonising it's hard to stay alive'. And in a post to her 103,000 followers on Instagram on Monday afternoon, Ruby's fans have asked of her wellbeing as she sat on a hospital bed to talk about her book, 'I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was'. Concern: Ruby Wax has sparked concern amongst fans with her latest appearance from a hospital bed as she promoted her latest book discussing mental health Having recently been staying in Cape Town to train as a castaway marooned alone on an island for a movie, Ruby has been showing her day-to-day activities. She learned how to kindle a fire and build a shelter, following in the footsteps of Joanna Lumley who did a similar thing twenty years ago with her BBC show Girl Friday. However the trip has appeared to take a turn as she ended up showing footage of herself in hospital instead of exploring island life. Speaking directly to fans in the video, Ruby said: 'Hi my name is Ruby Wax and this is the cover of my new book. Comedian: The comedian, 69, has been very open with her audiences in her battle with depression over the years, only last year admitting that the illness that made thoughts 'so agonising it's hard to stay alive' 'I think it says it all. No comment from me. It's coming out May 11 and you can preorder it by the link on my bio. It's my new baby.' She captioned the post: I'm thrilled to share with you all the cover of my new book, 'I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was' - which I think says it all. 'This could be my most honest and raw book to date which feels good, but also a little scary. Health: And in a post to her 103,000 followers on Instagram on Monday afternoon, Ruby's fans have asked of her wellbeing as she sat on a hospital bed to talk about her book, 'I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was' 'I do hope it might provide some reassurance and guidance for anyone else struggling with their own mental health. It's coming out May 11th and you can pre-order it now via the link in my bio. Ruby x'. Amongst several hashtags in the post, Ruby wrote: '#DepressionSupport', '#DepressionRecovery' and #PsychiatricHospital. Fans were quick to send Ruby their well wishes with many concerned at seeing her in hospital with a monitor attached to her heart. New: Speaking directly to fans in the video, Ruby said: 'Hi my name is Ruby Wax and this is the cover of my new book. I think it says it all. No comment from me. It's coming out May 11 and you can preorder it by the link on my bio. It's my new baby' One wrote: 'Wtf. hope u ok In hospital bed Ruby ..... cyber hug of soothing vibes coming your way.' Another added: 'Can't wait to read it.... But are you ok Hun?As we can see you are in hospital.... X' A third said: ' I hope you're going to be OK my ex wife has been in hospital for nearly two weeks now.' Support: Fans were quick to send Ruby their well wishes with many concerned at seeing her in hospital with a monitor attached to her heart Last year, Ruby bared her soul by admitting to fans she is suffering from her first big bout of depression in 12 years, and saying she has 'dead eyes'. The comedian, 69, who has battled with her mental health over the years and quit TV 25 years ago as a result of depression, admitted she is 'frazzled' and 'didn't spot the signs' as she told fans that battle with the illness that made thoughts 'so agonising it's hard to stay alive.' Taking to Instagram over the summer, she shared two images of herself and penned a revealing post, writing: 'A sure sign of depression is dead eyes (first picture) In contrast to me when alive and well (second picture) Opening up: Ruby Wax has bared her soul by admitting to fans she is suffering from her first big bout of depression in 12 years, and saying she has 'dead eyes' Ruby also told her fans just a few days ago that she was experiencing the first bout of depression in twelve years. She said this time it took her by surprise. Alongside a zoomed-in image of her eyes, she wrote: 'I have gone on about stopping the stigma for mental illness for about 15 years; writing books, performing in theatre shows speaking at businesses. 'Questioning why it's treated differently than if someone had a physical disease. Over the years I've asked people suffering from both physical and mental problems which is worse and without exception they always say mental. Candid: Taking to Instagram on Monday, she shared two images and penned a revealing post, writing: 'A sure sign of depression is dead eyes (first picture) In contrast to me when alive and well (second picture, above) 'There's a feeling that you've done something wrong when your own mind turns on you and takes revenge for something you never did. 'It's the black hole of diseases where you sit helpless as your mind hammers you with accusitions, sucks out your soul and spits it out and the brutality of your thoughts become so agonizing it's hard to stay alive and have to listen.' She continued: 'Because I'm committed to dropping the shame, I feel I need to walk the talk at this point. Here's the situation - I have depression at the moment. 'Nothing happened specifically to bring it on. I come from a long line of ancestors with various flavours of mental illness so genetically, it seems it's a no-brainer that I'd be the next in line. Suffering: The comedian, 69, who has battled with her mental health over the years and quit TV 25 years ago as a result of depression, admitted she is 'frazzled' as she told fans of her current battle with the illness that makes thoughts 'so agonising it's hard to stay alive' 'Not my fault, or even the fault of my relatives, it's deeply planted in our genes.' Ruby said mindfulness had stopped her suffering for a long time, explaining: 'My last bad bout was about twelve years ago so I haven't done badly. Mindfulness was a wonderful tool, helping me spot early onslaughts and awareness is the key. 'It meant I could hold back the the snowballing effect of depression before it rendered me helpless, where I'd sit gormless in a darkened room too afraid to take a shower.' She added: 'This time, I didn't spot the signs. I'm coming out of it already otherwise I wouldn't be able to write this because you can hardly speak, let alone type. 'When I recover, I'm going to write my next book called, 'I'm Not As Well As I Thought I Was.' Wish me luck.' Admission: Ruby also told her fans just a few days ago that she was experiencing the first bout of depression in twelve years. She said this time it took her by surprise Her candid post was met with a plethora of supportive messages from her fans and showbiz pals, with Dawn French writing: 'Love you Rubes x.' While Lily Cole penned: 'Sending you loads of love, I have been there too.' Ruby has been open about her battle with clinical depression over the years, and in 2013 graduated with a master's degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Kellogg College at Oxford University. Appearing on the Crisis What Crisis? podcast in 2020, she told how she 'lost her mojo' while struggling with her mental health on television, and admitted it severely bruised her ego to be replaced. However, the Girls On Top actress went on to stress that she's glad her showbiz career came to an end when it did, because she may well have 'harmed herself' if she'd ended up on reality TV, which she believes would have been the inevitable next step. When asked about her decision to distance herself from showbiz, and throw herself into understanding mindfulness and her study of psychotherapy, she said: 'I was thrown out of it.' When pushed further, she explained: 'It was a mutual agreement, I started to hit depression while I was on TV, and that made it really difficult.' The TV personality said her mental health meant her 'brain was shutting down' and she could no longer perform in the way she used to. Teresa Giudice and her daughter Gia looked as if they could have been sisters in jubilant photos taken from Gia's 22nd birthday party on Sunday. The 50-year-old Real Housewives Of New Jersey star who was seen celebrating earlier in the weekend with her husband Luis Ruelas shared photos of herself and Gia wearing matching all-white dresses during the party in Jalisco, Mexico. The reality star and her daughter both wore plunging white halter dresses with long skirts reaching down to the beach's sand. The outfits were invigorated by high slits in the skirts, and Teresa wore her brunette locks tied back in a high ponytail, while Gia opted to style her hair in thick waves cascading down her shoulders. Motherdaughter bonding: Teresa Giudice, 50, matched her daughter Gia in a plunging white dress with a high slit as she celebrated her 22nd birthday in Jalisco, Mexico, on Sunday Teresa added a gold luxury wristwatch to her look, while Gia opted for jeweled bracelets for some extra sparkle. Both women stood tall in glowing open-toe heels that glittered in the light. 'I hope your special day is as special as you!' Teresa gushed in the caption to her post. 'Nothing lights up my world more than you! ...Wishing my sweetheart, a very happy birthday. ...May all your wishes come true today and every day, Love you Mommy .' She caught multiple celebrations for Gia's big day, which also featured multiple outfit changes from the birthday girl. Sweet: 'I hope your special day is as special as you!' Teresa gushed in the caption to her post. 'Nothing lights up my world more than you!' Seeing green: One party featured Gia in a green mesh knit crop top with long sleeves and a matching skirt, which left little to the imagination One party featured Gia in a green mesh knit crop top with long sleeves and a matching skirt, which left little to the imagination. The reality daughter beamed as she held a sparkler aloft while a double shot glass of what appeared to be tequila sat in front of her, along with a lime wedge. Gia's party also took the family to the Jose Cuervo Distillery in Jalisco, where she celebrated with more shots and fruity beverages. Gia beamed in another video shot indoors as she was presented with a slice of birthday cake with another sparkler blasting from the top of it. Party time: Gia's party also took the family to the Jose Cuervo Distillery in Jalisco, where she celebrated with more shots and fruity beverages On point: She stuck to the green color scheme, this time wearing a lime green dress decorated with sparkling beads that featured a matching exposed bra Letting loose: After Teresa and the rest of her family finished singing Happy Birthday, she tossed back a large shot with a wince before chasing it with her sweeter drink She stuck to the green color scheme, this time wearing a lime green dress decorated with sparkling beads that featured a matching exposed bra. After Teresa and the rest of her family finished singing Happy Birthday, she tossed back a large shot with a wince before chasing it with her sweeter drink. In addition to her eldest daughter, Teresa also shares Gabriella, 18; Milania, 16; and Audriana, 13, with her ex-husband Joe Giudice. Joe, who was previously deported to Italy, where he briefly lived, shared a video featuring throwback clips from a visit with Gia and his daughters in the Spring of 2022 in the Bahamas, where he now lives. Gia posted about her own birthday and shared another snap of herself holding a sparkling, quoting Taylor Swift to say that she was 'feeling 22.' Loved up duo: When Teresa wasn't celebrating her daughter's birthday, she got plenty of time with her current husband Luis on their Mexican vacation. They danced on the beach in one clip When Teresa wasn't celebrating her daughter's birthday, she got plenty of time with her current husband Luis on their Mexican vacation. The reality star shared a video of herself dancing out on the beach with Luis in her white dress, while he wore a matching white T-shirt and white pants. 'Love having you by my side #2023 #always&forever,' she wrote sweetly in her caption. During some of her down time, Teresa took the opportunity to showcase her stunning figure in a black Chanel bikini while relaxing by the sea with her husband. However, she was beset by criticism fro her online followers after several people speculated that the suit might have been knockoff Chanel, rather than real designer swimwear. The winter series of Love Island is set to return on January 16 with a new batch of hopefuls looking for romance. And one of the contestants, Will Young sent his time before arriving at the South African villa on his Buckinghamshire farm. The 23-year-old, has an impressive 1M followers on TikTok, shears sheep and hangs out with pigs - all while shirtless. Getting ready to sow his wild oats: Love Island contestant Will Young, 23, gives fans a glimpse at life on the farm as he shears sheep and hangs out with his pigs Showing off his muscular physique he can be seen offering followers an insight into his rural lifestyle. Cutting a casual figure he dons just a pair of shorts in the array of snaps and videos as he gets down and dirty with the animals. The caring farmer also recused an injured sheep in one video before returning to his farm and nurturing them back to help. Shirtless: Showing off his muscular physique he can be seen offering followers an insight into his rural lifestyle Down and dirty: Cutting a casual figure he can be seen donning a pair of shorts as he gets down and dirty with the animals Sweet: The caring farmer also recused an injured sheep in one video before returning to his farm and nurturing them back to help However during less sunny seasons he opts for winter gear and in one video can be seen miming to ABBA as he rolled around in the mud. Ahead of his entry into the villa Will said: 'Having grown up on a farm, its been quite difficult juggling relationships and work,' 'Love Island will give me time away from the farm to solely go out and find love.' Muscles: His hard work on the farm had resulted in a toned physique Dancing queen: During less sunny seasons he opts for winter gear and in one video can be seen miming to ABBA as he rolled around in the mud Hard worker: Ahead of his entry into the villa he said:'Having grown up on a farm, its been quite difficult juggling relationships and work,' 'I think Im at the time of my life where Im mature enough to go and find a wife.' The farmer has a spiritual side, revealing: 'Every night I light a candle and meditate for 20-25 minutes.' 'A girl I was seeing told me to meditate, I tried it and loved it. I stopped seeing her and carried on meditating!' 'Its a nice way to self reflect, taking a minute on my day/ week. Its really nice and sets me up for a nice sleep.' Romantic date? 'Love Island will give me time away from the farm to solely go out and find love' Feeding time: He also documented how he fed his herd of sheep Selfie: He grabbed numerous selfie with his woolly pals And the singleton has high hopes for fame after the villa, revealing he'd love legendary broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, 96, to play him in a movie. 'Imagine hearing his calming voice talking while hes feeding the animals, his top off, some short shorts he would rock it.' It comes after fans have once again hit out at the lack of diversity in the new line-up, pointing out that the contestants are 'all size 8, Insta perfect with six packs'. Twitter commentators have praised the reality series though for the inclusion of the first ever partially-sighted Islander and for casting a model who has the skin condition vitiligo. Skills: In one video he skilfully shears a sheep .... who has 'poo stuck all over them' Hunk: The farmer will have no trouble impressing the ladies in the villa LOL: Showing his great sense of humour he also dances with a sheep in another clip One of the main criticisms of this year's lineup is the lack of body diversity, with the show accused by some of casting the same body shapes 'year after year'. 'Another #LoveIsland where body diversity is non existent,' tweeted one follower, with another agreeing: 'Another year of no body diversity from Love Island, are we surprised '#LoveIsland'. 'Dunno why I was hoping for some body diversity on #LoveIsland this time. I hate commenting on looks but it's concerning when it's all insta perfect, six packs and size 8/10's. Do they not realise the influence they have over young people? To teach them that is normal is not ok,' commented another. Jennifer Lawrence has named the stars that are on her radar. During a chat with W magazine for their Best Performances issue, the Oscar winner said that the famous people she looks up to are ones who make headlines in the tabloids. The 32-year-old beauty - whose current film is Causeway - shared that she was starstruck when meeting Ariana Grande, thinks Pete Davidson is a 'big celebrity' and would be 'knocked over' if she ever came face to face with Jessica Simpson. Fun chat: Jennifer Lawrence has named the stars that are on her radar. During a chat with W magazine for their Best Performances issue , the Oscar winner said that the famous people she looks up to are ones who make headlines in the tabloids 'To me, the biggest celebrities in the world are, like, Pete Davidson,' began the Hunger Games veteran. 'Or when Ariana Grande was in my last film, Dont Look Up, I was photographed with her and I fully look like a radio contest winner.' And then she added, 'I would be starstruck if I saw Jessica Simpson. That would knock me over.' Cool peeps according to her: The 32-year-old beauty - whose current film is Causeway - shared that she was starstruck when meeting Ariana Grande, thinks Pete Davidson is a 'big celebrity'; seen in 2018 We like her too! And Jennifer added that she would be 'knocked over' if she ever came face to face with Jessica Simpson Jennifer also talked about the film that makes her cry: 'Father of the Bride always makes me cry. Not when they get married, but when he sees her as a little girl and shes like, Mommy, Daddy, I met a man in Rome and were getting married. 'But Im so sensitive now that I can barely watch anything with children or animals.' W Magazines first issue of 2023, Volume 1, Best Performances hits stands February 7, 2023. The Best Performances portfolio is an annual feature curated by Ws editor-at-large Lynn Hirschberg and highlights stars at the forefront of cinema, from industry legends and icons to those whose phenomenal talent is ushering in a new wave of stardom. Cute: Jennifer also talked about the film that makes her cry: 'Father of the Bride always makes me cry. Not when they get married, but when he sees her as a little girl and shes like, Mommy, Daddy, I met a man in Rome and were getting married"' She cries easily: 'But Im so sensitive now that I can barely watch anything with children or animals,' she noted to W Brad is only one of the stars on the cover of the Best Performance issue. Other stars with their own covers include Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh, Zoe Kravitz, Michelle Williams, Brendan Fraser, Taylor Russell, Daniel Craig, Jennifer Lawrence, among others. Also on W was Brad Pitt. He has been in some pretty famous sex scene, one of the most notable being with his now ex-wife Angelina Jolie in the hit action movie Mr And Mrs Smith. But that is not the one the Oscar winner named as his favorite sex scene of all time when appearing on the cover of W magazine's Best Performances issue. Rather, the 59-year-old star said that his favorite on-screen moment of passion was on the nighttime soap opera Dallas. Cover boy: Brad Pitt named as his favorite sex scene of all time when appearing on the cover of W magazine 'It would have been in the show Dallas. I had to roll around in the hay in a barn. I don't think I had a line. I was just rolling and frolicking,' said the actor whose last film was Bullet Train; his next movie is Babylon with Margot Robbie. Brad appeared on four episodes of Dallas between 1987 and 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Shalane McCall's character Charlie Wade. Shalane became his real-life girlfriend; she was only 15-years-old at the time. McCall is now 50-years-old. He had cowboy energy: Brad appeared on four episodes of Dallas between 1987 and 1988 as Randy, the boyfriend of Shalane McCall's character Charlie Wade; he said his favorite sex scene was rolling around on that show His love: Shalane became his real-life girlfriend; she was only 15-years-old at the time. McCall is now 50-years-old The leads of the series were Larry Hagman and Linda Gray. He also shared that he crashed a wedding once. 'It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. [Smith],' he said. The film was his debut with Jolie, whom he co-parents six kids with. 'We were filming down in this Deco building downtown, and up in the penthouse above, we kept seeing people going up and down. It was a wedding party, so I crashed it. And they were okay with it. [Laughs]' Past performance: He also shared that he crashed a wedding once. 'It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. [Smith],' he said. The film was his debut with Angelina Jolie, whom he co-parents six kids with. 'We were filming down in this Deco building downtown, and up in the penthouse above, we kept seeing people going up and down. It was a wedding party, so I crashed it' Zoe Kravitz looked absolutely stunning in a new photoshoot and accompanying interview where she revealed that her first kiss took place at her famous father's home. The 35-year-old daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet looked fantastic in a sexy white crocheted dress for her W Magazine cover shoot. She put on her best modeling poses in the look from American fashion brand The Row, which is owned by former child stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Wow factor: Zoe Kravitz looked absolutely stunning in a new photoshoot and accompanying interview where she revealed that her first kiss took place at her famous father's home Lovely lady: The 35-year-old daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet looked fantasticfor her W Magazine cover shoot The boho-chic ensemble included a flow top, slip, and gloves as she teamed it with sandals also from the brand. For the actual cover snap Zoe donned a hooded brown Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress which she teamed with large gold Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co. bracelets. Zoe talked a lot about her childhood in the accompanying interview including the revelation that she had her first kiss at her famous father Lenny's home. Wonder in white: She put on her best modeling poses in the look from American fashion brand The Row, which is owned by former child stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen She explained: 'My first kiss was in my fathers house in Miami. My dad had a very psychedelic houseit looked like Austin Powers's house. 'There was this cubby-sized room that was furry. And this kid, I dont remember his name, but we kissed. And I remember, whenever I would go back in that little cubby room, I would replay [the kiss] in my head over and over again.' Her star parents Lenny and Lisa Bonet divorced when she was five-years-old but recalled that her best birthday was when they came together in a surprising way. She explained: 'I think I was turning 10, and we were in the Bahamas with my dads part of the family and my mother couldnt make it. When we arrived at the birthday party, there was a big box in the middle of the room. I opened the box, and my mom came out!' Last month, her father, Lenny Kravitz, shared a sweet throwback with his only child to celebrate her birthday. Beautiful in brown: For the actual cover snap Zoe donned a hooded brown Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello dress which she teamed with large gold Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co. bracelets 'And this kid, I dont remember his name, but we kissed': Zoe talked a lot about her childhood in the accompanying interview including the revelation that she had her first kiss at her famous father Lenny's home, she is pictured here with Lenny and mom Lisa Bonet in February 2016 'Happy birthday @zoeisabellakravitz. There isnt a moment that I dont marvel at who and what you are,' he wrote. He continued: ''Im so grateful that God chose us. I love you,' he concluded, while several of his celebrity friends chimed in as well in the comments.' Lenny has always been quite the supportive father, revealing in his 2020 memoir Let Love Rule that he has an 'open dialogue' with his daughter. 'We can talk about anything and everything,' he said in his memoir, adding it was similar to the relationship his mother, The Jeffersons actress Roxie Roker, had with her own father. 'My mother and my grandfather had a very close relationship to the point where, as a teenager, I thought it was ridiculous,' he said in the memoir. ''Im so grateful that God chose us. I love you': Last month, her father, Lenny Kravitz, shared a sweet throwback with his only child to celebrate her birthday (seen above in 2020) 'I would just say, like, "You guys are on top of each other all the time." They loved each other, and they valued each other,' he added. 'So when I see the relationship between Zoe and myself, I see the relationship between my mother and my grandfather. It makes me very happy that we've elevated to that level,' he added. Lenny hasn't released a studio album since 2018's Raise Vibration and it's unclear if he's currently working on a new album or not. Gia Giudice beamed in new Instagram images shared this weekend. The beauty, whose mother is 50-year-old Real Housewives Of New Jersey siren Teresa Giudice, shared several images from her Tulum, Mexico vacation where she was celebrating her 22nd birthday. The Rutgers University student was alongside her boyfriend of over two years, Christian Carmichael. It must be love: Gia Giudice beamed in new Instagram images shared this weekend. The Rutgers University student was alongside her boyfriend of over two years, Christian Carmichael, while in Tulum, Mexico All dressed to impress: She was seen in a seafoam green bikini top and matching skirt as she posed next to Carmichael. He wore a green shirt and black slacks with white sneakers She was seen in a seafoam green bikini top and matching skirt as she posed next to Carmichael. He wore a green shirt and black slacks with white sneakers. They were also seen in white while on the beach while south of the border. She had on a low cut white dress with a slit up the front while he had on a sheer white shirt with a cross pendant necklace. Gia and Christian seem to be doing very well. Getting it white: They were also seen in white while on the beach while south of the border. She had on a low cut white dress with a slit up the front while he had on a sheer white shirt with a cross pendant necklace The family: Gia with her sisters as well as her mother Teresa and new stepfather Luis Ruelas In March 2020 a source said she was thrilled with him. 'Christian is an absolute doll,' a Giudice family source told Us Weekly. 'The family is just happy that Gia is happy.' Gia was with her mother Teresa, who last year married Luis Ruelas. The 50-year-old Real Housewives Of New Jersey star shared photos of herself and Gia wearing matching all-white dresses during a party in Jalisco, Mexico. The outfits were invigorated by high slits in the skirts, and Teresa wore her brunette locks tied back in a high ponytail, while Gia opted to style her hair in thick waves cascading down her shoulders. Mother bonding with daughter: Teresa matched her daughter Gia in a plunging white dress Teresa added a gold luxury wristwatch to her look, while Gia opted for jeweled bracelets for some extra sparkle. Both women stood tall in glowing open-toe heels that glittered in the light. Teresa and Gia's dad Joe Giudice finalized their divorce in 20200. In addition to Gia they have Gabriella, Audriana and Milania. Joe was deported back to his native Italy in 2019 after completing his three-year sentence at Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution. Teresa completed her own 11-month sentence for 41 counts of fraud in December 2017. Gerard Butler seems to be going strong with his girlfriend of almost nine years, Morgan Brown. The 53-year-old actor had the 50-year-old beauty by his side as he headed into NBC studios in New York City on Monday to promote his latest film, Plane. The action was dressed casually in a navy blue quilted jacket over a jacket and a long scarf with worn-in denim blue jeans. Dapper: Gerard Butler, 53, wore a navy blue quilted jacket and jeans as he arrived at the NBC studios in New York City on Monday. The action star was accompanied by his longtime girlfriend, Morgan Brown Butler was bundled up for the cold. Buttons from a khaki green shirt peaked from under his coat and the Angel Has Fallen star tied a forest green wool scarf around his neck which accented his hazel eyes. He finished off his look with a pair of Vince Camuto boots. Morgan looked elegant but hip in all neutrals. The interior designer stepped out in gray-green leather pants tucked into tan and cream boots and topped it off with an oatmeal toned sweater. New film: Gerard has been promoting his upcoming film, Plane, which opens in theaters Friday, January 13 She wore a long gray wool sweater over the ensemble and carried a tan leather valise. Her dark blonde hair was styled in loose waves. They walked into NBC Studios separately. Gerard has been promoting his upcoming film, Plane, which opens in theaters Friday, January 13. Plane: The Scottish actor stars as a commercial pilot forced to land his plane in a war zone after it is struck by lightening The Scottish actor co-stars with Mike Colter, 46, in the thriller about a commercial airline pilot forced to land his plane in a war zone after the airplane is struck by lightening. Rebels imprison the passengers and crew, and that is when Gerard's Brodie Torrance teams up with Mike's character, Louis Gaspare, a convicted murderer, to fight their captors and free the passengers. The film was shot in Puerto Rico in August 2021. Thriller: Revels imprison the passengers and crew, Gerard's Brodie Torrance teams up with Mike's character, Louis Gaspare, a convicted murderer, to fight their captors and free the passengers South Korea's military conducts an anti-drone exercise in Paju, a city near the inter-Korean border, Jan. 5. Newsis Communication failure under scrutiny after bungled response By Jung Min-ho The military refuted the opposition party's claim on Monday that South Korean drones sent to North Korea were a violation of the inter-Korean truce, claiming that the South exercised its right of self-defense. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) defended President Yoon Suk Yeol's eye-for-an-eye response to five North Korean drones that crossed over the inter-Korean border, Dec. 26, in a clear violation of a 2018 military pact signed between the two sides. "The border incursion by the North Korean drones was a provocative act that apparently violated the Korean Armistice Agreement, the (1991) Inter-Korean Basic Agreement and the (2018) Sept. 19 military agreement," Lee Sung-jun, a spokesman for the JCS, told reporters. "It was a proportional response and an exercise of the right to self-defense Article 51 (of Chapter VII) of the United Nations Charter guarantees the right to engage in self-defense, which will be investigated by the United Nations Command (UNC)." The remarks came a day after the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) criticized Yoon for the retaliatory response it claimed was a violation of the military pact, under which the two sides agreed to cease hostile activities and take steps to build military trust. Adele Roberts revealed she has taken the 'first step' towards getting her colon working again in a candid Instagram post on Monday. The radio presenter and former Big Brother contestant, 42, was diagnosed with stage two bowel cancer in October 2021 and received the all clear from Doctors in June. Adele revealed she was 'nervous' ahead of the surgery and thanked her stoma (who she's named Audrey) for keeping her healthy. 'I was super nervous': Adele Roberts revealed she took the 'first step' on Monday to getting her colon working again in a candid Instagram post A stoma is an opening on the abdomen that can be connected to either your digestive or urinary system to allow waste to be diverted out of your body. Following the latest update, Adele revealed she 'might be able to go to the toilet the "old fashioned way" one day in the future' but still will need more surgeries later this year. She explained in the caption: 'Happy BUMDay. Today was the first step in hopefully getting my colon working again (post bowel cancer surgery). 'Im in awe of the advances in medical science': The radio presenter, 42, was diagnosed with stage two bowel cancer in October 2021 and received the all clear from Doctors in June 'I may be down a rectum but I think theres enough left to blag it and get things moving again. 'I was super nervous this morning but I met a lovely lady who I started chatting to and she calmed me right down. 'She was getting ready to have the second part of her surgery to remove breast cancer. Wow - what a woman?! Not only had she managed to enjoy her Christmas and new year with that in the back of her mind but she was ready to face today. 'Absolute warrior! Hoping youre in surgery now smashing it Queen! Go on girl! Thinking of you and your family and praying for a full recovery.' Adele thanked the NHS for their amazing level of care as she took two selfies of herself, one wearing a face mask before and the second beaming post surgery. 'Happy BUMDay': The former Big Brother star revealed she was 'nervous' ahead of the surgery and thanked her stoma (who she's named Audrey) for keeping her healthy She continued: 'Yet again the level of care Ive received from the @nhs angels is awesome. Dr Bhan and team I love you. The fabulous Bola along with the nurses and porters who looked after me post surgery thank you for helping me and I hope my anaesthetic chat wasnt too random. 'Im in awe of the advances in medical science in the UK too. Thank you to everyone who helps make that happen. You do us proud. 'The fact I can recover from bowel cancer, have a stoma, start getting my life back on track and today a balloon up my bum to sort out my stricture is just marvellous. What a time to be alive?!' The presenter went on to detail the next steps for her but for now she was picked up by her partner Katie to recover at home in front of some Netflix. 'Audrey you legend': Following the latest update, Adele revealed she 'might be able to go to the toilet the "old fashioned way" one day' but still will need more surgeries later this year She detailed in the lengthy post: 'The next steps are to see the surgery team again soon for the finger test. Praying its carried out by someone with small hands because the last time they tried to go there they had to peel me off the ceiling. 'I think therell be a few more surgeries for me this year but do you know what, Im just so happy they can help me and theres hope. 'I might be able to go to the toilet the old fashioned way one day in the future. Might even get inspired by all the balloons and have a grand re-opening party. 'Until then. Its me and you Audrey you little legend. Thanks for keeping me happy, healthy, alive and kicking. I love and appreciate you more than you could imagine. Staying put: It comes after the presenter revealed that her stoma was staying for the 'time being' after giving an update last month 'Katies on the way to get me. Were going to make hot water bottles, chill on the sofa, eat good food and watch Wednesday @wednesdaynetflix and the @emilyinparis finale. Juste parfait!' It comes after the presenter revealed that her stoma was staying for the 'time being' after giving an update last month. She said her stoma would remain in her body for now as doctors are currently unable to give her a stoma reversal at present. Sharing snaps of herself showing off her colostomy bag, Adele penned: 'I had a meeting with my consultant and it looks like Audrey the #stoma is staying. 'She rides again! Well shes staying for the time being. Its a long story but, essentially, its not possible to give me a reversal of my stoma anytime soon. 'He also casually mentioned that Ive had my rectum removed. I might not be able to go to the toilet normally again ever WTAF?! 'Anyway for now - while I do have the honour of having a stoma I thought I could try & do some good'. 'There are around 200,000 people in the UK with a stoma. From little babies right up to the more distinguished and senior members - so many more people than we all realise - and together I feel like we could do a lot of good.' Update: Taking to her Instagram Adele (pictured with girlfriend Kate Holderness) told how her stoma will remain in her body for now as doctors are currently unable to give her a stoma reversal at present It comes after Adele revealed last month that she'd fallen in love with her body since having cancer. The Radio One DJ admits having body confidence issues throughout her life, but it was only after having the bag, which she proudly displays in photo shoots and has nicknamed Audrey, that Adele finally accepted who she is. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, she said: 'I have always struggled with body image I used to think I wasn't worthy of going to the gym, that I wasn't somebody that should be healthy and fit I thought I was a lost cause. 'After Big Brother I put on a lot of weight and I felt like I had to lose weight to go to the gym, I wasn't used to seeing women that looked like me. I was pretty rubbish about my self-confidence and myself. 'But when I went into that bathroom and saw my stoma bag I just remember loving it and thinking "wow, doesn't my body look amazing." 'It was just realising how amazing the human body is and cancer has helped me see myself in an entirely different way. 'I remember thinking to myself "don't do this anymore" and this is amazing and so cool. I love my body and have never loved it as much as I do now.' Taylor Sheridan proved himself a ratings champ after his hit shows went toe-to-toe with the streaming behemoth Netflix in the past week. Two of the showrunner, director and screenwriters show's, the Harrison Ford and Helen Mirrenstarring Yellowstone prequel 1923 and the Sylvester Stallone vehicle Tulsa King, both landed among the top 10 streaming movies and shows last week, according to The Wrap. Samba TV's rankings had 1923's third episode coming in just below Netflix's detective comedy film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, while Tulsa King's eighth episode scored the number five slot. The high placing for 1923 was for a dramatic episode in which star Harrison Ford was gunned down, raising fears that he might be departing the series early, though he was subsequently revealed to have just barely survived the attack. Success: Filmmaker and showrunner Taylor Sheridan scored hits on the top streaming shows of the past week as two shows, his Yellowstone spin-off 1923 and Tulsa King, placed in the top 10 with eight other Netflix entries; seen in December 2021 According to The Wrap, the placement of 1923 on the top 10 list is a signal of Paramount+'s growing strength, thanks in large part to its portfolio of hit Sheridan shows, which also includes the earlier single-season Yellowstone spinoff 1883. The rest of the streaming top 10 was devoted to Netflix releases, including Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical, three Treason episodes, two Kaleidoscope episodes and an episode of the Addams Family spinoff Wednesday Sheridan's flagship series Yellowstone as the top linear television program for its New Year's Day episode. The rest of the list was divided among the major broadcast channels, except for Paramount Network's broadcast of the second episode of 1923. Near the top: The third episode of 1923 was the second-highest rated streaming show, following Netflix's detective comedy Glass Onion; Harrison Ford seen in the show Impressive: Tusla King (pictured), which stars Sylvester Stallone, finished in a sold fifth place among streaming shows Paramount appears to have a success on its hands with 1923, which featured a series of shocking deaths in its third episode, but the show isn't long for linear television. The series will be moving exclusively to the Paramount+ streamer after giving viewers a taste of its Western drama, in hopes that it will inflate subscriber numbers for the burgeoning service, which also includes a variety of CBS shows and films. Sheridan's empire on Paramount+ is set to expand further with the new CIA thriller series Lioness, which recently added Nicole Kidman as one of its stars alongside Zoe Saldana. Sheridan also created the thriller Mayor Of Kingstown, which stars Jeremy Renner, who recently suffered serious injuries after being run over by his seven-ton snow plow. It's a hit: Among linear television, the flagship Yellowstone series (pictured) took the top spot New role: Sheridan's Paramount+ empire will expand with the CIA thriller series Lioness, which added Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldana to its stacked cast; seen in February 2022 Sheridan has plenty of other projects kicking around, and he has suggested he might come up with more Yellowstone prequels shows, possibly set in the 1940s and 1960s. The actor-turned-filmmaker and showrunner currently lives in Texas, where he owns and runs his own ranches with his wife-of-10-years Nicole and their son Gus, which gives him plenty of real-life inspiration for Yellowstone. His flagship series has long been snubbed for awards since premiering in 2018, but that may be changing after its star Kevin Costner scored a Best Actor nomination at Golden Globes as the show attempts to return in the wake of scandals over diversity. Paramount's trust in Sheridan has led the network to let him shoot enough shows to have productions costs of over $1 billion all together. Dakota Johnson showed how glamorous she could be in day-to-day life in her new ad campaign for Gucci's signature bag. The 33-year-old actress, whose status as a so-called 'nepo baby' was recently in the news, starred in a new commercial for the brand in which she was seen going about everyday errands while sometimes carrying Gucci's Jackie 1961 bag. The brand's flagship bag, which has a recognizable crescent shape and 'piston hardware,' was featured in several iterations while Dakota went to the gym or picked up some flowers around town. The video featured a stylish, gritty look approximating celluloid, and several shots caught the 50 Shades Of Gray star at a distance, as if they were shot by paparazzi. Running around town: Dakota Johnson, 33, was captured on the go in a new ad for Gucci's classic Jackie 1961 bag The 50 Shades Of Gray star was pictured in paparazzi-like footage as she took care of errands and attended social events with her trusty bag Dakota's ad opened as she wrapped up a shopping trip and carried several bags in her arms. But just behind the stiff paper bags was her brown Jackie 1961 bag, which hung on the crook of her arm. She showcased her stellar figure in a black leather miniskirt with a gray-and-white long-sleeve crop top. Dakota had her long brunette locks reaching down to her chest, and she wore chic bangs. Stocking up: The ad opened as she wrapped up a shopping trip and carried several bags in her arms Hidden: But just behind the stiff paper bags was her brown Jackie 1961 bag, which hung on the crook of her arm Jetting around: After a drive in West Hollywood, the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith took a phone call while on a walk After a drive in West Hollywood, the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith took a phone call while on a walk. She wore an elegant black sleeveless dress covered in a playful ice cream cone design, while holding her green bag in front of herself as she pulled down her ruffled top, which had blown up in the breeze. A mix of more staged and faux-candid shot showed her appearing to leave a gym session in a Gucci patterned crop top and matching leggings, while staying on theme with a striking blue crocodile-print Jackie 1961 bag from the fashion house. She favored a more modest black variation of the bag as she picked up a bouquet of flowers. Back in black: She wore an elegant black sleeveless dress covered in a playful ice cream cone design, while holding her green bag in front of herself as she pulled down her ruffled top, which had blown up in the breeze Working up a sweat: A mix of more staged and faux-candid shot showed her appearing to leave a gym session in a Gucci patterned crop top and matching leggings Blue mood: She stayed on theme with a striking blue crocodile-print Jackie 1961 bag from the fashion house Lovely: She favored a more modest black variation of the bag as she picked up a bouquet of flowers Dakota was back again with an eye-catching brown bag as she descended an escalator after a business meeting. The ad concluded with footage of Dakota joined by an anonymous-looking man as she got into her SUV and drove away. The clip again was designed to mimic the look of a paparazzo by showing her hiding her face with her hand before driving away. Business chic: Dakota was back again with an eye-catching brown bag as she descended an escalator after a business meeting Covered up: The ad concluded with footage of Dakota joined by an anonymous-looking man as she got into her SUV and drove away. The clip again was designed to mimic the look of a paparazzo by showing her hiding her face with her hand before driving away The ad campaign, shot by British photographer Glen Luchford, is also inspired by the bag's namesake, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was a fan of the bag in the 1970s and was often glimpsed carrying it by paparazzi. 'The Jackie is the perfect bag,' Dakota gushed to British Vogue. 'Its a great size and is so chic.' Although the actress sported her instantly identifiable brunette tresses in the ad campaign, she was mostly recently seen last month sporting platinum blond hair as she filmed a scene for her upcoming film Daddio with her costar Sean Penn. Channel Nine host Brooke Boney has questioned Prince Harry's account of the so-called 'Sandringham Summit', after he claimed the late Queen was sidelined in the discussion about his future in the Royal Family. The Queen summoned the Duke of Sussex, his brother Prince William and the now-King Charles to her Norfolk estate on January 13, 2020, to try to resolve the 'Megxit' crisis, which had exploded days earlier when Harry and his wife Meghan Markle announced their decision to 'step back' as senior royals. It was ultimately decided Harry and Meghan could not be half in and half out, leading to their exile to California, with Harry later saying the Queen had 'quietly [sat] there' as William 'screamed' at him and his father said things that 'weren't true'. Speaking on the Today show on Tuesday, Boney baulked at the suggestion the Queen had been a passive spectator during the Megxit talks given her status as the head of the Royal Family. Today host Brooke Boney (centre, with Alex Cullen, left, and Russell Myers, right) has questioned Prince Harry's account of the so-called 'Sandringham Summit', after he claimed the late Queen was sidelined in the discussion about his future in the Royal Family She asked The Daily Mirror's royal editor Russell Myers: 'So, if the Queen, the monarch, isn't running the shop, then who is?' Myers agreed it was surprising to hear Harry describe his grandmother, who at the time had been on the throne for 66 years, as a 'bit-part player' in the biggest crisis to hit the Royal Family since the death of Princess Diana. 'That's a big question, isn't it?' Myers said. 'Just last week we had Harry saying that during the Sandringham Summit, where they all came together to thrash out this deal in order to make Harry and Meghan be able to leave the Royal Family, he said that pretty much the Queen was sitting there as a bit-part player. 'And it was his brother screaming at him from across the table [and] Charles sitting there having a bit of a moan about the situation. 'So what is it? Was the Queen a patsy in her final days? Or was she the head of the shop, the one running the show? The Queen summoned the Royal Family to her Norfolk estate on January 13, 2020, to try to resolve the 'Megxit' crisis, which had exploded days earlier when Harry and his wife Meghan Markle announced their decision to 'step back' as senior royals. Harry has since claimed the Queen 'quietly [sat] there' as his brother William 'screamed' at him and his father Charles said things that 'weren't true'. (Pictured: the Queen and Harry at the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on May 18, 2019) 'Harry can't have it all his own way. And I get the sense throughout his book [Spare] and the interviews, he really gets himself in a bit of a muddle to try to deliver "his truth". And it's only one side of the story, and because the Royal Family aren't going to hit back, it's all we're going to hear.' The Duke of Sussex claimed in his Netflix docuseries that the late monarch quietly watched as he was left terrified by William yelling at the exit talks she had called after Harry and Meghan's decision to step back from their royal duties. He said: 'It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that just simply weren't true, and my grandmother, you know, quietly sit there, and sort of take it all in.' At the time, royal experts said any suggestion 'the Queen was sidelined' at the now-notorious 'Sandringham Summit' was 'complete nonsense'. Harry doubled down on his version of events in his interview with Good Morning America anchor Michael Strahan (right) on Monday. '[The Queen] knew what was going on. She knew how hard it was. I don't know whether she was in a position to be able to change it,' he said Harry doubled down on his version of events in his interview with Good Morning America anchor Michael Strahan in the latest leg of his transatlantic TV blitz promoting his new memoir Spare, due for release this week. Strahan asked if Her Majesty, who died in September aged 96, was 'upset at you' for walking away from royal duties with his American wife in early 2020. 'For what?' Harry replied, adding his grandmother was 'sad' about what happened. Boney (pictured at the ARIA Awards in Sydney on November 24) asked The Daily Mirror's royal editor Russell Myers: 'So, if the Queen, the monarch, isn't running the shop, then who is?' 'I had many, many conversations with her both in the UK over the years and in the run-up to the point of this change, so it was never a surprise to anybody, least of all her,' he said. But hinting she was sidelined, he continued: 'She knew what was going on. She knew how hard it was. I don't know whether she was in a position to be able to change it.' Harry also admitted that as his book comes out, the divide between him and his family 'couldn't be greater'. Kelly Rizzo is reaching out to Twitter CEO Elon Musk with a special request that her late husband Bob Saget be verified. The 43-year-old TV host shared a public plea to the 51-year-old Tesla angel investor on Monday, which marked the one-year anniversary of the comedians untimely death at 65. Rizzo tweeted that her late husband was no longer verified, and screenshots of his old tweets indicate that he was previously verified. His account appears to have lost its verified status more recently, presumably after Musk-mandated changes to the verification system allowed users to pay $8 to $11 per month for the status and special features. Request: Kelly Rizzo tweeted at Elon Musk on Monday the one-year anniversary of her husband Bob Saget's death to request that his Twitter account be verified; pictured in 2018 Although Musk, who was formerly the world's richest man, instituted the paid tier to raise revenue for the social media platform after he paid around $44 billion for it, several companies, media outlets and prominent figures have kept check marks indicating that they are reliable or notable accounts. However, Saget's posthumous account appears to have been stripped of his status in the chaos. 'Hi @elonmusk -today on the 1 year anniversary of Bobs (@bobsaget ) passing, I saw hes no longer verified? My husband truly loved Twitter. Out of respect for his legacy, can something be done? Thank you kindly (friends, please help),' Rizzo tweeted on Monday. In a follow-up tweet, she added, 'And the only reason Im addressing this at all is because I know Bob would be very bummed about this. Hed say hey, if someone goes to see my page and all the jokes Ive tweeted over the years, how will they know its for sure me!? Removed: Saget's account was previously verified and may have lost its status after Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk changed the verification system in an attempt to get users to pay $811 per month to be verified; seen in 2019 Missing: Kelly said she had noticed Bob was no longer verified on the anniversary of his death, while screenshots confirm he was previously verified ID purposes: She added that she wanted the verification to make it clear that the Full House star's old jokes got proper credit Saget was found dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida, on January 9, 2022. He had been in the midst of a stand-up comedy tour and had last performed at Ponte Vedra Beach in the state. The cause of his death was not initially clear, but an autopsy report later revealed that the Full House star had died as a result of blunt force trauma from an apparent injury to the back of the head, which was believed to be the result of a fall. Saget was also positive for Covid-19 at the time, though the autopsy determined that it was not related to his death. The film and television star appeared to have gone to bed after suffering the wound and died in his sleep. Tragedy: Saget was found dead in his hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, Florida, on January 9, 2022 Emergency personnel were called to his hotel room after he overstayed past his checkout time, while calls to his phone went unanswered. Rizzo also used Monday as an opportunity to her late husband's life. A video shared to her Instagram account included a short slideshow of photos and videos from their marriage, soundtracked to Ben Folds' song The Luckiest. 'One Year. Our hearts are so heavy. How could I not have talked to or seen my loving husband in a whole year?' she wrote in her caption. 'The surreal-ness never subsides. Ive accepted the reality long ago but it still seems unreal when I see photos or videos of him so full of life. But there is one thing I carry with me every single day that makes this survivable. I AM THE LUCKIEST,' she continued. All alone: The comedian was revealed to have died from blunt force trauma, which was theorized to be from a fall. He apparently went to bed after suffering the injury and died in his sleep Sweet: A video shared to Rizzo's Instagram included a short slideshow of photos and videos from her marriage, soundtracked to Ben Folds' song The Luckiest Missing him: 'How could I not have talked to or seen my loving husband in a whole year?' she wrote, before writing how she was grateful that he led such a full life 'I am the luckiest that I got to be his wife. I am the luckiest that I got to live with his warmth, and laughter, and brilliance, and love. I am the luckiest that I get to have his girls by my side. I am the luckiest that I got to watch him first hand help people, make them happy, and make the world a better place. 'Some people can live 1,000 lifetimes and never live a life as fully as he did. And to that I have to say, Well Done. You really won life, honey. And that is why I will be forever grateful for him and all the endless love he gave me, until my last day,' she wrote, adding that the Ben Folds song was one of his favorites. In an essay for People Kelly wrote, 'Complicated, brilliant, compassionate, hilarious, neurotic, opinionated, loving, adorable, complex, determined, loyal and sweet. He taught me so much about how to be a better person, how to love ourselves and others more completely.' She also wrote of the support she had from Bob's daughters, Aubrey, 36, Lara, 33 and Jennifer, 30, in dealing with the pain of his loss, telling People they were 'true miracles and angels and the gratitude I have that we have each other is immeasurable.' Ashley Greene and her husband, Paul Khoury, shared an affectionate kiss in the rain as the two stepped out in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Studio City on Monday morning following a gym session. The Twilight star, 35, and Australian TV personality, 33, enjoyed quality time together after welcoming their baby girl, Kingsley, earlier last year in September. The two lovebirds, who tied the knot during a romantic San Jose ceremony in 2018, braved the less than ideal weather conditions as a 'bomb cyclone' makes its way to California. Braving the weather: Ashely Greene, 35, and her husband Paul Khoury, 33, stepped out in workout attire in Studio City on Monday during a rain storm following a gym session The podcast host opted for a comfortable, all-black ensemble consisting of form-fitting leggings along with a CLEO sweatshirt on top to stay warm in the chilly temperatures. The mother of one additionally slipped into a pair of black Nike sneakers, and was spotted carrying her phone along with a large water bottle in her right hand to keep herself hydrated. Her brunette locks were effortlessly thrown up into a simple ponytail to keep any loose strands from falling onto her face. The Immaculate Room actress chose to not add any flashy pieces of jewelry to her monochromatic outfit, and sported a little to no-makeup look. Ashely flashed a smile as she conversed with her husband as they strolled on the damp sidewalk covered with small puddles. Adorable! The Twilight alum and TV personality paused on grassy curb to share a quick kiss before crossing the busy city street as rain heavily poured down around the two lovebirds Paul also kept his look simplistic for the morning outing, and donned a long-sleeved, black top along with a pair of black gym shorts. For an additional layer, he slipped into gray leggings along with crew socks and black sneakers. His hair was partially covered and protected from the drizzly conditions with a printed navy and white cap. As the two began to cross a busy street, the pair paused on a grassy curb to share a romantic kiss as the rain poured down around them. Ashley and Paul were later spotted affectionately holding hands as they jogged across an intersection, and seemed to be undeterred by the stormy weather caused by an 'atmospheric river' slamming into the West Coast. Having a blast: The happy couple were later spotted quickly crossing an intersection by adorably holding hands with smiles on their faces Special celebration: Ashley and Paul recently celebrated the holidays for the first time with their daughter, Kingsley Ashely and Paul said 'I do' during a wedding ceremony that was held in San Jose in the summer of 2018. Shortly before announcing that the two were expecting their first child together, the talented actress opened up to People last year about their plans to start a family. 'My husband and I are both kind of like, it's going to happen. And trust me, we're at the point where both of our parents are hinting, and they're like, 'Okay, we're ready. You guys have been married a couple of years now,' the star explained. The beauty explained at the time that both she and Paul, 'can't wait to be parents.' In March 2022, the lovebirds announced they were expecting, and welcomed their daughter later in September. 'And just like that-everything changed in a single moment, you came into our world and everything else faded away. Nothing else mattered. The love we're engulfed in cannot be explained, only felt in the deepest of ways. We love you so much baby girl. Welcome to our world,' Ashley had penned in a heartfelt Instagram post. Starting a family: The podcast host revealed to her fans and followers that both she and Paul had welcomed their daughter in September of last year Cute: Ashley and Paul said 'I do' during a romantic wedding ceremony in San Jose in summer of 2018 after becoming engaged two years earlier Along with starting a family, Ashley has been devoted to her own podcast titled, The Twilight Effect, which was recently launched less than a year ago. The show takes a deeper dive into the world of Twilight, and the actress has had multiple actors from the franchise stop by, including Peter Facinelli, who played Carlisle Cullen, and Jackson Rathbone, who portrayed the character of Jasper. Ashley, who notably played Alice Cullen in the movies, also informed People about what fans could expect when listening to the podcast. 'Based on the episodes that we filmed already, it's going to be jam-packed full of info, and really fun for everyone.' Also on Monday, the talented star reposted a snap onto her Instagram story of herself enjoying a workout with a personal trainer from NexGen Fitness. The beauty penned in the caption, 'Let's crush Monday!!' as she brought along her followers on her fitness journey shortly after welcoming baby number one. The Twilight family: Ashley began hosting her own podcast, The Twilight Effect, and has many guests on the show, including actors from the franchise, such as Kellan Lutz (far left), Peter Facinelli and Jackson Rathbone (far right) Advertisement Bella Hadid found some time for fun in the sun on Monday afternoon as she let her blonde hair down while in a tropical location. The 26-year-old Vogue model was seen putting her very toned figure on display as she made the most of a white print string bikini with pink piping as she worked on her tan. Also with the younger sister of Gigi Hadid was her boyfriend Marc Kalman, who also works in the fashion industry. They have been together since July 2021. Beach bunny: Bella Hadid found some time in the sun on Monday afternoon as she let her hair down while on the coast She was seen posing away on her beach towel. Bella laid on her side and also stood up as her beau snapped away. The star had on the tiny bikini and also added sunglasses with several yellow toned gold rings as as she added cherry red nail polish. There were also images of the beach as well as one of her boyfriend. Marc works behind the scenes in fashion. His clients including Milk Studios MADE Fashion Week, KNG Records and the eyewear brand Smoke x Mirrors. Smiles everyone: The Vogue model was seen putting her very toned figure on display as she made the most of a white print string bikini with pink piping as she spent some time on the beach to work on her tan E! News also reported that he has designed clothing for the Japanese fashion brand A Bathing Ape. His artistic partner is Corey Damon Black. The duo grew up in the same town but never met until they 'crossed paths again, appropriately enough, at Art Basel,' according to a 2022 profile In late November Hadid was named GQ magazine's most stylish person on the planet. Time for a swim: In this image she had on her snorkeling mask that was black and pink Another view: From this angle, a woman can be seen drawn into the print of her bikini top The 26-year-old model - who is the daughter of Yolanda and Mohamed Hadid - has been hailed by the publication as the 'best-dressed person' on Earth. The magazine explained: 'Menswear. Womenswear. Streetwear. Workwear. Smartwear. Wavywear. Few can wear it all (and pull it off). But few are Bella Hadid, the princess that was promised, she of abundant angles, the chosen one who really can wear anything and our best-dressed person on the planet. 'As soon as the 'Real Housewives' progeny hit supermodel rank, the dam was broken on a flood of fits that stand toe-to-toe and often above the stuff she's actually paid to wear.' GQ was particularly enthusiastic about Bella's menswear style. The man iun her life: Also seen was Bella's beau Marc Kalman, left, and his pal A dreamy location: Judging from the turquoise water and the white sand beach, it looked as if Hadid was in the Bahamas A towel abandoned: Her beach towel had squares all over it with different colors The magazine said: 'Our favourite version, and the one that secured Hadid the top spot: Menswear Bella. Tailoring. Prada loafers. Big denim jackets. LSD fur trappers. There was even a tie at one point. It's wavy, classic, and uncomplicated all at once. Hadid does menswear better than most men and she can still wear everything and anything else.' Meanwhile, Bella previously admitted that she hasn't had a stylist for two years. His hand and her hand: Hands were seen inside a white car as they passed bougainvillea The brunette beauty also revealed that she's learned to deal with the scrutiny that comes her way. She said: 'In the last year, it was really important for me to learn that even if people talk about my style or if they like it or if they don't, it doesn't matter, because it's my style. 'When I leave the house in the morning, what I think about is: Does this make me happy? Do I feel good in this and do I feel comfortable?' Rebecca Breeds and Luke Mitchell stole hearts on Home and Away in the late 2000s, and the real-life couple are now celebrating their 10-year anniversary. The pair, who starred as Ruby Buckton and Romeo Smith respectively, found love on the Channel Seven soap before Mitchell popped the question in 2012. They tied the knot a year later, in January 2013. Ten years on from their special day, the lovebirds shared several wedding photos to Instagram on Thursday to mark the milestone. Rebecca Breeds and Luke Mitchell stole hearts on Home and Away in the late 2000s, and the real-life couple are now celebrating their 10-year anniversary. (Pictured on their wedding day) 'Love is the best adventure,' the Pretty Little Liars actress, 35, captioned the post. The gallery featured several snaps from the Hollywood couple's wedding, as well as some photos from their adventurous life as a couple. The Legacies actor, 37, followed up the tribute with a gushing tribute of his own, sharing a side-by-side post comparing their wedding day to where they are now. The pair, who starred as Ruby Buckton and Romeo Smith, found love on the Seven soap before Mitchell popped the question in 2012. They tied the knot a year later, in January 2013 '10/10 would recommend. Happy 10th anniversary, beautiful - you're my favourite,' he wrote. Fellow Home and Away castmates flocked to the comments section to congratulate the happy couple. Dan Ewing (Heath Braxton) said, 'Coupla 10s right there. Congratulations guys!' while Georgie Parker (Roo Stewart) wrote, 'Happy anniversary you two.' Ten years on from their special day, the lovebirds shared several wedding photos to Instagram on Thursday to mark the milestone Esther Anderson, who played Breeds' on-screen mother, commented: 'Congrats you two.' Home and Away veteran Lynne McGranger, who plays Irene Roberts, simply wrote: 'Congratulations lovers.' The long-time couple celebrated their 10th anniversary at a luxury tropical resort. 'Love is the best adventure,' the Pretty Little Liars actress, 35, captioned her reel of photos Breeds posted several photos of the venue on Saturday alongside a love-heart emoji. The pair cuddled up for one snap with the resort behind them beneath a dusk sky. After finding love with one another, Mitchell and Breeds went on to leave Summer Bay in 2012 and pursue fame in Hollywood. Prince Harry is losing public support due to his 'extreme' criticism of the Royal Family, a commentator has claimed. The Duke of Sussex, 38, branded Queen Consort Camilla 'dangerous' and 'a villain' in interviews promoting his upcoming memoir Spare, in which he makes several sensational claims about The Firm, including how brother Prince William injured him by pushing him onto a dog bowl on the kitchen floor. Despite previously speaking favourably of Meghan and Harry, Australian journalist Tom Tilley said the California-based son of King Charles risks losing his remaining public support after 'throwing grenades' at his family. Prince Harry is losing public support due to his 'extreme' criticism of the Royal Family, a media commentator has claimed 'I do think the sort of the barbs thrown at Camilla, for example, show that some of it is a bit petty. We're talking about their relationship with the media and if Camilla is "dangerous" and "a villain", and he talked about them being the "abusers" and him being "abused",' he said on the Today show on Tuesday. 'I think it has gone bit too far and he is probably losing some of the public [support] when it goes to those kind of extremes.' Tilley, 41, added he was 'about the same age' as Harry and 'feels for him'. 'I saw him walk behind the coffin with his brother all those years ago [at Princess Diana's funeral] and I really feel for him and he is clearly hurting,' he said. 'He is still traumatised by his childhood by losing his mother, by the way the media intruded into their lives and he has felt disempowered. Despite previously speaking favourably of Meghan and Harry, Tom Tilley (right, with Bill Shorten, left, and Brooke Boney, centre) said Harry risks losing his remaining public support after 'throwing grenades' at his family 'So this has been his strategy to go all-out public and just throw grenades. I would really like to see it go behind closed doors. I just think he's damaging his relationship with the most important people in his life. 'I get that he had to make some kind of statement, but I think it needs to end and they need to get together behind closed doors.' In his explosive new memoir, Harry also claims his wife Meghan Markle was left 'on the floor sobbing' by a row with sister-in-law Kate Middleton over Princess Charlotte's bridesmaid's dresses. The Duke of Sussex, 38, branded Camilla 'dangerous' and 'a villain' in interviews to promote his upcoming memoir Spare. (Australian journalist and commentator Tom Tilley is pictured here) He also discusses how his penis became 'frost nipped' during his trip to the North Pole and revealed he is uncircumcised. Amid other revelations, the royal confessed he took cocaine, ketamine, cannabis and Nepalese hashish temple balls and said he sought help from a medium who said she could prove she was talking to his late mother from beyond the grave because Diana was 'giggling' at Archie breaking an ornament of the late Queen. The Duke of Sussex, who was known as 'Captain Wales' in the military, also wrote that he killed 25 Taliban fighters during his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. He said did not think of those killed 'as people' but instead 'chess pieces' he had taken off the board. He has since declared he and Meghan will never move back to the UK and become working members of the Royal Family - just hours after using another bombshell U.S. interview to rubbish suggestions that the couple give up their official titles. Speaking on Good Morning America, the Duke of Sussex said: 'I don't think it's ever going to be possible, I don't think that even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family, there's that third party that's going to do everything they can to make sure that that isn't possible, not stopping us from going back but making it unsurvivable.' Harry has has since declared he and Meghan will never move back to the UK and become working members of the Royal Family He continued: 'Because that's essentially breaking the relationship between us. There was something in the future where, you know, we can continue to support the Commonwealth that of course is on the table.' In a separate interview with the CBS network, the duke swerved a question by Anderson Cooper who asked him why, given his clear antipathy to the monarchy, do he and Meghan not just renounce their titles as Duke and Duchess of Sussex. 'And what difference would that make?' was his only answer. It comes as Harry's popularity among the British public slumps to an all-time low, with a new YouGov survey finding that the Duke's net favourability now sits at a staggering -38. Almost two-thirds of those polled admitted they hold a negative view of the prince, while his support among the 18-24 age group has also fallen to its lowest ever score. Reese Witherspoon certainly has some impressive abs and she is not afraid to show them off. The Big Little Lies star, 46, flaunted her toned tummy in a blue bra top and leggings from her very own clothing brand Draper James as she showed fans how she stays so fit. The mother of three was working out on a patio while listening to a song from Lizzo. Her moves includes lunges and side bends. Toned mama: Reese Witherspoon certainly has some impressive abs and she is not afraid to show them off Abs-tastic: The Big Little Lies star, 46, flaunted her toned tummy in a blue bra top and leggings from her very own clothing brand Draper James as she showed fans how she stays so fit The top had a blue and white check and the leggings were mostly blue with some checks on the side. Her hair was up and she was barefoot as she worked out on a mat. 'This new workout gear from @draperjames has got me moving!' wrote the Wild actress in her caption. Showing off her body is nothing new for the producer, whose latest movie is Your Place Or Mine with Ashton Kutcher. Warrior pose: The mother of three was working out on a patio while listening to a song from Lizzo. Her moves includes lunges and side bends Move it: The top had a blue and white check and the leggings were mostly blue with some checks on the side Lunge lover: Her hair was up and she was barefoot as she worked out on a mat In May she was posing like a pinup in a one-piece blue gingham swimsuit in an ad placed on Facebook. The Oscar-winning actress was plugging her collaboration between her Draper James line and veteran apparel company Lands' End called Lands End x Draper James. The looker had a very small waistline and lean legs thanks to daily jogs with her best friend around her Brentwood, California neighborhood. You glow for it: 'This new workout gear from @draperjames has got me moving!' wrote the Wild actress in her caption. Showing off her body is nothing new for the producer Her honey blonde hair was worn down as she wore neutral toned makeup. She had on hand on her head and another back on a blue surf board. The Summer 2022 family collection from Lands End and Witherspoons Draper James officially launched on the Lands End website in May. This collection comprises the best of the best from limited-edition swim, apparel, and accessories with fits designed for everybody. She's still got it! Witherspoon looked fantastic in a one piece swimsuit for her collaboration with her company Draper James and the brand Lands' End in May Inspired by Reeses southern roots, Summer 2022 is about to look a lot comfier, according to a press release. This is the final range from Lands End x Draper James. On Facebook it said: 'The Summer 2022 collection from Lands' End and Reese Witherspoon's Draper James. Our limited-edition swimwear and accessories feature gingham, citrus and florals, including fits for every body. 'With a portion of sales supporting Girls Inc., our shared commitment to the women of tomorrow continues, too. We hope you enjoy the collection and feel comfy, happy and confident on the beach and beyond. #DJxLE.' Kaher Kazem, a former CEO of GM Korea, leaves the Incheon District Court, Jan. 9. Newsis A court sentenced Kaher Kazem, a former CEO of GM Korea, to a suspended prison term on Monday on charges of illegally hiring about 1,700 manufacturing workers on secondment. The former CEO was accused, along with other GM executives, of hiring 1,719 workers dispatched from 24 outsourcing companies to work at the carmaker's factories in Incheon, Changwon and Gunsan from September 2017 till December 2021. The dispatched workers were made to work at the factories' main production lines involving automotive body assembly and painting, where the hiring of dispatched workers is banned under the relevant labor law aimed at protecting temporary agency workers. The Incheon District Court handed out an eight-month prison term, suspended for two years, for Kazem while sentencing GM Korea to a fine of 30 million won ($24,086), ending two years of court proceedings on the case. GM Korea's labor union of temporary workers immediately denounced the ruling, saying the suspended sentence is tantamount to giving him "an indulgence." (Yonhap) Video: Elizabeth Hurley, 57, looks sensational in a plunging white bikini and semi-sheer robe as she models her latest beach wear Liz Hurley shows off her incredible figure in a blue bikini as she splashes around in the sea on Maldives holiday. 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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 Supreme Court (PTI) Vijayawada: The Supreme Court has served notices on the Centre and the Telangana governments on a plea filed by the Andhra Pradesh government seeking division of assets and liabilities of the erstwhile AP between the two Telugu states as envisaged under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. A Division Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and M.M. Sundresh heard the writ petition filed by the AP government with a plea for fair, equitable and expeditious division of assets and liabilities as per norms of the bifurcation act. As counsels for the Central and Telangana governments did not attend the hearing, the apex court decided to serve notices on them and posted the case for its next hearing after six weeks. AP, in its petition, maintained that the 91 institutions mentioned in Schedule IX, 142 entities in Schedule X and 12 institutions not mentioned in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, were not divided between both AP and TS so far. It said that the fixed assets belonging to these institutions worth nearly Rs 1,42,601 crore were meant to be divided. Non-division of assets would benefit the Telangana state and this would be a disadvantage to AP, as a majority of these assets are located in Hyderabad. The petition also noted that the as-yet-undivided institutions performed a series of services pertaining to agriculture, education, medical services, industrial and infrastructure development etc. A customer gets a cup of coffee at a Starbucks shop in Seoul in this Sept. 28, 2021 file photo. Yonhap Korea's imports of coffee soared nearly 45.1 percent in the first 11 months of 2022 from a year earlier on its growing popularity here, data showed Monday. The value of the country's coffee imports came to $1.19 billion in the January-November period, up 45.1 percent from the previous year, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. It marks the first time that Korea's yearly coffee imports have exceeded $1 billion. Last year's amount was also up 16.7 times from 20 years earlier. In terms of volume, Korea's coffee imports reached some 187,790 tons in the 11-month period, up from 171,990 tons an earlier year. Korea's coffee imports had been on a steady rise since 2018 as an increasing number of Koreans enjoy the drink. With coffee consumption surging in Asia's fourth-largest economy, the number of coffee shops has also been rising rapidly. The country's coffee shops and beverage stores numbered 99,000 as of the end of December, up 17.4 percent from a year earlier and a new all-time high. From four years earlier, the number was up 102.1 percent, or 50,000 shops. It was far higher than the 80.9 percent increase for Western restaurants, 76.4 percent for Japanese restaurants, 31.3 percent for fried chicken joints and 23.1 percent for fast-food shops. (Yonhap) Migrants Rights and Welfare Association president Kotapati Narasimham Naidu with Union minister of state for external affairs V. Muraleedharan in Indore on Sunday during the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas programme. (Photo by arrangement) HYDERABAD: Gulf Migrants Rights and Welfare Association president Kotapati Narasimham Naidu said that Union minister of state for external affairs V. Muraleedharan had responded positively to their plea for the safe return of Gulf migrant workers to their native places in Telangana state. He sounded positive on a proposal establish a Pravasi welfare board at the national level, Naidu said. They were participating in the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas-2023 in Indore on Sunday. We urged the Union minister to provide life insurance coverage to migrant workers on par with the existing Pravasi Bima Yojana provided by the union government, Naidu said. Naidu submitted a memorandum to the minister on the plight of Telangana workers in Gulf countries and Malaysia. He said that Devarla Sekhar, Battu Bhojender and Macharla Ravinder of Nizamabad district were stranded in Muscat after being cheated by a travel agent, who had assured employment in Muscat. Due to lack of work visa and other documents, the youth were left stranded and Oman authorities directed them to pay `1.2 lakh as penalty for illegally staying in the country for the last four months, he explained. Muraleedharan said he would consult Oman authorities for a safe return of the Telangana youth, Naidu explained. Meanwhile, Gaguloth Santosh, Thotikola Praveen Kumar and Malavath Devender are in a Malaysia jail because of the travel agent, he said. Supreme Court (Photo: ANI) NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Centre and the Telangana government on the Andhra Pradesh governments plea seeking a fair, equitable and expeditious division of assets and liabilities involving institutions and corporations of the erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh between the two successor states under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014. A bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice M.M. Sundresh issued notice after senior advocate K.V. Viswanathan told the bench that the bifurcation took place by way of the 2014 Act, but assets worth crores of rupees had not come to Andhra Pradesh. The notice is returnable in April, though no date has been specified. In the last hearing on December 16, 2022, the court had asked AP to serve an advance copy of its petition on the Centre and Telangana. Noting that there are similar petitions pending before it, the court had asked the AP government to serve a copy of its petition on those petitioners. In the December 16 hearing, senior advocate Viswanathan had described the situation as alarming as nothing has moved since 2014. The AP government has sought the apportionment of assets specified in Schedule IX (relating to government companies and corporations) and X (continuance of facilities in certain State institutions). It said that of the 233 institutions mentioned under Schedule IX and X and another 12 not mentioned in the Reorganisation Act, the assets and liability of not a single institution have been apportioned between the successor states The total value of the fixed assets of 245 institutions is about Rs 1,42,601 crore, AP said. The AP petition pointed out that most of the assets were located in Hyderabad by extensively investing resources of the combined state. The AP government said that the non-apportionment of the assets has led to a multitude of issues adversely affecting and violating the fundamental and other constitutional rights of the people of Andhra Pradesh including the employees of the said institutions. Without adequate funding and actual division of assets in terms of the apportionment made under the Act, the functioning of the said institutions in the state of Andhra Pradesh has been severely stunted the suit said. Seeking a division of these assets at the earliest so that a quietus could be put to the issue, the AP government said the long delay in the division of assets and liabilities had adversely impacted approximately 1,59,096 employees working in these institutions. It said, the position of the pensionable employees who have retired post bifurcation is pitiable and many of them have not received terminal benefits. Of the eight prayers on which declaration/direction has been sought, AP urged the top court to declare that inaction of Telangana and the Central government in not dividing the assets and liabilities was being arbitrary and violative of the Fundamental Rights of the people of Andhra Pradesh. It has further sought directions to Telangana to furnish details of all properties both immovable and movable, including funds of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh of the institution mentioneds in Scheduled IX and X of the Act and even otherwise. Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan sought cancellation of the GO that banned meetings on public roads. (DC) Vijayawada: Telugu Desam chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu and Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan lashed out at the YSR Congress government on Sunday, saying it was creating anarchy in the state by restraining opposition leaders from normal activities, via the GO-1. The two leaders sought cancellation of the GO that banned meetings on public roads. They resolved to open a joint front against the Jagan government by uniting all Opposition parties in the state and fight for protection of democracy. Pawan and Naidu affirmed that a poll alliance between TD, JS and others against the YSRC would be formalized by the time of the 2024 polls. Pawan visited Naidu's residence to extend his partys support to the TD's fight against GO-1. Andhra Pradesh is passing through a worse situation than the Emergency, the actor- politician said. PK said, I would hold discussions with all the parties and the BJP to unite them in a fight against the YSRC to ensure that the anti-incumbency votes would not split in AP. He welcomed the BRS party into Andhra Pradesh stating that this was good. Chandrababu said attempts were being made to stifle the voice of the Opposition in the state. All opposition parties along with people's organisations will wage a joint war to save democracy in AP, he said. Pawan alleged that the state government was creating obstacles to Naidus tour in Kuppam. I called on Chandrababu today to express my solidarity with him. We discussed the prevailing situation in the state, particularly after the GO-1 was issued. Clearly, the YSRC government is trying to suppress the voice of the Opposition. ''The Jagan-led government is acting in an atrocious manner and brought in the colonial-era ban on public meetings so as to stifle the voice of the Opposition,'' he said. PK alleged that welfare pensions were being withdrawn at will and there was no Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers. The attitude that no one should question the YSRCP government is condemnable. Chandrababu noted that he represented the Kuppam assembly segment seven times but was not allowed to visit the constituency now. Is it not the duty of the police to provide security when I organise meetings, he asked. The TD chief said he and PK would take the issues of AP like GO-1 to the notice of the governor and the Union Government, seeking their intervention, if necessary. This government does not want Pawan Kalyan and TD general secretary Nara Lokesh to undertake Padayatras. We shall fight this out to save democracy, Naidu warned. : Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the 17th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention, in Indore, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. More than 3,500 diaspora members from 70 countries have registered for the event. (PTI Photo) INDORE/ NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that the diaspora has a significant role to play as "brand ambassadors of India" in the journey of the country as it enters the "Amrit Kaal" (the perfect time to start a new venture as per Vedic astrology) of the next 25 years. Unveiling the 17th edition of Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) in Indore city in Madhya Pradesh, Modi said, "I consider the diaspora as brand ambassadors of India on foreign soil. Your role is diverse. You are brand ambassadors of Indias heritage, yoga, ayurved, cottage industries, handicrafts and also millets (on foreign soil)." Modi said that the global community is watching India keenly with curiosity as the country made rapid progress in several sectors. He said that India is taking over the G20 presidency this year and the responsibility comes with a great opportunity to make the world aware of Indias past experiences to attain a sustainable future and learn from these experiences. At the PBD convention, the PM said: "The G20 is not just a diplomatic event; it should be turned into a historic event of public participation". Highlighting the countrys achievements, the PM said India has emerged as a global economy during the current period of pandemic induced global instability and became the fifth largest economy in the world. He also highlighted Indias successful foray into the cashless economy and fintech and said that 40 per cent of the world's real-time digital transactions are being done in India. He said that India has caught global attention due to its rapid growth in several sectors and the diaspora has an important role to play in addressing the desire among the world community to know more about India. He urged the diaspora to enrich their knowledge not only about Indias culture and tradition but also about the nations progress so they could project them suitably in their respective countries. He also lauded the Pravasi Bharatiyas for the role they have played in the development of their respective countries. "The feeling of pride in being the mother of democracy increases manifold when Pravasi Bharatiyas are talked about as democratic, peaceful and disciplined citizens in different parts of the world," Modi said and called upon the universities in India to document the contributions made by the diaspora in their respective countries for the benefit of the students. He said that today, India has the opportunity to become not only the knowledge centre but also the skill capital of the world and the skill capital can become the engine of world growth. During his address, the PM heaped praise on Indore, saying that the city is ahead of its time not only in cleanliness but also in the preservation of its heritage. The delicacies of Indore are mouthwatering. On the occasion, the Prime Minister released a commemorative postal stamp and launched the first digital PBD exhibition, "Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav Contribution of Diaspora in Indian Freedom Struggle." The three-day PBD Convention, which is being held from January 8 to 10, is the "flagship event of the ministry of external affairs and provides an important platform to engage and connect with the overseas Indians". The theme of the ongoing PBD convention is "Diaspora: Reliable partners for Indias progress in Amrit Kaal". Over 3,500 diaspora members from nearly 70 different countries had registered for the PBD Convention. The Youth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas was celebrated on Sunday, a day before the commemoration of PBD. MLAs belonging to the allies of the ruling government raise slogans against Tamil Nadu Governor R. N. Ravi before staging a walkout during his address at the first session of the year of Tamil Nadu Assembly, at Fort St George, in Chennai. (PTI Photo/R Senthil Kumar) CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi stormed out of the state Assembly midway through the proceedings after triggering a controversy by refusing to read some lines from the customary governors address prepared by the state government and also raising several constitutional questions through his behaviour on Monday, the opening day of the current session in the New Year. Even as the governor rose to deliver his address, members of some political parties aligned to the ruling DMK started a ruckus inside the House, expressing their anger against Ravi holding back 20 legislations passed by the Assembly and for making a statement that the state should be called "Tamilagam" and not Tamil Nadu, among other issues. An NDA member, PMK, too, joined them in the protest and even held out a banner on the floor of the House with slogans protesting the holding back of the Bill banning online rummy in the state. As the governor went ahead with his address, unmindful of the kerfuffle, the protesting MLAs left the House and boycotted the address after some time. However, since the governor did not follow the entire address prepared by the government, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin moved a resolution to include in the official records the lines that were left out and to delete the extra things that Ravi had added unilaterally. It was then Ravi walked out of the House without waiting for the proceedings to be over or the national anthem to be played or for the Assembly Speaker to escort him out of the hall as per protocol. Earlier in the day, when the Governor arrived at the premises, he was received by the Speaker. Among the lines that the governor refused to read out from the text was: "Following the principles and ideals of Thanthai Periyar, Annal Ambedkar, Perunthalaivar Kamarajar, Perarignar Anna and Muthamil Arignar Kalaignar the government has been delivering the much acclaimed Dravidian Model of governance." Another passage that was left out was: "Because of the stellar management of law and order, Tamil Nadu continues to be a haven of peace. As a result, the state was attracting numerous foreign investments and is becoming a forerunner in all sectors." The governor also skipped: "This government is founded on the ideals of social justice, self-respect, inclusive growth, equality, womens empowerment, secularism and compassion towards all." Moving the resolution, Stalin said it was regrettable that the governor did not read out the address completely and properly. He also said that those passages added unilaterally would be removed from the Assembly records. He said that though the governor had been acting against the principles of the Dravidian Model, which was highly unacceptable to the government, the ruling party did not express its protest when he came to the House as the members wanted to maintain the dignity of the House and also follow the rules and regulations, but he did not reciprocate it. Reacting to the development, BJP state vice-president V.P. Duraisamy said the governor was not bound to read the entire speech prepared by the state government. Duraiswamy, who was the deputy speaker of Assembly in the DMK government, said that Ravi had read out the policies of the government and that was enough. He also said that the Speaker was not empowered to expunge the governors speech as he was not a member of the House. State industries minister Thangam Thennarasu, who spoke to the media, said that the draft governors address was sent to Raj Bhavan. He regretted the governors attitude to even mention the name of Ambedkar in the speech. Members of the AIADMK, led by the Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K. Palaniswami also walked out of the House with the governor. Palaniswami said that they had come to the Assembly to listen to the governor and not the chief minister. PMK founder S. Ramadoss, reacting to the incident, said that it was not proper on the part of the governor to have behaved that way. PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss said that it was an insult to the Assembly and elected state government and will in no way add strength to democracy. CPI member Nagai Maali accused the governor of working for the BJP and RSS to implement the Union governments agenda against the state government with no understanding of Tamil sentiments and functioning against the peoples welfare. Urging the Union government to call back Ravi, Manithaneya Makkal Katchi member M.H. Jawahirullah accused the governor of acting like a political agent by not sanctioning approval for 20 Bills passed in the House, which has 234 members. Other leaders like TNCC president K.S. Alagiri, leader of the Congress in the Assembly Selvaperunthagai and CPI secretary K. Balakrishnan were among those who spoke against the governor, saying that it was anti-democratic, while the BJP state president and MLA Vanathi Srinivasan accused the government of enacting a drama. In a series of tweets, the Jana Sena president listed out the kind of restrictions imposed on him by YSR Congress government. (Photo: Twitter) VIJAYAWADA: In a strong retort over YSR Congress leaders criticism about his poll campaign vehicle being olive green in colour, Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan asked the ruling party whether he should stop breathing next. In a series of tweets on Friday, the Jana Sena president listed out the kind of restrictions imposed on him by YSR Congress government. He said it stopped his films, did not allow him to come out of his vehicle during his Visakhapatnam visit, confined him to his hotel room, denied him permission to step out for fresh air, and even forced him to leave the city. Pavan Kalyan pointed out that when he was planning to visit Ippatam village to console families whose houses had been demolished, his car was not allowed to move out of his party office in Mangalagiri, forcing him to walk for reaching the village. The power star said now the colour of his poll campaign vehicle Varahi has become an issue. He went on to ask whether he will be allowed to wear an olive green shirt at least and posted a picture of the shirt. The JS chief then asked whether he should stop breathing next. In another tweet, Pawan Kalyan posted a picture of trees. He asked YSR Congress leaders which green variant from the picture was acceptable to them. The popular actor posted a picture of the famous TV advertisement Neighbours Envy, Owners Pride. He juxtaposed it with a Bible verse from Proverbs 14:30, A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Pawan Kalyan said this quote had often been referred to in school by his class teacher when students felt jealous and tried to damage things belonging to other kids. With sheer jealousy, (the) YSRC bone structure is getting rotten day by day, Pawan Kalyan remarked. He also tweeted an advice that YSR Congress government focus more on development of AP, as companies involved in manufacturing cars to making underwear are moving to neighbouring states, unable to bear the demand for bribes and free shares. Meanwhile, in response to Pawan Kalyan painting his new campaign vehicle Varahi in olive green, APs additional transport commissioner S. Prasada Rao made it clear that as per Motor Vehicle Act, no civilian vehicle can be painted olive green. Top Opposition leaders, including the Chief Ministers of four states, are expected to attend a public meeting called by BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao in Khammam on January 18. (File Photo: DC) Hyderabad: Top Opposition leaders, including the Chief Ministers of four states, are expected to attend a public meeting called by BRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao in Khammam on January 18 to lead the Opposition's show of strength amid efforts to evolve a common strategy to defeat the BJP-led NDA next year. This is the first public meeting after Election Commission approved the partys name change from the TRS to the BRS on December 8. The CM has invited Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, Samajwadi Party chief and former Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav, JDS leader and former Karnataka CM H.D.Kumaraswamy besides a few regional party leaders. The CM wants to present the BRS national political goals and objectives, as well as the schemes and development programmes that it intends to undertake if elected in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. According to party insiders, Kejriwal and Mann have confirmed their presence. The CM will launch Kanti Velugu 2.0 in Khammam along with CMs after inaugurating the district collectorate. The CM has set a target for Khammam district party leaders to mobilise five lakh people for the public meeting and make the BRS first public meeting a grand success. Rao held a meeting with the party's Khammam district leaders at Pragathi Bhavan on Monday, which was attended by ministers T. Harish Rao, Vemula Prashanth Reddy, Puvvada Ajay Kumar, Lok Sabha member Nama Nageshwara Rao, Rajya Sabha members Bandi Parthasarathi Reddy,V. Ravichandra, MLCs Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, Tata Madhu, MLAs Haripriya Nayak, Rega Kantha Rao, K. Upender Reddy, Sandra Venkata Veeraiah, L.Ramulu Nayak, among others. Interestingly, the CM has decided to hold a rally in Khammam a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Hyderabad on January 19 for launching development programmes. Party sources said the CM will not receive the PM at the airport nor participate in the PM's programmes in the city on January 18. The last time the CM met the PM was on September 2, 2021 in New Delhi. Despite Modi's multiple visits to Telangana in 2022, the CM avoided him and delegated minister Talasani Srinivas Yadav to receive him at the airport, following a fierce political tussle between the BRS and the BJP in Telangana since the Huzurabad Assembly bypoll in November 2021. According to sources, the CM told Khammam leaders that TRS's first public meeting in Karimnagar in May 2001, just two weeks after launching TRS in April 2001, was a resounding success, with nearly 2.5 lakh people in attendance, and that BRS first public meeting attendance should have double the crowd. Since Khammam is located on Andhra Pradesh border, the possibility of mobilising people from bordering areas in AP was also discussed in the meeting in the wake of BRS launching its first state wing in AP last week with the appointment of Thota Chandrashekar as AP BRS wing president. It was decided to mobilise three lakh people from undivided Khammam district alone while remaining two lakh from Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar, Mahbubabad, and other districts. Meanwhile, speaking at a book release function here on Monday, TRS working president K.T.Rama Rao said that the party was going 'pan-India' with BRS. He said when a cinema with good content can go pan-India and become a big hit, why not a party and a leader with good content will become a hit in national politics. Rama Rao said there will always be naysayers whenever one attempts to achieve new goals and they should not be taken seriously. "We achieved several impossible things in Telangana in the last eight years. In the similar manner, we are confident of repeating the success with BRS in national politics." Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav has called it a historic step that will help the government carry out development work that will benefit the poor. (Photo: Twitter) Bihar has launched perhaps the first exercise of its kind in India ever by embarking on a caste-based census. The Rs. 500-crore, two-phase door-to-door survey will cover an estimated 12.70 crore people. In the first phase which will end on January 21, all the households, estimated to be 2.5 crore, will be enumerated. The second phase which will end on May 31, will collect data on peoples place, caste, sub-caste, religion, number of family members, profession and annual income. Though the Union government has dismissed the demand for a nation-wide caste-based census, there is a larger political consensus in the state on the exercise. The state Assembly passed unanimous resolutions twice, in 2018 and 2019, favoring a caste census. An all-party meeting in 2022 had also voted in favour of it though the BJP has of late voiced its concerns about its outcome. Those who favour it say it would lead to a reworking on the reservations for Other Backward Castes based on population data, as is done in the case of Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and that it would benefit them. Chief Minister and JD (United) leader Nitish Kumar has said the census data will have every minute detail of people, their households and other things and would be beneficial to the overall development of the state and the country. RJD leader and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav has called it a historic step that will help the government carry out development work that will benefit the poor and weaker sections of society. It will also provide data that will help the government launch welfare schemes for the people, he would argue. The Bihar leaders are right in that accurate data is key to designing government policies and schemes. It would help allocate resources optimally and measure their impact, too. However, they are yet to explain why the rulers since independence have failed so miserably that Bihar languishes at the bottom of almost every index when it comes to human welfare while several other states, which once were grouped with it, made at least notional progress. As per the reports of NITI Aayog, Bihar has largest share of population without electricity; it ranks 19 among 20 large Indian states when it comes to both quality of school education and in overall performance in healthcare. No wonder it is at the bottom of the 28 states and seven Union territories when it comes to sustainable development goals index, and at the top of the multi-dimensional poverty index which marks the percentage of population who are multi-dimensionally poor. Bihar is one of the most politically conscious states in India, and its legacy goes back to the freedom movement days. After independence, while the Congress had run most states with an unquestionable mandate, Bihar played a fertile land for the Opposition, especially the Left brand of politics. The JP movement had its cradle in the state; people who claim allegiance to the socialist ideology have been in power in the state for the last four decades or more. None has helped the state make even baby steps to make its people cared for. It will be fully up to the sponsors of the caste census to demonstrate to the people of the state, and the nation at large, the difference it will make. The demand for Indian generic drugs has shot up in China amid the massive Covid surge in the country, with Chinese experts cautioning that fake versions of these drugs are flooding the market. Chinas National Health Security Administration said on Sunday that Pfizer's Paxlovid oral medication, which is used to treat Covid-19, could not be included in the register of drugs in the basic medical insurance, because the companys quotation was too high, media reports here said. Due to the massive short supply of Paxlovid, demand for Indian generic versions has gone up through Chinese e-commerce platforms. Also Read | Workers clash with police at Covid test kit factory in China On the Chinese e-commerce platforms... At least four generic Covid drugs produced in India - Primovir, Paxista, Molnunat, and Molnatris have been listed for sale in recent weeks. Primovir and Paxista are both generic versions of Paxlovid, while the other two are generic versions of Molnipiravir," Chinese media outlet Sixth Tone reported. All four drugs appear to have been approved for emergency use by the Indian authorities, but are not legal for use in China, it said. He Xiaobing, the head of Beijing Memorial Pharmaceutical, told Sixth Tone that India was the only country where we can source reliable and affordable Covid drugs with guaranteed therapeutic effects. Also Read | China reopens borders in final farewell to zero-Covid But the strong demand was used by illegal groups who produce counterfeit drugs. This will badly affect patients treatment," he said. Chinas health system catering to 1.4 billion people is under strain especially due to the heavy costs of drug supply which were controlled by multinational pharmaceutical giants. India has been persuading China to permit its pharma products to reduce costs for its citizens and to decrease the massive trade deficit between the two countries. At one time, Indian cancer drugs have become very famous for their efficacy and affordability. Considering their popularity, a Chinese film by the name Dying to Survive showing the survival of cancer patients on the banned imported Indian drugs had a successful run in China. India needs to "decarbonise" its transport sector quickly as the country has the potential to be a global torch-bearer in biofuels, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Sunday. Speaking virtually at the Sugar and Ethanol Conference organised here by Chini Mandi, he said 80 per cent of the energy requirement of the Indian transport sector was being fulfilled through the import of fossil fuels like petrol, diesel etc, which was costing the country more than Rs 16 lakh crore annually. "This is an economic and environmental problem. The transport sector also accounts for 90 per cent of carbon emissions. There is an immediate need to decarbonise the transport sector. The Union government is pursuing bio-fuels and compressed biogas on mission mode to replace these imports in a cost-effective, pollution-free way," he said. "The government is encouraging policy frameworks for the production of biofuels and the creation of a sustainable ecosystem around it. The Centre is giving a huge push to ethanol as fuel, especially its production from surplus and damaged food grains like rice, corn and sugarcane. We can be a torch bearer in biofuels globally," he said. The efficient use of surplus sugar, rice and maize stock as well as the production of second-generation ethanol from bamboo and Agri biomass such as cotton and straw can completely change the fuel landscape in India, the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways said. "India is the only country that is setting up four commercial plants for biofuels, three of which are based on indigenous technology. Each plant will help two lakh farmers and reduce three lakh tonnes of carbon emissions. There is a need for research and development in green hydrogen and diversification of the agriculture sector into energy and power," he asserted. Gadkari said the future of the ethanol economy is bright and asked the sugar sector to convert the surplus produce into bioethanol, which in turn will help create wealth in agriculture as well as the country's rural areas. Stronger ties, cooperation with China expected as Brazil's Lula returns to presidency 10:28, January 09, 2023 By Bian Zhuodan, Xuan Liqi ( Xinhua BRASILIA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's return to the Brazilian presidency is expected to energize China-Brazil relations and cooperation between China and Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, and help promote common prosperity around the world, Brazilian media, experts and scholars say. Chinese President Xi Jinping's Special Representative Vice President Wang Qishan attended Lula's inauguration on Jan. 1 in capital city Brasilia, along with representatives from more than 60 countries and international organizations. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends the inauguration ceremony in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, on Jan. 1, 2023. (Xinhua/Wang Tiancong) NEW ERA OF LULA DIPLOMACY In his inaugural speech, Lula stressed his new government will be committed to "unity and reconstruction," to resolving the current crises and challenges facing Brazil, to placing Latin America's largest country among the world's leading economies once again, and to promoting Brazil's return to the international arena. This is Lula's third presidential term. He was given another four-year mandate in general elections in October 2022, winning with 60.3 million votes, or 50.9 percent of the total, while his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro obtained 58.2 million votes, or 49.1 percent. On the foreign policy front, Lula pledged to pursue multilateral diplomacy and actively develop cooperative ties with China, the European Union (EU) and other international partners, underscoring the importance of multilateral mechanisms such as South American trade bloc Mercosur and the BRICS bloc of emerging economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Chinese President Xi Jinping's Special Representative Vice President Wang Qishan hands over a letter signed by Xi to Brazil's new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva while meeting with him in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, Jan. 2, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Bin) As Xi's special representative, Wang handed over a letter signed by Xi and conveyed Xi's congratulations as well as his invitation for Lula to visit China. He said Lula is an old friend of the Chinese people, who has long been caring for and supporting the development of China-Brazil relations. Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist and professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said Lula stresses the importance to Brazil's economic growth of partnerships with major developing countries, and seeks to create more balanced relations with Western heavyweights. A cargo ship loaded with soya beans from Brazil prepares to unload at Yangpu port in the Yangpu Economic Development Zone in Danzhou, south China's Hainan Province, July 22, 2022. (Xinhua/Guo Cheng) ELEVATED CHINA-BRAZIL TIES Brazilian scholars view Lula's new term as a chance to lift Brazil-China relations to higher levels, which will also contribute to global governance, the international order and multilateral mechanisms. Marcos Cordeiro Pires, a professor at Brazil's Sao Paulo State University, believes "Brazil and China have great potential for future cooperation." "During Lula's administration, Brazil-China relations will be further improved, developed and enhanced. The two countries will strengthen coordination on issues such as global development and security, support multilateralism, oppose protectionism, cooperate in building infrastructure, and respond actively to climate change and global warming," he said. "Brazil-China relations will become an important cornerstone for maintaining world peace and development," Pires added. Bruno de Conti, an economist and professor at the Economic Research Institute of Brazil's State University of Campinas, expects scientific and technological cooperation between Brazil and China to be deepened and better benefit the two countries. Filipe Porto, a researcher at the Brazilian Foreign Policy Observatory, agrees, saying Brazil and China are likely to fully cooperate in an array of fields besides economy. Being confident in a better relationship between Brazil and China, de Conti said, "as the trust between Brazil and China becomes stronger and stronger, starting in January, there will be more and more opportunities for various negotiations between the two sides." Photo taken on Jan. 18, 2021 shows Longping High-Tech Brazil, a Chinese-invested company owned by Longping Agriculture Science Co., Ltd., in Cravinhos, Brazil. (Xinhua) CHINA-LAC COMMON PROSPERITY As Latin America is a region with abundant potential and growing international influence in recent years, higher-level China-Brazil relations are also expected to spur China-LAC cooperation. China is willing to work with LAC countries in such fields as green economy, poverty alleviation, food security, vaccines and climate change to improve people's well-being and boost common prosperity around the globe through cooperation. Ivan Oliveira, a researcher at Brazil's Institute for Applied Economic Research, believes that green finance will play an important role in bilateral and multilateral cooperation between China and LAC countries. Brazilian scholars also share the view that China's path to modernization, high-quality development and sustainable development strategies can offer opportunities for bilateral and multilateral partnerships between China and LAC countries. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, China, as one of the first countries to distribute vaccines to developing countries, has provided nearly 400 million doses of vaccines and nearly 40 million units of pandemic-fighting supplies to the LAC region. Looking to the future of China-Latin America relations, Chinese Ambassador to Brazil Zhu Qingqiao said Latin America will also embark on a modernization path tailored to its needs like what China has been doing. "In the new era, China is committed to building a China-Latin America relationship that is equal, mutually beneficial, innovative, and open and beneficial to the people, and to boosting China-Latin America ties and overall cooperation between China and Latin America to a higher level, so as to better benefit the people of China and Latin America," said Zhu. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Interior Minister Lee Sang-min, left, and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon attend a parliamentary hearing on the Itaewon tragedy at the National Assembly in Seoul, Jan. 6. Yonhap The monthslong investigation into the Itaewon crowd crush is coming to a close, with police planning to refer Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) chief Kim Kwang-ho and other officials to the prosecution this week for possible indictment. Kim is expected to be charged with professional negligence in connection with the Oct. 29 tragedy that killed 159 people, mostly those in their 20s. He is expected to be the highest-ranking police official to be held accountable. Other officials expected to be referred to the prosecution are Choi Seong-beom, chief of the Yongsan Fire Station covering the Itaewon district, and Ryu Mi-jin, former senior emergency monitoring officer at the SMPA. The investigation team, meanwhile, is expected not to press charges against officials of the interior ministry and the Seoul city government after determining that the responsibility lies with local authorities, rather than the central or the metropolitan government. The team has judged that police, fire authorities and the ward government of Yongsan have "concrete" responsibility over tragedy. The team is also expected not to bring any charge against National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun. Officials said the investigation is expected to come to a close before the Lunar New Year holiday. (Yonhap) Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Shatrughan Sinha on Monday lauded Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra and said he has now emerged as the "frontrunner for the PM post" in the opposition camp. While speaking to PTI, the actor-turned-politician said Gandhi's 3,570-km-long march is one of the most historic yatra that the country has witnessed in the recent past and can be compared with Lal Krishna Advani's 'Ram Rath Yatra' in the early 1990s. However, the former union minister dodged a question about his return to the Congress by saying that his "answer is Khamosh". "Rahul Gandhi has come out as a frontrunner after this yatra, and is respectable leader now. He seems quite capable for the PM post. "He has now become a frontrunner (for the PM post) in the opposition camp. Lakhs of people are coming out in his support. He has proved his leadership quality. People have accepted him as a leader," Sinha told PTI in a telephonic interview. Also Read | Congress-BJP spar again as ex-Army chief Deepak Kapoor joins Rahul-led Bharat Jodo Yatra This is the second time in the last three months that Sinha has come out with praising words for Rahul Gandhi and his Bharat Jodo Yatra. When asked whether the yatra would help the Congress garner votes in the next Lok Sabha polls, Sinha replied in positive. "The kind of support he is receiving is unprecedented. Even if this euphoria converts into 20 per cent votes, it would be great for the nation and the Congress party in particular," Sinha said. The TMC MP referred to political yatras in the past conducted by L K Advani, and Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh in the recent past. "We have witnessed how long marches have helped translate into votes in the past. We have seen the yatra of L K Advani and Jagan Mohan Reddy in Andhra Pradesh. In West Bengal elections, when Mamata Banerjee got injured and later campaigned on a wheelchair, you have seen the results in the 2021 assembly polls," he said. Sinha had joined the BJP in the early 80s, and served the saffron camp as its star campaigner during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-L K Advani era. Also Read | Priests criticise Rahul Gandhi over remarks on 'pujaris' The two-term BJP MP from Patna Sahib later walked out of the party over differences with the present leadership and joined the Congress ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Bollywood actor of the 1970s and 1980s switched over to the TMC in 2022. He successfully fought the by-election from Asansol, an industrial town in West Bengal. Asked about NCP leader Sharad Pawar's recent comment that yatra will help in building consensus among opposition parties, Sinha said he agrees with the view of the veteran politician from Maharashtra. "I will go by what real Chanakya of India politics- Sharad Pawar- has said. It (yatra) can unite the opposition. Everybody wishes, hopes, and prays," Sinha said, adding that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be a "game-changer" in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Speaking about who would take up the leadership mantle in the opposition camp, Sinha said one "who will have the highest number of seats will emerge as the leader". "People will decide who would become the PM. Anyone with the highest number of seats and support base will be the leader of the opposition camp," he said. While advocating opposition unity, Sinha said it is the high time for the opposition to get united. Also Read | Trivialising Rahul Gandhi and other conundrums "With due respect to all, I must say the opposition must unite in general and as a nation in particularWhen anti-incumbency is rising, and you fail to fulfil your promises, people vote against the ruling party. When we have Rahul Gandhi as a frontrunner and Mamata Banerjee as a game changer, then nothing seems to be impossible," he said. Speaking about differences between the Congress and the TMC, Sinha said he is a "positive person" and hopes that the relation between the two parties would improve in future. When asked whether he plans to return to the Congress before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Sinha said, "my answer is Khamosh". The Asansol MP clarified that he firmly stands as a lieutenant of Mamata Banerjee and has "full faith and respect for her leadership", who is a tried and tested leader of the country. Sinha, however, had a piece of advice for his party colleagues who have been critical of Bharat Jodo Yatra, and said, "no opposition party should be critical of any other opposition outfit in its effort to put up a fight against the BJP," he added. An Army officer allegedly shot dead his wife and later committed suicide here, police said on Monday. The officer and his wife were found dead at their official residence Sunday night, they said. The deceased officer has been identified as Lt Col Nishant and his wife Dimple, Station House Officer, Ferozepur Cantt, Inspector Naveen Kumar said. He said the couple was going through a marital discord which took an ugly turn Sunday night around 9 pm. Also Read | Pregnant woman set on fire by family in Delhi; DCW seeks action According to sources, the officer left behind a suicide note confessing to harming his partner who was found dead in an adjoining room. They said the couple were undergoing regular counselling sessions. The Army authorities and the police have started investigation into the incident. Meanwhile, bodies have been sent to the civil hospital for post-mortem. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday held separate bilateral talks with Surinamese President Chandrikapersad Santokhi and President of Guyana Mohamed Irfaan Ali, focusing on bilateral cooperation in areas of defence, digital technology and capacity building. The meetings took place on the sidelines of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD). Santokhi and Ali are attending the mega event as the chief guest and special guest of honour. About Modi's meeting with Santokhi, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said the talks focused on cooperation in areas of mutual interest including hydrocarbons, defence and maritime security. "In their meeting, both leaders held discussions on cooperation in areas of mutual interest including hydrocarbons, defence, maritime security, digital initiatives and ICT, and capacity building," it said in a statement. "Suriname appreciated restructuring by India of Suriname's debt arising from Lines of Credit availed by Suriname," it said. After the conclusion of the PBD, Santokhi will visit Ahmedabad and New Delhi. On talks between Modi and Ali, the MEA said they held comprehensive discussions on a wide range of issues including cooperation in energy, infrastructure development, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, technology and defence cooperation. "Both leaders recalled the 180 year old historical bonds of friendship between the people of India and Guyana and agreed to deepen them further," it said. President Ali will also visit Delhi, Kanpur, Bengaluru and Mumbai. Opposition on Monday launched a stinging attack on Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi for omitting references of Tamil Nadu stalwarts and deviating from the state government-prepared customary address in the Assembly, saying his actions were a "brazen violation" of the Constitution and he was "acting at the behest" of the BJP that appointed him. Congress, Trinamool Congress and CPI criticised Ravi in strong words, as the fight between Ravi and the ruling DMK reached a crescendo with the Governor skipping portions of the customary speech and Chief Minister MK Stalin moving a resolution against Ravi's deviation from the approved text and to declare as valid only the prepared text of the Governor's address tabled in the House. Responding to the developments in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh tweeted, "the conduct of the IB officer-turned Governor in the Tamil Nadu Assembly today is a brazen violation of all Constitutional norms and conventions. He is clearly acting at the behest of those who appointed him. He is a disgrace to the position he holds!" The conduct of the IB officer-turned Governor in the Tamil Nadu Assembly today is a brazen violation of all Constitutional norms and conventions. He is clearly acting at the behest of those who appointed him. He is a disgrace to the position he holds! Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) January 9, 2023 Ravi was previously Governor of Nagaland and a section of the actors in the yet-to-be-concluded Naga Peace Process had accused him of not playing a positive role in the exercise. Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien was not surprised at the episode. He said, "I have been saying this for a while now, that Raj Bhavans across the country are being converted into BJP party offices or RSS shakhas." CPI General Secretary D Raja described the developments in Assembly as "highly unfortunate and illegal" and that the Office of Governor is proving to be a burden on the federal polity. "Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi skipped parts of the address prepared by the state govt with references made to secularism, Periyar, BR Ambedkar, K Kamaraj, CN Annadurai and Karunanidhi and added paras on his own. The incident of making arbitrary changes in the ceremonial address took place in the Kerala Assembly before. The office of the Governor is only proving to be a burden on our federal polity. It must be abolished to put an end to interference by the Union in the working of elected state governments," he said. Jasprit Bumrah's return to action has now been delayed further after failing to recover fully from his lower back stress fracture as the senior India pacer was on Monday ruled out of the ODI series against Sri Lanka. Bumrah was named in the squad for the three-match series against Sri Lanka, starting Tuesday, but BCCI's support staff and medical team have collectively decided that his "return to play" will be delayed, keeping the all-important Border Gavaskar Trophy in mind. "Bumrah hasn't travelled with the team to Guwahati. He still needs some more time to get back to full fitness as he will be needed during the Australia Test series," a senior BCCI source told PTI on conditions of anonymity. Also Read | BCCI Apex Council emergent meeting: Byju's future, Star media rights payment on cards It will be interesting to see if Bumrah recovers to compete against New Zealand for the ODI series, starting January 18 and is fielded without playing even one domestic game. "The committee under MSK Prasad and earlier team management had made a rule that a player in order to return from injury must play at least one or if possible two domestic games before being termed ready for international comeback," a former office bearer recalled. Bumrah sustained a lower back stress fracture post England tour and missed the Asia Cup last year. Also Read | Cummins wants all bases covered for 'big series' against India To enhance team's chances at the T20 World Cup, Bumrah was rushed to the T20 side during a home series against Australia where he broke down once again and was ruled out for an indefinite period. It will not be a surprise if Bumrah plays the entire four-match Border Gavaskar Trophy, starting February 9. He is expected to be used sparingly as he would be needed for the marquee ODI World Cup at home later this year. Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah on Monday described as defamatory a book that BJP leaders are set to release to project the former Congress chief minister as an appeaser of minorities, especially Muslims. Higher Education Minister CN Ashwath Narayan is scheduled to release the book titled Siddu Nija Kanasugalu (The True Dreams of Siddu) at Town Hall later in the day. BJP SC Morcha chairperson Chalavadi Narayanaswamy, writer Rohith Chakratirtha (who courted controversy as the head of the textbook revision committee), columnist Santosh Thimmaiah and others are named on the invitation card for the book release event. Also Read | I am a Hindu but oppose Hindutva: Siddaramaiah The cover of the book shows Siddaramaiah dressed as erstwhile Mysuru ruler Tipu Sultan, who is despised by the Hindutva groups that accuse him of having been a tyrant who killed Hindus. Everything looks yellow to jaundiced eyes, Siddaramaiah told reporters. He recalled that BJP leader BS Yediyurappa himself had dressed up as Tipu Sultan once. And, who had written a foreword to Sheikh Alis book? the Congress leader said, referring to BJPs Jagadish Shettar. They are releasing this book targeting me because an election is coming. It is totally defamatory. Let's see what I can do legally, he said. Also Read | Republic Day parade: Rejection of Karnataka tableau kicks off a row Meanwhile, Karnataka Congress legal cell general secretary Surya Mukundraj L has petitioned the Bengaluru police seeking cancellation of the event keeping law and order in mind. The book adds to the BJPs effort to discredit Siddaramaiah, one of the most popular Congress leaders in Karnataka who is looking for a second term as chief minister should his party win the upcoming Assembly election. Two men have been jailed after being convicted of the manslaughter of a man in Maghera almost five years ago. Piotr Krowka, a native of Poland, was attacked in the south Derry town on the night of Saturday, March 31, 2018. The 37 year-old's body was discovered three days later, on April 3, inside a derelict property in the Glen Road area of the town (pictured below). Today, at Belfast Crown Court, two men were sentenced for the manslaughter of Mr Krowka. Adrian Kozak (22), of Garvey Wood in Ballymena, received a sentence of eight years. Four years of his sentence will be served in custody and four years on licence. Caolan Johnston, aged 21, with an address at The Fort, Maghera, was sentenced to six years: three years to be served in custody and three years on licence. Speaking following this morning's sentencing, Detective Inspector Davis said: It was an unprovoked and violent attack, carried out by Adrian Kozak and Caolon Johnston, which resulted in the death of Piotr Krowka. The results of the post mortem confirmed blunt force injuries to Piotrs head, and other injuries to his body. Piotr was a vulnerable, homeless man an innocent man who posed no threat or danger whatsoever. This was a sad and senseless loss of a life, and my thoughts and that of the investigation team are very much with the Krowka family. Kozak and Johnston had been out for the evening, socialising with a group of friends, before the attack took place. I hope that both these young men will come to understand the consequences of their actions on that night as they spend the next number of years in prison. Detective Inspector Davis added: Throughout this investigation, our officers worked closely with prosecutors from the Public Prosecution Service. Evidence gathered, including forensic evidence and CCTV footage, led to a guilty plea from both defendants. A 22-year-old man has been remanded in custody at Derry Magistrate's Court today on a series of drug charges. The man who was granted anonymity due to the general threat existing in the city faced charges relating to the finding of drugs valued between 4,500 to 5,000. The man was charged with five charges relating to possessing drugs with intent to supply on July 26 last year. He was also charged with 11 counts of possessing class A, B and C drugs with intent to supply on January 7, possessing the drugs and being concerned in the supply of drugs all on the same date. A police officer connected the accused to the charges and opposed bail. The court was told that police carried out a search of a property on July 26 and found drugs and as a result of forensic tests the defendant's DNA was found on a bag. Then as a result of intelligence the officer said a search was carried out of the defendant's home address on January 6. As a result cocaine of both low and high quality was found as well as cannabis, ecstasy, Xanax and Diazepam. The defendant was arrested and bail was opposed due to the fact he was already on police bail at the time of the alleged second set of offences. The officer also said that the address was not suitable as that was where the drugs were allegedly found. He added that police believed he would not abide by conditions. Defence solicitor Seamus Quigley said his client had no record and was only one of four people residing at the address. He said that the evidence in the July case 'was not great' and further evidence may or may not add to the case. The solicitor said that the incident was 'a wake up call' for his client who had accepted he had 'to do something about this.' District Judge Barney McElholm said that this man was on bail when the second set of offences were said to have occurred and there was a risk of further offences. Bail was refused and the man was remanded in custody to appear again on February 2. Detectives investigating the death of Natalie McNally have revisited the murder scene. Three weeks on from the killing of the 32-year-old expectant mother, officers spoke to motorists and pedestrians and handed out leaflets in the Silverwood Green area of Lurgan, Co Armagh. Ms McNally, who was 15 weeks pregnant, was stabbed in her home in Silverwood Green on December 18. Police have made two arrests but no-one has been charged. A 32-year-old man arrested on December 19 was released unconditionally and is no longer a suspect. A second man detained on December 21, also 32, has been released on police bail pending further inquiries. Officers investigating the murder seized a car from an address in the Lisburn and Castlereagh area on Saturday. Police also carried out house-to-house inquiries in the Lisburn area on Saturday. Last week detectives said the main line of inquiry was that Ms McNally was killed by someone she knew and was comfortable allowing into her home. Officers have said they do not think there is a risk to other women in the area. On Friday officers searched a number of areas close to Silverwood Green. They also went to a business property in the Armagh and Craigavon area. Police have appealed for help identifying a man captured on CCTV arriving at and leaving the street where Ms McNally lived on the night of the murder. Officers believe they have recovered the weapon used in the murder. A silent vigil for Ms McNally, at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, was held last Thursday, attended by her three brothers. Her brother Declan McNally told those at the vigil: Whatever differences of opinions there are in this country we know there is no difference of opinion and everybody wants to see an end to violence against women and girls. And everybody in society has to redouble our efforts to end violence against women and girls in memory of our sister Natalie. This photo by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration shows the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite. Yonhap The Korean science ministry on Monday warned that a retired U.S. satellite could possible fall on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinities later this day. Launched in 1984, the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) is falling to Earth after completing its decadeslong mission to study how the Earth absorbed and radiated energy from the sun. The Ministry of Science and ICT said the ERBS is forecast to crash back down to Earth around 12:20-1:20 p.m. and the Korean Peninsula is included in the regions that the satellite would fall toward. The ministry said the majority of the satellite will burn up upon re-entry to the atmosphere but asked Korean people to remain cautious about some components that will likely survive the process and reach the surface. (Yonhap) An inquest into the death of a man at Lisburn police station is hoped to be heard this year. David McGowan, 28, was found dead in his cell at the police station on May 30, 2014 after he and his girlfriend were arrested outside a flat in east Belfast. The Police Ombudsman completed a report into the death, and a police custody sergeant was subsequently charged with gross negligence manslaughter and misconduct in public office. However, the police custody sergeant was cleared of the charges in 2018. A pre-inquest review at Belfast Coroners Court took place on Monday. The inquest had previously been listed for November 2022. Work around disclosure of material for the inquest is ongoing. Coroner Joe McCrisken said he wants the bulk of disclosure to be completed within at least the next eight weeks Malachy McGowan, acting for next of kin, said the family are keen to get a date for the inquest and requested it be heard in Belfast. Mr McCrisken said there are a lot of competing court resource issues in Belfast, adding he believes they are ready to start looking at dates to hear the inquest this year. But without a finalised witness list on Monday and material to be disclosed, Mr McCrisken said he hoped to be in a better position, with an estimation of how long the inquest will last, by the next hearing to set a date. There is no point in me sending this to the listing team with a guesstimate on how long it is going to take, because court resources are valuable so we really need to have good idea about how long this inquest is likely to last, he said. Mr McGowan also said the next of kin have lodged a judicial review around the decision by Chief Constable Simon Byrne in the police disciplinary. But he said that he doesnt believe it will affect the running of the inquest. Another review hearing has been scheduled for February 16. The Financial Times recently reported that Apple is now hiring to fill positions in a rumoured physical store that will open in India. The company has posted job openings across various locations for 12 retail stores. These openings include roles such as Genius Bar workers, store leaders, store managers, and so on. The part-time and full-time positions refer to the unconfirmed Apple Stores, however, there is no information regarding how many roles there are. Apple has already begun hiring for its physical store According to The Financial Times, Apple has already hired five employees in New Delhi and Mumbai. Apples head of recruiting in India, Renu Sevanthi, confirmed the same on LinkedIn. Last year, The Economic Times reported that Apple was planning to open a store spanning 22,000 square feet in Mumbai at the beginning of 2023. They are also going to open a 10,000 - 12,000 square foot store in New Delhi, and others in the country. But, the official opening dates are yet to be confirmed. More Apple iPhones manufactured in India In other news, Apple has also expanded production in India recently due to the delays in manufacturing caused by internal issues in China. With India all set to increase the scope of production yet again, the tech giant may be viewing the country as a viable manufacturing hub that can beat Vietnam and China when it comes to cheap operational costs. India also represents a large smartphone market, and though only a select few in the country can purchase Apple products, going by the population, even that small demographic represents a large number of consumers. EMI options on e-commerce websites have increased the pool of willing consumers too. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. We saw a bunch of cool tech unveiled at the CES 2023, with many geared towards high-end consumers ready to transform their lives with futuristic tech. Now, one of the offerings that really stood out for us is the Accsoon SeeMo, a gadget that has been designed for creators so that they can have a more productive shooting experience. What is the Accsoon SeeMo? The Accsoon SeeMo is a device that allows you to mount an Apple iPhone or iPad on your primary camera (such as a DSLR) and use the former as a display to see whether youre in the frame, and what the output looks like. This can be really useful for those who rely on the flip-out LCD screens and dont have a second person directing them during the shoot. The idea is that you wont have to buy a specialised monitor and can save money by just using an existing Apple iPad or iPhone. You only need an HDMI cable to connect the device with your camera. Another appealing feature of this device is that you dont need to use the cameras SD card to save the recordings. They can, instead, be saved directly onto the Apple iPad or iPhone. You can then airdrop the raw files onto your Macbook and start editing. Accsoon SeeMo price The Accsoon SeeMo price is $179 which is around 14,736.90. It is available for purchase now. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. Realme 10 4G, which is the official successor to the Realme 9, has launched in India. The smartphone is a mid-range offering from the brand, with the price starting at 13,999. The sale will start on January 15t The Realme 10 4G will be available for purchase on realme.com, Flipkart, and retail stores. Realme 10 4G specifications The Realme 10 4G comes with a 6.5-inch FHD+ AMOLED display that has a 90Hz refresh rate. The Realme 10 comes with a 50MP primary camera along with a 2MP black and white portrait camera. The smartphone has a 16MP front camera. The smartphone runs on a MediaTek Helio G99 SoC coupled with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and up to 128GB UFS 2.2 storage (this can be expanded by 8GB via the dynamic RAM support). The smartphone runs on Android 13-based Realme UI custom skin. Internally, the phone also has a 5,000 mAh battery capacity with 33W SuperVOOC fast charging support which, according to the brands claims, charges the smartphone from 0 to 50 per cent in 28 minutes. The paraphernalia includes a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, 3.5mm hack, and Hi-Res audio. Realme 10 4G price in India The price of the Realme 10 4G in India starts at 13,999 for the 4GB + 64GB variant. On the other hand, the 8GB +128GB variant is available for 16,999. The brand has also revealed an introductory offer. The Realme 10 4G 4GB + 64GB is applicable for a 1,000 discount, bringing the price down to 12,999. The Realme 10 4G is available in two colour options Clash White and Rush Black. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. Realme revealed its 240W SuperVOOC charging technology last week and also confirmed that the Realme GT Neo 5 will be using the same. According to Pricebaba, the Realme GT Neo 5 will see a global launch at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023, which is going to happen in Barcelona, Spain, between February 27 and March 2. Realme GT Neo 5 specifications (Expected) Alleged Realme GT Neo 5 live image Source: Weibo Realme GT Neo 5 could have a 6.74-inch AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 144Hz, 1.5K resolution, and an under-display fingerprint scanner. It is likely to have a punch-hole design with a 16MP front camera. The smartphone is said to come with a 50MP Sony IMX890 primary camera, an 8 MP ultra-wide lens, and a 2 MP macro camera. The innards of the phone could house a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset along with Realme UI 4.0 laid on top of Android 13 OS. It could offer up to 16GB of RAM. The Realme GT Neo 5 is expected to be available in two variants. The first is said to have a 5,000 mAh battery capacity with 240W fast charging and up to 1TB of UFS 3.1 storage. The second could have a 4,600 mAh battery capacity, support 150W fast charging, and offer up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Realme GT Neo 5 launch in India We don't have any specific launch date details but the company has teased the Realme GT Neo 5 launch in India. For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. Recently, we learned that Samsung Galaxy S23 will launch during the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Event on February 1, 2023. Now, further hyping the product launch, the pre-registration offers have also come out. Samsung Galaxy S23 series pre-registration offers (Expected) A new teaser image for the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2023 event was revealed by an Estonian retailer known as Euronics (via @sondesix). This image doesnt just showcase the launch date, but also highlights a lucrative offer for pre-registration. According to the leaked teaser, the company will offer free Galaxy Buds 2 Pro to customers who pre-register for the Samsung Galaxy S23. While this particular image was created for Estonia, there are chances that the same may be available in other countries too. Other launch offers that may come your way It is believed that the company may come out with more pre-order deals after the smartphone series is launched. It may end up offering the Galaxy Watch 4 series, Galaxy Buds 2, or Galaxy Buds 2 Pro along with an S23 smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro is a high-end TWS offering from the brand that comes with a good smattering of features. Want to know whether it's worth getting these? Read our official review! For more technology news, product reviews, sci-tech features and updates, keep reading Digit.in or head to our Google News page. 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Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Two prominent representatives within the Irish fishing industry say that as seafood exports delivered just one one percent growth over the last half decade compared to 25% in Norway in the last year, it is time to get serious about moving the countrys seafood sector. Aodh O Donnell, chief executive of the Irish Fish Producers Organisation said the figure was striking when compared with the Norwegian seafood export market. Our seafood exports delivered less than 1% growth over the last five years. Norway, a non-EU member with a similar population, delivered seafood export growth of 25% in the last year alone. In 2022, their seafood exports were worth 14bn, compared to just 0.674bn for Irish exports. They have succeeded where we have faltered, as they now export 20 times the value of Irish exports annually, with EU markets accounting for 43% of this. Our economy and coastal communities should benefit from the resource our waters represent. Instead, other EU and non-EU fleets are increasingly permitted to catch more fish in our waters than the Irish fleet. Yet the EU re-opens talks this week to consider Norways request to catch 450,000 tonnes of blue whiting. This is over nine times the size of Irelands quota. Furthermore, Norway is seeking to catch most of their blue whiting quota from our stocks in Irish waters. O Donnell says the critical EU-Norway talks broke down in December and commended the Irish Government and Marine Minister for opposing an unfair deal. Aodh O Donnell, chief executive of the Irish Fish Producers Organisation The EU must ensure fairness is central to any proposal to grant Norway greater access to Irish waters. Ireland cannot be expected to acquiesce to these new and additional requests for access unless we are offered a reciprocal arrangement. O Donnell says Irish fishing bodies appreciate that other EU States desperately want a deal with Norway to give them access to Norway for cod stocks. But it is unthinkable, unjust and inequitable that everyone else should gain at Irelands expense. Its time the EU acted positively to support growth of Irelands seafood sector instead of constantly allocating us an unfair share of fishing quotas. "Our quotas were decimated in 2021, dropping 15% after the disastrous Brexit Agreement. Under this agreement, 40% of the EU quota transferred to the UK came from Ireland, far more than was taken from any other EU State. "The national response to this has been to shrink the whitefish fleet by 30 % through a permanent decommissioning, instead of seeking a fairer quota. Most of our stocks are in a healthy state. We need fair treatment and to steer a new course if our seafood sector is to survive and grow, like Norways. Brendan Byrne of the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association says fishing bodies are united on this issue. We acknowledge that other EU fleets want an EU-Norway agreement to give them access to Norwegian waters. But it cannot be at Irelands expense, so there must be something on the table for us too. We are open to reciprocal arrangements. The Irish Government must maintain the position that any new access for Norway to our fishing grounds must be treated separately from the existing EU-Norway historical agreement. To cede any part of Irelands traditional fishing grounds requires a separate arrangement by the EU which compensates us for any displacement. Patrick Murphy of the Irish South and West Producers Organisation (IS&WFPO) says the Government must be resolute and clear. If Norway is seeking access to any part, however small or large, of Irelands fishing grounds south of 56 degrees or east of 12 degrees, then this is a new request. Ireland must not allow pieces of these fishing grounds to be ceded away in a piecemeal fashion. A firm position must be taken until a clear arrangement is reached which benefits Ireland as much as Norway. Ireland must no longer attend the table as a perpetual loser, we must be prepared to walk away and refuse to countenance any additional unfair deal with a non-EU Member. Aodh O Donnell says Ireland has many things in common with Norway. We have a similar population of five million, sharing a long maritime tradition. They have enjoyed successive years of compound annual growth of seafood exports resulting in impressive social and economic benefits to coastal communities. In contrast, the Irish marine sector has declined and stagnated during its 50 years of EU membership. We are now at a crossroads and Ireland must be prepared to maintain a firm unwavering stance. A radical re-set is required to resist unfettered access to our waters by non-EU countries. Ireland must be prepared to walk away unless a meaningful quota transfer is agreed, in return for giving Norway wider access to our blue whiting. "The Minister has already shown resolve on this matter, and he must insist a piecemeal deal is unacceptable. He has our full support on this crucial issue, to help turn the tide for our coastal communities. A man washes a baby bottle while looking after a baby at home. gettyimagesbank South Korean plans to expand the period of parental leave of working parents from the current one year to one year and six months, the labor ministry said Monday. The Ministry of Employment and Labor also said it plans to increase the quota of foreign workers with non-professional employment visas for this year to alleviate pandemic-induced labor shortages. The plans were included in Labor Minister Lee Jeong-sik's report to President Yoon Suk Yeol on his ministry's work plan for this year. First, the government is pushing to guarantee up to 18 months of parental leave for each parent when both are working. The plan is the government's effort to encourage more couples to seek maternity or paternity leave to cope with the country's extremely low birthrate, officials said. Also, the labor ministry has decided to issue the E-9 visa to an annual record high of 110,000 foreign workers this year. The decision was made as the industries relying heavily on the immigrant workforce have experienced labor shortages amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and the heightened border controls. The government also plans to revise a relevant law so that foreign workers can stay more than 10 years without going through the process of departure and re-entry to guarantee their skills. The labor ministry will also push forward a policy to reduce deaths or injuries caused at workplaces by enforcing companies to adopt a risk assessment system. Starting this year, the government plans to enforce companies with 300 or more employees to adopt the system and further expand it to smaller firms with five or more employees by 2025. The government will conduct an investigation on whether such a system was properly executed in case of workplace deaths or injuries, the officials said. Also, the labor ministry plans to launch a committee by the end of this month to discuss measures to reorganize the wage system centered around performance. The committee will be comprised of personnel managers, workers, experts in labor law or labor-management relations, and government officials. (Yonhap) Na Kyung-won, vice chief of the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy, gives a press conference in Seoul, Jan. 5. Courtesy of Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy The office of President Yoon Suk Yeol openly voiced displeasure after the head of a presidential population committee proposed massive spending on curbing low birthrates without prior consultation with the top office. Some aides have even called for sacking Na Kyung-won, a former four-term lawmaker currently heading the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy as its vice chair, according to people familiar with the matter. President Yoon is the committee's ex officio chair. The row between Na and the presidential office has also spurred speculation that Yoon might be against her taking over as new chairperson of the ruling People Power Party. Na is one of the leading contenders for the PPP leadership. A TV screen at Seoul Station shows a news program reporting about South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol speaking during a Cabinet meeting, Dec. 27, 2022. AP-Yonhap No signs yet of updates to military cost-sharing agreement By Kim Yoo-chul With the United States preferring to position its military strategic assets in or near South Korea to match North Korea's provocations, experts and defense officials who have been involved in Seoul's past defense cost-sharing talks with Washington have said the Biden administration could ask the Yoon government to contribute more for the holding of tabletop drills. Despite Pyongyang's repeated military provocations, top Washington officials aren't ready to drastically scale up some aspects of its military readiness with Seoul including holding joint nuclear exercises, as doing this is still viewed as unnecessary and could even lead to misunderstandings with not just North Korea but also other countries in Northeast Asia. "What is absent from inter-Korean dialogue is an immediate and overarching need on either side to rely on dialogue to achieve essential national security objectives. As a result, dialogue may not be forthcoming until both sides have a felt need and sense of urgency around the necessity to engage in diplomacy with each other," Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies and director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), told The Korea Times recently. U.S. President Joe Biden simply responded "No" when he was asked whether he was discussing joint nuclear drills with South Korea. Later, U.S. officials elaborated that both Washington and Seoul are involved in the process of strengthening extended deterrence, including eventually through tabletop exercises that would explore the countries' joint response to a range of various scenarios. Because Washington officials aren't supportive of the idea of Seoul having its own nuclear weapons, given the strong wishes by the United States and China to keep the current status quo and the instability that may follow unexpected changes, the conservative Yoon administration has few viable options to deter the North's threats. Experts urged the administration to focus on the timely deployment of strategic U.S. military assets closer to the peninsula. "The Yoon administration is hoping for a NATO-style military arrangement, in which authorized South Korean military personnel will be trained to handle strategic U.S. military assets depending on circumstances, as a message to his political supporters that the administration could manage the North Korean nuclear issue effectively, based on the U.S.' extended deterrence guarantees rather than having South Korea's own nuclear weapons," a senior defense official said by telephone. A recent poll by Hankook Research showed about 67 percent of South Koreans supported the idea of the country having its own nuclear arsenal, broken down to 70 percent of conservatives and 54 percent of liberals. As North Korea becomes more belligerent, more South Koreans fear that if Pyongyang can actually attack a city on U.S. soil, Washington would be reluctant to respond to any North Korean attack on Seoul, though security experts said the North's repeated provocations are aimed at pursuing a "position of strengths" for better concessions from the United States before the restarting of nuclear talks. Since the early 1990s, when the United States had pulled various tactical nuclear weapons from the peninsula after agreeing to a nuclear disarmament deal with the Soviet Union, Washington hasn't stationed any nuclear weapons here. Instead, the United States offers its nuclear umbrella to South Korea, which means that Washington can use all its nuclear assets to defend Seoul but only if highly necessary. No free ride While the South Korean government is boasting about its readiness to possibly counter North Korea's provocations by responding with shows of force, this strategy could increase the costs for national defense, according to security experts. A TV screen shows footage of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a news program at Seoul Station Jan. 1. AP-Yonhap "Seoul's security dependence exists with North Korean provocations. South Korea's tit-for-tat reactions will cost a lot given Seoul's high level of interest to conduct various types of joint military exercises with U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups, bombers and F-35 stealth jets on waters off the peninsula," an aide to former President Moon, who had been involved in previous Special Measures Agreement (SMA) negotiations with Washington years ago, said in a separate call. "There is a high possibility for Washington to ask Seoul to pay more toward the cost of positioning U.S. strategic assets closer to the peninsula." The SMA addresses South Korea's contribution to the costs of hosting the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) here. When it comes to holding Washington-Seoul joint military drills, each party is responsible to cover their relevant costs. But depending on the number of South Korea's requests for the positioning of U.S. strategic military assets near the peninsula, the United States could impose very real financial costs on the South Korean side, said security experts and defense officials. The estimated one-day cost for the positioning of one U.S. air carrier strike group including two or three destroyers, submarines, logistics ships and a supply ship for long-range military exercises is at least $6.5 million. Plus, flying B-series U.S. bombers, ranges from $40,000 to $130,000 per hour, which doesn't even take into account the cost to operate air refueling fleets, according to sources. During SMA negotiations in 2018, the Donald Trump administration demanded Seoul pay full financial coverage of the deployment of U.S. strategic military assets on the peninsula, but South Korea didn't accept the request. U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 leaders' summit in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2022. Reuters-Yonhap A 28-year-old Brazilian librarian who died violently on New Years Day has been remembered at a vigil in the Lough in Cork as a beloved daughter, sister, friend, a hard worker and a dreamer. Over two hundred people attended the prayer service at 10am today with representatives of both the Brazilian and Irish communities holding white candles and white roses during the celebration of the life of Bruna Fonseca. The event was attended by Maria Fonseca, the 18-year-old niece of Bruna and her cousin Marcela Fonseca who are both living in Cork. The pair held white roses through the prayers which they placed on a table bearing the Brazilian flag and a white floral arrangement once the vigil concluded. Family and friends of Bruna comfort each other. Pepole leave flowers and light candles at the vigil for Bruna Fonseca at The Lough Cork on Sunday morning 8th January 2023. Pic: Larry Cummins Brazilian national Gabriela Lobianco said that Bruna was a much-loved young woman who had moved to Cork last year to study and work. Seven days ago we woke up reading the shocking news about Bruna. We as a community would like to express our deepest condolences and sympathies to her family and friends. Violence against women has no race or nationality. It is a worldwide issue. A second speaker, Pedro Baroso, expressed his gratitude to all those who contributed to a Go Fund me set up to raise funds to repatriate Bruna to her home town of Formica in Brazil for burial. He also thanked gardai and the community in Cork for their assistance following the death of Ms Fonseca. Family and friends of Bruna at the vigil for Bruna Fonseca at The Lough Cork on Sunday morning 8th January 2023. Pic: Larry Cummins A message was read out on behalf of a woman called Maria Paula who was the best friend of Bruna for over twenty years in Brazil. Maria Paula said that Bruna was like a sunny day in the rainy season. She was a loving and dedicated daughter and sister, a confidant, friend and great companion, a committed and honest professional. She would welcome you with open arms, her laugh contagious to whoever was around and if we can personify the world resilience it would be her. There was nothing in the world that would make her give up. Her dreams were just too big. Meanwhile, the vigil was also attended by several politicians including Tanaiste Micheal Martin, Senator Jerry Buttimer and Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Deirdre Forde. Mr Martin said that the death of Bruna was an enormous tragedy. The horrific killing of Bruna brings to mind the need to create a culture in society that has a zero tolerance for misogyny and in particular for violence against women. Pepole leave flowers and light candles at the vigil for Bruna Fonseca at The Lough Cork on Sunday morning 8th January 2023. Pic: Larry Cummins All the arrangements have more or less been made (for the repatriation of Bruna to Brazil.) It is very traumatic and sad for all concerned. She came to make a life here in Cork. She loved her job. It is clear from what we have heard this morning that she was a warm beautiful person who touched the lives of many people. Cllr Forde offered her condolences to the family following the tragic loss of Bruna. She said that the death of Bruna reminds us also of the precious lives of women who have died in similar circumstances in Ireland in recent years. At the time of her death Bruna was working as a contract cleaner at Mercy University Hospital in Cork. Bruna is survived by her parents Marina and Tadeu and her sisters Izabel and Fernanda. Izabel told a newspaper in Brazil that Bruna "was always helping those who sought help from her." Ms Fonseca had gone to socialise with friends in Cork on New Year's Eve and was found dead at a flat in Liberty Street at 6.30am the following day after the emergency services were called to come to the address. People with white roses at the vigil for Bruna Fonseca at The Lough Cork on Sunday morning 8th January 2023. Pic: Larry Cummins Efforts were made to revive the graduate of the Centro Universitario de Formiga. However, she was pronounced dead at the scene. A family liaison officer has been appointed and consular assistance will be given in terms of repatriating her body to Brazil. A man has appeared in court charged with the murder of Ms Fonseca at 5 Liberty Street in Cork on January 1st. The 29-year-old Brazilian national is before the court again tomorrow. Some 50 people gathered at Cork Penny Dinners on Sunday afternoon for a Mass to remember Bruna Fonseca, who died in violent circumstances in the city centre on New Years Day. Ms Fonseca, 28, a native of Formiga in Brazils Minas Gerais province, had moved to Cork last September. A qualified librarian, she had been working as a contract cleaner at the Mercy University Hospital (MUH). Ms Fonseca had been socialising with friends in Cork on New Years Eve and was found dead at a flat in Liberty Street at 6.30am the following day. Miller Pacheco, 29, a Brazilian native, was charged with murder at a special court sitting last Monday evening. Fr Jack Twomey, ONE members Paddy Mulley, Anthony Arnold, Liam McLoughlin, Caitriona Twomey of Cork Penny Dinners and Jerry Kelly at the mass in memory of Bruna Fonseca at Cork Penny Dinners Croi na Laoi Centre on James Street, Cork on Sunday afternoon. Also remembered at the mass was Angelica Carmen Gomez Lopes who died tragically in San Paulo on 2nd December 2022. Pic: Larry Cummins. A Mass was celebrated by Father Jack Twomey at the Penny Dinners Craoi na Laoi centre on James Street on Sunday to remember Ms Fonseca. Caitriona Twomey, Penny Dinners co-ordinator told The Echo that some Penny Dinners volunteers had known Ms Fonseca to say hello to, as her workplace was only around the corner from the charity. Fr Jack said a beautiful Mass, and we had prayers of the faithful for Bruna, for her family and for her friends, to let them know that our hearts are with them, Ms Twomey said. We also prayed for Angelica Carmen Gomez Lopes, who had lived in Anne Street and was tragically killed in a car accident in Brazil. Ms Twomey said Ms Fonseca and her family were in the prayers of Penny Dinners volunteers. Ms Fonsecas death brought to 254 the number of women who have died in violent circumstances in Ireland since 1996. SERGEANT Major Daniel Dan Joseph Daly is a very famous name in the USA. He was a Marine who, a century ago, won more awards for bravery than you could shake a stick at, and they say he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of enemy soldiers. In one incident in Haiti in 1915, he is reputed to have killed seven men with his knife while recovering a large machine gun from the enemy. On another occasion, he singlehandedly defended a post until reinforcements arrived and he rescued several men while under fire and brought them to safety. Few have heard of him in this neck of the woods, which is strange because Sgt Major Dan Daly may have been born in Cork, near Crookstown. A gentleman in Co. Kilkenny was researching his ancestral heritage when he came across information indicating Daly could have been Irish by birth. He discovered that a John Daly and his wife Ellen, who lived near Cloughduv, had emigrated to America in the 1800s. They had a child, but didnt register him with the authorities until he was three years old and so, for the rest of his life, he would be three years older than was stated on his birth certificate. It seems that boy could have grown up to become the famous Marine. In the history of the United States Marine Corps, Sergeant Daniel Daly is considered a legend. He earned enough awards to decorate a small army, so he must have been something special. He wasnt a big man in the physical sense, he was only 5ft 6in and about 9 stone, or 135 pounds, but he had plenty of courage and was a natural born leader. Daly was fearless and respected among officers and enlisted men, and epitomized what it meant to be a Marine. He received the Medal of Honour, the Nations highest military award, not once but twice, for separate acts of heroism. He also received the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Service Cross, three Letters of Commendation and a Good Conduct Medal with two bronze stars. As if that wasnt enough, Daly also received a China Relief Expedition Medal, a Philippine Campaign Medal, an Expeditionary Medal with one bronze star, a Mexican Service Medal, a Haitian Campaign Medal, a World War I Victory Medal with Aisne, St Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne and Defensive-Sector clasps, a Medaille Militaire, a Croix de Guerre with Palm and the Fourragere. He could have capitalised on his fame, but he didnt like publicity and he described the fuss made over him as a lot of foolishness. Dalys colleagues described him as a strict disciplinarian, but fair at the same time. They say he had a reckless daring but was always concerned about his men. He was offered a commission on several occasions, but said that he would prefer to be an outstanding sergeant than just another officer. During desperate fighting in World War I in 1918, while the Americans were taking a severe beating when outnumbered, outgunned, and pinned down, Sergeant Major Daly ordered an attack and shouted to his tired men: Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever? It was a battle cry he denied ever using because an NCO in the US Marines did not use bad language. In May, 1900, Daly landed in China with the U.S. Marines. He was part of the U.S. Embassy Guard in Peking when the Boxer Rebellion broke out. In one of the most memorable acts of that war, the Boxers surrounded the compound of the foreign legations in Peking and laid siege to it for 55 days. At one point, when German Marines of the German embassy were forced back, Daly by himself took a position in a bastion on the Tarter Wall and remained there throughout the night, despite being subjected to sniper fire and numerous attacks. When relieved in the morning, Daly was still holding his position with the bodies of numerous attackers surrounding his position. For this, he was awarded his first Medal of Honour. His second Medal of Honour came 15 years later in 1915, when he was fighting with U.S forces supporting the government in Haiti against rebels. One night, he was part of a group of 35 Marines ambushed by a force of approximately 400 Haitian insurgents. Daly led one of the three groups of men during the fight to reach a nearby fort and was awarded the medal for his bravery. While on patrol in the same conflict, a Company of Marines were crossing a river when they were attacked by about 400 concealed insurgents. A horse that was carrying the heavy machine gun was shot and killed and lay in the river with the gun attached to him. Dan Daly volunteered to recover the machine gun and they say he killed up to seven Cacos Rebels with just a knife while he was cutting the straps that held the machine gun in place. With bullets hitting the water all around him, he returned to his Company with the machine gun strapped to his back. At dawn the next day, the Marines advanced in three directions, surprising the Rebels and forcing them to scatter. During World War I, at the battle of Belleau Wood, Dale risked his life to extinguish a fire in an ammunition dump. Two days later, he single-handedly attacked an enemy machine gun emplacement, capturing it using only hand grenades and an automatic pistol. In the course of that battle, he was wounded three times. Sgt Major Dan Daly retired officially in 1929, and worked as a bank guard on Wall Street, New York City. He died at Glendale, Long Island, New York, on April 28, 1937, and his remains are buried in Cypress Hills. Not a bad record for a lad from Crookstown, Co. Cork? Iran has sentenced to death three people accused of killing three members of the security forces during the protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, the judiciary said on January 9. The latest sentences, which can still be appealed, bring to 17 the total number of people condemned to death in connection with the more than three months of protests. Four of those convicted have been executed, and two others are on death row after their sentences were upheld by the country's supreme court. To read the original story from AFP, click here. 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. A record amount of electricity in Great Britain was produced by wind farms in 2022, but most of its power still came from gas-fired plants, according to the National Grid. Wind farms provided 26.8 percent of Britains electricity last year, up from 21.8 percent in 2021, reported Reuters. The biggest offshore wind farm in the world, the North Seas Hornsea 2 which is located off the Coast of Yorkshire and came into operation in August of last year can power about 1.4 million homes. The fact that the UKs onshore and offshore wind farms keep setting new electricity generation records shows just how important this technology has become in our modern energy system, said CEO of RenewableUK Dan McGrail, Energy Live News reported. In 2022, 38.5 percent of Britains electricity came from gas-fired power plants, an increase of 0.7 percent from the previous year, reported Reuters. Electricity imports showed a marked decline, however, decreasing from 10.3 percent in 2021 to 5.5 percent last year, in part because of Frances troubles with its nuclear fleet. For Great Britain to reach its goal of net zero emissions by 2050 it will have to significantly increase its generation of renewable power like solar and wind. The National Grids electricity system operator (ESO) reported that a new wind generation record had been set on December 30 of 2022 when turbines produced 20.91 gigawatts, The Guardian reported. Coal produced only 1.5 percent of Britains power last year, down from 43 percent a decade earlier, the ESO said. Last year, cabinet ministers in the UK rushed to come up with back-up plans to supply power in the event that a cold weather snap caused a disruption or Russian supplies abruptly stopped. As it turned out, overall the UKs winter weather has been unseasonably mild, and gas prices have dropped. In general, 48.5 percent of power came from renewables and nuclear power last year, while gas and coal supplied 40 percent, reported BBC News. Since 2015, there has been an effective ban on onshore wind in the UK. However, in December 2022 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed to ease restrictions on onshore wind turbines. Our old-fashioned energy grid urgently needs investment to maximise the opportunity that wind and solar offer to continue to reduce bills, Head of Energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit Jess Ralston told BBC News. Kura Sushi launches AI-farmed mackerel tuna in Japan Kura Sushi featured farmed "AI Sumagatsuo" at its restaurants in Japan for the first time in December 2-15 last year. The AI Sumagatsuo also known as eastern little tuna or mackerel tuna in English is the third fish species being farmed at the sushi chain's Kura Osakana Farm, joining its farming of red sea bream and yellowtail. Kura Sushi said its first batch of farmed mackerel tuna totaled six tonnes, and the company intends to double production in 2023. The fish are farmed through a process utilising artificial intelligence provided by Umitron Corporation, a Tokyo, Japan-based technology firm that has moved into the aquaculture space. "The aim is to reduce procurement costs and stabilise purchases by using domestically farmed fish," Kura Sushi said in a press release. About 70% of Kura Sushi's sushi toppings are imported, and procurement costs are increasing due to rising prices and the weak yen. Additionally, Japanese aquaculture is suffering labor shortages and increased production costs including the cost of feed. The use of automation, and artificial intelligence to regulate the feeding amount, helps to address these issues, Kura Sushi said. Kura Sushi collaborated with Ehime Prefecture, Ehime University and aquaculture companies in Ehime Prefecture to produce the AI Sumagatsuo. It took about six months from hatching to grow the fish to a shipping size of 1.2-1.3 kilogrammes. - SeafoodSource Edo, Nigeria to empower 500,000 poultry farmers The state governor of Edo, Nigeria, Godwin Obaseki, said his administration, in collaboration with Amo Farm Sieberer Hatchery Limited and Heifer International, will empower 500,000 smallholder poultry farmers. He disclosed this during a ground breaking ceremony of the Heifer-supported 10,000-per-day Amo Farm Poultry Processing Plant at Obayantor in Ikpoba-Okha LGA. According to Obaseki, the state is ready to harness the potentials in poultry production to diversify the economy and eliminate unemployment in the state. "...we are putting a processing facility that will help hatch chickens so that farmers will come and buy, they will support them with feeds and other veterinary products," he said. "And once they have grown their chickens, they will buy back from the farmers and the farmers can go on with their normal jobs with this as a side business. "Farmers no longer have to wait for Christmas or Easter to sell their chickens because there is already an existing market they can sell to." The country director of Heifer international, Rufus Idris, stated that the partnership was to support 200,000 farmers by 2025 and 500,000 farmers by 2030. He added that, the farmers would engage in the production of noiler and broiler chickens, while a private sector partner, Amo Farm, would guarantee sustainable off-take of the chickens produced by the farmers. He also explained that the initiative would impact about 500,000 farmers, create more than 850 jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for youths and women. "Under this partnership, Amo Farm Sieberer Hatchery Limited is to establish a standard poultry processing plant, starting with a 10,000 chicken per day capacity," Idris said. "Edo is known for its large number of smallholder poultry farmers who are constrained by poor market access for chickens produced due to absence of structured market and off-taker in the state. "Nigeria consumes about 1.5 million tonnes of chicken annually, but only 30% of that is produced locally. "Nigeria's poultry sector, a $4.2 billion industry, is witnessing a rise in demand for poultry meat and egg driven by increasing population and urbanisation." - Voice of Nigeria Barbados' small-scale poultry farmers oppose extension of social compact Small-scale poultry farmers in Barbados are taking a stand against any notion of extending a social compact that the country's government has designed to give consumers an ease from rising food prices. On January 7, during a meeting at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, the farmers voted that the Barbados Egg and Poultry Producers' Association (BEPPA) should not enter into such an agreement with the government again. Farmer Robert Tudor made the proposition, which was seconded by Hugh Weekes. Last year, the management of the island's largest producers of poultry and eggs Chickmont Foods Ltd, Star Chick Ltd and Fasosn Food Inc (Amir Chicken) signed into the compact, agreeing that from August 19 to January 31 they would sell their offerings at 10% less. Small-scale farmers did not have a say in the negotiations, and they said they were compromised by the arrangement as retailers, restaurants, supermarkets and other businesses are demanding that they offer their products at the same prices as the larger players. Small-scale farmers represent more than 40% of the poultry industry and this had a detrimental impact on their enterprises. Many of them could not sustain selling their products for 10% less and either scaled down their operations significantly or stopped producing completely. This then disrupted the business of the island's main hatchery Gale's Agro Products Ltd with scores of small farmers canceling orders and the hatchery losing thousands of dollars worth in sales. They also had to euthanise thousands of birds as a result. In the meeting, officials reported that Gale's had to cut back on its overseas supply of hatching eggs and dropped operations by 20%. "We have had an extremely challenging period during the [height of] COVID-19 and that compact has impacted on us significantly," said BEPPA president and chairman of the meeting Stephen Layne. "We need to recover the poultry industry, both eggs and chicken. We should be looking at having a price increase far less [getting into a compact]. I am subscribing to the protection and growth of the poultry sector so we cannot afford it." - Barbados Today Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the ruling conservative People Power Party (PPP) speaks during a press conference declaring his bid for the party's leadership at the National Assembly, Seoul, Monday. Yonhap By Lee Hae-rin Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the ruling conservative People Power Party (PPP) announced his bid, Monday, to run for the party's leadership, vowing to help President Yoon Suk Yeol become a successful leader. During a press conference at the National Assembly, Ahn, a former presidential candidate who dropped out of the March 9 election last year to support Yoon, said he and the president "have a shared destiny" and that the future of his political career depends on the success of the Yoon administration. "If President Yoon fails, there is no political future for Ahn Cheol-soo No one can be more desperate than I am for the success of President Yoon," he said. The lawmaker stressed that the party's victory at the National Assembly elections next year will be crucial for the Yoon administration and promised to do his best to help the PPP clinch a "landslide victory" if elected. The Seoul metropolitan area will become a battlefield again in the upcoming elections, the lawmaker said, and vowed to secure at least 70 out of 121 seats up for grabs in the region to gain a majority in the 300-seat National Assembly. In 2020's National Assembly elections, the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), which was the ruling party at the time, won a landslide victory, obtaining 180 out of 300 seats to become the dominant majority able to pass most bills and motions without support from other parties. Ahn also vowed to reform the ruling party by resolving feuds and divisions within the PPP ahead of the nomination process next year, and build a team of policymaking experts. "I am free from the party's factions, so I have no particular line of politicians I need to look after," Ahn said, explaining that he can focus on the party's victory instead of being hindered by intra-party feuding. He said he will also bring in several policy experts from outside of the party to map out a policy agenda that will ensure a victory against the DPK. Meanwhile, Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon and Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun also declared their bids to run for the party leadership. Na Kyung-won, a former lawmaker and vice head of the presidential committee on Korea's aging society and population policy, however, has yet to declare her bid for the leadership. She currently leads public opinion polls. But Na has been at odds with the presidential office after making controversial remarks about writing off the debts of couples who give birth to children. An official from the presidential office criticized Na, saying her proposal to write off debt held by parents is her own idea, and not the policy stance of the president. The official said it was inappropriate for a key post holder like Na to take advantage of her position to build her political career. Na has not responded to the criticism. Poland and Denmark still biggest markets for Norway's salmon Poland and Denmark, both with large salmon processing sectors, continued to be the largest markets for Norwegian salmon last year, according to the annual figures published by the Norwegian Seafood Council. But seafood sales to the United Kingdom, which traditionally buys a great deal of Norwegian cod and haddock, increased by 27% to kr7.8 billion (US$781.1 million) in 2022. The United States showed the most dramatic rise at 46% with much of it salmon while sales to China rose by 45% despite some large cities facing COVID shutdowns. Figures released by the council showed that Norwegian seafood exports reached kr151.4 billion (US$15.2 billion), a record value, in 2022. Seafood Council analyst Eivind Hestvik Brkkan said: "We have also seen significant growth in the export value to Great Britain, driven by increased exports of frozen whole cod. We have to go all the way back to the year 2000 to find a higher export value of frozen cod to Great Britain." Last year, aquaculture accounted for 73% of Norway's total seafood exports by value, while in volume, it made up 45%. In 2022, Norway exported 1.3 million tonnes of seafood from aquaculture. According to seafood analyst Paul T. Aandahl, the export volume to the US ended at around 66,000 tonnes, which is 22% per cent higher than the previous year. - Fish Farmer Meat businesses in western Iowa, US, to get US$1 million funding from USDA Two western Iowa, US operations will receive about US$1 million in financing from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to expand local meat production, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced. Jordan's Meat Market, a startup in Marcus, will receive an US$800,000 loan guarantee to cover construction and provide working capital for the northwest Iowa project. Waubonsie Ridge Beef, a family-owned cattle operation west of Tabor in southwest Iowa, will receive a US$210,000 grant to support expanded beef processing and marketing, the agriculture department said. The business sells beef and pork locally and online. Altogether, the department provided US$9.6 million in grants and loan guarantees to expand production regionally as well as boost rural economies. Vilsack told reporters the financing will help improve farmers' and ranchers' bottom line while strengthening the United States' food supply chain. A couple of western Iowa businesses will receive about US$1 million in financing from the USDA to expand beef and other livestock processing. "We're looking at creative and comprehensive ... opportunities to expand more, new and better markets for meat and poultry," Vilsack said. "Hopefully, it will create more income for farmers and more choice for consumers" and more jobs. Vilsack said he expects more announcements in the months ahead. - Des Moines Register Ammonia leak occurs at Smithfield pork plant in North Carolina, US Fire department personnel and rescue workers were called to Smithfield Foods' pork processing plant in North Carolina, the United States, on January 6, responding to reports of an ammonia leak. Company officials confirmed there was an overnight ammonia release in a refrigerated section of the plant, resulting in the company evacuating about 800 employees who were working at the time. "Four employees were sent to the hospital for observation after experiencing nausea and have since been released," said a Smithfield spokesperson. All of the other workers were sent home and the company suspended operations on January 6, while officials investigated the cause of the leak. "We have identified the issue as a mechanical failure in a freezer," the spokesperson said. Smithfield's North Carolina plant is the company's largest processing facility, employing approximately 5,000 workers. - Meat + Poultry New Zealand will not benefit from declining cattle and farm numbers in France Milk exporters from New Zealand will not benefit from concerns in the French dairy sector, such as declining cattle and farm numbers in France, as there are still trade barriers in most products even after the EU-NZ trade deal comes into force, UK Daily News reported. The European Milk Board (EMB), which cited the most recent census results from the French Ministry of Agriculture, said 13,000 farms, or 25% of France's milk producers, closed between 2010 and 2020. EMB also emphasised a French industry prediction that by 2030, there would be 441,000 fewer dairy cattle in the country. French livestock institute IDELE said the country had 3.6 million dairy cattle and 736,000 heifers in 2020, which is a decrease of 8.2% and 15.1% respectively, from 2015. Despite the fact that EMB pointed out that some French dairy regions would be more negatively impacted than others, the overall situation was worrying. EMB said in 2010, 32% of dairy farmers were over the age of 50. Today, that number is 48%, with 28% of them being over the age of 55. The replacement rate for dairy farmers, according to IDELE, is only 45%, which is significantly lower than the average replacement rate of 71% for all agricultural sectors. For French dairy farmers, 2020 was marred by challenges, based on EMB's recently released national accounts. The data also showed an increase in farm spending, including feed, labour, and energy costs, while dairy farm economic results continued to decline. The New Zealand Dairy Industry Association (DCANZ), which represents the country's largest milk processors and producers including Fonterra, said that while all of this may seem encouraging for New Zealand's milk export prospects, the situation isn't that straightforward. The largest milk exporters in the world are Europe and New Zealand. Kimberly Crewther, DCANZ Managing Director, said while milk production in France declined 4% (about 1 million tonnes) between 2015 and 2021, total EU production increased by 6 million worldwide over the same period in 2022, according to an International Dairy Federation (IDF) status report. In addition, the EU Dairy Observatory noted that although EU production decreased by 0.2% and French production increased by 1% in the 10 months leading up to October 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, recent months have seen a rebound in EU production. Crewther stated that even after the EU-NZ trade agreement comes into force, they will continue to face significant trade barriers in the majority of products, in reference to New Zealand milk exports to the EU. She said the dairy agreement has had only modest results. The trade in milk between New Zealand and the EU will continue to be severely constrained by these tariff barriers. OECD predictions showed New Zealand's milk production would be comparatively stable by 2030, while production in the EU would slightly increase. Crewther said there will be variations among the various member nations within this overall EU picture, adding that there are a lot of internal trade among the EU27 nations; for instance, about 4 million tonnes of cheese are traded duty-free among them. She said the forecast for a relatively modest increase in milk production from New Zealand and the EU coincides with ongoing demand growth on the global milk market. This implied that other markets would likely have the biggest influence on trade flows. According to the IDF's World Status Report, between 2015 and 2021, French dairy herd shrank by 146,000 cattle while the Indian dairy herd increased by 11.25 million cattle. With two-way trade in goods and services worth NZD 17.5 billion in 2021, the EU is New Zealand's fourth-largest trading partner. The EU-New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA) was signed in July of last year. The New Zealand government stated that it will go into effect in 2035 and that the market has close to 450 million consumers. The government also said tariffs on New Zealand's exports of goods to the EU between 2017 and 2019 (prior to COVID-19) cost an estimated US$115 million annually. According to the FTA, 91.4% of EU tariffs would be removed when it went into effect, 98.5% after seven years, and 91% of New Zealand's current trade in goods would enter the EU duty-free from the start. After seven years, that percentage would rise to 97%. Upon going into effect, the estimated tariff savings would be more than US$100 million per year, and after seven years, they would increase to US$110 million. The New Zealand government said starting in 2035, the FTA is predicted to boost exports to the EU by up to US$1.8 billion annually. Additionally, it would create valuable new quotas for beef and dairy. The dairy and beef industries, the two pillars of New Zealand's export economy, were disappointed with the deal's outcomes because they felt that they fell far short of what they had hoped for. Meat, fruit, alcoholic beverages, including wine, and seafood are New Zealand's top agricultural exports to the EU. Malcolm Bailey, the chairman of DCANZ, said at the time that although the FTA had initially suggested a modest trade opening, the government's calculations had greatly overestimated the advantages. He said there would be very little growth in the volume of New Zealand's milk exports, and some volume would still be restricted by tariff quotas. Although New Zealand could export cheese to the EU, its share of the market would be minimal. He also said the EU deal was very different from the trade agreement New Zealand has signed with China because it remains severely constrained and the ability to grow beyond small volumes will not be there. - UK Daily News Taiwan culls 16,000 chickens due to bird flu 16,000 chickens in Yunlin Country, Taiwan were culled after highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu was detected at two chicken farms in the area, Taipei Times reported. The Yunlin Animal Disease Control Center said both farms and the surrounding areas have been disinfected to prevent the spread of the virus. Poultry farmers affected by the cull will receive financial compensation. In late-December 2021, Taiwan culled over 19,600 chickens due to H5N1 bird flu. Falling temperatures increase the risk of contracting bird flu, according to Liao Pei-chih, director of the center, who also recommended that poultry farmers take action to eliminate bird flu virus that may be present in the environment in order to prevent further losses to the agricultural sector. Liao advised poultry farmers to restrict access to their facilities and improve the sanitation of the people and vehicles that enter their farms. Separately, the Tainan Animal Health Inspection and Protection Office reported that 1,088 geese were killed and burned after avian influenza was found on a farm in Jiali District, Tainan. Inspectors started sampling the birds for disease the same day that the poultry farm owner reported suspicious deaths of geese on his property, the office said. The geese were culled according to protocol after a Council of Agriculture laboratory confirmed on Friday that the dead birds were infected with the H5N1 subtype of the virus. After the cull, the farm was cleaned and disinfected. The animal health office said that it intends to carry out enhanced inspections of farms within a 5km radius as well as avian influenza tests on 48 poultry farms within a 3km radius of the site. - Taipei Times Record soybean harvest expected in Belize Belize's soybean production is expected to reach record totals as soybean oil and soymeal are now exported from the country, Breaking Belize News reported. After producing a record 38 million pounds of soybeans from over 28,000 acres planted in 2021, Belize expects to produce a record breaking 50 million pounds of soybeans from nearly the same acreage planted in 2022 due to a much better yield per acre, according to the country's Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security, and Enterprise (MAFSE). Having export market outlets is essential at this point because the current soybean crop in Belize is expected to produce an excess of 10 million pounds of soybean. Belize is exporting soymeal in addition to soybean oil. Since exporting soybean oil for the first time to Guyana in 2017, Belize has continued to do so to Jamaica, Guyana, and Costa Rica. Lyell Banman, a salesperson from Bel-Car Export and Import Company Ltd, said their company exported 550 metric tonnes in 2022, or 1,210,000 pounds, in 25 container loads. The export of soybean meal is still in its infancy. This month, Trinidad and Tobago received the first container shipment, which contained about 28 metric tonnes of soybean meal, or 61,500 pounds. Banman asserted that Bel-Car is looking for a second customer in Trinidad and Tobago and has already begun investigating the possibility of exporting soybean meal to Costa Rica. Belize's soybean industry is crucial for ensuring the country's food security, the country's Ministry of Agriculture said. Previously Belize relied on imported soybean concentrates to be used as animal feed. Through MAFSE, the Belizean government has supported soybean production and research for more than 25 years in an effort to correct this imbalance. With a recent upturn, the industry has been cultivating 28,000 acres annually over the last two years, up from 5,000 acres annually over many years when the country had no production in the 1990s. The Belize Ministry of Agriculture said the country won't need to import any soybean concentrates with the current level of production, and with the establishment of a soybean oil processing facility in Spanish Lookout and a soybean extrusion facility in Blue Creek, the nation will begin importing less cooking oil. By 2022, Belize is not anticipated to import any soybean concentrates for animal feed, MAFSE said. The organisation said because of this continuous increase in production, soybean concentrates have been reducing annually from around BZD 25 million (~US$12.4 million; BZD 1 = US$0.50) in the early 2000s. - Breaking Belize News Meat imports into the Philippines 16% higher in 2022 The Philippines' Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) said the country imported 16.4% more meat and meat products in 2022, with increased pork shipments last year, Philippine Star reported. BAI data showed the Philippines imported 1.36 billion kg of meat and meat products in 2022 as opposed to 1.17 billion kilos in 2021. 52%, or 710.36 million kg of the total amount of meat was pork. The amount shipped in 2022 increased by 28.06% over the 554.7 million kg shipped in 2021. The amount of imports surpassed data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which predicted that the Philippines' pork imports would reach 550,000 metric tonnes (MT), or 550 million kg in 2022. The Executive Order (EO) 171's extended reduced tariffs on pork imports were the primary reason for the increased imports. The largest import was pork cuts at 314.77 million kg, followed by offals, or internal organs, at 217.55 million kg. Pork imports to the Philippines come from Spain (222,08 million kg), Canada (127,31 million kg), and Brazil (79.11 million kg). Chicken was second most popular imported meat last year, accounting for 30.3% of total shipments. According to BAI data, chicken imports increased by 1.57% to 411.07 million kg from 404.71 million kg during the same period in 2021. Imports of chicken fell short of the USDA's forecast of 435 million kg, or 435,000 metric tonnes, for last year. The most amount of chicken meat imported was deboned chicken meat at 243.22 million kg, followed by chicken leg quarters at 102.69 million kg. Chicken imports to the Philippines come from Brazil (235.26 million kg), the US (122.93 million kg), and Australia (12.84 million kg). Additionally, BAI data also showed beef imports made up 13.72% of the total shipments into the Philippines. Beef shipments increased from 158.71 million kg to 186.15 million kg, a 17.29% increase. The Philippines also imported turkey (773,141 kg), duck (48,518 kg), and lamb (510,775 kg) last year. - Philippine Star Rep. Oh Yeong-hwan, left, and Rep. Lee Soo-jin of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea submit a penalty motion against Rep. Shin Won-sik of the ruling People Power Party to the National Assembly in Seoul, Jan. 9. Yonhap The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Monday submitted a motion calling for disciplinary action against a ruling party lawmaker for accusing a DPK lawmaker of connection to North Korea following the North's recent drone infiltration. Rep. Shin Won-sik of the PPP raised the allegations targeting Rep. Kim Byung-joo of the DPK, questioning how the DPK learned before the military that one of the five North Korean drones penetrated the no-fly zone around the presidential office in Seoul on Dec. 26. Kim, a former Army general, said he found out about the penetration by checking Google Maps, and any Seoul citizen can do that. "Rep. Shin damaged the reputation of not only Rep. Kim but of the DPK," DPK spokesperson Lee Soo-jin told reporters after submitting the motion to the National Assembly. The DPK floor leader said the party will also consider taking legal measures against Shin, saying he is committing slander by implying that the DPK is "a puppet of North Korea." (Yonhap) Kim Man-bae arrives at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office in Seoul for questioning over a corruption scandal in connection to a highly lucrative land development project, Jan. 9. Yonhap A key culprit in a high-profile development scandal attempted to acquire two media companies a few years ago, sources said Monday. Kim Man-bae, who is standing trial in connection with an apartment development project in Seongnam, just south of Seoul, tried to buy a private news agency in 2017 and 2018, when he was a reporter for Money Today, an online financial news service, they said. He proposed about 13 billion won ($10.46 million) for the acquisition, but the company demanded about 30 billion won, according to the sources. After failing to buy the news agency, he attempted to take over a newspaper specializing in legal issues in 2019 but also gave up due to differences on price, they said. The newspaper confirmed Kim's bid but said it occurred in mid-2021, not 2019. The news agency refused to comment. The sources said Kim also suggested the position of a senior executive in charge of legal issues at the news agency to Nam Wook, a lawyer and one of the key partners in the housing development project. Observers said Kim wanted to own a media organization to respond to a possible controversy over his corruption-ridden business. The prosecution is also looking into allegations he provided hundreds of millions of won to three senior journalists at three newspapers between 2019 and 2020. Kim is the largest shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu, an asset management company at the center of the highly lucrative project. He was indicted in 2021, along with his accomplices, on charges that include bribery, embezzlement and breach of trust. Two close confidants of Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, were also indicted late last year for taking bribes from them. The project was launched in 2015, when Lee was the mayor of Seongnam. (Yonhap) Former Industry Minister Paik Un-gyu / Newsis Three industry ministry officials were given suspended prison terms Monday for deleting documents related to the Wolsong-1 nuclear reactor in order to obstruct a state audit into the ministry's undervaluing of the reactor's viability under the preceding administration's nuclear phase-out policy. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy came under investigation after the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) concluded in 2020 that the ministry and state firms unreasonably undervalued the economic viability of the country's second-oldest nuclear reactor. Following the economic assessment, state-run nuclear energy agency Korea Hydro Nuclear Power (KHNP) decided to shut down Wolsong-1 in 2018, years earlier than scheduled, a result seen in line with the then Moon Jae-in government's broader energy policy to phase out the use of nuclear energy. The three ministry officials a 56-year-old bureau chief and two lower-level officials were accused of ordering the deletion of industry documents connected to the reactor or removing a pile of relevant data in 2019 right before the BAI's inspection kicked off. The Daejeon District Court sentenced the bureau chief to a one-year prison term, suspended for two years, while handing out an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, to the other two. The court ruled the accused obstructed the BAI's inspection by withdrawing or deleting documents requested by the BAI, eventually delaying the inspection by about seven months. Currently, former Industry Minister Paik Un-gyu, a former KHNP chief and a former presidential secretary are standing trial on charges of abuse of power and abetting dereliction of duty in connection with Wolsong-1's shutdown. (Yonhap) The Essex Reporter is a daily digital news website covering the Town of Essex and City of Essex Junction, Vermont. Our beat reporters are on the ground every day covering local government, schools, sports, business and culture. Kantar, a marketing data and analytics company, won multiple accolades at the recently concluded Market Research Society of India (MRSI) Golden Key Awards 2022. MRSIs Golden Key Awards celebrate the best of market research, consumer insights and analytics community of India. These awards were instituted in 2019 to recognize the contribution of consumer insights to the growth of businesses and to let the limelight shine on the research professionals of the country. 11 Kantar entries made it to the finals in 8 out of the possible 14 award categories; and won the top prize in 3 of those categories: Finalists: Best Client Servicing Team of the Year: 2 out of 3 finalists Best Operations Team of the Year: 2 out of 3 finalists Best Researcher under 30: 2 out of 4 finalists Best Business Impact through Research Best Business Impact through Analytics Best Communication Crafting Research Best Work in Emerging Sectors The Most Humane Organisation Award Winners: Kantar India won accolades in the following 3 coveted categories: Best Client Servicing Team of the Year Best Operations Team of the Year Best Business Impact through Research (the winning entry was in partnership with Piramal Finance) Commenting on the wins, Deepender Rana, Executive Managing Director- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar said- We are very proud of our teams here at Kantar India who have had their consumer and client centricity recognised and awarded at GKA 2022. Being recognised as winners across 3 key award categories- client servicing, operations and business impact through research; and the nominations for the most humane organisation and the best researcher under 30 awards only reinforces the message that we bring the best capabilities together to add value to our clients business. Ramakrishnan, Managing Director- South Asia, Worldpanel Division, Kantar added I congratulate all finalists and winners for putting in a commendable performance this year. A win at MRSI GKA is particularly gratifying because it is a platform that showcases the best and the brightest minds of our industry. These wins inspire us to continue to do high impact work for our clients and keep winning big along the way. MRSI Golden Key Awards are judged by a panel of distinguished senior marketing and research experts. The best entries are shortlisted based on a very comprehensive evaluation criteria. The winners were felicitated at an event at Hotel Sahara Star, Mumbai; attended by over 300 professionals from Indias marketing, research and analytics fraternity. In addition to this, over 500 delegates viewed the event via live streaming. A divorce expert has reminded farmers of the financial implications that divorces can bring to farming businesses, as they are complex and require careful planning. Abby Buckland, partner at law firm Kingsley Napley LLP, specialises in farming related divorces. She has written the following advice for farmers. It is a misnomer that the first working Monday of January is the most popular day of the year to start divorce proceedings. As a divorce lawyer, I do not see a sudden influx of enquiries on that day from unhappily married people. It is more accurate to say there has been a general increase in enquiries as couples have sought to take advantage of the new no fault divorce legislation designed to make splitting up a simpler, less confrontational and speedier process. However, it remains the case that farming divorces can be complex and require careful planning. This is because the financial implications often require creative solutions to protect against the sale of a long-held family asset and business or involve issues such as trust arrangements or succession considerations. As such farming divorce cases frequently require the involvement of the wider family. Followers of Radio 4s The Archers will have heard this play out in the recent storyline of the divorce of Alice and Chris Carter. Farmer Brian Aldridge, who never approved of his daughter marrying Chris, has been concerned about Alices shareholding in the family farming business, Home Farm, and whether Chris claims on divorce could impact on the family finances. His anxiety is both realistic and appropriate because the court has a wide-range of powers on divorce to deal with the available assets and this can include ordering the sale or transfer of shares. Brians involvement has certainly increased the temperature in Alice and Chris divorce but his concerns are entirely relatable for farming families. It is often the case that a farm, either in whole or in part, has been in one partys family for generations and has been gifted to or inherited by that party before or during the marriage with an expectation it will be retained for future generations. No wonder therefore that the wider family involve themselves, because the stakes can be so very high. The court will do all it can to avoid the forced sale of a farm, particularly when it is profitable, but it is not always possible to meet both parties needs without a sale. This causes the wider farming family anxiety, as a potential claim by their adult childs spouse against the family assets could threaten the continuation of the farming business. The importance therefore for families of protecting their farming business from the consequences of a potential future divorce cannot be underestimated and for that reason pre-nuptial (or post nuptial) agreements are becoming increasingly common. This is something Alice Carter denied her family the opportunity to insist upon, as she and Chris announced their spur-of-the-moment marriage upon returning from a holiday in Las Vegas. But in an ideal world planning ahead is essential for every farming family. It may require diplomacy and some sensitive discussions to contemplate marriage breakdown at the time of a happy engagement, or even shortly after a wedding. However, this could mean the difference between a farming business being sold or continuing for the benefit of future generations. The aim of a pre- or post- nuptial agreement is to reduce disputes on a divorce and it is often parents who push for one to be made since they can offer a way to ring-fence prized farming assets. They can, for example, help prevent a situation whereby it is necessary to sell all or part of the farm, or to split it 50:50, which is the starting point for asset division upon divorce. Whilst pre-nups are not yet legally binding in England and Wales, those that are fair will tend to be enforced. Alice and Chris Carter agreed not to involve the court in their financial separation and to settle the issues directly between them. If they had not done so, the proceedings could have been protracted, costly and unpleasant. If farming families want to avoid similar divorce drama in real life, a pre or post-nuptial agreement can help to minimise the risks. With a farming divorce, almost more than any other divorce, careful thought and strategic planning is required; its not just the end result that matters but the future as well. Jeremy Clarkson has reportedly shut down his on-farm restaurant following a long-running planning row with the local council. The former Top Gear presenter said in a letter to West Oxfordshire District Council that he "no longer wished" to open a restaurant, The Mirror reports. Mr Clarkson, who farms at his 1,000-acre Diddly Squat Farm, said he had been "thwarted by the enforcement notice." In July 2022, the council served an enforcement notice for the on-farm restaurant, which he had appealed against. According to the council, the cafe and restaurant, the latter opening six months after the application was rejected - had breached planning laws. Diddly Squat is featured in the popular TV series Clarkson's Farm, which first aired in 2021 on Amazon Prime. The programme's second season will air next month and a third series is currently in the pipeline. The news comes after Clarkson spearheaded calls for the government to halve the volume of regulation affecting rural businesses before the next general election. In a letter to the prime minister, Clarkson, along with other celebrities, said rural businesses were being hit with a 'bureaucratic bulldozer'. The letter - which accused the government of seeking to 'micromanage every acre' - was also been signed by nearly 5,000 other people living in the countryside, including 2,000 farmers. "For years the bureaucratic bulldozer has been trampling over the countryside infuriating millions of us," the rural figures said in the letter. "Downing Street has to put it into reverse gear if it wants the support of rural voters. Those signing this letter would be satisfied if the rules affecting the countryside are halved before the next election?" The celebrity campaigners said they were "sick of the mountains of regulations which seek to micromanage every acre". "We have had enough of know-nothing officials imposing rules out of a misplaced belief in their own competence," the letter added. "They breed paperwork for a living while the rest of us have real work to do: cultivating soil, looking after sick animals and bringing in the harvest?" Dairy farmers are being reminded that Dairy-Tech 2023 is only three weeks away, taking place on 1 February at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire. This year's Dairy-Tech has an impressive line-up of speakers, 300 exhibitors, and 85 new product launches, to name a few features. Included is a brand-new Lameness Village, which will help farmers get to grips with managing lameness in their herd with expert support, advice and tools available. This has been launched due to increasing focus on the issue as part of the governments Animal Health and Welfare Pathway, which pins lameness as one of its main priorities. There will also be resource to help farmers get to grips with the rollout of the Environment Land Management (ELM) scheme, including talks from Defra representatives, including Farming Minister Mark Spencer. Usual favourites are also featured, including the Dairy Hub, which offers guidance and insight on key industry issues and the Innovation Hub, where new products, ideas, technology and concepts will be discussed. Tickets bought before the show are priced at 17 per person compared to 20 at the door. In addition, members of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) receive two free complimentary tickets to the event. Show organiser and RABDF managing director, Matthew Knight said the event was designed to offer practical advice to farmers amid a volatile marketplace. Whether its understanding how to make the most out of ELMs or finding ways to cut costs, review your business or better your milk price, Dairy-Tech 2023 has it all," he said. We are also fortunate to welcome two renowned global dairy speakers- Prof Frank Mitloehner from the Department of Animal Science at UC Davis, USA, who will kick off proceedings by discussing what a sustainable dairy system looks like. "He is joined by fellow US speaker Dr Matt Utt, Senior Dairy Product Analyst at Zoetis, who will outline how to hit the basics regarding dairy profitability. Mr Knight added that agriculture was going through some significant transitions, making Dairy-Tech 2023 the ideal place to keep abreast with what was happening in the industry. It is also an opportune time for farmers to see some of the new technology available that could be eligible for grant support under the Farming Investment Fund," he said. Dairy-Tech prides itself on being the go-to place for everything relating to new technology, concepts and techniques and never has there been a time when embracing some of these new products has been as important. To find out more about the event, whats on and how to buy tickets, visit Dairy-Tech's website. A Devon farmer has received a suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay out 74,000 for illegally grazing cattle on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). David Rillie appeared for sentencing at Taunton Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to two offences at a hearing brought by Natural England in November 2022. One offence related to his occupier obligations under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, the other a breach of a stop notice. The 76-year-old was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to pay all of Natural Englands prosecution costs of nearly 74,000. The court heard how Natural England was made aware of unpermitted winter grazing on the Whiteleigh Meadows SSSI in December 2020. Over 50 cattle, owned by Mr Rillie, had overgrazed the vegetation to such an extent that they had then broken down the neighbouring farmers fencing to get to food. Despite requests from Natural England for him to remove the cattle, the grazing continued, causing Natural England to serve a stop notice in February 2021. This prevented further grazing until such time as Mr Rillie engaged with Natural England and sought consent to graze only with fewer stock during the drier summer months. However, he ignored the stop notice, Natural England said, and continued grazing throughout 2021 and then again towards the end of summer 2022. Also unpermitted, Mr Rillie had provided supplementary feed to the cattle. On one site visit, agency staff observed 80 empty plastic silage wraps littering the site. Whiteleigh Meadows was notified as a SSSI in 1987 for its rare Culm grassland habitat - a wet rushy pasture, found only in the southwest of England, mostly in Devon. At the time of notification, marsh fritillary butterflies, adder and curlew bred on the site. Previous agri-environment schemes on the land had paid for ecologically sensitive management, but there has been no scheme since 2018. Natural England said the unpermitted winter grazing by cattle caused severe localised trampling of the habitat which has left the SSSI in an unfavourable condition and which will take up to two years to recover. In summing up, the judge stressed the deliberate and flagrant disregard Mr Rillie had to his SSSI obligations, despite requests to engage and comply, as well as the financial motives behind the offending. A spokesperson for Natural England said the farmer had ignored his obligations as a SSSI occupier and failed to take the opportunities to comply. "His actions have led to this important and sensitive site suffering damage which will take several years to recover," the spokesperson added. "Natural England takes all damage to SSSIs seriously and will use its enforcement powers to ensure that anyone who acts in this way will be brought to account." What were the charges? The charges were: Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended) Owner-occupier offence - Section 28P(1) - failure to give Natural England notice before carrying out an operation specified in the notification papers Breach of a stop notice served under Section 46 of the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 (RES) and the Environmental Civil Sanctions (England) Order 2010 NFU Scotlands 10-date regional hustings tour kicks off next week, which will see three candidates contesting for the two vice president roles. NFU Scotland's hustings will start on Wednesday (11 January) at the Hub, near Crossroads in Ayrshire, the union has confirmed. Current vice presidents Andrew Connon and Robin Traquair, and legal and technical committee chair Alasdair Macnab, have put their names forward. Mr Connon farms near Ellon in Aberdeenshire running a small commercial sheep flock whilst also doing some local contract work on a beef and arable unit. Farming in Midlothian, Mr Traquair's main enterprise is indoor sows taking stock from farrow to finish, and selling the progeny through Scotlean, a farmer-based co-op of which Robin is a director. And Mr Macnab farms at Kildun, Dingwall, running a well-known pedigree Limousin herd, growing malting barley and hay. Over the course of the following 14 days, the candidates will attend meetings in Stepps, Tarbert, Carfraemill, Castle Douglas, Oldmeldrum, Perth, Dingwall, Kirkwall and Lerwick. Voting for the positions of the two vice presidential posts will take place at the unions council meeting at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Glasgow on 10 February. NFU Scotland President Martin Kennedy, who will stand unchallenged for the position of president, said the hustings came amid an "extremely uncertain time for Scottish agriculture". With unprecedented cost pressures and future agricultural policy in Scotland up for debate, he said there the "right people are needed to drive forward policies that are in the best interests of farmers and crofters. "There has never been a more important time for members to get out to these hustings, listen to the candidates and make sure their vote counts," the Highland farmer said. "All three candidates have the skills and experience to do a fantastic job for NFUS and Scottish agriculture. "This is their opportunity to convince members they have a role to play as we tackle the major challenges ahead." Main opposition and independent lawmakers, and officials from two art-related organizations that had prepared an exhibition showcasing political satirical artworks hold a press conference at the National Assembly, protesting against the Assembly secretariat's decision to remove the art, Jan. 9. Yonhap A dozen opposition and independent lawmakers denounced the National Assembly secretariat Monday for removing artworks satirizing the government of President Yoon Suk Yeol from a planned exhibition at the Assembly. About 80 pieces of art, including one showing a naked President Yoon brandishing a sword with the first lady, Kim Keon Hee, had been scheduled to be unveiled in an exhibition set to open at the Members' Office Building at the National Assembly on Monday. But the secretariat removed the artworks from the exhibition place, citing regulations that the secretary-general can ban events that infringe upon the rights of other people, and violate public etiquette and social ethics. The 12 lawmakers who sponsored the exhibition 10 from the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea and two independents strongly denounced the secretariat for trampling upon freedom of expression and urged the National Assembly speaker to order the restoration of the artworks. In a press conference, the lawmakers accused the secretariat of using force to "break the artists' will to acutely criticize power" and called it "shameful" that freedom of expression is not tolerated at the National Assembly. Secretary-General Lee Kwang-jae said while the freedom of expression in arts should be guaranteed under the Constitution, the Assembly has the duty to prevent this developing into a source of national friction. The ruling People Power Party slammed the lawmakers who organized the exhibition, accusing them of personally attacking the head of the state and claimed the exhibition "went beyond the level of political satire." (Yonhap) A new organisation launched to support the Scottish seed potato sector as it remains locked out of the EU market is looking for growers to join. The Seed Potato Organisation (SPO), which was launched as a co-operative last year, is "run by seed growers for the benefit of seed growers." Before the UK left the EU, Scotland exported around 20,000 tonnes of seed potatoes, worth almost 11 million, to Europe each year. More than 75 percent of Britain's seed potato exports comes from Scotland. However, the Trade and Co-operation Agreement with Europe, announced at the end of 2020 as part of Brexit, failed to agree equivalence on seed potatoes. The UK and the EU remain at loggerheads on this matter, and it is Scottish growers who are paying the price for an issue that is becoming increasingly political. Rodney Harrison, an Angus-based seed grower, said he joined the SPO as the seed potato sector was now at a crossroads. "If we, as growers, sit back and do nothing, we could well find the industry suffers, or worse disappears," he said. "Joining the SPO gives me a voice to help ensure this great industry stays relevant." Jonnie Martin, a grower from the Black Isle and SPO Board member, added that while the sector had strengths, in order to protect its reputation it needed a "united and dynamic organisation". "[SPO] can work in partnership with both SASA and Defra to ensure an efficient sector to produce a high quality seed product," he explained. "One that can direct scientific research and one that can promote and further develop the health status of our seed industry at home and abroad." The initial cost to join SPO is 1,000. This is used to establish the organisation, which can be redeemed in future. The co-op has an annual membership fee of 29 per hectare, based on the area of seed grown. To find out more and join SPO, growers can visit its website, email info@seedpotatoorganisation.com or call Chairman Mike Wilson on 07808 066673. Any future species re-introduction within the UK must take into account the impact it may have on livestock, MPs have been told. Industry bodies have responded to the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee inquiry into species re-introduction. A species reintroduction is the return of a plant, animal, or fungi to an area from which it has been lost, with an aim to re-establish a viable population within its natural range. The process can be beneficial, but it can also present a risk of causing adverse environmental, economic, and social impacts. MPs who sit on EFRA are looking at how the process could support Defras plans to tackle biodiversity loss and address other environmental challenges such as climate adaptation and controlling invasive species. Their inquiry is also considering how to manage potential conflicts that species re-introductions can cause with other land-users and local communities. In its response, the National Pig Association (NPA) said that while it did not oppose species re-introduction in general, the impact on local livestock populations must be taken into account. The NPA added that schemes must be monitored closely to understand the impact on the local environment over a suitable period of time. "We would also expect that any scheme should have contingency plans in place and ready actions to mitigate any issues should adverse outcomes be experienced," the body said. "Threats include predation and spread of disease and, therefore, we would expect licensing authorities to carry out robust risk assessments." The NFU, which has also responded, said: "We recognise that reintroductions can play a role in delivering nature recovery, however, there are concerns about the adverse impacts a reintroduction could have." It comes as beavers could be released in the wild in England as part of government's plans included in a 12-week consultation launched last August. The consultation sought views on the potential future releases into the wild and current and future releases into enclosures. It also sought views on mitigation and management of beaver activity or impacts in the wild, including the River Otter population and all other existing wild beaver populations. Under the proposals, applications for licences to release beavers into the wild would need to meet certain criteria, including a comprehensive assessment of the impacts on surrounding land. And any reintroduction project would also need the support of farmers, landowners and river users, the government explained. As part of its response to the consultation, the NFU said the potential impacts that beavers could have on agricultural land were of concern. The union highlighted risks such as undermining riverbanks, damaging trees, impeding farmland drainage and causing low-lying fields to flood. NFU environment forum chairman Richard Bramley said: In our consultation response we have made it clear that any beaver reintroduction must be strictly licensed by Natural England. "[We] stressed the importance that an approved licence must include a long-term management plan, developed with local farmers and backed with adequate funding. "Where there is a financial impact on a farm business, adequate compensation should also be made and an exit strategy in place should major issues occur." The government has made it clear that it will sanction reestablishment of beavers, so we will work with them, Natural England and all interested parties." Image: Instagram Remember Amit Shah and Aditya Madiraju, who took the internet by storm with their desi wedding in 2019? They are all set to welcome their little bundle of joy. Yes, the Indo-American gay couple shared their adorable pics from the couples paternity shoot on their Instagram and the pictures went viral. Never in our wildest dreams would we have thought that a casual bump in at a birthday party 6 years ago would find us our forever soulmate and give us the courage to stand against the world. And here we are getting ready to be dads!! Beyond excited to welcome our little nugget, May 2023, wrote Aditya on the instagram handles sharing the beautiful clips. Image: Shutterstock Image: Instagram It was a learning process for the couple to understand the differences between surrogates, egg donors, and gestational carriers and to decide which of these partners would be part of the growth of their family. It is said that the couple has been learning about what and how to go about having biological children eversince they tied the knot. They were also clear in their roles and wanted to bring up the child as parents and not as gay parents. Image: Instagram It took longer than expected because they needed to wait for an egg donor after learning that having children as a heterosexual couple is expensive. In vitro fertilisation (IVF) was performed four rounds before the happy news could be confirmed. Image: Instagram Image: Instagram The couple hopes that having a baby by a same-sex couple will become more common and that they can serve as an example and a guide for other people like them who want to have children. The couple recently celebrated their third wedding anniversary, bringing additional good news to their lives. I had a dream, and it came true. Now I cherish and hold on to it with love. And I thank the universe every day that he made you for me @amit_aatma, wrote Aditya. Foreign diplomats in China view COVID response policy adjustment timely, necessary Xinhua) 10:33, January 09, 2023 BEIJING, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Foreign diplomats from more than 130 countries in China attended a briefing on China's COVID response policy, saying that they believed China's optimization and adjustment of COVID response and entry-exit policies are timely and necessary and will provide an impetus for world economic recovery and growth. The diplomats made the remarks on Friday at the briefing on China's COVID response policy for senior foreign diplomats in China, held by the International Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee. They added they appreciated China's support and assistance to the international community in responding to the challenges posed by the epidemic. China has recently taken the initiative to refine its COVID response measures. It adopted the 20 refined measures and 10 new measures and issued steps to treat COVID-19 as a Class-B instead of Class-A infectious disease. By shifting the response focus from stemming infection to preventing severe cases and caring for people's health, China aims to protect the lives and health of the people and reduce the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development to the maximum. El Salvadoran Ambassador to China Aldo Alvarez said the adjustment "comes right in time." According to the new circumstances of epidemic prevention, the new characteristics of the variants, and China's reality, Alvarez thought it was time for China to make the policy adjustment based on science. "China has tried its best to protect people's lives and health in the past three years," Fredrick P. Malire, the counselor of Malawi's embassy in China, said. He added that China's COVID response policy adjustment would enhance the coordination and cooperation between China and other countries, thus providing impetus for the recovery of world economic growth. Noting China is the second-largest economy in the world and an important trade partner to various countries, Malire said the policy adjustment means global trade will increase, which is no doubt "good news for many countries." During the briefing, experts from China's National Health Commission, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine introduced the scenarios of epidemic prevention and control in China and interacted with the diplomats. The diplomats listened carefully to the introduction, learned the details and logic behind the adjustment of China's COVID response policies, and appreciated China's achievements in fighting the epidemic and its outstanding contribution to the global fight. While listening to the introductions, Luamanuvae Albert Mariner, Samoan Ambassador to China, took notes on China's experiences against the epidemic. "One of the key pieces of information I noted is China's ongoing efforts to share data with the WHO," Mariner said. He added that it was really encouraging that China uses Western medicine as well as its own traditional medicine. China has also developed its own vaccines in response to the virus. "COVID-19 is a global problem, and it requires a global solution. The only way to find this solution is through cooperation and dialogue," Mariner said. He said China sets a good example in this field. "At the beginning of the epidemic, there was no other country willing to provide us vaccines because they said they needed to cover their own population. China was the first friend who helped us and the only one there for us from the very beginning. El Salvador really wants to thank China for that," Alvarez said, adding that he got vaccines made in China. Hassane Rabehi, Algerian ambassador to China, said that many developing countries received valuable support from China, including vaccines. That enabled their people to prepare for the epidemic. He thought of it as proof of China's work in supporting the international community in the fight against the epidemic, as well as the CPC's commitment to promoting the development of humanity's progress. Rabehi mentioned, in particular, the important role of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in epidemic prevention and control. Before coming to work in China, his wife helped promote TCM in Algeria. "I can assure you that most of the Algerian people who experienced the TCM were very happy and very appreciative of that," said Rabehi. The rest of the world can say whatever they want about China, but something they have to acknowledge is that China's policy has effectively protected the lives and health of its people, Alvarez said, adding that recent restrictions posed by some countries targeting only Chinese tourists seem not to be based on any technical or scientific support. The adjustment of China's entry-exit policies is really welcomed by Samoa, Mariner said, and they are "looking forward to Chinese tourists to Samoa." (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Kim Man-bae arrives at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office in Seoul on Jan. 9, 2023, for questioning over a corruption scandal in connection to a highly lucrative land development project. Yonhap The editor-in-chief of the Hankyoreh newspaper stepped down on Monday as one of its senior reporters was found to have borrowed money from a key culprit in a high-profile development scandal. The resignation of Ryu Yi-geun, the Hankyoreh's chief editor, came three days after the newspaper apologized for the money transaction between its journalist and Kim Man-bae, who is standing trial in connection with the apartment development project in the city of Seongnam. The Hankyoreh's chief executive, Kim Hyun-dae, said he will step down in early February, when the newspaper picks a successor, to take responsibility for the transaction. "The trust that Hankyoreh has most cherished is collapsing in an instant," the chief executive said in a statement sent to the newspaper's employees. The Hankyoreh said its senior reporter borrowed 600 million won from the key culprit in 2019 and has repaid 200 million won so far. Kim, the key culprit, is the largest shareholder of Hwacheon Daeyu, an asset management company at the center of the highly lucrative project. He was indicted in 2021, along with his accomplices, on charges that include bribery, embezzlement and breach of trust. Two close confidants of Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, were also indicted late last year for taking bribes from them. (Yonhap) increased by 7.3 per cent year-on-year in January-November 2022, as per the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute and the countrys ministry of trade. During the first eleven months of the current year, Turkiye exported apparel worth $17.881 billion, compared to the exports of $16.663 billion during the same period of 2021. Category-wise, exports of knitted and crocheted clothing and accessories (HS chapter 61) earned $10.122 billion in January-November 2022, registering a growth of 3.3 per cent over $9.800 billion earned during the same months of the previous year. Exports of non-knitted apparel and accessories (HS chapter 62) were valued at $7.759 billion, showing an increase of 13 per cent compared to $6.863 billion exports in January-November 2021. Meanwhile, Turkiyes imports of cotton, cotton yarn and cotton textiles (HS chapter 52) increased by a sharp 38.1 per cent to $4.541 billion over $3.289 billion in the first eleven months of 2021. Apparel exports from Turkiye increased by 7.3 per cent year-on-year in January-November 2022, as per the data from the Turkish Statistical Institute and the country's ministry of trade. During the first eleven months of the current year, Turkiye exported apparel worth $17.881 billion, compared to the exports of $16.663 billion during the same period of 2021. In October 2022, the latest month for which the data is available, Turkiyes exports of knitted and crocheted clothing and accessories (HS chapter 61) were affected by the global economic slowdown and low demand. The exports decreased by 8.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $0.873 billion. On the other hand, the shipment of non-knitted apparel and accessories (HS chapter 62) also noticed a negative growth of 6.4 per cent in the same month. Last year, Turkiyes total exports of knitted and crocheted clothing and accessories (HS chapter 61) and non-knitted apparel and accessories (HS chapter 62) were valued at $18.294 billion. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) Cambodia and Indonesia expect to increase their bilateral trade to $1 billion this year as the latter becomes the latest member to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). As far as the textile sector is concerned, both countries are competitors in the world market and their bilateral trade of apparel, fabrics and yarn was limited and need based. Cambodias apparel exports to Indonesia were worth $22.292 million in 2019, which fell to $14.156 million in 2020 due to the pandemic. The shipment increased to $16.144 million in 2021 and amounted to $14.781 million in the first ten months of 2022, according to Fibre2Fashions market insight tool TexPro. The exports in the full year 2022 may surpass the figures of 2021 but may not reach the pre-COVID levels. Cambodias apparel imports from Indonesia were negligible. Cambodias home textile exports to Indonesia jumped to $2.086 million in 2020 but ended up being negligible in 2021 and 2022. Its import of home textiles from Indonesia was also insignificant, as per TexPro. Cambodia and Indonesia expect to increase their bilateral trade to $1 billion this year as the latter becomes the latest member to join the RCEP. As far as the textile sector is concerned, both countries are competitors in the world market. Bilateral trade between Cambodia and Indonesia of apparel, fabrics and yarn was limited and need based. Coming to the textile trade, Cambodias export of fabric to Indonesia increased in the recent years, reaching $9.998 million in the first ten months of 2022 against $7.329 million in 2021 and $2.575 million in 2020. Fabric imports from Indonesia to Cambodia were at $11.308 million in 2020 but declined to $7.864 million in 2021 before falling further to $3.976 million in the first ten months of 2022. Yarn imports from Indonesia to Cambodia noticed a downtrend in the recent years. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) US imports of textiles and apparel have continued to grow in value terms and rose by 18.96 per cent to $123.463 billion in the first eleven months of 2022, compared to $103.786 billion in the same period of 2021. With 25.65 per cent share, China continues to be the largest supplier of textiles and clothing to the US, followed by Vietnam with 14.69 per cent. Within textiles, apparel constituted the bulk of the imports by the US in January-November 2022, amounting to $93.394 billion, while non-apparel imports accounted for $30.068 billion, according to the latest Major Shippers Report, released by the US department of commerce. Segment-wise, among the top ten apparel suppliers to the US, imports from Nicaragua and Bangladesh shot up by 45 per cent and 42.48 per cent year-on-year, respectively. Imports from Indonesia and India too grew by 39.83 per cent and 39.49 per cent, respectively. Additionally, imports from Cambodia, which is one of the top 10 suppliers to the US, registered a growth of 30.92 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year. US' imports of textiles and apparel have continued to grow in value terms and rose by 18.96 per cent to $123.463 billion in the first eleven months of 2022, compared to $103.786 billion in the same period of 2021. With 25.65 per cent share, China continues to be the largest supplier of textiles and clothing to the US, followed by Vietnam with 14.69 per cent. In the non-apparel category, among the top ten suppliers, imports from Cambodia soared by 53.23 per cent year-on-year. Imports from Vietnam and Italy too climbed by 33.17 per cent and 16.25 per cent, respectively. On the other hand, imports from Turkiye dipped by 10.15 per cent. Of the total US textile and apparel imports of $123.463 billion during the period under review, man-made fibre products accounted for $63.625 billion, while cotton products were worth $53.167 billion, followed by $3.103 billion worth of wool products, and $2.565 billion worth of products from silk and vegetable fibres. In 2020, the US textile and apparel imports had decreased sharply to $89.596 billion compared to imports of $111.033 billion in 2019, mainly on account of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. But imports rebounded again in 2021 to reach $113.938 billion, thus surpassing the pre-pandemic level. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL) Turkiye has lifted the ban on direct air cargo transport to Armenia effective January 1, according to the formers foreign ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan. Conducting Armenia-Turkey direct air cargo transport was one of the agreements reached at the July 1, 2022, meeting of the special representatives [for normalisation], Hunanyan said. We expect that the other agreements such as ensuring the possibility of land border crossing for citizens of third countries will also be swiftly realised, he added. Turkiye has lifted the ban on direct air cargo transport to Armenia effective January 1, according to the former's foreign ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan. Conducting Armenia-Turkey direct air cargo transport was one of the agreements reached at the July 1, 2022, meeting of the special representatives [for normalisation], Hunanyan said. The Turkish trade ministry had informed its exporters associations of the decision, a news agency reported. Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS) PORCARI, ITALY / ACCESSWIRE / January 8, 2023 / Sofidel, one of the global leading manufacturers of tissue paper for hygienic and domestic use, is strongly committed to a transition path to a low-carbon economy. This is the case not only in terms of the purchase of energy from renewable sources for industrial production (a recent example, among others, is the agreement signed in Italy with RWE Renewables for the production and supply of wind power and which, one year after the agreement, has already enabled the Group to "produce with wind" the equivalent of almost 150 million rolls of Regina Rotoloni). But it is also so in terms of commercials. For the launch of the new Regina commercial "How We Met", Sofidel's iconic brand of paper for hygienic and domestic use, the company chose Grey Italy, a creative agency of the WPP Group, with which it has been working for more than five years, to create a commercial that espouses the same principles of environmental sustainability. The famous Italian slogan of the 1990s, I Rotoloni Regina non finiscono mai, (Rotoloni Regina rolls are endless) has now entered, like a catchphrase, into common parlance. The campaign mirrors this slogan by recounting the adventure of a man who accidentally drops one such roll that unravels fast from Monument Valley to the Great Wall of China, then through an Arctic landscape, and to a deserted island and the heart of a thick jungle, where the man sees something that is destined to change his life. Although the commercial shows the roll of paper going around the world, every effort was made to reduce emissions and production times using the innovative Virtual Set technology employed in high-end international filmmaking. Using a giant LED screen and 3D backgrounds that reconstruct the most remote locations on the planet, Director Dario Piana and the Production Company Akita Film managed depth, lighting and perspective realistically, literally immersing the commercial's actors in those settings. For the first time in a full TV commercial, the production was therefore able to stretch out past geographic boundaries without once moving from Milan. Francesco Pastore, Chief Marketing & Sales Officer at Sofidel, explained: "Sustainability and innovation are at the core of our business model. Reducing emissions and increasing the use of renewable energy are key elements of our industrial strategy, which we seek to pursue at all times. The VirtualSet technology used for our commercial enabled us to do so in our communication area as well. And we are very pleased about this." Sofidel's 2030 CO2 emission reduction targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) as consistent with the reductions needed to limit global warming to well below 2C under the Paris Agreement. Specifically, the company aims to reduce Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions related to its pulp suppliers, by 40%. For all other suppliers, the aim is to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 24%. The commitment to fight climate change earned the company inclusion on the CDP Climate "A List", a non-profit organization that globally supports investors, companies, cities, states and regions in managing their environmental impact. The Sofidel Group The Sofidel Group is one of the leading manufacturers of paper for hygienic and domestic use worldwide. Established in 1966, the Group has subsidiaries in 13 countries - Italy, Spain, the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Romania and the USA - with more than 6,000 employees, net sales of 2,095 million Euros (2021) and a production capacity of over one million tonnes per year (1,440,000 tonnes in 2021). "Regina", its most well-known brand, is present on almost all the reference markets. Other brands include: Softis, Le Trefle, Sopalin, KittenSoft, Nalys, Cosynel, Lycke, Nicky, Papernet. A member of the UN Global Compact and the international WWF Climate Savers programme, the Sofidel Group considers sustainability a strategic factor with regards to growth and is committed to reducing its impact on natural capital and maximising social benefits, setting as objective the creation of shared added value for all stakeholders. Sofidel's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets to 2030 have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) as consistent with reductions required to keep warming to well-below 2C, in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. www.sofidel.com Sofidel Press Office Silvia Colleoni - +39 349 3457751- silvia.colleoni@bcw-global.com Giorgia Desimini - +39 389 2019708 - giorgia.desimini@bcw-global.com View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Sofidel on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Sofidel Website: https://www.sofidel.com/en/sustainability/ Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Sofidel View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/734338/Sofidel-Cuts-Its-Emissions-Also-With-Its-New-Regina-Commercial-in-Italy PIS signs MoC with Elite Tankship, signed by the CEO of Elite Tankship, Mangish Kakodkar, and the Director of Operations of PIS, Brilian Perdana. Witnessed by CEO PIS, Yoki Firnandi, President Director Pertamina, Nicke Widyawati, President Commissioner Pertamina, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, and H.E Ambassador of Indonesia for UAE, Husin Bagis. JAKARTA, Jan 7, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - PT Pertamina International Shipping (PIS) has secured two collaboration agreements with global partners. The signings were held with the inauguration of the PIS branch office in Dubai, UAE (PIS ME) on December 23, 2022.PIS signed a Heads of Agreement (HoA) with BGN International DMCC (BGN), and a Memorandum of Collaboration (MoC) with Elite Tankship Pte Ltd (Elite Tankship).The HoA with BGN was signed by the CEO of BGN Group, Ruya Bayegan, and the CEO of PIS, Yoki Firnandi. The agreement addresses a Joint Venture (JV) establishment by the two companies for the acquisition, maintenance, and operation of VLGC (Very Large Gas Carriers) vessels and/or other types of vessels.BGN, headquartered in the UAE, is one of the world's largest LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) trading companies and the largest LPG importer in Indonesia. "The VLGC business will support BGN's imports of Pertamina's LPG. At some point, it might endorse the cargo market of ammonia," said Commercial Director of PIS, Arief Sukmara.The MoC with Elite Tankship addresses Clean Petroleum Products (CPP), Dirty Petroleum Products (DPP), gas, and other commodities needed in the Middle East, and other areas covered by the parties. The MoC was signed by the Elite Tankship CEO Mangish Kakodkar, and PIS Director of Operations and Managing Director Brilian Perdana.Elite Tankship, headquartered in Singapore, established collaboration with PIS in chartering the VLCC Pertamina Prime, the largest owned vessel and the company's pride, in May 2022 for a six-year contract period.About PT Pertamina International Shipping (PIS) Pte LtdAs the Integrated Marine Logistics Subholding, PT Pertamina International Shipping (PIS) supports Indonesia's economic growth through safe and sustainable operation, becomes a trusted and reliable maritime partner, and promotes value for stakeholders through running its business. https://pertamina-pis.com/.Source: Pertamina International Shipping (PIS)Copyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Mr Stephen Phillips HONG KONG, Jan 9, 2023 - (ACN Newswire) - The Director-General of Investment Promotion at Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, Mr Stephen Phillips, today (January 9) embarked on a duty visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, and Singapore this week as part of the latest efforts of InvestHK to promote Hong Kong's business attractions, including the opportunities arising from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA).During the visit, Mr Phillips will be meeting with representatives of companies from financial services and family offices, innovation and technology, transport, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, creative industries, and business and professional services sectors to discuss their plans of setting up or expanding operations in Hong Kong and other parts of the GBA.Mr Phillips will also host a business roundtable cum luncheon for member companies of the Employers' Association of Indonesia in Jakarta to provide an update on business opportunities and talent initiatives in Hong Kong. In Singapore, he will conduct two roundtables jointly organised with the Good City Foundation and the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises respectively, to share with them the latest initiatives and opportunities of the family offices sector in Hong Kong.Mr Phillips said, "Hong Kong remains the only place in the world where the global advantage and the China advantage come together in a single city. This unique convergence makes Hong Kong the irreplaceable connection between the Mainland and the rest of the world. The city is an ideal location for overseas and Mainland companies, as well as entrepreneurs from around the world, as a base to set up or expand their business in Hong Kong, the GBA, China, and Asia more widely."He added, "Hong Kong offers Indonesian and Singaporean companies a wide range of routes to growth opportunities. I look forward to sharing with representatives of companies and entrepreneurs the up-to-date and real situation in Hong Kong, and particularly how they can use Hong Kong to seize opportunities, including those arising from the GBA."Source: InvestHKCopyright 2023 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. Aesthetics Media is introducing a multimedia marketing service for aesthetics spas, clinics, and practices. London, United Kingdom--(Newsfile Corp. - January 8, 2023) - Aesthetics Media, an agency which specializes in DFY digital marketing solutions for the aesthetics industry, announced a new multimedia branding and marketing service designed to help aesthetics clinics and spas improve online visibility and build brand authority. More details about the new service can be found at https://aestheticsmedia.clientcabin.com Aesthetics Media https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8814/150673_0738a19a546a78b6_001full.jpg As part of the new DFY marketing solution, the Los Angeles-based agency designs marketing strategies and creates informative branded content tailored to the needs of small to medium-sized aesthetics businesses. "We design custom marketing strategies to get medical aesthetics practices branding recognition and visibility, helping them position themselves as an industry expert in their local community," says founder and CEO Jonathan Miller. "By applying our media and advertising strategy, we can increase a clinic's visibility for a variety of services and treatments." Combining AI technology and a team of marketing specialists and professional writers, Aesthetics Media delivers a comprehensive DFY branding and reputation marketing solution to aesthetics spas and clinics. Through its omnichannel approach, the agency helps clients improve brand awareness and online visibility for their services. Its new marketing and branding campaigns are available as a monthly subscription and designed as an effective way for clinics to get positive coverage for their brand. "Each campaign focuses on specific treatments and locations, allowing clinics to reach more local patients who are searching for their services," says Jonathan. Along with building brand authority and improving online visibility, the agency's marketing solution can help businesses improve Google ranking. With the launch of its multimedia marketing service, Aesthetics Media is offering businesses in the aesthetics sector a DFY solution designed to improve online visibility and brand recognition in their local area. Founded by Jonathan Miller, the agency works with medical aesthetics spas, skin clinics, dermatology specialists, and non-surgical med spas. Interested parties can learn more about the agency and its new multimedia marketing service at https://aestheticsmedia.clientcabin.com Contact Info: Name: Jonathan Miller Email: jonathan.miller@aestheticsmedia.co Organization: Jonathan Durban Limited DBA Aesthetics Media Address: 55 Monmouth Street, London, England WC2H 9DG, United Kingdom Website: https://aestheticsmedia.co To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150673 Capacity to increase by 2025 in EUROAPI's Saint-Aubin-les-Elbeuf site, the only vitamin B12 manufacturing site located outside of Asia New fermentation generation allowing for nitrite-free process by design, decrease in waste and reduction in water consumption Financial support of 7.9 million provided by local and national public entities Bolsters EUROAPI's position as a reliable supplier and reinforces its status as the partner of choice for its customers Regulatory News: EUROAPI (Paris:EAPI) announces that its Board of Directors has approved a 40 million investment for the implementation of a new production technology dedicated to vitamin B12 at its site in Saint-Aubin-les-Elbeuf (Seine-Maritime, France). The project should enable EUROAPI to increase its manufacturing capacity by 2025 while reducing its environmental footprint. This investment benefits from a total financial support of 7.9 million, from the French Government within the framework of the Relance plan, Agence de l'Eau Seine-Normandie (Seine-Normandie Water Agency AESN) and Normandie Region. This project includes the expansion of Saint-Aubin-les-Elbeuf site and a new generation of fermentation that would increase production by 60%. This new technology will enable EUROAPI to develop a more robust nitrite-free process by design, to decrease waste and to reduce by approximately 50% water consumption. Moreover, this innovative process has been designed to reduce the number of steps required to manufacture the product. The full capacity of the vitamin B12 production should be reached by 2027. The new commitment comes in addition of a 24 million investment announced in July 2022 for the construction of a state-of-the-art biomass boiler which will reduce the CO2 emission of the site by almost 76% in 2026. The two projects are highly synergetic as the 17 MW biomass equipment was designed to support the site's vitamin B12 production capacity increase program. "This key investment in France will enable us to increase our productivity in a dynamic vitamin B12 market, growing at 6-7%1 per annum. It will also increase the level of differentiation of our portfolio, while implementing technology for greener production," commented Karl Rotthier, Chief Executive Officer of EUROAPI. "We are in a unique position being the only vitamin B12 producer with a European manufacturing site. This project bolsters our position as a reliable supplier and partner of choice, and we look forward to strengthening our cooperation with our customers as well as building new collaborations," added Laurent Alexandre, Chief Commercial Officer of EUROAPI. Vitamin B12 fuels some of the body's most fundamental processes, including DNA synthesis, red blood cell production, and nervous system regulation. The Saint-Aubin-les-Elbeuf factory is the only Western API manufacturing site of vitamin B12 and plays a crucial role in ensuring its global supply to numerous clients worldwide, including DSM and P&G Health. The plant specializes in large scale fermentation and has downstream processing facilities. The Saint-Aubin-les-Elbeuf site has worldwide health authority, GMP and ISO certifications, and operates according to the highest industrial standards. About EUROAPI EUROAPI is focused on reinventing active ingredient solutions to sustainably meet customers' and patients' needs around the world. We are a leading player in active pharmaceutical ingredients with approximately 200 products in our portfolio, offering a large span of technologies, while developing innovative molecules through our Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) activities. Taking action for health by enabling access to essential therapies inspires our 3,350 people every day. With strong research and development capabilities and six manufacturing sites all located in Europe, EUROAPI ensures API manufacturing of the highest quality to supply customers in more than 80 countries. EUROAPI is listed on Euronext Paris (Ticker: EAPI ISIN: FR0014008VX5). Find out more at www.euroapi.com and follow us on LinkedIn. Forward-Looking Statements Certain information contained in this press release is forward looking and not historical data. These forward-looking statements are based on opinions, projections and current assumptions including, but not limited to, assumptions concerning the Group's current and future strategy, financial and non-financial future results and the environment in which the Group operates, as well as events, operations, future services or product development and potential. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "plans" and similar expressions. Forward looking statements and information do not constitute guarantees of future performances, and are subject to known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, a large number of which are difficult to predict and generally outside the control of the Group, which could cause actual results, performances or achievements, or the results of the sector or other events, to differ materially from those described or suggested by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those that are indicated and detailed in Chapter 3 "Risk factors relating to the issuer" of the prospectus approved by the French Financial Markets Authority (Autorite des marches financiers, AMF) on March 31, 2022, under number 22- 076. These forward-looking statements are given only as of the date of this press release and the Group expressly declines any obligation or commitment to publish updates or corrections of the forward-looking statements included in this press release in order to reflect any change affecting the forecasts or events, conditions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. _______________________ 1Company estimates View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230108005040/en/ Contacts: Media Relations: Laurence Bollack Mob.: +33 (0)6 81 86 80 19 mr@euroapi.com Investor Relations: Guillaume Rosso Mob.: +33 (0)6 49 51 59 78 ir@euroapi.com Backed by $30m in seed funding, with equity from global investor, White Star Capital Co-owners will enjoy affordable second-home ownership, with year-round hotel-style management and maintenance Fractal's initial set of London -based properties are now available DUBAI, UAE, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Fractal Homes , a UK-based start-up offering fractional home ownership across Europe's capital cities, has launched a second home co-ownership model aimed at streamlining purchasing, maintenance, and upkeep of select properties for GCC residents. To coincide with this announcement, Fractal Homes has launched a new website and its first offering of four luxury apartments across London which can be viewed here . The initial focus has been on prime properties in sought-after destinations in West London - such as Knightsbridge, Notting Hill, Chelsea, Kensington, and Mayfair. Expansion into other holiday and business destinations, such as Paris and Madrid are planned for next year. Down the line, the company sees potential in ski resorts as well as Mediterranean beach destinations. Fractal aims to make second home ownership affordable, accessible, and hassle-free through its managed co-ownership model. The company provides peace of mind to co-owners by offering the full suite of services to support the initial acquisition, as well as ongoing property management, and will offer a luxury hotel-like serviced experience to cater to its customer's personal needs and demands. Through the Fractal, app co-owners can manage all aspects of their property, from scheduling stays, and having around-the-clock concierge assistance, to booking private services such as chauffeurs and childcare. Owners also have the option to store personal items in the property, so they feel right at home on arrival. "Fractal Homes' platform makes it easy for buyers to own and enjoy second homes in Europe's most desirable cities. We make second home ownership more accessible by splitting each home into eight equal parts, reducing both the initial capital outlay required to buy the home and also the often-overlooked high cost of running a property. Fractal fully manages the property and takes care of cleaning, maintenance and all operational aspects that come with the running of a home to give our buyers a hotel-like experience" explained Labib Kaddoura, co-founder of Fractal. "Buying a second home for just a few weeks of usage per year in addition to all the maintenance and operational hassles that come with it makes little sense to us," continued Kaddoura, "that's one of the main reasons why we created Fractal." The founders of Fractal - who are French and British nationals of Lebanese origin - want to upend conventional second home ownership. The company offers access to prime real estate at a fraction of its cost; creating a much lower entry point for GCC buyers looking to acquire a luxury second home in Europe. With its predominant focus on customers from the region, Fractal will be expanding its presence in GCC with a new office in Abu Dhabi next year. "Being from, and having lived in, the Middle East, we know first-hand how beneficial a second home is for individuals and families who spend a lot of time traveling between two countries for business, schooling, and leisure. The attractiveness of European capitals for GCC buyers, coupled with a good market entry point seeing the recent appreciation in USD, make it a very opportune time for buyers to consider the fractional ownership model," said Wadih Abou Bechara, co-founder of Fractal. Global multi-stage technology investment platform, White Star Capital, has led the equity portion of financing, with additional debt investment from a London-based private credit fund, as part of Fractal Homes' $30m seed funding. Eric Martineau-Fortin, CEO and Managing Partner at White Star Capital, said: "We were immediately impressed by the caliber of the Fractal team, who has identified a key pain point in home ownership that can be solved through the combination of technology and an innovative approach. We're very excited to be with them on this journey to disrupt the property co-ownership model through their scalable solution. Furthermore, the Fractal team's ambition is strongly aligned with our views of growing connectivities between the GCC region and Europe." Kaddoura and Abou Bechara are former JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch investment bankers who spent the last nine years as co-founders of a boutique debt advisory firm based between London and Dubai. About Fractal Homes Fractal is reinventing second home co-ownership for GCC buyers. Through its fully integrated technology platform Fractal allows clients to own, use and sell fractional interests in properties across European cities, starting with London. The company is focused on capturing cross-border flows into prime residential European real estate, offering true ownership in properties at an accessible price and on a fully managed basis for buyers. About White Star Capital White Star Capital is a global multi-stage technology investment platform that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs building ambitious, international businesses. Operating out of, London, New York, Paris, Montreal, Toronto, Tokyo, and Singapore, our global presence, perspective, and people enable us to partner closely with our founders to help them scale internationally. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/fractal-homes-launches-second-home-co-ownership-model-in-europe-for-gcc-residents-301716161.html By Arthur I. Cyr "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ," is a useful starting place for discussion of the influence of Pope Francis, who is proving to be a remarkable activist and leader of the Roman Catholic Church. To modern readers, the Biblical quote (Exodus 21:24) seems brutal, but the Old Testament sentiment actually represented revolutionary progress. Ancient warfare involved unrestrained killing and pillaging. By contrast, this Hebrew law codified proportionality and limits. Historically and currently, the Vatican has played an important role in restraining warfare. Two events in December underscore the importance of the Roman Catholic Church and also the significant change in wider global societies. On the morning of Dec. 31, former Pope Benedict XVI died. A highly respected German theologian, Benedict on becoming pope in 2005 was heralded by conservatives who saw him as a bulwark against currents of change. He denounced shocking sexual abuse in the church and excommunicated guilty priests, but was criticized for not acting earlier and his leadership style alienated many. In 2013, he resigned, the first pope to do so since 1415. Additionally, in December a three-day conference in Rome of Catholic scholars discussed the importance of the Catholic prohibition of contraception. The event was inspired by questioning within the Vatican of the contemporary value of traditional doctrine. Pope Francis, Benedict's successor, is spurring discussion centered on change. Francis' April 2016 letter on marriage reiterates the commitment to traditional marriage but also emphasizes tolerance for those who do not accept Catholic doctrine. That marks an important if not overdue change. During the Cold War, Pope John Paul II provided historic leadership in foreign policy. He supported Solidarity, the successful trade union-based reform movement in his native Poland. That in turn contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and satellite states. Today, hunger and poverty have been significantly overcome by the great majority in industrialized nations, and political controversies now generally focus on other topics. Francis is encouraging reform on policies regarding capital punishment, the environment and lifestyles. The World Wars of the last century reconfirmed the Catholic Church's emphasis on restraint in war. Contemporary Catholic analysis of ethics and military strategy is spearheaded by influential leaders such as J. Bryan Hehir, a senior priest who has taught at both Georgetown and Harvard. Hehir is currently the Secretary for Health and Social Services at the Archdiocese of Boston. When sexual abuse by priests became public, with the inevitable and intense angry reaction, he bluntly and publicly criticized his church for initially mishandling such crimes by priests. During the Cold War, J. Bryan Hehir guided the U.S. Catholic Bishops' influential report on the use of nuclear weapons. In April 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the memorial in Hiroshima Japan, commemorating lives lost from the 1945 atomic bomb attack. Appropriately and understandably, he described the experience as "gut-wrenching." War is still occurring, but another global total war has been avoided. Kerry happens to be Catholic. Global human populations since World War II have experienced extraordinary positive developments; believers from earlier periods in history would consider them miraculous. Masses of humanity are moving into relatively comfortable lives. Democracy is spreading. Wealth gaps are growing in industrialized nations, but vast global abject poverty is slowly diminishing. Today, relative security for Americans encourages self-preoccupation. Francis pursues fundamental concerns, of universal importance, with subtle but strong, sustained reform efforts. His leadership should be supported. ) is author of "After the Cold War American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia." Arthur I. Cyr ( acyr@carthage.edu Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR Pratteln, Switzerland, and Rockville, MD, USA,January 9, 2023 - Santhera Pharmaceuticals (SIX: SANN) and ReveraGen BioPharma, Inc announce that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the new drug application (NDA) for vamorolonefor the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) for filing. The FDA has set October 26, 2023, as the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) target action date. The PDUFA date is the target date for the FDA to complete its review of the NDA. Furthermore, the FDA stated that it does not currently plan to hold an advisory committee meeting to discuss the application. Subject to approval, Santhera plans to launch vamorolone in the U.S. in Q4-2023. "We are delighted that the FDA has accepted Santhera's vamorolone NDA for filing. We believe this product addresses a clear unmet medical need and for Santhera, this represents the achievement of an important milestone with key significance for our future success," said Dario Eklund, CEO of Santhera. "We look forward to working closely with U.S. regulators to advance vamorolone towards approval." "This is an exciting time for the Duchenne community as the data generated across the clinical trial program indicate that vamorolone has the potential to address relevant aspects in patient care that could also enhance treatment outcomes," said Eric Hoffman, PhD, President and CEO of ReveraGen BioPharma. "If approved, vamorolone will emerge as an additional treatment option in current standards of care in DMD, with the potential to address unmet medical needs and treat a majority of Duchenne patients starting at an early age." The NDA submission for vamorolone was supported by clinical data from the positive pivotal Phase 2b VISION-DMD study which met the primary endpoint with statistical significance over placebo [1]. The data package also included data from four open-label studies (including extension) in which vamorolone was administered at doses between 2 and 6 mg/kg/day for a total treatment period of up to 30 months [2]. In Europe, a marketing authorization application (MAA), seeking approval for vamorolone in the European Union, has been validated and is under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Vamorolone has been granted Orphan Drug status in the U.S. and in Europe for DMD, and has received Fast Track and Rare Pediatric Disease designations by the U.S. FDA and Promising Innovative Medicine (PIM) status from the UK MHRA for DMD. About Vamorolone Vamorolone is an investigational drug candidate with a mode of action based on binding to the same receptor as corticosteroids but modifying its downstream activity and as such is considered a dissociative anti-inflammatory drug [2-5]. This mechanism has shown the potential to 'dissociate' efficacy from steroid safety concerns and therefore vamorolone could emerge as an alternative to existing corticosteroids, the current standard of care in children and adolescent subjects with DMD. In the pivotal VISION-DMD study, vamorolone met the primary endpoint Time to Stand (TTSTAND) velocity versus placebo (p=0.002) at 24 weeks of treatment and showed a good safety and tolerability profile [1]. The most commonly reported adverse events versus placebo from the VISION-DMD study were cushingoid features, vomiting and vitamin D deficiency. Adverse events were generally of mild to moderate severity. Vamorolone is an investigational medicine and is currently not approved for use by any health authority. References: [1] Guglieri M et al. [2] Mah JK et al. [3] Guglieri, et al (2022) JAMA. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.4315 [4] Heier CR at al (2019). Life Science Alliance DOI: 10.26508 [5] Liu X, et al (2020). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 117:24285-24293 About Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a rare inherited X-chromosome-linked disease, which almost exclusively affects males. DMD is characterized by inflammation which is present at birth or shortly thereafter. Inflammation leads to fibrosis of muscle and is clinically manifested by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. Major milestones in the disease are the loss of ambulation, the loss of self-feeding, the start of assisted ventilation, and the development of cardiomyopathy. DMD reduces life expectancy to before the fourth decade due to respiratory and/or cardiac failure. Corticosteroids are the current standard of care for the treatment of DMD. About Santhera Santhera Pharmaceuticals (SIX: SANN) is a Swiss specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative medicines for rare neuromuscular and pulmonary diseases with high unmet medical need. The Company has an exclusive license for all indications worldwide to vamorolone, a dissociative steroid with novel mode of action, which was investigated in a pivotal study in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy as an alternative to standard corticosteroids. Santhera has a new drug application (NDA) under review by the U.S. FDA and a marketing authorization application (MAA) under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for vamorolone for the treatment of DMD. The clinical stage pipeline also includes lonodelestat to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) and other neutrophilic pulmonary diseases. Santhera out-licensed rights to its first approved product, Raxone (idebenone), outside North America and France for the treatment of Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) to Chiesi Group. For further information, please visit www.santhera.com . Raxone is a trademark of Santhera Pharmaceuticals. About ReveraGen BioPharma ReveraGen was founded in 2008 to develop first-in-class dissociative steroidal drugs for Duchenne muscular dystrophy and other chronic inflammatory disorders. The development of ReveraGen's lead compound, vamorolone, has been supported through partnerships with foundations worldwide, including Muscular Dystrophy Association USA, Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy, Foundation to Eradicate Duchenne, Save Our Sons, JoiningJack, Action Duchenne, CureDuchenne, Ryan's Quest, Alex's Wish, DuchenneUK, Pietro's Fight, Michael's Cause, Duchenne Research Fund, and Defeat Duchenne Canada. ReveraGen has also received generous support from the US Department of Defense CDMRP, National Institutes of Health For further information please contact: Santhera Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG, Hohenrainstrasse 24, CH-4133 Pratteln public-relations@santhera.comor Eva Kalias, Head Investor Relations & Communications Phone: +41 79 875 27 80 eva.kalias@santhera.com ReveraGen BioPharma Eric Hoffman, PhD, President and CEO Phone: + 1 240-672-0295 eric.hoffman@reveragen.com Disclaimer / Forward-looking statements This communication does not constitute an offer or invitation to subscribe for or purchase any securities of Santhera Pharmaceuticals Holding AG. This publication may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning the Company and its business. Such statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Readers should therefore not place undue reliance on these statements, particularly not in connection with any contract or investment decision. The Company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. # # # Attachment BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Estonia's trade deficit in November widened from the same month last year, as imports rose more than exports, figures from Statistics Estonia showed on Monday. The trade deficit rose to EUR 352 million in November from EUR 133 million in the same month last year. In October, the trade deficit was EUR 240 million. Exports was unchanged on a year-on-year basis in November, after a 12.0 percent rise in October. Imports rose 12.0 percent annually in November, after a 15.0 percent increase in the previous month. 'The decline was significantly influenced by a drop in imports of goods and raw materials from Russia and Belarus,' Evelin Puura, a leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said. The main export partners of the country were Finland, Latvia and Sweden, and the major import partners were Finland, Latvia and Lithuania. Copyright(c) 2023 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. SHANGHAI,China, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The China International Import Expo (CIIE) has been described by global companies as a vital platform for promoting trade, investment and global cooperation. Industry players have also said that the expo further opens the Chinese market to the rest of the world and firmly supports economic globalization and trade liberalization. Fabrice Megarbane, President of L'Oreal North Asia and CEO of L'Oreal China, described CIIE as an "accelerator" that helps to speed up the pace of innovation and encourage collaboration. Panasonic also spoke highly of the expo. Tetsuro Homma, executive vice-president of Panasonic Holdings Corp, hailed the expo as a strategic global exhibition and an important platform for communication between countries. According to official statistics, the accumulated intended turnover of the last five editions of the CIIE totaled $340 billion, an indication that many multinational companies stand to prosper through the CIIE. The fifth CIIE, which concluded on November 10, 2022, saw fruitful results. More than 2,800 enterprises, including 284 of the world's top 500 enterprises and many industry giants such as Panasonic, Bayer and L'Oreal, gathered to showcase their products, technologies and services at the business exhibition. "For five years, the CIIE has not only served as the optimal choice for multinational companies to make global debuts of their new products and frontier technologies, but also witnessed many participants' transition from exhibitors to investors," said Sheng Qiuping, China's Vice Minister of Commerce. The international influence of the expo has also become more extensive. Over the past five years, the CIIE has been widely covered by media outlets around the world. The Associated Press (AP), Reuters, Agence France-Presse (AFP), RIA Novosti, Yonhap News Agency and other international mainstream media have reported on the expo. Relevant articles published by international mainstream news agencies have reached about 1.2 billion international audiences in nearly 100 countries and regions. Many participants have also hailed the Hongqiao International Economic Forum, a key part of the CIIE, as a high-level platform that promotes dialogue among political, business and academic communities on matters related to global cooperation for sustainable development around the world. Themed "Stimulation of Opening-up Impetus and Sharing of Cooperation Opportunities", the fifth Hongqiao Forum reflected China's commitment to further opening up to the world. According to the World Openness Report 2022 that was released at the fifth Hongqiao Forum, China's opening-up index had increased by 5.6 percent between 2012 and 2020, a sign that the country has become an important force in promoting economic globalization. With China advancing its institutional opening-up and creating favorable conditions to attract foreign investment, the broader spillover effect of the CIIE will facilitate multinational corporations to further tap into the country's vast market, according to authorities. The sixth edition of the CIIE will be held in Shanghai from November 5 to 10, 2023. Registration for the business exhibition of the sixth expo has begun, and over 100,000 square meters of area has already been booked. Be sure to secure your booth at: https://www.ciie.org/exhibition/f/book/register?locale=en. Contact:Ms. Cui Yan Tel.:0086-21-968888 Email:ciie2022@ciie.org Website:http://www.ciie.org/zbh/en/ Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/ciieonline Twitter:https://twitter.com/ciieonline Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1979570/CIIE.jpg Logo- https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1938442/CIIE_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/global-mncs-acclaims-ciie-as-crucial-platform-for-sharing-opportunities-301716298.html AMSTERDAM, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- We are delighted to announce that, as of January 2023, top academic expert Prof. Dr Pasquale Pistone has been appointed as Visiting Global Professor of Law at Hauser Global Faculty (NYU School of Law). As part of this prestigious appointment, Prof. Pistone will be a lecturer on Tax Treaties and Comparative Tax Policy Seminar courses, helping this leading institution enhance its academic programmes. During the Spring Semester 2023, Prof. Pistone will be based in New York City in the United States, and he will be conducting research on the reform of international tax nexus in the framework of the works of the Tax Committee of the International Law Association. "IBFD is extremely proud of its Academic Chairman, a true global ambassador and our strong linking pin with the academic world. We are very pleased that the Hauser Global Faculty has chosen to honour Prof. Pistone and we look forward to a fruitful relationship with this great university," said IBFD CEO, Jan Maarten Slagter. About Prof. Pistone Prof. Pistone is the Academic Chairman of IBFD. He holds a Jean Monnet ad personam Chair in European Tax Law and Policy at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria) and is Full Professor of Tax Law at the University of Salerno (Italy). His main fields of expertise are European and international tax law, in which he is regarded as a top academic expert throughout the world. Contact information: Phil Windus, Senior Marketing Coordinator: p.windus@ibfd.org. IBFD Academic IBFDencourages academic excellence. It is our mission to stimulate the development of cross-border taxation and ensure the widest dissemination of tax knowledge. Our academic portfolio is key to achieving this goal. As the world's leading think tank in international tax law, we engage in an extensive range of academic activities. We work closely with universities and scientific institutions around the world to advance expertise and excellence throughout the international tax community A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/63dd1ef5-f3a4-4d45-9e6a-2127445e5203 BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - French stocks were flat to slightly higher on Monday after posting strong gains in the previous session on easing worries about the Fed's interest-rate hiking path. China reopened its borders for international travel, helping underpin investor sentiment to some extent. The benchmark CAC 40 was marginally higher at 6,862 after adding 1.5 percent on Friday. Ipsen fell about 1 percent after the biopharmaceutical company entered into a merger deal with Albireo, a rare disease company focused on the development of bile acid modulators to treat pediatric and adult liver diseases. Automaker Renault fell 1.6 percent as it announced the success of its Renaulution Shareplan for Group employees. Telecom major Orange S.A. dropped 1.4 percent after it signed a memorandum of understanding with Canal+ Group, a mass media firm, to sell OCS pay TV package and Orange Studio, the film and series co-production arm. Copyright(c) 2023 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. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Hungary's trade deficit widened in November from a year ago, as imports rose faster than exports, and industrial production increased at a softer pace, data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office showed on Monday. The trade deficit increased EUR 1.283 billion in November from EUR 43 million in the same month last year. In October, the trade deficit was EUR 923 million. On a yearly basis, exports increased 17.8 percent in November, after a 22.4 percent rise in October. Imports rose 28.8 percent annually in November, following a 26.2 percent growth in the prior month. Separate data from the statistical office showed that the working-day adjusted industrial production rose 0.8 percent yearly in November, after a 5.0 percent gain in October. On an unadjusted basis, industrial production growth eased to 0.5 percent in November from 5.9 percent in October. The manufacture of transport equipment and electrical equipment increased significantly, while the volume of production declined in the majority of the manufacturing subsections, along with the manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products as well as in that of food products, beverages, and tobacco products, the agency said. On a monthly basis, industrial production declined a seasonally, and working-day adjusted by 0.7 percent in November, following a 3.6 percent drop in the preceding month. Copyright(c) 2023 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. Brooklyn, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Bruder Office Furniture is pleased to announce its expansion in operations and distribution throughout North America and Canada, and the company expects to grow this year. Bruder Office Furniture Bruder Office Furniture offers a well-curated collection of office furniture, allowing clients to create attractive and high-functioning workspaces. Its expansion will provide more businesses access to high-quality yet affordable office furniture. "We have office design experts who help set us apart from other manufacturers. They eliminate the guesswork for clients who need to make furnishing decisions, providing exactly what clients want for their office space. We believe in creating a collaborative and fun experience. We also aim to take away the stress that clients commonly experience when remodeling," says Joel Kofie, Business Development Manager at Bruder Office Furniture. The manufacturing company provides direct access to its products. "Through key partnerships, we can offer clients the best prices on high-quality office furniture. At times, they can save up to 75% of the competitor's price. This is valuable to clients as intermediaries trying to get a cut is prevalent in the furniture industry," Kofie adds. Bruder Office Furniture is delivering new customer service by offering customized goods and services. It can also shorten client delivery time as it moves closer to major business districts in North America and Canada. About Bruder Office Furniture Bruder Office Furniture is a manufacturer and supplier of office desks, chairs, conference tables, cabinets, and wardrobes. It helps clients build beautiful and comfortable workspaces that boost worker morale. The business was founded during the epidemic by three brothers who were in the last-mile delivery services sector. After recognizing the need for high-quality office furniture, the siblings started the business. The company prioritizes client preferences at every step, from design, style, 3D rendering, and delivery, to installation. Contact details Joel Kofie Email: info@bruderofficefurniture.com Website: https://www.bruderofficefurniture.com/ To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150668 WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Oil prices traded sharply higher on Monday, after having settled on a flat note Friday. Benchmark Brent crude futures jumped 3.2 percent to $81.11 a barrel, while WTI crude futures soared 3.3 percent to $76.20. Prices climbed at the start of the week on optimism about demand recovery, as China opened its borders for travel for the first time in three years as part of its new policy on COVID-19. Chinese policymakers have pledged to increase support for the world's second-largest economy, adding to investor optimism about demand recovery in the world's top crude importer. China's growth would be back on track soon as Beijing provides more financial support to households and companies, a Chinese central bank official said in an interview with People's Daily. UBS analysts said last week they expect to see Brent Crude oil prices rebound from losses in the second half of last year to $110 a barrel in 2023. However, there is a concern that a global recession could dent the future demand of crude oil. Copyright(c) 2023 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. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Austria's trade balance logged a deficit in October, as imports rose faster than exports, data from Statistics Austria showed on Monday. The trade balance registered a deficit of EUR 1.89 billion in October. Exports grew 16.3 percent yearly in October and imports rose 17.5 percent. 'As in previous months, this increase was in many cases due to price rises, some of which were massive, for example in the case of imports of fuels and energy,' Statistics Austria Director General Tobias Thomas said. The volume of gas imports was reduced by 40.1 percent in the first ten months of 2022 compared with the last year, it transferred 127.8 percent more money to its import partners for this purpose, the official said. Copyright(c) 2023 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. Quetzal Capital Plc - Result of AGM & Approval of the Acquisition of Tap Certain information contained within this Announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR") as applied in the United Kingdom. Upon publication of this Announcement, this information is now considered to be in the public domain. 9 January 2023 Quetzal Capital Plc ("Quetzal" or the "Company") Result of Annual General Meeting Approval of the Acquisition of Tap Global Limited Quetzal Capital Plc (AQSE: QTZ) is pleased to announce that all resolutions were passed at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held today. Accordingly, completion of the Acquisition of Tap Global Limited by the Company is now expected to occur, with the Enlarged Share Capital of 693,409,624 Ordinary Shares expected to start trading at 8.00 a.m. on Tuesday, 10 January 2023, on the AQSE Growth Market. The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement. Enquiries: Quetzal Capital Plc John Taylor Tel: +44 (0)20 3813 0175 Peterhouse Capital Limited (AQSE Growth Market Corporate Adviser) Guy Miller / Narisha Ragoonanthun Tel: +44 (0)20 7469 0930 Vigo Consulting (Public and Investor Relations) Ben Simons / Charlie Neish Tel: +44 (0)20 7390 0230 About Tap Global Tap is a regulated, innovative, and fully integrated provider of fiat banking and crypto settlement services with over 100,000 registered users. Tap offers full fiat banking for both B2B and B2C and crypto services to its customers. Through a single regulatory portal, Tap customers can access several major crypto exchanges, allowing them to purchase up to 26 crypto assets and store them directly in the customer's wallet. The fiat wallets can store fiat currency denominated in Sterling, Euros and/or US$. Utilising Tap's proprietary Artificial Intelligence middleware, Tap allows customers the benefit of best execution and pricing in real time. This allows Tap to offer competitive pricing for trades and instant crypto or cash settlement. Tap provides named bank accounts denominated in Sterling and/or Euros to all its customers in the UK, EEA, and EU through its banking partner, LHV. B2B and B2C customers can operate their Tap fiat bank account for ordinary business activities - such as paying suppliers and receiving funds in two fiat currencies (currently EUR and GBP, with more fiat currencies in development). All deposits in fiat or crypto can be made free of charge by the user. In addition, customers have the option to be issued a physical or virtual Tap Prepaid Mastercard on which purchases can be made. For more information, visit www.tap.global. Jagannath Panda Mitch Shin By Jagannath Panda and Mitch Shin In late December 2022, South Korea, under the relatively new presidency of Yoon Suk Yeol effectively concluded its policy shift from strategic ambiguity by releasing the "Strategy for a Free, Peaceful and Prosperous Indo-Pacific Region." The document sets forth a wide-ranging ambit in cooperation, including on traditional and non-traditional security domains such as economic security; maritime security; counter-terrorism; nuclear non-proliferation; climate action; energy security; cyber security; and new technologies. One of the most important features is its focus on "future-oriented" diplomacy, namely the centrality of "collective" partnerships with Indo-Pacific allies to build a sustainable and resilient regional order. The strategy envisions the ultimate goal of developing the Republic of Korea (ROK) as a "Global Pivotal State" which has been the mainstay of Yoon's doctrine. Until Yoon took office in March, South Korea's regional strategy involved hedging its bets. As a state that is highly reliant on China for its economic sustenance and the United States its principal ally for its security considerations, South Korea has long avoided siding with either great power. The difficulty of managing bilateral relations with both China and the U.S. pre-dates the Yoon administration; different governments have sought to manage the country's security versus trade dilemma, which is always influenced by the U.S.-China rivalry through various strategies and with varying degrees of success. To some extent, Yoon's Indo-Pacific policy is the present administration's response to the geopolitical complexities that have arisen with the intensifying great power competition and ever-widening divergence between the U.S. and China. In line with South Korea's cautious (yet bold) positioning of itself between its two indispensable major partners, Beijing and Washington, Seoul's Indo-Pacific strategy is prudent, pragmatic and a way to enhance systematic flexibility. It also contributes to creating a balancing act against great power politics. It highlights South Korea's plans to pursue deeper partnerships beyond China and the U.S., through Indo-Pacific partners like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, Canada, Mongolia, India, Australia and New Zealand, as well as like-minded states in the Middle East, Africa (on the Indian Ocean coast), Europe and Latin America. In other words, by expanding the country's trade, investment and security relationships beyond China and the U.S., the Yoon government is looking to preserve national and regional prosperity and stability and enhance South Korean leadership in the region. At the same time, the strategy barely mentions China, which in itself is evidence of Seoul's determination to continue seeking a carefully calibrated balance between its largest trade partner and military ally, China and the U.S., respectively. In fact, China is recognized as a "key partner for achieving prosperity and peace in the Indo-Pacific" as Seoul aims to "nurture a sounder and more mature relationship" with Beijing that is built upon "mutual respect and reciprocity" and "guided by international norms and rules." Seoul's plan to resume the ROK-Japan-China trilateral summit, alongside the ongoing ROK-U.S.-Japan collaboration for harmonious cooperation between the three East Asian powers consolidates the balancing act narrative. Although Yoon indicated he would take a tough line on China during his presidential campaign, South Korea's interdependence with China makes any outright alignment with the U.S. and against China unsustainable. While the U.S. and its allies like Japan and Australia (and to some extent India) have openly criticized China's attempts to assert its maritime and territorial claims and unilaterally change the status quo, plus, its actions of violating human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, South Korea has taken a more muted stance so as to avoid antagonizing China. In other words, South Korea's Indo-Pacific strategy is constrained by the country's high export dependency, which demonstrates the limitations and risks that it faces in totally transforming its regional geopolitics and its struggle to formulate a long-term sustainable radical vision. However, South Korea's Indo-Pacific policy does indirectly feature the China threat and Seoul's commitment to countering it. For instance, the strategy raises concerns over Chinese military actions in the Taiwan Strait and reaffirms Seoul's commitment to peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, as a factor critical to maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula and the Indo-Pacific at large. At the same time, the policy highlights the importance of peace, stability, and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, especially due to its strategic significance for sea lines of communication and trade routes. North Korea, on the other hand, has been clearly labeled as a "serious threat to peace and stability" not just in East Asia but globally. The heightened trilateral cooperation measures with the U.S. and Japan with which relations have been historically fraught highlight that deterrence will remain the favored method over dialogue vis-a-vis North Korea. In that respect, the dependence on China, which has been a critical stakeholder in the negotiations between the two Koreas, will be considerably reduced. Notably, South Korea's announcement of its Indo-Pacific policy and declaration of gradually building cooperation with the increasingly relevant Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad comprising the U.S., Japan, Australia and India demonstrates a marked shift toward internalizing the Indo-Pacific concept. It solidifies South Korea's intent to acquire greater strategic and foreign policy autonomy, as well as to transform from a peripheral player to a central one by capitalizing on its as yet underutilized middle power status and capabilities. Therefore, even though South Korea's strategy for a free, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region seems at the outset, only mildly concerned with the threat posed by China, it has taken a non-confrontational but reasonable approach. However, whether the strategy's implementation to address the North Korean and Chinese threats will be effective in practice will depend on not only geopolitical headwinds but also how well the Yoon government is able to manage the South's bilateral relationship with China and the U.S., as well as the potential contradictions between economic growth, supply chain resiliency and security. Dr. Jagannath Panda is the head of Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs at the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Sweden and a senior fellow at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS), the Netherlands. Mitch Shin is an assistant editor at The Diplomat. Shin was a non-resident research fellow at the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm Korea Center. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 9, 2023 / Tinka Resources Limited ("Tinka" or the "Company") (TSXV & BVL:TK)(OTCQB:TKRFF) is pleased to announce results for four drill holes from the Company's ongoing infill and resource expansion drill program at the Ayawilca zinc project in central Peru. All four drill holes are from South Ayawilca. Hole A22-202 has returned the best drill intercept ever made at the Ayawilca project: 38.9 metres grading 20.0% zinc including an ultra high-grade interval of 10.4 metres grading 42.0% zinc . The 2022-2023 drill program has now been expanded due to the excellent results to date, with about half of the drill holes (13) now reported of the estimated 30 holes to be completed at both South Ayawilca and West Ayawilca. Key highlights Hole A22-202: 38.9 metres at 20.0% zinc from 170.5 metres depth, including 10.4 metres at 42.0% zinc from 193.3 metres depth, including 3.8 metres at 49.9% zinc from 198.0 metres depth. The widest interval is the highest grade-thickness intercept ever drilled at Ayawilca. Massive sulphide mineralization is concentrated in the hinge of a fold 'anticline' at South Ayawilca. Several fan-holes are now targeting extensions of this ultra high-grade zinc mineralization. Hole A22-199: 5.3 metres at 14.3% zinc from 138.8 metres depth and 42.4 metres at 9.4% zinc from 246.5 metres, including: 5.5 metres at 22.9% zinc from 261.3 metres depth, and 9.1 metres at 20.8% zinc from 279.8 metres depth. Hole A22-204: 14.8 metres at 8.4% zinc from 196.4 metres depth, including: 6.1 metres at 12.6% zinc from 200 metres depth, and 26.5 metres at 6.2% zinc from 264.5 metres depth, including 3.9 metres at 15.1% zinc from 283.8 metres depth. True thicknesses of the mineralized intercepts are estimated to be at least 75% of the downhole thicknesses. The drill program at Ayawilca is continuing without interruption with two rigs operating 24/7. Around 7,000 metres have been completed with another 4,000 metres planned. Drilling is expected to continue until April 2023, with one rig at South and a second rig at West Ayawilca (where several holes have results pending). Dr. Graham Carman, Tinka's President and CEO, stated: "The ultra high-grade zinc intercept in A22-202 is a potential game changer for the Ayawilca project. The interval of 10.4 metres grading 42% zinc consists of almost pure zinc sulphide mineralization, while part of this interval grading ~50% Zn is reflective of zinc concentrate grade accepted by smelters. Importantly, the mineralization is relatively shallow (~140 m depth) and comes from an area of the resource that could be accessed early in a mine plan. Several fan holes are in progress from the same drill platform (or from nearby sites) targeting extensions of this ultra high-grade zinc mineralization, particularly the limestone-sandstone footwall contact where the zinc appears to be concentrated. Two follow-up holes, A22-206 and A22-208, have already been completed and another hole is in progress". Dr. Carman continued, "We are pleased to report that on the back of these excellent drill results to date, the 2022-2023 drill program has been extended to 11,000 metres. One drill rig continues to operate at South Ayawilca, with a second rig at West Ayawilca. We look forward to publishing more drill results as they come to hand from both areas." Discussion of the drill results Tinka has now completed approximately 7,000 metres (21 holes) in the 2022-2023 resource definition-expansion drill program with only 13 of the holes reported so far, including this release (see previous results dated Oct 11, 2022 and Nov 21, 2022 - drill hole map - Figure 1 ). The objectives of the drill program continue to be to target the highest-grade zinc mineralization at both South and West Ayawilca, and to expand measured and indicated zinc resources. Indicated resources are currently estimated at 19.0 Mt grading 7.2% Zn, 17 g/t Ag & 0.2% Pb and inferred resources are 47.9 Mt @ 5.4% Zn, 20 g/t Ag & 0.4% Pb (as at August 30 th , 2021). Table 1 summarises the drill intercepts highlighted in this news release. Table 2 summarises the complete list of holes to date in the 2022 drill program. Hole A22-202 was drilled to test the hinge zone of the limestone 'anticline' fold previously identified at South Ayawilca. The hole intersected massive zinc sulphide mineralization over 38.9 metres grading 20.0% Zn from 170.5 metres depth (~140 metres vertical depth) - see cross section - Figure 2 . The interval of 10.4 metres at 42.0% zinc consists of almost pure zinc sulphide (sphalerite) mineralization - see drill core photograph - Figure 3 . The ultra high-grade zinc mineralization appears to be focussed along the limestone-sandstone footwall contact on the edge of the overturned anticline fold. Hole A22-199 intersected two massive zinc sulphide intervals. The shallowest interval of 5.3 metres grading 14.3% zinc from 138.8 metres is hosted by sandstone. The deeper zinc interval is hosted by limestone and intersected 42.4 metres grading 9.4% zinc (including 5.5 metres grading 22.9% zinc and 9.1 metres grading 20.8% zinc). A third zone of sulphide (predominantly pyrrhotite hosted) intersected tin mineralization, including 18.0 metres grading 0.67% tin from 206 metres depth. Hole A22-204 was drilled from a nearby drill collar targeting a gap in the indicated resource. This hole intersected two zones of high-grade zinc mineralization within the Pucara limestone, the best mineralized interval being 14.8 metres grading 8.4% zinc from 196.4 metres, including 6.1 metres grading 12.6% zinc. Another zone of sulphide intersected tin mineralization including 16.5 metres grading 0.36% tin from 234 metres depth associated with massive pyrrhotite - pyrite. Hole A22-196 was a hole collared some 150 metres north of the South Ayawilca resource and was drilled at a shallow angle (45 degrees) to the south. This hole intersected moderate grade zinc mineralization in the uppermost part of the South Ayawilca deposit (18.6 metres grading 5.8% zinc from 300 metres depth) but missed the high-grade core of the deposit due to the shallow dip of the drill hole. Table 1. Summary of drill hole results in four new drill holes from South Ayawilca Figure 1. Drill hole map of Ayawilca highlighting 2022-2023 drill holes and the Zinc Zone indicated resources Figure 2. Cross section highlighting hole A22-202 and zinc mineralization focussed in a folded limestone 'anticline' Figure 3. Drill cores from hole A22-202 highlighting the 10.4 metre interval grading 42% zinc Table 2. Drill hole details for 2022-2023 drill program including drill collar coordinates Notes: Datum for coordinates is WGS84 Zone 18S. Azimuth is true azimuth Note on sampling and assaying Drill holes are diamond HQ size core holes with recoveries generally above 80% and often close to 100%. The drill core is marked up, logged, and photographed on site. The cores are cut in half at the Company's core storage facility, with half-cores stored as a future reference. Half-core was bagged on average over 1 to 2 metre composite intervals and sent to SGS laboratory in Lima for assay in batches. Standards and blanks were inserted by Tinka into each batch prior to departure from the core storage facilities. At the laboratory samples are dried, crushed to 100% passing 2mm, then 500 grams pulverized for multi-element analysis by ICPMS using multi-acid digestion. Samples assaying over 1% zinc, lead, or copper and over 100 g/t silver were re-assayed using precise ore-grade AAS techniques. Samples within massive sulphide zones were also assayed for tin using XRF techniques. The Qualified Person, Dr. Graham Carman, Tinka's President and CEO, and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, has reviewed and verified the technical contents of this release. Readers are encouraged to read the NI 43-101 Technical Report entitled "Ayawilca Polymetallic Project, Central Peru, NI 43-101 Technical Report on Updated Preliminary Economic Assessment" available for download on Tinka's website at www.tinkaresources.com . The Technical Report was prepared by Mining Plus Peru S.A.C. ("Mining Plus") as principal consultant, Transmin Metallurgical Consultants ("Transmin"), Envis E.I.R.L ("Envis"), and SLR Consulting (Canada) Ltd ("SLR"). On behalf of the Board, " Graham Carman " Dr. Graham Carman, President & CEO Further Information: www.tinkaresources.com Mariana Bermudez 1.604.685.9316 info@tinkaresources.com Stay up to date by subscribing for news alerts at Contact Tinka and by following Tinka on Twitter , LinkedIn and Facebook . About Tinka Resources Limited Tinka is an exploration and development company with its flagship property being the 100%-owned Ayawilca zinc-silver-tin project in central Peru. The Zinc Zone deposit has an estimated Indicated Mineral Resource of 19.0 Mt @ 7.15% Zn, 16.8 g/t Ag & 0.2% Pb and Inferred Mineral Resource of 47.9 Mt @ 5.4% Zn, 20.0 g/t Ag & 0.4% Pb (dated August 30, 2021). The Ayawilca Tin Zone has an estimated Inferred Mineral Resource of 8.4 Mt grading 1.0% Sn. Forward Looking Statements: Certain information in this news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively "forward-looking statements"). All statements, other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and expectations of Tinka as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Tinka's management. Such statements reflect the current risks, uncertainties and assumptions related to certain factors including, without limitations: timing of planned work programs and results varying from expectations; delay in obtaining results; changes in equity markets; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; equipment failure, unexpected geological conditions; imprecision in resource estimates or metal recoveries; success of future development initiatives; competition and operating performance; environmental and safety risks; the Company's expectations regarding the Ayawilca Project PEA; the political environment in which the Company operates continuing to support the development and operation of mining projects; risks related to negative publicity with respect to the Company or the mining industry in general; the threat associated with outbreaks of viruses and infectious diseases, including the novel COVID-19 virus; delays in obtaining or failure to obtain necessary permits and approvals from local authorities; community agreements and relations; and, other development and operating risks. Should any one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein. Although Tinka believes that assumptions inherent in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein. Except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Tinka disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release SOURCE: Tinka Resources Ltd. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/734432/Tinka-Drills-Spectacular-Hole-at-Ayawilca-389-M-20-Zinc-Including-104-M-42-Zinc BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - Shares of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group gained in Hong Kong trading as well as in pre-market activity on the NYSE following the announcement that Jack Ma, its co-founder, and executive chairman, is giving up control of its sister concern Ant Group Co., Ltd. Ma, who also founded Ant Group, currently controls nearly 53 percent of the fintech major through his direct stake and by acting in concert with other shareholders. However, following the planned changes in its governance structure, the Chinese billionaire will control just over 6 percent of Ant Group, which runs Alipay, the main online payment system in China. In a statement, Ant Group announced changes in its Corporate Governance as its major shareholders and beneficiaries informed intend to adjust the company's upper-tier shareholding structure. The company said that on January 7, it received a notice for the shareholding structure adjustment from Hangzhou Junhan Equity Investment Partnership and Hangzhou Junao Equity Investment Partnership, which hold an aggregate of 53.46 percent of the shares of Ant Group. Ma currently controls 34 percent of the two holding companies and indirectly controls the voting rights of 53.46 percent of Ant Group. Following the planned changes, its major shareholders, including Ma, agreed to act together no longer to exercise voting rights but to vote independently. The shareholding structure will change, but shareholders' economic interests will not change, the company noted. Ma and his five partners each will hold 20 percent of one holding company, Hangzhou Junhan, which owns 31.04 percent of Ant Group. With this, Ma will only hold about 6 percent of Ant. Ant Group has been undertaking several initiatives since 2021 to achieve long-term sustainable development. The latest changes are part of the firm's ongoing restructuring, which is nearing completion after two years. The restructuring has been driven by Chinese authorities after the company was forced to drop its IPO plan, which was considered then to be the highest IPO in history. In 2020, Ant Group's plan to go public in dual listing on the Shanghai and the Hong Kong stock exchanges was canceled at the last minute after Chinese authorities cited major regulatory issues. The move came after Ma criticized China's regulators and financial sector, saying traditional banks had a pawn-shop mentality. Months after blocking Ant Group's IPO, China also fined Alibaba $2.8 billion for alleged anti-competitive business practices. In Hong Kong, Alibaba shares closed Monday's trading at HK$110.40, up 8.66 percent. In pre-market activity on the NYSE, BABA shares were gaining around 5 percent to trade at $112.80. Copyright(c) 2023 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX High-grade gold intercepts continue at the Company's High Lake Property. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - McFarlane Lake Mining Limited (NEO: MLM) ("McFarlane" or the "Company"), a Canadian mineral exploration and development company, is pleased to provide an update on the progress made at the Company's High Lake property in Ontario, near the Ontario-Manitoba Border. A technical report prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") with respect to the High Lake and West Hawk Lake properties is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at https://mcfarlanelakemining.com/. Drilling Program at High Lake Drilling has intersected 24.96 g/t gold over 14.90 metres in hole MLHL-22-06 from 325.56 to 340.46 metres as measured in drill core length from surface. This intersection includes 43.22 g/t of gold over 7.99 metres and 53.87 g/t of gold over 3.15 metres. Visible gold was evident within these higher-grade gold intervals. Further drilling in hole MLHL-22-04 intersected 32.58 g/t gold over 1.45 metres higher on the same section within the Purdex A zone. "We are starting to establish some good gold mineralization trends. We are especially pleased with the continuity demonstrated from our surface intercepts to 300 metres from surface," said Bob Kusins, Vice President of Geology for McFarlane. Roger Emdin, COO of McFarlane, added, "we have just started seeing results on the Purdex Zone below the historical drilling conducted to only 100 metres from surface and to have such world-class intercepts as hole MLHL-22-06 is very encouraging for future drilling at depth. The Purdex Zone is only one of multiple high-value targets we would like to explore at High Lake. This includes the R zone with a historical drilling intercept of 54.89 g/t over 6.7 metres." (see Figure 2) Figure 2 outlines all the historical gold mineralized zones on McFarlane's High Lake property based on a J.H. Reedman 1987 report. The Purdex Zone was selected by McFarlane to conduct initial exploration since it had the most drilling data available and represented the highest potential for obtaining compliant NI 43-101 resources in the near term. Other zones have been identified that also have the potential to add to any future resource. Results from the recently completed six holes continue to demonstrate the high-grade nature of the Purdex Zone, as summarized in Table 1. The current program continues to confirm and expand upon the existing historic resources within the Purdex Zone. Drilling on the first section, as shown in Figure 1, has outlined a steeply dipping echelon vein system occurring within a structural zone at or about the contact between quartz-feldspar porphyry and mafic volcanics. The porphyry and mafics are often highly sheared and may display silicification or sericitization. The veins are typically quartz-tourmaline, with tourmaline occurring within and along the vein contacts. The veins generally have low sulphide content, often mineralized with up to 1% pyrite, pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite, with occasional lesser sphalerite and arsenopyrite. Gold occurs within quartz-tourmaline veins and the adjacent sheared and altered host lithologies. Figure 1 - Cross Section of Diamond drill holes To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8133/150633_7f1be3f1e48e7ab3_002full.jpg Figure 2 - Plan view - High Lake Mineralized Gold Zones - Historical intercepts To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/8133/150633_7f1be3f1e48e7ab3_003full.jpg The Exploration Program, which started early in November, consists of ground geophysical data collection and its interpretation, accompanied by an 8,000 to 10,000-metre program of diamond drilling. To date, McFarlane has completed 32 holes totalling 7,274 metres and received assays for 11 holes. A key focus is the Purdex Zone at the property, which has only been tested to a depth of 100 metres and has significant potential for adding compliant gold ounces. We expect the drilling campaign to be complete early this year, with assay results released as the program progresses and final results issued later in 2023. Significant intersections are summarized in Table 1. Collar locations and details of the holes with assays received are summarized in Table 2. Table 1: Significant Intersections. Hole ID From metres To metres Length metres Gold grams/tonne MLHL-22-04 187.00 188.45 1.45 32.58 MLHL-22-06 325.56 340.46 14.90 24.96 including 332.47 334.76 7.99 43.22 including 337.31 340.46 3.15 53.87 MLHL-22-18 151.35 152.10 0.75 2.69 MLHL-22-19 240.10 241.00 0.90 8.28 MLHL-22-29 37.00 38.00 1.00 3.22 MLHL-22-30 85.00 86.00 1.00 20.20 Reported as core length as insufficient drilling to ascertain true width. Table 2: Collar Location Details (NAD83 Zone 15). Hole ID Easting (mE) Northing (mN) Azimuth Deg. Dip Deg. Length m MLHL-22-04 350131 5509015 202.6 -58.2 276.0 MLHL-22-06 350132 5509016 202.2 -74.0 350.0 MLHL-22-18 350088 5509029 199.1 -48.0 225.0 MLHL-22-19 350088 5509030 202.7 -61.1 282.0 MLHL-22-29 350064 5508914 204.7 -45.1 87.0 MLHL-22-30 350065 5508915 201.2 -70.5 120.0 Results from the remaining holes of the drill program will be released when available. The positive results from the current drilling program follow the previously reported drilling on the Purdex Zone, as outlined below in Table 3. Further details of these results are available in the December 12th news release on the company website at the following link https://mcfarlanelakemining.com/news-dec-12-2022/. Table 3: Previously Released Intersections. Hole ID From metres To metres Length metres Gold grams/tonne MLHL-22-01 47.90 48.50 0.60 6.66 MLHL-22-02 65.00 66.00 1.00 10.70 MLHL-22-03 157.58 158.00 0.42 9.49 MLHL-22-16 68.0 69.0 1.00 0.74 MLHL-22-28 25.25 35.00 9.75 9.82 including 29.62 35.00 5.38 15.35 including 29.62 30.17 0.55 117.00 Reported as core length as insufficient drilling to ascertain true width. Like McFarlane's West Hawk Lake property, the High Lake property has historical gold resources listed in Table 4 below. These resources are non-compliant under National Instrument 43-101. Use the following link for the disclosure statement, which is located on the Company's website: mcfarlanelakemining.com/historic-resource-disclosure. Table 4 - Historical Resources High Lake Historical Resources Zone Tonnes Grade (g/t) Troy oz. Estimated By Date of Estimate Purdex 227,000 9.43 68,822 Jalna Resources 1989 Electrum P 9,000 9.94 2,876 Calnor Resource 1987 Electrum R 23,000 15.77 11,661 Calnor Resource 1987 Electrum W 11,000 5.49 1,942 Calnor Resource 1987 TOTAL 270,000 9.83 85,301 QA/QC Control Procedures McFarlane Lake has implemented a Quality Assurance/ Quality Control (QA/QC) program consistent with industry best practices. The drill core is being logged and sampled at a nearby facility with sawn half-core samples, including QA/QC samples, being sent to an accredited lab (Actlabs) in Thunder Bay, Ontario, for processing. The remaining half core has been retained in a locked facility for future examination. Certified reference material (CRM) standards and blanks are inserted every 10 samples into the sample stream. Gold was analyzed by 30-gram fire assay with AA-finish. Samples above 5 grams per tonne of gold were re-assayed for gold with a gravimetric finish, while those above 10 grams per tonne were re-assayed utilizing the pulp metallic method. Qualified Person The technical contents of this news release have been reviewed and approved by Robert Kusins, Vice President of Geology of McFarlane. Mr. Kusins is a qualified person, as defined by NI43-101. However, Mr. Kusins is not independent of the Company by virtue of his position. About McFarlane Lake Mining Limited McFarlane is a mineral exploration company focused on exploring and developing the High Lake mineral property located immediately east of the Ontario-Manitoba border and the West Hawk Lake mineral property situated immediately west of the Ontario-Manitoba border. In addition, McFarlane holds the McMillan and Mongowin mineral property located 70 km west of Sudbury, which hosts the past-producing McMillan Gold Mine. McFarlane also owns the Michaud/Munro mineral property located 115 km east of Timmins along the "Golden Highway." McFarlane is a "reporting issuer" under applicable securities legislation in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. Additional information on McFarlane can be found by reviewing its profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release, including without limitation; anticipated results of geophysical surveys or drilling programs, estimated timing, geological interpretations and potential mineral recovery processes. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of McFarlane to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements are described under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Filing Statement dated as of January 14, 2022 which is available for view on SEDAR at www.SEDAR.com. Forward-looking statements contained herein are made as of the date of this press release and McFarlane disclaims, other than as required by law, any obligation to update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, results, future events, circumstances, or if management's estimates or opinions should change, or otherwise. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. McFarlane's operations could be significantly adversely affected by the effects of a widespread global outbreak of a contagious disease, including the recent outbreak of illness caused by COVID-19. It is not possible to accurately predict the impact COVID-19 will have on operations and the ability of others to meet their obligations, including uncertainties relating to the ultimate geographic spread of the virus, the severity of the disease, the duration of the outbreak, and the length of travel and quarantine restrictions imposed by governments of affected countries. In addition, a significant outbreak of contagious diseases in the human population could result in a widespread health crisis that could adversely affect the economies and financial markets of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that could further affect operations and the ability to finance its operations. Further Information For further information regarding this press release, please contact: Roger Emdin, Chief Operating Officer McFarlane Lake Mining Limited (705) 562-8520 remdin@mcfarlanelakemining.com Craig MacPhail NATIONAL Capital Markets (416) 525-5709 cmacphail@national.ca To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150633 Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Li3 Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LILI) ("Li3 Lithium" or the "Company") today announces that the Board of Directors (the "Board") have appointed Mr. Francois Auclair to the position of Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") and a Director of the Company (the "Appointments"). The Appointments will take effect on January 15, 2023, at which time Mr. Stephen Dunn, interim CEO will step down to serve as the Company's newly appointed Chairman of the Board. Francois is a professional geologist with more than 30 years of experience, including 20 years in Africa, in both mineral exploration and the development of mining projects. He has worked across three continents and successfully led mining exploration programs for several companies including Ashanti Goldfields, Axmin, Sierra Metals, Rio Narcea Gold Mines, Noranda, and Aur Resources. Prior to joining the Company, Francois held the position of CEO with Nimini Gold and Algold Resources, where he was responsible for leading teams in the discovery and development of significant gold deposits in Sierra Leone and Mauritania, respectively. Francois holds a Master, Geology and Geochemistry degree and Bachelor Science Honors, Geology, degree from the University of Montreal, and is a member of the Quebec Order of Geologists, a Fellow of the Geological Association of Canada, and a member of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. "We are excited to welcome Francois to the position of CEO where his experience will be instrumental as we evaluate the acquisition, exploration and development of hard rock spodumene lithium assets in Argentina and Africa. Francois brings the critical capabilities and qualities we need to oversee the current exploration program at the Mutare Lithium Project in Zimbabwe and execute on our strategic vision to advance a portfolio of highly prospective hard rock lithium projects in the region," stated Stephen Dunn. "Francois has a strong track record of executing large-scale exploration and development programs for various mining companies with operations in Africa and understands the importance of in-country partners and stakeholders as we look to acquire and advance projects in relatively underexplored lithium districts," concluded Mr. Dunn. In addition, in connection with the Appointments, the Company also wishes to announce a proposed non-brokered private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of up to $200,000, on the same terms of its recently closed private placement on November 9, 2022 (see news release dated November 9, 2022) (the "Private Placement"). The Private Placement will be comprised of up to 2,000,000 units ("Units") at a price of $0.10 per Unit (each such Unit being comprised of one (1) common share and one half of one (1/2) warrant). Each whole warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share for $0.20 at any time within 2 years after closing. All securities issued pursuant to the Private Placement will be subject to a four (4) month hold period. Completion of the Private Placement is subject to receipt of all required regulatory and TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") approvals. An insider of the Company is expected to acquire directly or indirectly a total of $50,000 worth of Units or 500,000 Units in the Private Placement on the same basis as other participants. The direct and or indirect participation in the Private Placement by an insider of the Company constitutes a "related party transaction" as such term is defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company is relying on the exemptions from the formal valuation (section 5.5(b)) and minority approval requirements (section 5.7(1)(b)) under MI 61-101. A material change report in connection with the Appointments and Private Placement will be filed less than 21 days before the closing of the Appointments and Private Placement. The Company believes this shorter period is reasonable and necessary in the circumstances as the Company wished to complete the Appointments and Private Placement in a timely manner. Closing is expected to occur on or around January 13, 2023. The proceeds of the Private Placement will be used for general working capital and to assist in conducting due diligence of potential business opportunities. Lastly, the Company also announces that it has granted an aggregate of 2,000,000 options to purchase common shares of the Company exercisable at a price of $0.10 per common share for a period of three (3) years to various directors and consultants of the Company. The common shares issuable upon exercise of the options are subject to a four month hold period from the original date of grant. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons as defined under applicable United States securities laws unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. Mutare Lithium Project, Zimbabwe The Mutare Lithium Project consists of 1,500 hectares of licences retained within the Mutare Greenstone Belt. The area was deemed prospective for lithium-cesium-tantalum pegmatites based on prior target generation work. Management believes the lithium exploration potential of the Mutare Greenstone Belt is analogous to that of the Pilbara Craton pegmatites in Western Australia. Zimbabwe, which is estimated to hold Africa's largest lithium resources and the fifth largest globally, is rapidly emerging as an important player within the lithium supply chain. Over the past year, major Chinese battery metals companies have committed approximately US$1.4 billion to acquire and develop lithium projects in Zimbabwe. The Mutare Lithium Project is located approximately 30 kilometres from the Sabi Star Lithium Tantalum Mine in eastern Zimbabwe's lithium district. In November 2021, Chengxin Lithium Group acquired a 51 percent ownership interest in the Sabi Star Lithium Tantalum Mine for US$76.5 million. About Li3 Lithium Corp. Li3 Lithium is focused on acquiring and developing hard rock spodumene lithium assets in Zimbabwe and Argentina, where the founders have significant experience and relationships. As evidenced by recent market growth, hard rock lithium deposits are forecast to continue to dominate the global supply of lithium given the scarcity, complexity and capex-intensive nature of alternative brine sources. At present, spodumene concentrate is at a record high price of US$5,500/tonne and forecast to go higher. Li3 Lithium has a 50 percent interest in Li3 Resources Inc., a private company with a 50 percent interest in the Mutare Lithium Project, which consists of 1,500 hectares of licenses within the Mutare Greenstone Belt of Zimbabwe. Contact Information: Li3 Lithium Corp Stephen Dunn, Director Tel: 416-361-2827 Email: info@lithium3.com www.lithium3.com CAUTIONARY STATEMENT: Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "would", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the information is provided, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward- looking information. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, unless required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150698 EQS-News: Andera Partners / Key word(s): Financing Andera Partners participates in the $138 Million Series C Financing of Amolyt Pharma led by Sofinnova Partners and co-led by Intermediate Capital Group 09.01.2023 / 14:00 CET/CEST The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Andera Partners participates in the $138 Million Series C Financing of Amolyt Pharma led by Sofinnova Partners and co-led by Intermediate Capital Group Funds will be used to complete phase 3 clinical development of eneboparatide (AZP-3601) for hypoparathyroidism, and advance AZP-3813 into the clinic for acromegaly. PARIS, 9 JANUARY 2023 - Andera Partners, a leading European private equity player, announced today that its portfolio company Amolyt Pharma, a global company specialized in developing therapeutic peptides for rare endocrine and related diseases, closed a 130 million (approx. $138M) Series C equity financing. The financing was led by Sofinnova Partners and co-led by Intermediate Capital Group (ICG). Cedric Moreau, partner at Sofinnova Partners and Toby Sykes, managing director at ICG, will join Amolyt's Board of Directors. In addition, new investors, funds managed by Tekla Capital Investment LLC, and CTI Life Sciences along with existing investors Andera Partners, Novo Holdings (Novo Ventures), Kurma Partners, EQT Life Sciences, Innobio 2 managed by Bpifrance Investissement, Sectoral Asset Management, Pontifax, Orbimed, Mass General Brigham Ventures, ATEM, Credit Agricole Creation and Relyens Innovation Sante/Turenne Capital, participated in the round. Amolyt plans to use the proceeds to advance its pipeline of therapeutics for rare endocrine and related disorders, including AZP-3601, now known as eneboparatide, for the treatment of hypoparathyroidism, and AZP-3813 for the treatment of acromegaly. "We are very pleased to complete this large Series C financing, which will enable us to build on our momentum with eneboparatide and accelerate the growth of Amolyt Pharma and its pipeline globally," stated Thierry Abribat, Ph.D., founder, and chief executive officer of Amolyt Pharma. "We are thankful to Sofinnova Partners and ICG for co-leading this financing round, and to all our new and existing investors for their confidence in our team and for their support of our strategy to build a global and sustainable rare disease company. This investment will allow us to continue working tirelessly on bringing novel, life-changing treatments to patients with rare endocrine and related diseases." Raphael Wisniewski, partner in the Andera Life Sciences team, comments: "This exceptional financing confirms the dynamism of the life sciences sector in France and Europe today. We are delighted to participate in this round, which will enable Amolyt Pharma to make important advances in the treatment of rare endocrine diseases." The Series C financing follows several recent positive pipeline development and corporate announcements: In September 2022, Amolyt presented positive efficacy and safety data from the first cohort of its Phase 2a study of eneboparatide at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2022 Annual Meeting (ASBMR). In October 2022, the company announced positive results from the second patient cohort in its Phase 2a clinical proof of concept trial of eneboparatide. Consistent with the findings from the first cohort of the study, eneboparatide was well-tolerated. Daily administration of eneboparatide over 3 months enabled 93% of patients to discontinue standard of care therapy (oral calcium and vitamin D supplementation) while mean serum calcium was maintained within the target range. 24-hour urinary excretion of calcium was rapidly normalized in all but one patient, including those with hypercalciuria at baseline. Bone turnover biomarkers, P1NP and CTX, increased after two weeks of treatment and remained within their mid-normal range through the end of the study, consistent with a balanced increase in bone turnover. ABOUT AMOLYT PHARMA Amolyt Pharma, a clinical stage biotechnology company, is building on its team's established expertise to deliver life-changing treatments to patients suffering from rare endocrine and related diseases. Its development portfolio includes eneboparatide (AZP-3601), a long-acting PTH1 receptor agonist as a potential treatment for hypoparathyroidism, and AZP-3813, a peptide growth hormone receptor antagonist for the potential treatment of acromegaly. Amolyt Pharma aims to further expand and develop its portfolio by leveraging its global network in the field of endocrinology and with support from a strong syndicate of international investors. To learn more, visit www.amolytpharma.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. ABOUT ANDERA PARTNERS Created over 20 years ago, Andera Partners is a major player in private company investments in France and internationally. Its teams manage over 3.7 billion in investments in life sciences (Andera Life Sciences), growth and buyout capital (Andera MidCap, Andera Expansion, Andera Croissance, Andera Co-Invest), sponsorless transactions (Andera Acto) and ecological transition (Andera Infra). Based in Paris, with offices in Antwerp and Munich, Andera Partners is wholly owned by its teams, which count nearly 100 professionals, of which 60 are investment professionals. It is structured as a partnership and managed by a board of 12 partners. Responsible and committed, the management company regularly forms partnerships with non-profit sector entities and takes concrete action in the fight against global warming. Andera Partners has been certified carbon neutral since 2018. Andera's 15-person life sciences team brings together extensive experience in the life sciences industry, private equity and venture capital. Active since 2000, the team has raised over 1.1 billion through its BioDiscovery family of funds and is currently investing from its new BioDiscovery 6 fund. Since inception, the BioDiscovery funds have invested in more than 75 European and U.S. biotech and medtech companies. For further information, please visit www.anderapartners.com. MEDIA CONTACTS: Nicolas DELSERT, Andera Partners: +33 6 22 67 71 17 / n.delsert@anderapartners.com Benedicte DEBUSSCHERE, Bien Commun Advisory: +33 6 48 56 70 71 / b.debusschere@bcadvisory.fr Raimund GABRIEL, MC Services: +49 89 210 228 30 / raimund.gabriel@mc-services.eu Dr. Johanna KOBLER, MC Services: +49 89 210 228 46 / johanna.kobler@mc-services.eu 09.01.2023 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases. Archive at www.eqs-news.com -- Goal is to add new medical countermeasure (MCM) against known and emerging viral respiratory threats MELBOURNE, Australia, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clinical-stage pharmaceutical company ENA Respiratory (https://enarespiratory.com/) has been awarded a $4.38 million USD agreement from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to support ongoing research and development of INNA-051, a clinical stage first-in-class broad-spectrum antiviral innate immunomodulator, administered intranasally for the prophylaxis of respiratory viral infections and their complications. The agreement was awarded by the DoD's Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense, in collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). Funding will support studies to develop an intranasal dry powder formulation of INNA-051 and scale-up manufacturing processes. "Populations at high risk of exposure or complications continue to be significantly affected by influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV and other respiratory viruses, driving increased hospitalizations and health care utilization," said Christophe Demaison, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of ENA Respiratory. "This agreement with the DoD recognizes the necessity of developing a broad-spectrum and fast-acting treatment to combat these debilitating viruses, and studying its use across a range of critical populations." The effort is expected to run for 12 months, paving the way to an Investigational New Drug (IND)-submission to the U.S. FDA aiming to support the Phase I bioequivalence study of an intranasal dry powder presentation of INNA-051. A dry powder formulation offers a number of advantages over the current spray solution formulation that will support deployment to distant or resource-limited settings and survival through the rigours of DoD logistics. INNA-051 was recently studied in a Phase 2a influenza challenge pre-exposure prophylaxis study, and results are expected soon. It was found to be well-tolerated in a Phase 1 study. Effort funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP), under Other Transaction Authority number HQ0845-23-9-0003 between ENA Respiratory Pty Ltd and the DoD. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government or the U.S. Department of Defense. ENDS Notes to Editors If you would like to arrange an interview, please contact: Glenn Silver, Finn Partners, +1 973 818 8198, glenn.silver@finnpartners.com (mailto:glenn.silver@finnpartners.com) About ENA Respiratory and INNA-051 ENA Respiratory is aiming to transform the prevention of respiratory viral infections in populations at-risk of complications. The company is based in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia and it has secured a Series A investment from Brandon Capital Partners' managed funds, the Minderoo Foundation, and Uniseed. INNA-051 is a potent innate immune TLR2/6 agonist. It is currently in clinical development for self-administered intranasal delivery to target the primary entry site of viral respiratory infections as most respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and influenza, initially infect and replicate in nasal mucosa epithelial cells. Fast-acting and inducing a durable biologic response supporting weekly administration, INNA-051 works by recruiting innate immune cells and priming epithelial cells of the nasal mucosa to respond more quickly to infections, rapidly eliminating viruses and other pathogens before they spread throughout the body. INNA-051 and close analogues have been shown in preclinical studies to be effective against multiple respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, influenza (H1N1 and seasonal H3N2), and rhinovirus. Key features of INNA-051 intranasal administration include minimal or no systemic bioavailability, minimal or no systemic pro-inflammatory cytokine release, no direct type I interferon upregulation which is known to be associated with fever in humans, durable immune response supporting weekly administration, and compatibility with vaccine and intranasal corticosteroids. For more information, please visit https://enarespiratory.com (https://enarespiratory.com) Rock Tech Lithium Co Founder and Lithium Experts Lead Tearlach Resources. VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 9, 2023 / Tearlach Resources is pleased to announce it will acquire 2 additional lithium mining projects in Canada. The company now has 5 lithium projects located in Canada. Tearlach is a company where the world's leading lithium experts have come together on a quest to discover "Super Lithium". Most investors don't know that super lithium is the lithium that is actually needed for batteries. Tearlach resources is led by Paul Chow who is co-founder and former CEO of Rock Tech Lithium, which is one of the most successful lithium companies. Tearlach Resources is also led by Lindsay Bottomer who is co-founder of the Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia which is one of the world's largest copper mines. Tearlach Resources was recently publicly listed in USA, Canada and Germany and the shares of this company are available for purchase in Germany (ISIN CA8779052080 WKN: A1JUY9). It is also listed in the United States under OTC:TELHF and in Canada on the TSX.V:TEA The company now owns 5 lithium projects in Canada. The US military has recently announced that it will be funding Canadian mining projects amid tensions with China. It illustrates how Canadian mining is becoming the nexus of a colossal geopolitical struggle. Ottawa just pushed Chinese state-owned companies out of the sector, and the US is now moving public funding in. In addition to the US military funding Canadian energy metal mining companies, Canada's Quebec government has revealed that it is in talks with Tesla about the automaker investing in the province. A representative for Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec's economy minister, confirmed that the official met with Tesla executives in California recently. "The minister met with Tesla executives during a mission in California last month. They discussed Quebec's place in Tesla's supply chain." Thus, Canada is quickly becoming the hottest area for energy metal mining. The pedigree of the board is one that would only associate themselves with Top tier projects. The Projects are all located in an area where there have been massive lithium discoveries. To learn more about the company please visit The Financial Stars Research reports below in German and English. For German Dieser Super-Lithium-Borsengang explodiert im Wert! - 28.11.2022 (wallstreet-online.de) For English A "Superlithium" Stock That Is SURGING (thefinancialstar.com) This Press release was disseminated by Tearlach Resources. PR contact: Chuck Ross Suite 610-700 West Pender St. Vancouver, BC. V6C 1G8 604 688-5007 info@tearlach.ca SOURCE: Tearlach Resources View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/734175/Tearlach-Resources-Expands-Lithium-Portfolio NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / January 9, 2023 / Cummins Inc. Cummins Cummins Inc., through its Nigerian subsidiary Cummins West Africa Ltd., has launched the second phase of its technical training program in Nigeria, furthering the company's impact on education in global communities. Cummins TEC: Technical Education for Communities, seeks to transform lives through career technical vocational education, training disadvantaged youth in employable skills that will help them gain good jobs. Businesses around the world are experiencing a shortage of technical workers. Since 2012, Cummins has been committed to training disadvantaged youth to help fill that gap and at the same time fight poverty. Joining the country's first TEC location in Lagos, the John Bosco Institute of Technology, in Obosi, Anambra State, is partnering with Cummins in the global power technology leader's efforts to provide world class learning environments for students to access quality technical education. "In an era where young people are unskilled, it is very possible to have a future generation despondent with a penchant for a life of frivolity," said Thierry Pimi, Vice President and Managing Director, Cummins Africa-Middle East Area Business Organization, speaking at the launch event for the new location. "In a bid to ensure we grow a meaningful future generation, we need to invest using a market relevant curriculum to equip our youth with employable skills and capability to find employment or run their own businesses in the engineering space," he said. Education is a strategic priority for Cummins' corporate responsibility efforts. Cummins TEC has expanded to 27 locations around the world. To date, the program has achieved an 83% graduation rate with more than 2,000 graduates globally. Approximately 72% of graduates gained employment within six months. A scholarship beneficiary of the John Bosco Institute of Technology, Anastasia Ukamaka, says there is an urgent need for more females to have access to such opportunities. "Cummins TEC has provided me with an invaluable technical skillset," Ukamaka said. "I am looking forward to being able to make an impact with what I have learned, and I look forward to more women having a similar opportunity to enhance their technical knowledge." END A second Cummins TEC technical training program opened in Nigeria in 2022. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Cummins Inc. on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: Cummins Inc. Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/cummins-inc Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: Cummins Inc. View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/734459/Cummins-TEC-Opens-Second-Training-Program-in-Nigeria Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Tempus Resources Ltd. (TSXV: TMRR) is pleased to announce that the company is presenting a live virtual corporate update hosted by Red Cloud Financial Services on January 10th, 2023 at 2:00pm ET. We invite our shareholders, and all interested parties to register for the webinar and participate in the live Q&A session at the end of the presentation moderated by Red Cloud. The replay will be emailed out to all webinar registrants proceeding the event and will also be available on the Red Cloud website. For more information and to register: https://redcloudfs.com/rcwebinar-tmrr-3/. Jason Bahnsen, CEO of Tempus Resources will provide an update on the 2022 drill results for Tempus Resources' Elizabeth gold flagship exploration property located in southcentral BC, plus milestones achieved and the resource update planned for early 2023. He will also give a brief update on the company's activities in Ecuador. Commodities to be covered: Gold & Copper About Tempus Resources Ltd. Tempus Resources Ltd ("Tempus") is a growth orientated gold exploration company listed on ASX ("TMR") and TSX.V ("TMRR") and OTCQB ("TMRFF") stock exchanges. Tempus is actively exploring projects located in Canada and Ecuador. The flagship project for Tempus is the Blackdome-Elizabeth Project, a high-grade gold past producing project located in Southern British Columbia. Tempus is currently more than half-way through its drill program at Blackdome-Elizabeth that will form the basis of an updated NI43-101/JORC resource estimate. The second key group of projects for Tempus are the Rio Zarza and Valle del Tigre projects located in southeast Ecuador. The Rio Zarza project is located adjacent to Lundin Gold's Fruta del Norte project. The Valle del Tigre project is currently subject to a sampling program to develop anomalies identified through geophysical work. About Red Cloud Financial Services Inc. Red Cloud Financial Services Inc. is a comprehensive capital markets platform that provides a full range of unconflicted corporate access and media related services. Offering these services as a unified platform provides the ultimate value proposition for junior resources companies in their efforts to broaden their capital markets presence. About Red Cloud Securities Inc. Red Cloud Securities Inc. is an IIROC-regulated investment dealer focused on providing unique comprehensive capital market services and innovative financing alternatives to the junior resource sector. The company was founded by capital markets professionals with extensive experience in the junior mining industry. For further information: Tempus Resources Ltd. Jason Bahnsen-CEO +1-604-788-7287 jason.bahnsen@tempusresources.com.au For additional information contact marketing@redcloudfs.com or visit: www.redcloudfs.com www.facebook.com/RedCloudFinancialServices www.twitter.com/RedCloudFS www.linkedin.com/company/red-cloud-financial-services-inc www.youtube.com/c/RedCloudFinancialServicesInc www.instagram.com/redcloudfs Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Nicola Mining Inc. (TSXV: NIM) (FSE: HLI), (the "Company" or "Nicola") is pleased to announce that it and Osisko Development Corp. (NYSE: ODV) (TSXV: ODV) ("Osisko") have signed a Mining and Milling Profit Share Agreement (the "Agreement"). Under the Agreement, Osisko may transport material to Nicola's mill site, located near Merritt, British Columbia. Nicola's Merritt Mill site is a unique milling and processing facility because the Company owns the industrial-zoned site free-hold. The approximate $30.0 million facility is also the location of the historic Craigmont Copper Mine, which had an historic production grade of 1.3% Cu. The Company is in the process of planning its 2023 Exploration Program, which will be announced at a later date. The Company had announced on December 2, 2022, that the two parties had entered into Memorandum of Understanding for the processing of gold mill feed currently stock piled at Osisko's site, located in the Cariboo Mining District in east-central BC, east and southeast of the City of Quesnel. Nicola's Merritt Mill is the only facility in the Province of British Columbia permitted to accept third party gold and silver mill feed from throughout the province. Qualified Person Kevin Wells, P.Geo, a consulting geologist to the Company, is the independent qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects for the technical disclosure contained in this news release. About Nicola Mining Nicola Mining Inc. is a junior mining company listed on the TSX Venture and Frankfurt Exchanges that maintains a 100% owned mill and tailings facility, located near Merritt, British Columbia. It has signed Mining and Milling Profit Share Agreements with high grade gold projects. Nicola's fully permitted mill can process both gold and silver mill feed via gravity and flotation processes. The Company owns 100% of the New Craigmont Project, a high-grade copper property, which covers an area of 10,084 hectares along the southern end of the Guichon Batholith and is adjacent to Teck Resources Ltd.'s Highland Valley Copper, Canada's largest copper mine. The Company also owns 100% of the Treasure Mountain Property, consisting of 29 mineral tenures covering 2178 hectares (ha) and a mining lease covering 335 ha. On behalf of the Board of Directors "Peter Espig" Peter Espig CEO & Director For additional information Contact: Peter Espig Phone: (778) 385-1213 Email: info@nicolamining.com Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150564 Severance Hospital employees hold cards that wish wellness and happiness. The hospital topped the industry-wide National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) rankings for two years in a row in 2022. Courtesy of Korea Productivity Center 8 hospitals among top 11; Lotte Duty Free ranks 8th By Sah Dong-seok Severance Hospital took the top place in the industry-wide National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) rankings for the second year in a row in 2022, according to the Korea Productivity Center (KPC), a local consultancy, Monday. The hospital's score for this year was 85 points, up one point from 2021. The hospital was followed by Samsung Medical Center, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital and Asan Medical Center. The KPC, which publishes the index, said the notable feature of the 2022 NCSI rankings was that there were as many as eight hospitals among the top 11 entities. The KPC conducted a survey of 335 companies, including universities and state-run organizations, in 82 industries. Their customer satisfaction index averaged 78.4 points in 2022, the highest since the NCSI survey began in 1998. Despite tough economic conditions and the COVID-19 pandemic, Korean companies succeeded in raising their customer satisfaction levels by putting top priority on customers, the KPC said. The NCSI rankings are determined based on customers' evaluation of corporate products and services. The index is released every year to help enhance the country's industrial competitiveness. The NCSI is a global index involving more than 30 countries around the world, including the U.S. and European countries. Severance Hospital, one of the oldest and biggest university hospitals here, is second to none when it comes to customer satisfaction. Since December 2021, the hospital has been conducting a mobile phone survey of patients to help improve the experience of patients and their families. The survey was conducted on inpatients at first, but it was expanded later to include outpatients. Severance has also developed a contactless campaign called "Cheering Talk Talk" as the pandemic restricted visits to hospitalized patients. Anyone wishing to take part in the campaign can take a picture of the "Cheering Talk Talk" poster or scan the QR code on an electronic display screen which will give them the opportunity to leave a warmhearted message anonymously. Hospital officials say the campaign helped patients, families and medical workers build rapport, empathy and improved relations with one another. Severance Hospital, established in 1885, is the first Western-style medical facility in Korea. Since then, it has been at the forefront of providing advanced medical services. Severance is proud of its top-class medical staff, hygienic medical care environment and sophisticated medical technologies that have been internationally recognized. Samsung C&T employees prepare gifts for underprivileged people. Courtesy of Korea Productivity Center SAP-001 is an oral once-a-day investigational gout product with Best-in-Class potential for acute and chronic use in uncontrolled patients BRIDGEWATER, N.J., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Shanton Pharma, a clinical-stage biotech company developing a groundbreaking treatment for refractory and tophaceous gout patients, today announced the initiation of its RID GOUT Study, a Phase 2b study for Shanton's investigational drug SAP-001. "Gout is a chronic storage disease with serious comorbidities associated with accumulation of uric acid in joints and other tissues and organs. There is a clear unmet medical need here as patients have very few options to treat their (chronic) refractory and tophaceous gout," said Dr. Zhenhua Huang, Chairman of Shanton Pharma. "Shanton, with its highly experienced team, is well positioned to provide an optimized solution to this underserved patient population for both tophi dissolution and serum uric acid normalization, based on the promising safety and efficacy profile of SAP-001." About Gout Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis, and the second most prevalent metabolic disease caused by too much uric acid in the bloodstream, with 10 million patients diagnosed in the US alone.1 Hyperuricemia, elevated serum uric acid levels, can over time result in gout when urate crystals are deposited in joints (tophi) and other body tissues, causing inflammatory responses and painful gout attacks (flares). Recurrent gout flares are debilitating and can lead to joint destruction and joint disfigurement. About a third of diagnosed patients in the US are treated with urate lowering therapies (ULTs), but only half of those patients sufficiently respond to or can tolerate current treatment options. This leaves more than a million US patients and over 8 million patients worldwide without treatment options. 2,3 About the RID GOUT Study RID GOUT, Shanton's Phase 2b study, is a six-month, multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-ranging clinical study in (chronic) refractory gout patients with or without tophi to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a 10, 30, or 60 mg tablet dose of SAP-001. The company targets to recruit a total of 80 patients from approximately 25 US sites. More than 10 sites have already been initiated, with patients identified for enrollment into the trial, consented and in screening. The Primary objective is to assess the effectiveness of SAP-001 in lowering serum urate levels in gout patients that are refractory to standard-of-care xanthine oxidase inhibitor (XOI) therapy. Secondary study objectives include safety and tolerability assessments, frequency of gout flares, and change in tophi number, size, and mass. "Over 1 million US gout patients are uncontrolled with current medication. The RID GOUT study aims to further confirm the potency and the safety profile of SAP-001 that were observed in the prior Phase 2a study in hyperuricemia patients with gout," said Dr. Bing Li, CEO of Shanton Pharma. "We expect to show that SAP-001 is able to significantly reduce high serum uric acid levels to those that should result in dissolution of painful tophi in refractory hyperuricemic patients." About Shanton Pharma Shanton Pharma is a privately held, clinical-stage biotech founded in 2016 by highly experienced pharma entrepreneurs, with a research focus on unmet needs associated with hyperuricemia and gout. The company is headquartered in the US with research and development activities in the US, China, and Singapore. Shanton's lead program SAP-001 is an investigational once-a-day oral monotherapy that targets (chronic) refractory and tophaceous gout. SAP-001's urate lowering properties are based on a unique mechanism-of-action and the product has shown unparalleled efficacy, response rates, and safety in Phase 1 and Phase 2a clinical studies in hyperuricemia patients with gout. SAP-001 is a convenient oral treatment that comes in various tablet strengths designed to enable flexible dosing: at a higher dose as an acute therapy to enhance tophi dissolution by significantly lowering serum uric acid levels, and at a lower tablet strength as a chronic urate lowering maintenance therapy. Based on its clinical profile, SAP-001 has the potential to become the Best-in-Class treatment for (chronic) refractory and/or tophaceous gout. To learn more about Shanton Pharma, go to https://shantonpharma.com. References Chen-Xu, M., Yokose, C., Rai, S.K., Pillinger, M.H. and Choi, H.K. (2019), Contemporary Prevalence of Gout and Hyperuricemia in the United States and Decadal Trends: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2007-2016. Arthritis Rheumatol, 71: 991-999. Juraschek SP, Kovell LC, Miller ER 3rd, Gelber AC. Gout, urate-lowering therapy, and uric acid levels among adults in the United States . Arthritis Care Res ( Hoboken ). 2015 Apr;67(4):588-92. doi: 10.1002/acr.22469. PMID: 25201123; PMCID: PMC4362996. Richette P, Clerson P, Perissin L, Flipo RM, Bardin T. Revisiting comorbidities in gout: a cluster analysis. Ann Rheum Dis. 2015 Jan;74(1):142-7. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2013-203779. Epub 2013 Oct 9 . PMID: 24107981. Media Contact Pieter de Ridder VP of Business Development pieter.ridder@shantonpharma.com View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/shanton-screens-first-subjects-in-phase-2b-refractorytophaceous-gout-study-with-sap-001-301714878.html System is featured as part of a larger display on new vehicle design and technology Kautex Textron GmbH Co. KG (Kautex), a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced a customized version of its Pentatonic Battery System was on display at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The system was featured as part of Stellantis' RAM Revolution exhibition. The concept design is part of Stellantis' vision for next generation vehicle design and new technology. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230109005269/en/ Kautex's Pentatonic Battery System on display as part of Stellantis' RAM Revolution exhibition. (Photo: Business Wire) The Kautex Pentatonic battery system is a lightweight, customizable solution produced from thermoplastic or composite metal hybrid. The system offers OEMs several advantages versus its steel and aluminum counterparts, including improved thermal management and insulation, resistance to corrosion, up to 40% reduction in CO2 footprint and up to a 60% reduction in weight. Additionally, the one-shot production process decreases downline complexity, eliminates welding and reduces the system's existing bill of material. "Pentatonic is designed to help OEMs reduce the overall system weight, improve their CO2 footprint and simplify their production process," said Richard Brooks, vice president, Sales, at Kautex. "By working closely with our customers, our design engineers can develop a customized solution that allows OEMs to meet their design requirements at a very competitive price." The Pentatonic system recently won the Enabler Technology Award from the Internationale Gesellschaft fur Kunststofftechnik, SPE Central Europe for its Pentatonic battery system and a Langxuan Innovation Award in China. Additionally, last fall, the system underwent rigorous testing in accordance with internationally recognized standards including the Chinese GB 38031 standard and the ECR R100 from the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE). The system successfully met the requirements for numerous tests including mechanical shock, crush, drop, vibration and bottom impact testing. About Kautex Textron GmbH Co. KG At Kautex, we are driving the future. As a Tier One automotive supplier with more than 30 plants in 14 countries, Kautex designs, develops and manufactures traditional and hybrid fuel systems, advanced cleaning solutions for assisted and autonomous driving, engine camshafts and plastic industrial packaging solutions. A pioneer in the design and manufacture of automotive plastic fuel systems, Kautex is expanding its portfolio to offer smart products and data-driven services to our customers, including smart fuel systems, thermoplastic composite and composite-metal hybrid battery systems. From a lightweight battery system to a hybrid fuel system to autonomous drive vehicle cleaning systems, Kautex is committed to pioneering solutions for the era of new mobility. About Textron Inc. Textron Inc. is a multi-industry company that leverages its global network of aircraft, defense, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services. Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell, Cessna, Beechcraft, Hawker, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Arctic Cat, and Textron Systems. For more information, visit: www.textron.com Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements which may project revenues or describe strategies, goals, outlook or other non-historical matters; these 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. These statements are subject to 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. www.kautex.de Kautex Textron, Inc. Kautexstrasse 52, Bonn 53229 Germany View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230109005269/en/ Contacts: SARA MONGER Kautex Textron GmbH Co. KG +1 817 301 2126 sara.monger@kautex.textron.com Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Majuba Hill Copper Corp. (CSE: JUBA) (OTC Pink: JUBAF) (FSE: 4NP) ("Majuba Hill Copper" or the "Company") is pleased to provide this summary describing the 2022 exploration for the Majuba Hill Porphyry Copper Project in Pershing County Nevada. The encouraging results have outlined a large copper mineralized footprint that is within a long wide Target Corridor. Drilling in 2023 will focus on this Target Corridor. Figure 1 To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_001full.jpg 2022 Highlights Drilled 8,876 feet (2706 m) in three core holes. Porphyry veining and alteration zonation indicates the intensity of the porphyry copper mineralization is increasing towards the northeast. Completed initial property wide mineral inventory showing 0.5 to 1.5 billion pounds of copper equivalent mineralization in a non-compliant NI43-101 global estimate. These are not mineral resources or mineral reserves, they do not demonstrate economic viability, and the inventory of potential tons and grade has had insufficient exploration to estimate a current mineral resource. Calculated copper equivalent values for all drill data containing Cu, Ag, Au, Mo, Pb, and Zn values. Results highlighted thick intervals of near surface mineralization in: MHB-5:755 feet (262.7 m) of 0.30% CuEQ from 45 to 800 feet (13.7-243.8 m) MHB-10:540 feet (164.6 m) of 0.456% CuEQ from 215 to 755 feet (65.5-230.1 m) Collected 1050 additional soil samples which significantly increased the size of the DeSoto and the Copper Gold Target zones. Age Dated mineralized samples, demonstrating that Majuba Hill is a series of overlapping copper, molybdenum, tin porphyry mineralization events. 2022 Drilling Summary The 2022 core drilling program focused on the Majuba Target Zone. The goal was to complete deeper holes and extend the copper mineralization intersected in the 2020 and 2021 drill campaigns. Assay results are due to be reported within the next several weeks. Hole Goal Type Azimuth Angle Length (m) Length (ft) MHB-27 Known Oxide: Deep Core 180 -80 1066.8 3500 MHB-28 Extension Ridge: Deep Core 0 -90 539.2 1769 MHB-29 South Step Out: Deep Core 305 -80 1099.4 3607 Current logging and geologic review have identified copper enrichment with azurite, malachite, chalcocite, and native copper in the upper 1500 feet of MHB-27 and MHB-28. Below the enrichment, prominent cross-cutting veins and stockwork veins with multiple styles of classic porphyry-veins have been observed. MHB-27 1393 ft: Azurite-Chrysocolla To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_002full.jpg MHB-27 1404-1409 ft: Native Copper To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_003full.jpg MHB-27 Box 296 2537-2545.5 ft: Quartz, tourmaline, pyrite, chalcopyrite stockwork veining To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_004full.jpg MHB-29 had limited copper enrichment in the upper part of the hole however, porphyry style veining is prominent throughout the hole. Potassic alteration increased below 1700 feet. The hole bottomed in granodiorite (3403 to 3607 ft) that is cross-cut by numerous veins and stockworks and prominent secondary biotite. MHB-29 3462-3470 ft: Quartz, tourmaline, pyrite, chalcopyrite stockwork veining To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_005full.jpg Mineral Inventory Summary The mineral inventory estimation indicates that results from the recent drilling and future drill holes should lead to a 3x to 5x increase in the mineralized tonnage. The CuEQ mineral inventory outlined: 491 million tons averaging 0.16% CuEQ, using a 0.06% CuEQ cutoff 180 million tons averaging 0.28% CuEQ, using a 0.16% CuEQ cutoff 136 million tons averaging 0.31% CuEQ, using a 0.20% CuEQ cutoff Significant thicknesses of higher grades reported in the News Release dated September 7, 2022, demonstrate that CuEQ values in recent holes are very encouraging. Utilizing the mineral inventory estimate results will help guide drilling at Majuba to expand mineralization and evaluate the economic potential. Copper Equivalent Summary Copper equivalent (CuEQ) values were calculated by combining the assay values for copper, silver, gold, molybdenum, lead, and zinc across the significant copper drill intercepts for intervals composited to 0.16% Cu and 0.06% Cu. Copper Equivalent Values in Majuba Hill Copper Corp Drilling in Majuba Target Zone To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_006full.jpg The Ag, Au, Mo, Pb, and Zn included for each significant copper intercepts were combined using an interval-weighted calculation based on metal prices taken from Kitco.com and DailyMetalPrice.com on July 27, 2022. Tables with significant CuEQ and copper only intervals were published on the News Release dated September 27, 2022. Soil Geochemistry Summary An additional 1050 soil geochemical samples were collected to extend the existing soil sample grid. The addition of the new samples extended the Copper Gold Target eastward by almost 3,000 feet (914 m) and it is still open to the east. The DeSoto Target was extended westward by over 3200 feet (975 m) and overlaps with the early stage Section 4 target zone. Anomalous copper, gold, molybdenum, zinc, and arsenic values were identified at the 789 Target and those zones are open to the north and west. Copper in Soils To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_007full.jpg Gold in Soils To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/150716_fa51f4265420688e_008full.jpg Age Dating Summary Multiple samples of core and underground rock specimens were collected for age dating of core samples using multiple techniques U/Pb: Cassiterite from the Tin Stope in the historic Middle Adit Ar/Ar: Biotite in granodiorite (hole MHB-22) Re/Os: Molybdenum in core from hole MHB-7 and MHB-22 Distinct episodes of mineralization and alteration occurred during the Middle-Jurassic, Upper-Cretaceous, Eocene, and Oligocene Periods. Most of the mineralization appears to be related to intrusive activity in the Eocene and Oligocene ages. Geologic Unit Lithology Age Alteration Age Mineralization Age Chronostrat of Host Rock Majuba Rhyolite Assemblage 24.63 Oligocene Majuba Rhyolite Assemblage 24.7 Oligocene Majuba Rhyolite Assemblage 25.1 Oligocene Majuba Rhyolite Assemblage 25.7 Oligocene Majuba Rhyolite Assemblage 25.7 Oligocene Auld Lang Syne 39.4 Eocene Granodiorite/Diorite 164.7 Jurassic Granodiorite/Diorite 93.32 Cretaceous Majuba Rhyolite Assemblage 25.57 Oligocene David Greenway, CEO stated, "Our Phased Exploration approach in 2022 has proven the right approach every step of the way. We are fortunate to have Buster, Molly and their team leading the way with 17 years of passion for this resource." Greenway continued, "Nevada is consistently rated a top three mining jurisdiction in the World by the Fraser Institute and Nevada projects like Majuba Hill Copper are once in a lifetime finds. Developing a model showcasing the potential for 1.5 billion pounds of copper, with results still pending and the possibility to substantially expand that size, will contribute to the development of a NI 43-101 compliant copper resource. Our phased approach is how the next great copper mines of America will be developed. This in an era when copper has never been in greater demand, the shortfall for copper been forecasted to become so significant and the need to find strategic copper reserves in domestic, safe, American, mining friendly jurisdictions been so imperative. Bravo to 2022. We couldn't be more excited to see what 2023 brings." Investors are encouraged to view a video presentation about Majuba Hill Copper by Buster Hunsaker, available on the company's website here. Quality Assurance/Quality Control ("QA/QC") Measures, Chain of Custody The Company has implemented a QA/QC program using best industry practices at the Majuba Hill Project. The samples are transported from the JUBA secure warehouse or directly from the drill to the ALS Sample Prep Facility in Reno or Elko, Nevada. ALS then transports the prepared pulps to their analytical lab in Reno, Nevada or Vancouver, B.C. Soil and rock chip samples are transported by the company directly to Elko or Reno, Nevada. Drill core samples are sawn in half lengthwise and one half is placed in labeled cloth sample bags. All samples are analyzed for copper, gold, silver, and 33 other elements. Gold is determined by ALS method Au-AA23 which is a fire assay with an AAS finish on a 30 gram split. Copper, silver and the remaining 31 elements are determined by ALS method ME-ICP61 which is a four acid digestion and ICP-AES assay. Approximately 5% of the submitted samples are duplicates and copper-gold-porphyry commercial standard reference material pulps. The sample rejects and remaining pulps will be retrieved from ALS. Qualified Person The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed by E.L. "Buster" Hunsaker III, CPG 8137, a non-independent consulting geologist who is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43- 101"). About Majuba Hill Copper Corp. Majuba Hill Copper Corp. is engaged in the identification, review and acquisition of latter stage copper and copper/silver/gold assets. This is in direct response to the growing worldwide demand and lack of supply for precious metals fueled by the Green New Deal in the US and most other developed nations with similar programs aimed at addressing climate change. Such programs are heavily reliant on silver, gold and especially copper to produce Electric Vehicles and other renewable power sources, as well as building infrastructure to provide clean and affordable electricity. The flagship project is the Majuba Hill copper, silver and gold District located 156 miles outside Reno, Nevada, USA. Management has been mandated to focus on safe, mining friendly jurisdictions where government regulations are supportive of mining operations. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. On Behalf of the Board of Majuba Hill Copper Corp. "David Greenway" David C. Greenway President & CEO For further information, please contact: Joel Warawa VP of Corporate Communications E: jw@majubahillcopper.com P: 1 (855) 475-0745 Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking" statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Majuba Hill Copper Corp. believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Majuba Hill Copper Corp. management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Majuba Hill Copper Corp. undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. ### To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150716 ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / January 9, 2023 / Since opening its doors over a year ago, the Law Office of Nigel Phiri is among the few of a growing number of solo and small law firms leading the way in shaping the future of a digital law practice for the 21st Century. A Digital Law Practice for the 21st Century To provide the best service to his clients and create a true differentiator in the marketplace for legal services, firm founder, Nigel Phiri has developed and implemented the use of a proprietary, pretrial accident concierge-style mobile phone application completely tailored to make the case management processstreamlined, intuitive, and client-friendly. Itis the ultimate one-stop spot for intaking, uploading, and storing client health information, pictures, and evidence, and viewing the status of a case in real-time. Clients can see a clear timeline of their cases evolving in defined stages."People want accessibility" Nigel notes, and his app, along with the firm's best-in-class case management software combined with consistent in-person connection, keeps the clients engaged and up to date with what can be the most important moments in their lives. "Having a detail-focused, client-centric, proven, and experienced legal team is only as good as its communication hub", says Nigel. Overall, client communication is one of the most important parts of the success of any case. Nigel is confident that the way his system is set up and operates, places his firm apart from his competition. All calls, emails, or inquiries from clients are answered within 24 hours. Nigel's best-in-class software run by his expert legal team manages cases flawlessly even when he is in trial. Cause and Effect Prior to launching his own law practice, Nigel was achieving phenomenal results for his clients with one of the world's largest plaintiff firms, such as an $8,800,000 jury verdict in a tragic negligent security case involving the death of an innocent 20-year-old young man. This was no run-of-the-mill wrongful death lawsuit. Against the full weight and financial power of the defense, Nigel prevailed by proving that the property owner conducted no investigation into the objective neighborhood crime data, and thereby violated the basic duty to provide security for people on the premises. The incident occurred on a motel property, which was a challenge in and of itself as many of the clearer negligent security liability cases are centered around concert venues and property owners who hold open their property to larger numbers of guests and invitees. While the financial award is impressive, it was the anguish of the young man's parents that drove Nigel and his team to fight their hardest for a legal victory. The mother, overcome by grief, was unable to participate in the case. The father, a former military man, had lost his son and best friend who had a bright future cut short by the negligence of others. "The rewards are far more than material when your job is to fight for the everyday people of Georgia," says Nigel. The Devil is in the Details Nigel brings a tech-based focus on deposition preparation as part of his comprehensive trial strategy. He also partners with a company that provides laser-focused guidance for its clients. The emphasis is on active listening during the process and then undergoing a full "stress test" with multiple role-playing practice sessions. Clients can then understand the semantic tricks played by the defense lawyers and spot any legal land mines. These strategies have paid off in other major negligent security settlements. In one, the individual was in a romantic relationship that endedpoorly, and he felt extremely threatened by his former partner. He went to the police, but they did not take any action as so often is the case in domestic situations. Two days later, the former lover showed up at his apartment home and shot the man dead. Nigel was able to prove that the security at the apartment complex was severely deficient. He fought hard to overcome the strong defense that this was a targeted shooting that would have occurred regardless of the level of security the defendant provided. Nigel's detailed focus, client-centric, empathetic advice, and counsel again led to an impressive victory against the odds. Even more common car accident cases do not escape Nigel's scrutiny. The firm takes a highly academic, and data-driven approach to ensure the best outcome for their clients. Having knowledge of commercial driver licensing requirements and testing, along with the strategic use of expert technical guides like "Rules of the Road: A Plaintiff Lawyers Guide to Proving Liability" has led to Nigel obtaining numerous high-value settlements for injured clients. And when it comes to premises liability, Nigel was consistently ranked number one in settlement value production for all of Atlanta while at his prior law firm. Rebuilding Lives More than just getting a settlement check into someone's hands, The Law Office of Nigel Phiri connects with its clients and can see the direct results of their hard work. These efforts have helped families buy a new home, helped a now disabled client make accessible modifications to their residence and install high-tech mobility assistance, and enabled an older client to retire comfortably. Nigel helps his clients move on from the trauma of life-altering events and is active in rebuilding their lives. The legal profession is Nigel's passion and singular focus; however, he remains grateful and humble in his success and makes it a point that whenever possible The Law Office of Nigel Phiri, is always available to give back to the Atlanta community. The Law Offices of Nigel Phiri can be reached at 888-338-HURT and nigel@npesq.com The firm's website is www.npesq.com/ His social media include: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nigelthelawyer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nigelthelawyer/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelthelawyer/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nigelthelawyer YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTA_NSrC7oA SOURCE: The Law Office of Nigel Phiri, Esquire, LLC View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/734423/Atlanta-Based-Law-Firm-Serves-Justice-Through-Latest-Technology-The-Law-Office-of-Nigel-Phiri-Launches-Own-Client-Facing-App-to-Score-Greater-Results-for-Clients Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares For immediate release 9 January 2023 FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC (the "Company") MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES The Company announces that it has today purchased 150,000 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 848.00 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 11,836,092; 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 213,155,211. The figure of 213,155,211 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 On 31 December 2022 and according to Wavestone's agreement with Portzamparc, the following means were dedicated to implement the liquidity contract: 18,199 Wavestone shares 658,951.49 in cash Note that at the launch of the contract (on the launch date of the contract, in accordance with AMF decision n2018-01 of July 2, 2018 - position on December 31, 2018) the means were the following: 36,611 Wavestone shares 88,633.74 in cash During the second half of 2022, it has been negotiated a total of: PURCHASES 60,513 shares 2,764,601.27 698 transactions SALES 61,342 shares 2,816,849.45 680 transactions About Wavestone In a world where knowing how to drive transformation is the key to success, Wavestone's mission is to inform and guide large companies and organizations in their most critical transformations, with the ambition of a positive outcome for all stakeholders. It's an ambition anchored in the firm's DNA and embodied in the signature "The Positive Way." Wavestone draws on about 4,000 employees across Europe - where it is a leading independent player in consulting, the United States and Asia. Wavestone is listed on Euronext Paris and recognized as a Great Place to Work. Wavestone Pascal Imbert CEO Tel.: +33 (0)1 49 03 20 00 Justine Brosset Financial Communication Tel.: +33 (0)1 49 03 20 00 Actus Mathieu Omnes Investor and Analyst Relations Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 92 Deborah Schwartz Press relations Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 35 Details[1] of the transactions executed: purchases on the one hand and sales on the other hand; in an aggregated table for each trading day of the 2nd half of 2022 PURCHASES SALES Date Number of transactions Number of shares Traded capital (in euros) Date Number of transactions Number of shares Traded capital (in euros) TOTAL 698 60,513 2,764,601.27 TOTAL 680 61,342 2,816,849.45 07/01/2022 5 408 17,780.4 07/01/2022 3 300 13,125 07/05/2022 10 901 41,666.84 07/04/2022 12 950 42,455.03 07/07/2022 1 1 47.4 07/05/2022 6 501 23,596.8 07/08/2022 5 500 24,300 07/06/2022 8 1,400 65,420.04 07/11/2022 12 1,101 53,788.25 07/07/2022 14 1,301 62,757.38 07/12/2022 32 3,529 163,873.35 07/08/2022 4 400 19,660 07/13/2022 10 1,000 45,500 07/11/2022 3 300 14,880 07/14/2022 6 501 22,675.51 07/13/2022 3 300 13,800 07/15/2022 4 400 18,060 07/14/2022 4 301 13,755.49 07/19/2022 5 451 20,755.79 07/15/2022 7 620 28,305.98 07/20/2022 1 1 46.1 07/18/2022 10 910 41,949 07/22/2022 8 765 37,166 07/19/2022 4 400 18,600 07/25/2022 4 400 19,250 07/20/2022 13 1,300 61,189.96 07/26/2022 7 700 33,960.01 07/21/2022 8 800 38,815.04 07/27/2022 7 601 29,178.79 07/22/2022 3 300 14,730 07/28/2022 6 600 29,590.02 07/25/2022 6 600 29,250 07/29/2022 4 301 14,749 07/26/2022 4 393 19,314.89 08/01/2022 6 500 25,190 07/27/2022 10 851 41,803.76 08/02/2022 5 401 19,919.72 07/28/2022 4 400 19,940 08/03/2022 4 400 19,620 07/29/2022 6 600 29,850 08/04/2022 1 1 49.7 08/01/2022 1 100 5,120 08/05/2022 4 301 15,471.61 08/02/2022 6 496 24,837.7 08/08/2022 1 100 5,140 08/03/2022 5 500 24,795 08/09/2022 8 800 41,250 08/04/2022 16 951 48,154.74 08/10/2022 2 200 10,070 08/05/2022 6 451 23,371.59 08/11/2022 10 851 43,586.43 08/08/2022 5 500 25,910 08/12/2022 6 600 30,510 08/09/2022 6 600 31,450.02 08/15/2022 9 820 41,671.99 08/10/2022 8 800 40,860 08/16/2022 4 338 17,005.19 08/11/2022 9 601 31,091.41 08/17/2022 9 900 45,630 08/12/2022 8 800 40,950 08/18/2022 9 815 40,777.47 08/15/2022 4 400 20,540 08/19/2022 8 625 30,924.63 08/16/2022 7 602 30,492.2 08/22/2022 9 608 29,552.39 08/17/2022 7 700 35,840 08/23/2022 7 700 33,400.01 08/19/2022 2 2 102 08/24/2022 6 600 28,140 08/22/2022 2 200 9,750 08/26/2022 9 651 31,393.56 08/23/2022 3 218 10,513.01 08/29/2022 9 650 30,594.98 08/24/2022 6 600 28,590 08/30/2022 5 500 23,325 08/25/2022 7 640 31,016 08/31/2022 7 551 25,601.77 08/26/2022 5 401 19,533.55 09/01/2022 7 505 23,236.77 08/30/2022 5 500 23,595 09/05/2022 2 200 9,270 08/31/2022 4 301 14,096.79 09/07/2022 6 550 26,222.52 09/01/2022 2 200 9,260 09/08/2022 3 201 9,436.99 09/02/2022 6 600 28,410 09/09/2022 3 227 10,903.31 09/06/2022 15 1,300 61,589.97 09/12/2022 4 400 19,560 09/07/2022 1 100 4,815 09/13/2022 7 700 34,275.01 09/08/2022 10 801 37,969.96 09/14/2022 6 501 24,002.61 09/09/2022 6 550 26,649.98 09/15/2022 6 501 24,073.25 09/12/2022 4 344 16,935.19 09/16/2022 7 700 33,180 09/13/2022 4 400 19,880 09/19/2022 7 500 23,305 09/14/2022 7 601 28,877.63 09/20/2022 6 600 27,660 09/15/2022 5 401 19,408.24 09/22/2022 16 1,501 68,826.4 09/20/2022 6 600 27,970.02 09/23/2022 8 800 35,650 09/21/2022 6 600 27,820.02 09/26/2022 2 200 8,570 09/22/2022 8 701 32,491.35 09/27/2022 9 801 34,063.17 09/26/2022 9 900 38,915.01 09/28/2022 6 410 17,133 09/27/2022 3 201 8,703.2 09/29/2022 8 501 21,147.76 09/28/2022 7 630 26,726.99 09/30/2022 1 2 84.1 09/29/2022 3 30 1,279.5 10/03/2022 10 700 30,550.03 09/30/2022 15 1,500 64,735.05 10/05/2022 7 515 23,165.99 10/03/2022 2 190 8,321.51 10/06/2022 5 344 15,279.21 10/04/2022 11 1,100 48,819.98 10/07/2022 9 600 26,520 10/06/2022 12 1,101 49,264.25 10/10/2022 4 400 17,180 10/07/2022 2 105 4,715 10/11/2022 6 600 25,530 10/10/2022 5 431 18,673.16 10/12/2022 4 400 17,050 10/11/2022 9 900 38,715.03 10/13/2022 6 501 21,262.69 10/12/2022 3 300 12,870 10/14/2022 3 201 8,834.09 10/13/2022 10 901 38,762.73 10/18/2022 3 300 13,449.99 10/14/2022 7 551 24,434.1 10/19/2022 7 650 28,757.5 10/17/2022 6 600 26,755.02 10/20/2022 5 401 17,504.01 10/18/2022 5 500 22,530 10/21/2022 3 201 8,773.79 10/19/2022 2 200 8,940 10/25/2022 4 232 10,329.01 10/20/2022 6 501 21,994 10/26/2022 1 1 45.65 10/21/2022 4 301 13,243.79 10/27/2022 9 801 37,056.98 10/24/2022 6 600 26,860.02 10/28/2022 9 651 29,405.67 10/25/2022 8 551 24,914.84 10/31/2022 8 601 26,523.27 10/26/2022 5 450 20,820.02 11/01/2022 7 658 28,338.81 10/27/2022 1 1 47 11/02/2022 5 412 17,778.42 10/28/2022 1 1 45.7 11/03/2022 10 1,000 42,430 10/31/2022 2 200 8,870 11/04/2022 6 510 21,406.49 11/01/2022 3 300 13,149.99 11/07/2022 1 100 4,175 11/02/2022 8 701 30,352.18 11/08/2022 4 301 12,807.94 11/03/2022 2 101 4,363.3 11/09/2022 8 651 27,592.9 11/04/2022 3 300 12,765 11/10/2022 3 300 12,635.01 11/07/2022 5 500 21,150 11/11/2022 5 424 18,499.2 11/08/2022 5 401 17,212.97 11/14/2022 6 600 26,299.98 11/09/2022 2 15 643.5 11/15/2022 2 200 8,630 11/10/2022 8 800 34,220 11/16/2022 10 710 30,652.48 11/11/2022 4 400 17,650 11/17/2022 5 500 21,195 11/14/2022 3 300 13,320 11/18/2022 4 301 12,667.04 11/15/2022 5 500 21,830 11/21/2022 6 550 23,122.5 11/16/2022 3 300 13,155 11/22/2022 1 61 2,537.6 11/17/2022 1 100 4,295 11/23/2022 1 100 4,285 11/18/2022 8 617 26,156.05 11/24/2022 4 400 17,390 11/21/2022 4 395 16,668.25 11/25/2022 6 600 26,509.98 11/22/2022 8 800 33,680 11/28/2022 6 550 24,195 11/23/2022 6 550 23,689.99 11/29/2022 4 400 17,550 11/24/2022 5 469 20,677.04 11/30/2022 9 801 35,324.02 11/25/2022 5 500 22,205 12/01/2022 7 601 26,594.49 11/28/2022 4 400 17,690 12/02/2022 6 550 24,179.98 11/29/2022 1 100 4,405 12/05/2022 5 500 22,030 11/30/2022 10 926 41,305.34 12/06/2022 14 1,001 43,954.21 12/01/2022 7 551 24,609.48 12/07/2022 7 600 25,369.98 12/02/2022 8 800 35,510 12/08/2022 5 446 18,564.39 12/05/2022 6 600 26,651.28 12/09/2022 4 400 16,890 12/06/2022 1 1 44.25 12/12/2022 5 500 21,100 12/07/2022 1 1 42.95 12/13/2022 1 1 42.5 12/08/2022 7 700 29,525.02 12/14/2022 6 550 23,612.49 12/09/2022 4 400 17,070 12/15/2022 4 317 13,444.19 12/12/2022 8 717 30,540.97 12/16/2022 3 300 12,630 12/13/2022 10 751 32,212.49 12/19/2022 3 300 12,600 12/16/2022 6 600 25,440 12/20/2022 2 200 8,350 12/20/2022 2 200 8,380 12/21/2022 2 103 4,305.1 12/21/2022 8 800 33,840 12/22/2022 5 400 16,980 12/23/2022 2 101 4,241.85 12/23/2022 4 301 12,521.84 12/27/2022 10 809 33,939.82 12/27/2022 8 637 26,600.61 12/28/2022 6 501 21,192 12/28/2022 6 403 16,946.19 12/29/2022 9 801 34,167.14 12/29/2022 3 201 8,452.15 12/30/2022 4 301 13,017.95 12/30/2022 3 102 4,381.1 [1] Number of transactions and volume (number of shares and traded capital) ------------------------ This publication embed "Actusnews SECURITY MASTER ". - SECURITY MASTER Key: mWmeZchvYZyXnp9wYp5laWGVZplixGHJbmfHnJWZaZ6ZnHCVmZlobJiVZnBonmlv - Check this key: https://www.security-master-key.com. ------------------------ Copyright Actusnews Wire Receive by email the next press releases of the company by registering on www.actusnews.com, it's free Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-77949-wavestone_cp-bilan-annuel-contrat-liquidite_090123-en.pdf NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / January 9, 2023 / On November 30th, IP employees were on-site at Winridge Elementary to deliver brand-new coats, books, and literacy materials to students. International Paper has partnered with Operation Warm, a national nonprofit dedicated to providing warmth, confidence and hope for children in need. Founded in 1998, Operation Warm and its partners have provided over 4 million coats across North America. Winridge Elementary is one of International Paper's Adopt-a-School partners. Throughout the year, IP provides Winridge school supplies, learning materials, and finds creative ways to celebrate their teachers. About International Paper International Paper (NYSE:IP) is a leading global supplier of renewable fiber-based products. We produce corrugated packaging products that protect and promote goods, and enable worldwide commerce, and pulp for diapers, tissue and other personal care products that promote health and wellness. Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., we employ approximately 38,000 colleagues globally. We serve customers worldwide, with manufacturing operations in North America, Latin America, North Africa and Europe. Net sales for 2021 were $19.4 billion. See how we're building a better future for people, the planet, and our company at internationalpaper.com/Vision-2030. View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from International Paper Company on 3blmedia.com. Contact Info: Spokesperson: International Paper Company Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/international-paper-company Email: info@3blmedia.com SOURCE: International Paper Company View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/734520/International-Paper-Partners-With-Operation-Warm Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation (TSXV: AME) ("Abacus" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it will be attending the VRIC conference at the Vancouver Convention Center, from January 29-30, 2023, booth #412. The Company will give a corporate presentation on Sunday, January 29, at 1:20 in Workshop 4. Abacus holds a 20% ownership interest in the Ajax copper-gold porphyry project, located near Kamloops, British Columbia., which is managed by base metal major KGHM Polska Miedz S.A., who hold the remaining 80%. The Ajax Project contains significant quantities of copper and gold, within a NI 43-101 Proven and Probable Mineral Reserve of 426 Mt at 0.29% Cu, 0.19 g/t Au and 0.39 g/t Ag. Contained metal is in the order of 2.7 Bil lbs Cu, 2.6 Moz Au and 5.3 Moz Ag*. Abacus is also exploring a large porphyry copper-molybdenum (Cu-Mo) project in the Yerington camp of Nevada, southeast of Reno. Recent drilling returned significant composited intervals of low-grade copper and molybdenum mineralization within the Lurh Hill granite, the rock unit that hosts the other four known porphyry Cu-Mo deposits in the camp. You cannot have a porphyry deposit at Yerington without the presence of this host rock, so the discovery of this granite on Willow marks a key new discovery. The Company has completed two core drilling programs on Willow which intersected extensive composited intervals of low-grade copper and molybdenum mineralization, including: 0.11% Cu over 72.2 m * m * 0.12% Cu over 57.5 m (including 0.37% Cu over 1.1 m and 0.19% Cu over 34 m) (including 0.37% Cu over 1.1 m and 0.19% Cu over 34 m) 0.08% Cu over 308.4 m (including 0.1% Cu over 37.9 m) (including 0.1% Cu over 37.9 m) 0.38% Cu over 0.2 m 0.24% Cu over 2.3 m 0.17% Cu over 1.8 m T rue widths are estimated at 80-85% of the drilled interval In addition, molybdenum (Mo) values are elevated in all holes and are a particularly strong indicator that you are close to a porphyry copper center, although this center has not yet been intersected on Willow. The results to date clearly indicate that further drilling is warranted. The Company's target is essentially identical to the two largest porphyry deposits in the Yerington camp, namely the past-producing Yerington mine and the undeveloped Ann Mason deposit. Because the target at Willow is covered by later volcanism, prospecting by drill and sampling for geochemistry is the only effective means of trying to locate a porphyry center, and this often takes several drill campaigns to achieve, with each successive campaign vectoring closer to a higher-grade copper porphyry center. Of the porphyries in the camp, the Ann Mason deposit lies adjacent and east of Willow and is held by HudBay Minerals. In 2021, Hudbay announced an updated PEA on Ann Mason with a revised M&I resource of 2.2 billion tonnes at 0.34% Cu. Lion Copper and Gold (formerly Quaterra Resources) control the Yerington, Bear and MacArthur porphyries further to the east. Anaconda mined the Yerington porphyry between 1952 until 1978, producing 1.6 billion pounds of copper. MacArthur ((M&I of 159MT at 0.212% Cu) ** has seen some past production and is currently undergoing a Prefeasibility Study. In March of 2022, Lion announced that Rio Tinto had taken an option on the company's Yerington assets. Nevada Copper is in production in the southeast of the districtat its Pumpkin Hollow skarn (P&P of 572 MT at 0.4% Cu). The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Paul G. Anderson, M.Sc., P.Geo., a Qualified Person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101. * Wardrop Engineering Inc. 2012. Ajax Copper/Gold Project, Kamloops, British Columbia - Feasibility Study Technical Report. Doc. No. 1054610300-REP-R0004-02. January 2012. ** Data is from the respective Company websites. The Quaterra report is by M3 Engineering and Technology Corp, May 23, 2012. Amended NI 43-101 Technical Report Preliminary Economic Assessment Lyon County, Nevada, US. On Behalf of the Board, ABACUS MINING & EXPLORATION CORPORATION Paul G. Anderson, P.Geo. President and CEO About Abacus Abacus is a mineral exploration and mine development company currently focused on copper and gold in B.C. and Nevada. The Company's main asset is a 20% ownership interest, together with KGHM Polska Miedz S.A. (80%), in the proposed copper-gold Ajax Mine located southwest of Kamloops, B.C., which has undergone a joint provincial and federal environmental assessment process. On December 14, 2017, a decision was made by the B.C. Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum resources to decline to issue an environmental assessment certificate for the Project. KGHM have recently reopened an office in Kamloops, B.C. to facilitate First Nation, community and governmental engagement in order to advance the project towards a potential resubmission of the environmental application. Abacus also holds an option on the Willow copper-gold property located near Yerington, Nevada in which it can acquire up to a 75% ownership interest, and the contiguous Nev-Lorraine claims subject to a ten-year lease agreement. For the latest reports and information on Abacus' projects, please refer to the Company's website at www.amemining.com. Suite 1000 - 1050 West Pender Street Vancouver, B.C. V6E 3S7 Canada Tel: 604.682.0301 E-mail: info@amemining.com Website: www.amemining.com Forward-Looking Information This release includes certain statements that are deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Abacus expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include changes to commodity prices, mine and metallurgical recovery, operating and capital costs, foreign exchange rates, ability to obtain required permits on a timely basis, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150737 BURBANK (dpa-AFX) - Walt Disney Company (DIS) CEO Robert Iger has reportedly told the company's hybrid employees that they must return to corporate offices four days a week starting March 1. The news was reported by CNBC, citing an email obtained by the wire. In the email, Iger explains about the importance of in-person collaboration. 'As I've been meeting with teams throughout the company over the past few months, I've been reminded of the tremendous value in being together with the people you work with,' Iger wrote. 'As you've heard me say many times, creativity is the heart and soul of who we are and what we do at Disney. And in a creative business like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors,' he added. Iger's new decision comes just two months after he returned to the top position at the company. In November, Iger returned as CEO, succeeding Bob Chapek, who has stepped down from his position. Iger served the company for more than four decades, including 15 years as its CEO. Copyright(c) 2023 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. Molecular biologist honored for contributions to science, enhancing global food supply and laying the foundation for gene editing Philippe Horvath-renowned molecular biologist and IFF technical fellow-is being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame Class of 2023. Horvath will be formally honored for two patents related to CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) sequences and associated Cas proteins, that constitute an acquired immune system in bacteria. Applying this research to enhance starter cultures in the dairy industry, Horvath and research partner Rodolphe Barrangou improved the world's food supply and laid the foundation for the field of gene editing. The formal induction will take place during a ceremony in October 2023 in Washington, D.C. "IFF congratulates Philippe on this unique recognition," said Gregory Yep, chief research development, global integrated solutions and sustainability officer. "We are proud of the achievements made by Philippe and the entire CRISPR team. It is a great testament to our heritage of scientific innovation and the ability to create a better world." Horvath's initial article, published in Science in 2007, provided the first biological evidence that CRISPR-Cas constitutes an immunity system against viruses in bacteria. IFF scientists were among the first to understand how the CRISPR system works in bacteria. Beginning in the early 2000s, Horvath and colleagues initially utilized CRISPR for bacterial identification, then for its ability to improve the resistance of starter culture strains against bacteriophage attack. The discoveries opened new research avenues and laid the groundwork that inspired numerous scientists to pursue the CRISPR field. "I am deeply honored to be selected by the National Inventors Hall of Fame to represent the pioneering work our team has done," said Horvath. "Our findings, which were focused on the natural CRISPR-Cas system, will continue to have a significant impact in the fight against viral infections during food fermentations and are finding new applications in tools for genome editing, including opportunities in plant improvement and gene therapy." Based at IFF's site in Dange-Saint-Romain, France, Horvath already has been honored with four of the world's leading science awards: the 2015 Massry Prize, the 2016 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, the 2016 Canada Gairdner International Award, and the 2018 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science. Welcome to IFF At IFF (NYSE: IFF), an industry leader in food, beverage, health, biosciences and scent, science and creativity meet to create essential solutions for a better world from global icons to unexpected innovations and experiences. With the beauty of art and the precision of science, we are an international collective of thinkers who partners with customers to bring scents, tastes, experiences, ingredients and solutions for products the world craves. Together, we will do more good for people and planet.Learn more at iff.com, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 2022 by International Flavors Fragrances Inc. IFF is a Registered Trademark. All Rights Reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230109005853/en/ Contacts: Paula Heinkel Head of Global Communications 332-877-5339 Media.request@iff.com Michael Bender Director of Investor Relations 212-708-7263 Investor.Relations@iff.com President Joe Biden talks with U.S. Border Patrol agents as they stand near a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap President Joe Biden walked a muddy stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border and inspected a busy port of entry Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans try to blame him for the record numbers of migrants crossing into the country. At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. Next, he traveled to a dusty street with abandoned buildings and a small playground. Near the street was a metal border fence that separated the U.S. city from Ciudad Juarez. Biden walked slowly along the border wall, initially joined by two Border Patrol agents. In a sign of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter upon his arrival in the state that said the ''chaos'' at the border was a ''direct result'' of the president's failure to enforce federal laws. Biden later took the letter out of his jacket pocket during his tour, telling reporters, ''I haven't read it yet.'' Asked what he's learned by seeing the border firsthand and speaking with the officers who work along it, Biden said: ''They need a lot of resources. We're going to get it for them.'' Immigration for years has been a serious point of conflict, exposing both the dysfunction of the U.S. system as well as the turmoil within migrants' home countries that has pushed many to flee. Administration officials have tried to counter Republican criticism by saying Congress should work with them to increase border security funding and overhaul immigration policy. Biden was spending just a few hours in the city, which is currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part due to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enacted by the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates. The president also was to visit the El Paso County Migrant Services Center and meet with nonprofits and religious groups that support migrants arriving to the U.S. It was not clear whether he would talk to any migrants. Biden's announcement on border security and his visit to the border are aimed in part at quelling the political noise and blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years. From El Paso, Biden was to continue south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders of Mexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda. President Joe Biden talks with Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, second from left, as they walk along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso Texas, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap In El Paso, where migrants congregate at bus stops and in parks before traveling on, border patrol agents stepped up security before Biden's visit. ''I think they're trying to send a message that they're going to more consistently check people's documented status, and if you have not been processed they are going to pick you up,'' said Ruben Garcia of the Annunciation House aid group in El Paso. Migrants and asylum-seekers fleeing violence and persecution have increasingly found that protections in the United States are available primarily to those with money or the savvy to find someone to vouch for them financially. Venezuelan migrant Jose Castillo, who said he traveled without family members for five months from his home on Margarita Island to arrive in El Paso on Dec. 29, said he hoped Biden ''will take us into consideration as the human beings we are.'' Castillo was among a group of about 30 migrants who gathered for prayers Sunday morning outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church where many of the newcomers have been camping. ''We have suffered a lot since entering the jungle of the Darien Gap and passing through Mexico. It has all been a battle, battle, battle,'' he said. ''I know that we are here illegally, but please give us a chance.'' The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden's first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take hard-line measures that would resemble those of former President Donald Trump's administration. The policy changes announced this past week are Biden's biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks. The U.S. will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they traveled through en route to the U.S. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to ''incentivize a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organizations,'' saying the policies are ''not a ban at all'' but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create. Church volunteers serve garlic bread to migrants camping outside the Sacred Heart Church in downtown El Paso, Texas, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 9, 2023) - Metallica Metals Corp. (CSE: MM) (OTCQB: MTALF) (FSE: SY7P) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that at its annual general shareholder meeting held on January 9, 2023 (the "Meeting"), Ms. Carly Burk has been elected as a new director of the Company. Ms. Burk practices securities law and works with both public and private issuers. Ms. Burk holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Southampton, a Certificate of Qualification from the Federation of Law Societies and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Carleton University. Ms. Burk serves as an officer and/or director of several public and private entities. Ms. Sandy Noyes did not stand for re-election at the Meeting. The Company would like to thank Ms. Noyes for her contributions to the Company and wishes her success in future endeavours. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: METALLICA METALS CORP. Aaron Stone, P.Geo. Chief Executive Officer info@metallica-metals.com Head Office: 600-890 West Pender Street Vancouver, BC V6C 1J9 Canada Toronto Office: Suite 401 - 217 Queen Street West Toronto, ON M5V 0R2 Canada About Metallica Metals Corp. Metallica Metals Corp. is a Canadian junior mining company listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") and its common shares trade under the ticker symbol "MM". The Company is focused on acquiring and exploring gold-silver and platinum group metal (PGM) properties across Canada. The Company is currently exploring and developing its Starr gold-silver project, and Sammy Ridgeline and Richview Pine PGM projects, which are all located adjacent to advanced mining projects in the Thunder Bay Mining District of Ontario. This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "would", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. These statements are only predictions. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the information is provided, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, unless required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/150717 ExeVir Bio, a Ghent, Belgium-based biotech company developing nanobody therapies for broad protection against infectious diseases, raised 25M in Venture Debt financing. European Investment Bank provided the loan. The company intends to use the funds to advance its lead asset, XVR012, into clinical trials for COVID-19. Led by CEO Torsten Mummenbrauer and COO Fiona du Monceau, ExeVir Bio is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing nanobody based therapeutics focusing on infectious diseases. The company is harnessing its llama-derived antibody (VHH) technology platform to generate multi-specific antibodies for prophylaxis and treatment of infectious diseases. ExeVirs initial focus is on prevention of COVID-19 for the immunocompromised patient population where there remains a high unmet need due to the limitations of current vaccines and therapeutic approaches. Its lead asset, XVR012, is a COVID-19 neutralizing antibody that targets the S1 and S2 region of the coronavirus. ExeVir is a spin out of VIB, the Belgium-based life sciences research institute. It is backed by investors including Fund+, which led the series A of 42M, together with an international consortium including UCB Ventures, FPIM, V-Bio Ventures, VIB, SRIW, Noshaq, Vives IUF and SambrInvest. ExeVir has received, support from VLAIO, the SPW-Recherche and the European Union, leading to a total of 16.5M in non-dilutive funding. FinSMEs 09/01/2023 Superscript, a London, UK-based insurtech startup, raised 45M in Series B funding. The round was led by existing investor BHL UK, owner of Comparethemarket, with participation from new investor and Fortune 500 insurer The Hartford, and existing investors including Concentric and Base Capital. The company intends to use the funds to: further develop its underwriting and broking capabilities, enhanced by machine learning; grow its range of dynamic insurance products and services for international distribution; and build upon its existing embedded partnership capabilities. Led by Cameron Shearer, CEO, Superscript is a business insurance provider which has delivered more than a fivefold increase in active customers and secured major partners such as Amazon Business and Virgin Money Bank. It also landed a Lloyds of London broker licence in 2020, and launched a Lloyds-backed product for digital asset businesses in 2022. Were delighted to announce the completion of our 45 million ($54m USD) Series B funding round. Our journey so far The company also opened an office in Rotterdam to support growth plans across Europe. FinSMEs 09/01/2022 Valtech, a London, UK-based business transformation agency, acquired Tome Software, a Detroit, MI-based developer of mobility IoT software solutions. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. With the acquisition Valtech will expand its offering. Led by CEO Jake Sigal and Massimo Baldini, Tome Software operates in the Internet of Things tech space, specializing in the development of mobility IoT software solutions. The company manages the product lifecycle to conceive, craft, pilot and launch solutions to real-world problems. Led by CEO Oliver Padiou, Valtech is a business transformation agency that enables its clients to anticipate tomorrows trends and connect more directly with consumers in their digital and physical spaces, optimizing time to market and return on investment. Services include strategic consulting, service design, technology services and optimization of essential digital platforms for omni-channel marketing and merchandising. The company served as strategic business transformation partner for many of the worlds best-known brands, including Dolby, LOreal, Philips, P&G, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Valtech currently employs more than 5,500 professionals, including experienced designers, marketers, data scientists, creatives, and software engineers across five continents, with more than 60 offices in over 20 countries. FinSMEs 09/01/2023 Faculty Spotlight: MinJi Kim Assistant Professor of Communication, MinJi Kim, received her doctoral degree in Mass Communication from the University of Florida, with an emphasis in Media Psychology. In her research, Dr. Kim mainly focuses on the effects of immersive and interactive media on behavioral change in health decisions including food choices. The core principle of her pedagogical goal is to provide students with the intellectual confidence and traction to confront their professional and personal challenges. What is your favorite course to teach and why? Last fall (2022) was my first official semester as an assistant professor at Flagler. I am excited about meeting new students this semester, specifically in COM 213 - Media Literacy (I am teaching two sections!). The class will cover all different types of media and students will have opportunities to think about why we need such media and how we can maximize the use of them for personal and social good. Or what is your area of expertise? As a media psychologist, I conduct experimental research on immersive media effects on health decisions. My dissertation was on the effects of the emotion of disgust on the reactions to food commercials; and this May, I am expecting to present this idea at ICA (International Communication Association). Recently, I submitted a manuscript to a journal, in which I tested the effects of ASMR videos on viewers mood and mindful experiences. I am looking forward to collaborating with great faculty members here at Flagler for future research in media psychology and well-being. What made you interested in that area/topic? I found it fascinating to understand what makes people react differently to the same messages and how that leads to their choices in life. Media is clearly the most impactful factor which can easily sway the public audiences. I have been working on finding ways to help people make healthy life decisions by studying the effects of media and its persuasive power. If someone was interested in learning more about the topic, what reading suggestions would you make? There are great books and resources in media psychology. I would suggest reading "Psychology of Media" as an easy start to get the general ideas in the field. For those who are interested in learning the relationship between emotions and food media, you are welcome to visit my office in the 66 Cuna Street building room #214 and get access to my printed dissertation book! What book is on your nightstand right now? And why did you choose it? Well, now I have several (text)books for my courses What has been your favorite piece of research you have conducted? And why? Mukbang study; a psychophysiological experiment that investigated how food type and food portions in a Mukbang video affected the viewers' attitudes towards the video, emotional reactions, and food choice/intake. I measured physical reactions as well as self-reported emotions and found that viewing someone eating a large portion of food may affect viewers to feel uncomfortable or guilty, eventually leading them to choose more low-calorie food or consume less high-calorie food. I expect that the findings could help food marketers and healthcare providers suggest some ideal methods for obese patients using proper media content. What are five words you would use to describe your style in the classroom? Caring, disciplined, supportive, communicative, approachable. Why is it important for the College to have a major in your area? As it relates to the field of media psychology and health communication- media has a significant impact on our perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. By studying the media effects, we could utilize both conscious and unconscious effects of the media to make healthier decisions in life. In Fall 2023, we are offering a new PR track - Health Communication. Students will get plenty of great resources and knowledge covering media effects on health through our coursework. How do you embody Flaglers Core Values in your classroom and on campus? Flagler Colleges clear goal to foster a culturally diverse community and educate students to have global perspectives aligns with my belief that diversity in education is key to success. I expect myself to offer students extraordinary mentorship and experiences developed from my foreign cultural background. Based on my cross-cultural learning and broad perspective in education, I will actively serve lessons with an emphasis on diversity of education in addition to systematic and intimate one-to-one mentoring experiences that will prepare students for culturally diverse settings in their careers. Each individual will be treated with dignity and respect regardless of color, age, gender, sexuality, accessibility, and other socioeconomic factors. Tagged As "Sirko", a Ukrainian serviceman of Karpatska Sich battalion tests his AK-74 rifle near the recently retaken town of Lyman, Ukraine, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap The Russian military claimed Sunday to have carried out deadly missile strikes on barracks used by Ukrainian troops in retaliation for the deaths of dozens of Russian soldiers in a rocket attack a week ago. Ukrainian officials denied there were any casualties. The Russian Defense Ministry said its missiles hit two temporary bases housing 1,300 Ukrainian troops in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, killing 600 of them. Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the strikes were retaliation for Ukraine's attack in Makiivka, in which at least 89 Russian soldiers died. Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's forces in the east, told The Associated Press that Russian strikes on Kramatorsk damaged only civilian infrastructure, adding: ''The armed forces of Ukraine weren't affected.'' The Donetsk regional administration said seven Russian missiles hit Kramatorsk and two more hit Kostyantynivka, without causing any casualties. It said an educational institution, an industrial facility and garages were damaged in Kramatorsk, and an industrial zone was hit in Kostyantynivka. Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said two school buildings and eight apartment houses were hit overnight. Photos he posted showed no indication that it had been an attack on the scale claimed by the Russians or that anyone had been in the buildings when they were struck. ''The world saw again these days that Russia lies even when it draws attention to the situation at the front with its own statements,'' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. A Ukrainian soldier waves to a military helicopter returning from the combat, close to the frontline in the Kherson region, Ukraine, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021. A copy of the "En la sombra" (In the shadow), Spanish version of the book "Spare" an autbiography by Britain's Prince Harry, is pictured at a reader's home in Madrid, Jan. 5, despite the publication date set at January 10 with stringent measures in place. AFP-Yonhap Prince Harry said Sunday he decided to publish his memoirs to defend himself against years of tabloid spin, as British television aired his first interview on the book's explosive revelations. "Thirty-eight years. 38 years of having my story told by so many different people with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to own my story and be able to tell it for myself," he told British channel ITV. But the fallout from the 38-year-old's revelations has cast doubt on his future in the royal family. Although the Duke of Sussex's ghost-written book "Spare" officially launches Tuesday, its contents were widely leaked after it was mistakenly put on sale early in Spain. "I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives," Harry told British channel ITV of his move to California two years ago, referring to the British media as "the antagonist". He repeated accusations of the royal family being "complicit" in hostile tabloid reports about him and his wife Meghan. The book includes an allegation that his brother Prince William, the heir to the throne, attacked him during a row about Meghan; an account of how he lost his virginity; an admission of drug use; and a claim he killed 25 people while serving in Afghanistan. British media reported Sunday that the book had deeply hurt William and the boys' father, King Charles III, but that the monarch wanted to reconcile with his son. The palace has not issued any official reaction. The ITV program "Harry: The Interview" featured the prince reading extracts from the audiobook of his memoirs, which he narrates himself. In one, he tells movingly of how his father broke the news of the 1997 death of his mother princess Diana in a car crash to his "darling boy". A person at home in Edinburgh watches Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, being interviewed by ITV's Tom Bradby during "Harry: The Interview," two days before his controversial autobiography "Spare" is published, Jan. 8. AP-Yonhap English Norwegian (Oslo, Norway - January 6, 2023) Hydrogen technology company Nel and Europes largest supplier of renewable energy, Statkraft, newly signed a contract for delivery of 40 MW electrolysers and will thus collaborate to create a strong value chain for production of green hydrogen in Norway. We are determined that we will contribute towards making Norway a leading producer of renewable hydrogen, and to establish an eco-system of electrolyser and equipment suppliers, says Nels CEO Hakon Volldal and CEO of Statkraft, Christian Rynning-Tnnesen. The announcement was made in connection with the German Vice Chancellor Robert Habecks visit to Nels fully automated electrolyser manufacturing facility at Herya in Norway. The Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry, Jan Christian Vestre, is also joining the delegation together with his colleague, Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Terje Lien Aasland. The ministers are enthusiastic about the two companies plans for a green hydrogen value chain in Norway. It is encouraging that leading Norwegian players such as Nel and Statkraft are planning value chains for green hydrogen in Norway. This is an important step in the right direction to achieve our ambitions to build a coherent value chain for hydrogen and facilitate the production of hydrogen with no or low emissions to cover the national demand for hydrogen, says Minister of Petroleum and Energy Terje Aasland. Statkraft recently placed a purchase order for 40 MW of alkaline electrolyser equipment from Nel. The electrolyser stacks will be produced at Nels manufacturing plant at Herya and used for the production of renewable hydrogen in one of Statkrafts many hydrogen projects. As Europes largest supplier of renewable energy, Statkraft has the ambition to accelerate its annual development rate to 4 GW of new power production per year and to add 2 GW of renewable hydrogen production by 2030. In Norway Statkraft will strengthen its efforts in developing new renewable power production as well as flexibility within hydropower and wind power both on- and offshore. The contract with Nel is the first important step in materializing our ambitious target of 2 GW of green hydrogen and securing production capacity for our diverse pipeline of hydrogen projects, says Rynning-Tnnesen. Volldal is very excited to have Statkraft on the customer list. Statkraft is Europes largest producer of renewable energy and a well reputed and highly knowledgeable renewable energy company with an ambitious growth agenda. We are extremely proud that they have elected us as a supplier of green hydrogen technology, Volldal says. With this and other orders Nel is strengthening its position as a leading supplier and exporter of hydrogen equipment, which is crucial for the green transition in Europe and beyond, and for the development of new green jobs in Norway, Volldal says. About Statkraft Statkraft is a leading company in hydropower internationally and Europes largest generator of renewable energy. The Group produces hydropower, wind power, solar power, gas-fired power and supplies district heating. Statkraft is a global company in energy market operations. Statkraft has 5.000 employees in 20 countries. For additional information, please contact: Kjell Christian Bjrnsen, CFO - Nel ASA, +47 917 02 097 Wilhelm Flinder, Head of Investor Relations - Nel ASA, +47 936 11 350 Lars Nermoen, Head of Communications - Nel ASA, + 47 902 40 153 Bjrn Holsen, Senior Vice President Hydrogen - Statkraft, +47 415 53 715 Geir Fuglseth, Communications Manager - Statkraft, + 47 913 70 572 NEW YORK, Jan. 08, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS) between August 3, 2022 and November 7, 2022, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), of the important January 10, 2023 lead plaintiff deadline. SO WHAT: If you purchased Unisys securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement. WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Unisys class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=9648 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than January 10, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually handle securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs Bar. Many of the firms attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) the Companys 2022 financial guidance was significantly overstated; (2) accordingly, once the truth was revealed, it was likely that Unisys would be required to negatively revise its 2022 financial guidance; (3) in addition to the foregoing, material weaknesses existed in the Companys internal control over financial reporting; and (4) as a result of all of the foregoing, the Companys public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Unisys class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=9648 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investors ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 lrosen@rosenlegal.com pkim@rosenlegal.com cases@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com English French Bpifrance announces the acquisition of a stake of more than 5% in Elis via its Lac1 fund Saint-Cloud, 09 January 2023 The Lac1 fund, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of French and international investors, and dedicated to the long-term support of large listed French companies, announces the sixth investment since its creation in 2020, by investing in Elis. With this investment, Bpifrance asserts its confidence in Elis' international development strategy. With more than a century of experience and nearly 50,000 employees, Elis is the European leader and the second largest global player in the rental and cleaning of textile, hygiene and well-being products. The Group is an emblematic French company with proven operational excellence and a pioneer in the circular economy, which is fully in line with the Lac1 fund's investment strategy: to support French listed world leaders that offer strong value creation potential while addressing today's environmental and societal challenges. With the investment made by the Lac1 fund, Bpifrance confirms its confidence in the strategy of the Group. Elis' markets have solid growth fundamentals, and the Group enjoys a national leadership position in most of its markets. Elis' business model is diversified and resilient, with more than 400,000 customers across a wide range of industries in 29 countries in Europe and Latin America. Thanks to its maintenance leasing model and notably its strong presence in the health and food sectors, the Group has demonstrated the resilience of its business model, maintaining continuous growth in its activity and a high level of profits over the last twenty years. With more than 80 acquisitions since 2010, the Group' has demonstrated its ability to pursue a dynamic acquisition policy and to successfully integrate targets of different size, while generating substantial synergies. Elis will continue to position itself as the consolidator in a global market that remains highly fragmented. Convinced of Elis' potential for sustainable and profitable growth, Bpifrance, via the Lac1 fund, intends to be involved with the company over the long term to support its development and its CSR commitment. According to the terms of an agreement reached on 6 January 2023 between Elis and Bpifrance, the Elis Supervisory Board appointed Bpifrance Investissement (management company of Lac 1) as a board observer of the Elis Supervisory Board for a one-year term (Bpifrance Investissement being represented by Paul-Philippe Bernier to this end), it being agreed that the company will propose the appointment of Bpifrance Investissement as a member of the Supervisory Board, to replace its mandate as a board observer, at the next Elis General Meeting. To date, Elis Supervisory Board is therefore composed of 10 members and one board observer. Commenting on the announcement, Xavier Martire, CEO of Elis, said: "The investment of the Lac1 fund into Elis demonstrates Bpifrance's confidence in the Group's growth and value creation strategy. I am therefore very pleased with the arrival of this new stable and long-term shareholder, whose extensive expertise will be an additional asset for Elis. Nicolas Dufourcq, CEO of Bpifrance, added: "We are delighted that the Lac1 fund has become a reference shareholder of Elis, the leader in the rental and cleaning of textile and hygiene articles in Europe and Latin America, at the service of the circular economy. Bpifrance is thus affirming its long-term commitment to Elis, convinced that the Group has significant growth prospects and that it will continue to consolidate its markets worldwide while maintaining its strong commitment to the sustainable development. About Lac1 Lac1 invests on a long-term basis in the capital of publicly listed French multinationals and is involved in their governance. Lac1 fund has an investment capacity of 5.2B, with forty subscribers including large French and international institutional investors, as well as large companies and family offices. Lac1 is managed by Bpifrance Investissement leveraging on Bpifrance's positioning within its ecosystem, its knowledge of technological and environmental transitions, as well as its strong expertise in the governance of listed companies. About Bpifrance Bpifrance Investissement is the management company that handles Bpifrance's equity investments. Bpifrance is the French national investment bank: it finances businesses at every stage of their development through loans, guarantees, equity investments and export insurances. Bpifrance also provides extra financial services (training, consultancy) to help entrepreneurs meet their challenges (innovation, export). For more information, please visit: https://www.bpifrance.com/ Twitter: @Bpifrance - @BpifrancePresse Contact Nicolas Buron - Investor Relations Director - Phone: +33 1 75 49 98 30 - nicolas.buron@elis.com Attachment A staff member works at the smartphone production and quality control workshop of Chongqing Transsion Technology in Yubei District of southwest China's Chongqing, in this Dec. 3, 2022 file photo. Xinhua-Yonhap China's smartphone industry is set for a tough 2023 and is not expected to see meaningful growth until 2024 amid global supply chain disruption and weak consumer spending at home, analysts have warned. Total smartphone shipments in China may have shrunk 10 percent in 2022 to 285 million units, according to a forecast by industry research firm IDC. Headwinds will remain strong in 2023, according to Will Wong, a Singapore-based IDC analyst. Buying a new phone will not be a priority for people this year, with the more affluent choosing to travel overseas with pandemic restrictions lifted while less affluent consumers limit their spending, Wong explained. "The Chinese smartphone market is only expected to see full-year growth in 2024," he added. China's latest market data showed that November, traditionally a peak season for phone buying thanks to the Singles' Day shopping extravaganza, was a dud. The country's smartphone shipments in November slumped 36 percent year on year to 22.2 million units, according to a report by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a scientific research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In the first 11 months, sales were down 23.6 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, according to the CAICT report, published on Wednesday. The 2022 November smartphone sales figure was "the worst November sales since 2015", according to a separate report by consulting firm CINNO Research last Friday. It also marked the tenth consecutive year-on-year decline since February 2022, according to the CINNO report. "Despite the Singles' Day and other promotional activities, the market is far less enthusiastic than in previous years," CINNO analyst Charley Zhou said in the report. People use their smartphones to scan the health check QR codes before getting their routine COVID-19 throat swabs at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing, Tuesday, in this Nov. 8, 2022 file photo. AP-Yonhap Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Exactitude Consultancy, the market research and consulting wing of Ameliorate Digital Consultancy Private Limited has completed and published the final copy of the detailed research report on the Gas Insulated Switchgear Market. The global gas-insulated switchgear market is projected to grow from USD 16.9 billion in 2021 to USD 38.25 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 9.5%. Compact metal-enclosed switchgear known as gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) may be securely operated in tight places and is made up of high-voltage components including circuit breakers and disconnectors. Where there is a lack of space, such as in additions, city buildings, on roofs, offshore platforms, industrial plants, and hydropower plants, GIS is used. Switching, separating, transforming, measuring, and distributing electrical energy in power systems are the primary duties of a GIS substation. The utilization of SF6, an inert gas with high insulating qualities as well as chemical and thermal durability, is the key component of a GIS device. In contrast, a GIS unit just needs a few centimeters of insulation to be effective, but an air-insulated switchgear unit would need meters. With all these qualities, GIS is a far more dependable gadget than AIS, requiring less space and upkeep. Live Get a Sample Report of Gas-Insulated Switchgear Market -> https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/2348/gas-insulated-switchgear-market/#request-a-sample Key Players: Some of the major players in this industry have taken a leadership position while trying to establish their market through innovative marketing strategies. These leading firms focus on expanding by developing new products or partnering with other companies for strategic initiatives that will help them conquer markets they occupied previously and make gains where it matters most- at home (geographic). ABB, Siemens, Schneider Electric, General Electric, Eaton Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi, Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems, Fuji Electric, and Crompton Greaves Power and Industrial Solutions Recent Developments: In January 2022, the Indian government, the West Bengal government along with the World Bank signed a project worth USD 135 million to improve the efficiency and reliability of electricity supply in selected areas of West Bengal. This project will see the adoption of GIS along with other equipment in the modernization of the electricity grid. Gas Insulated Switchgear Market Report Scope Report Attribute Details Market size value in 2021 USD 16.9 billion in 2021 Revenue forecast in 2029 USD 38.25 billion by 2029 Growth rate CAGR of 9.5% from 2023 to 2029 Base year for estimation 2021 Historical data 2017 - 2020 Forecast period 2023 - 2029 Quantitative units Volume in kilo tons, revenue in USD million and CAGR from 2023 to 2029 Report coverage Revenue forecast, company ranking, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends Segments covered Product, application, region Regional scope North America; Europe; China; Asia; Pacific; Central & South America; MEA Country scope U.S.; Canada; Mexico; Germany; U.K.; France; Italy; Poland; Spain; India; Japan; Thailand; Malaysia; Indonesia; Vietnam; Singapore; Philippines; Brazil; Argentina; Saudi Arabia; UAE; Oman Key companies profiled ABB, Siemens, Schneider Electric, General Electric, Eaton Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, Hitachi, Hyundai Electric & Energy Systems, Fuji Electric, and Crompton Greaves Power and Industrial Solutions Key Market Opportunities The global gas insulated switchgear is likely to be driven by the adoption of smart grids and innovative metering technologies. Key Market Drivers Increasing investment in transmission and distribution networks to meet the rising electricity demand is also expected to bolster market growth. Customization scope Free report customization (equivalent up to 8 analysts working days) with purchase. Addition or alteration to country, regional & segment scope. Pricing and purchase options The entire organization can use the report. It can be printed and shared. Delivery in PDF and Excel. Segmentation: The gas-insulated switchgear market based on the installation has been segmented into indoor and outdoor. Indoor : A metal-clad form of indoor gas-insulated switchgear is typical. In this style of construction, an earthed metal case entirely encloses all live parts. Gas-insulated switchgear with interior enclosures is frequently utilized in medium-voltage applications when indoor surroundings are appropriate. For power stability in industrial and commercial settings where medium voltage substations are placed, the majority of interior gas-insulated switchgear is employed. : A metal-clad form of indoor gas-insulated switchgear is typical. In this style of construction, an earthed metal case entirely encloses all live parts. Gas-insulated switchgear with interior enclosures is frequently utilized in medium-voltage applications when indoor surroundings are appropriate. For power stability in industrial and commercial settings where medium voltage substations are placed, the majority of interior gas-insulated switchgear is employed. Outdoor: In outdoor gas-insulated switchgear, continuous earthed enclosures are present assuring maximum protection against electrical shocks for operation personnel they are lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and have aluminum enclosures. It is a three-phase enclosed modular system with a uniform connection flange. It has several gas compartments, each equipped with a gas filter, rupture disc, contact manometer, and gas valves The gas-insulated switchgear market based on the end-user has been segmented into transmission utility, power generation utility, power distribution utility, railways & metros, industrial & OEMs, and commercial. The gas-insulated switchgear market is anticipated to be dominated by the transmission segment during the forecast period. This dominance can be attributed to increasing power needs brought on by expanding urbanization and population growth, which led to an expansion of the global transmission network. Regional Analysis: In terms of geography, the gas-insulated switchgear market can be categorized into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is expected to dominate the gas-insulated switchgear market during the forecast period. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economy of Asia Pacific is estimated to grow by 4.9% in the fiscal year 2022. Population growth in the region increases the burden on the housing infrastructure and will compel economies to focus on expanding public housing infrastructure. The region is also the fastest-growing market in renewable energy deployment, led by China and India. With the rapid rise in renewable power generation, grid stability is a significant issue in countries with high levels of renewable integration in their grids, which also needs the modernization of older T&D infrastructure. As renewable power generated from sources, such as solar and wind, provides variable power output, traditional T&D systems may not be suitable for renewable energy transmission and distribution and would require upgradation or retrofitting. North America is investing in the enhancement of the overall performance of generation, transmission & distribution of electric power to avoid losses. Many companies are procuring their substation for reliable and efficient power transmission, which might add significant value to this market. Europe will be the second biggest market due to increasing power consumption, up-gradation of aging hydropower plants, and government initiative for enhancing grid infrastructure. Growing investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure will offer lucrative growth opportunities in the forecast period. The countries in the Middle East & Africa are highly dominated by oil and gas companies, which require a reliable power supply. Companies operating in oil and gas plants are focusing on enhancing the transmission and distribution of electric power. African countries are mainly focused on increasing their grid infrastructure, which will add a positive outlook for the growth of the regional market during the projected period. Browse Full Premium Report-> https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/2348/gas-insulated-switchgear-market/ Drivers: During the anticipated period, the demand for gas-insulated switchgear is anticipated to be driven by the transformation of the power industry. The demand for gas-insulated switchgear is anticipated to increase due to its space optimization, ease of maintenance, and defense against the elements. Restraints: The market's expansion is being hampered by elements like high equipment costs when compared to AIS and strict environmental and safety laws pertaining to GIS. The insulating and arc-quenching medium in GIS substations is sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) gas, which is compressed inside a gas-tight iron casing that surrounds all current-carrying components. Pressurized SF6 gas can be used as an insulating medium to create much more compact switchgear because it allows for a much smaller mutual distance between current-carrying devices. Opportunities: The growing APAC economies of China and India were the main drivers of the 3.3% constant year-over-year output growth in global industrial production recorded in 2021, according to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). The situation points to promising futures for gas-insulated switchgear, which is essential for power safety and regulation in industrial environments. Working Principles of GIS: Switchgear uses SF6 to protect the electrical power supply and distribution by interrupting the flow of current in an electrical circuit when necessary. Under normal conditions, the breaker contacts are closed, but when a failure occurs in the electrical system, these contacts separate and an arc occurs between them The displacement of the mobile contacts is synchronized with that of a valve that allows the entry of high-pressure SF6 into the chamber where the arc is occurring. The properties of SF6 allow the absorption of free electrons in the path of the arc, forming ions that do not carry electrical charge because they become too heavy. The dielectric strength of the gas increases notably, so the arc is extinguished. The SF6 is stored first in a low-pressure tank and subsequently in a high-pressure tank so that it can be available for reuse because of its ability to quickly recombine as the arc is put out. These characteristics make SF6 insulation three times more efficient than air insulation, which makes these substations perfect for medium and high-voltage power networks. Integrated three Phase GIS: GIS hybrid system: It is a suitable combination of three-phase common elements and separate-phase components. Here, the connection from the bus bar is made simpler by the three-phase common bus bar system. Phase-to-phase failures are avoided using the isolated phase apparatus. This is the best design while keeping the space needed and the maintenance facility in mind. Streamlined GIS system: In this GIS or gas-insulated switchgear system one functional element is encapsulated in a single metal enclosure. For example, in some designs, a three-phase circuit breaker, current transformer, earth switches, and even other feeder elements are covered together in a single metal capsule. High-Level Integration: A single enclosure housing houses the whole substation's equipment, according to this design, which was launched in the year 2000. Users appreciate this single-unit, gas-insulated substation because it offers a comprehensive solution for an outdoor substation in a single unit. As a result, an entire outdoor switch yard cannot be substituted with equipment (HIS). Get More Discount on the Gas-Insulated Switchgear Market -> https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/2348/gas-insulated-switchgear-market/#inquire-for-discount Key Questions answered: The research report has been written keeping in mind the following stakeholders: the current companies in the market Environment Suppliers, Manufacturing Companies, End-user companies, and Research institutes. The key questions answered in the report are: What is the market size and forecast of the Gas-Insulated Switchgear market? Who are the key competitors/Players in this market? What are the key segments of the Gas-Insulated Switchgear market? Which segment dominates the market? What factors are driving the global Gas-Insulated Switchgear market? Which is the dominating region in this market? What are the major applications for Gas-Insulated Switchgear? What are the working principles of Gas-Insulated Switchgear? 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The global marine lubricants market is expected to grow at a 2.4% CAGR from 2023 to 2029. It is expected to reach above USD 8.42 billion by 2029 from USD 6.8 billion in 2021. A special class of lubricants called marine lubricants is made to give marine vessels the tenacious performance they need to run smoothly. Different mechanical parts in maritime systems need lubricants to function effectively, be protected and have a longer life cycle. In the shipping industry, marine lubricants are used extensively. Over 90% of global trade, according to the International Marine Organization (IMO), is transported via maritime means. As a result, maintaining the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of trade around the globe depends on improving the performance and lifespan of the systems and components of marine vessel equipment. Marine lubricants are frequently used in the shipping sector to safeguard machinery and boost performance. They are specifically made to enable optimum performance in operations like extending engine life and protecting components at high temperatures, enhancing protection against mechanical wear, and reducing cold corrosion. They also improve machine performance and reliability. Live Get a Sample Report of Marine Lubricants Market -> https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/3126/marine-lubricants-market/#request-a-sample Recent Developments: In April 2022, Chevron Global Energy Inc., a fully owned subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, completed the previously announced acquisition of Neste Corporation's NEXBASE brand, associated qualifications and approvals, and related sales and marketing operations from Neste Corporation. In June 2022, China launched its third advanced air carrier Fujian from Shanghai's Jiangnan Shipyard. The Fujian is China's first domestically designed and built catapult aircraft carrier. June 2021, BP Plc. has set up a digital hub in Pune, India, this expansion will help them grow their digital expertise and meet the changing demands by providing sustainable solutions. Marine Lubricants Market Report Scope Report Attribute Details Market size value in 2021 USD 6.8 billion in 2021 Revenue forecast in 2029 USD 8.42 billion by 2029 Growth rate CAGR of 2.4% from 2023 to 2029 Base year for estimation 2021 Historical data 2017 - 2020 Forecast period 2023 - 2029 Quantitative units Volume in kilo tons, revenue in USD million and CAGR from 2023 to 2029 Report coverage Revenue forecast, company ranking, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends Segments covered Product, application, region Regional scope North America; Europe; China; Asia; Pacific; Central & South America; MEA Country scope U.S.; Canada; Mexico; Germany; U.K.; France; Italy; Poland; Spain; India; Japan; Thailand; Malaysia; Indonesia; Vietnam; Singapore; Philippines; Brazil; Argentina; Saudi Arabia; UAE; Oman Key companies profiled BP Plc., Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, TotalEnergies SE, Valvoline, Petronas, Soil, Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd, Petrochemical Corporation, JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation, Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd., ENOC (Emirates National Oil Company), ENI SPA, Indian Oil Corporation, Petro Company Limited, SK INC., CEPSA, Gazprom Neft, ADDINOL Lube Oil GmbH, Bel-Ray Company LLC, Morris Lubricants, Penrite Oil, Liqui Molly GmbH, and Dyade Lubricants Key Market Opportunities Increase in applications across the shipbuilding industry will serve as a vital growth factor for the marine lubricants market. Key Market Drivers Escalating influence of marine trade on the back of low maintenance and transportation cost will also bode well for the growth of the marine lubricants market. Customization scope Free report customization (equivalent up to 8 analysts working days) with purchase. Addition or alteration to country, regional & segment scope. Pricing and purchase options The entire organization can use the report. It can be printed and shared. Delivery in PDF and Excel. Segmentation: Based On Oil type the global marine lubricant market is divided into marine oil, synthetic oil, and bio-based oil Marine oil : Marine One of the necessary components for running any type of machinery on a ship is lube oil. The parts that are moving relative to one another and creating frictional and other sorts of stresses on the machinery are lubricated and cooled by lube oil. : Marine One of the necessary components for running any type of machinery on a ship is lube oil. The parts that are moving relative to one another and creating frictional and other sorts of stresses on the machinery are lubricated and cooled by lube oil. Synthetic oil : synthetic oil is made of chemical compounds that have undergone artificial modification or synthesis. In addition to being made from other raw materials, synthetic lubricants can also be produced using chemically altered petroleum components rather than whole crude oil. However, the majority of the base material is still crude oil, which is distilled before being physically and chemically altered. : synthetic oil is made of chemical compounds that have undergone artificial modification or synthesis. In addition to being made from other raw materials, synthetic lubricants can also be produced using chemically altered petroleum components rather than whole crude oil. However, the majority of the base material is still crude oil, which is distilled before being physically and chemically altered. Bio-based lubricants: Bio-based lubricants are characterized as being made from renewable resources, biodegradable, and typically based on plants. As long as they are renewable and biodegradable, they may use other sources. Based On product type the global marine lubricant market is divided into Engine Oil, Hydraulic Fluid, and Compressor Oil Engine Oil : Engine Lubricating oil is a class of oils used to reduce the friction, heat, and wear between mechanical components that are in contact with each other. Lubricating oil is used in motorized vehicles, where it is known specifically as motor oil and transmission fluid. : Engine Lubricating oil is a class of oils used to reduce the friction, heat, and wear between mechanical components that are in contact with each other. Lubricating oil is used in motorized vehicles, where it is known specifically as motor oil and transmission fluid. Hydraulic Fluid : It functions as a lubricant, sealer, and medium for the transmission of energy or power. It is a fluid that also cools the machinery and removes impurities. : It functions as a lubricant, sealer, and medium for the transmission of energy or power. It is a fluid that also cools the machinery and removes impurities. Compressor Oil: To reduce the volume and increase the pressure of gases for use in a variety of applications, compressor oils are lubricants used in mechanical devices. Based On application the global marine lubricant market is divided into Bulk Carriers, Tankers, and Container Ships. Regional Analysis: In terms of geography, the Marine lubricant market can be categorized into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific led the marine lubricants market in terms of value and volume, owing to the region's growing domestic demand, increasing income levels, rapid industrialization, and urbanization. Asia Pacific is projected to witness the highest CAGR during the forecast period. This growth is attributed to increasing trade activities and the rising trend of manufacturing companies expanding their facilities in the region. The ports of China and Singapore are the major consumers of marine lubricants. As per the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), around 50% of the ships are owned by companies in Asia-Pacific accounting for the major share in the consumption of marine lubricants. Also, the number of dry docks is high in the region which supports the growth of the market in the region. Emerging economies such as India, China, and Taiwan are increasing their trade activities which are expected to boost market growth over the forthcoming years. Moreover, the increasing number of naval vessels in the region is expected to provide impetus to the market in the forecast period. Europe accounts for the second-largest share in the global marine lubricants market after Asia-Pacific. Europe accounts for a significant share of global trade and has several ports and dry docks to support the healthy consumption of marine lubricants in the region. Netherlands, Germany, and the UK are among the prominent consumers. North America accounts for a single-digit market share due to the low number of ship owners in the region. However, the market is expected to grow moderately during the foreseeable period with a steady increase in trade. Growing intra and intercostal seaborne networks with completely combined waterways are anticipated to upsurge the requirement for carriage ships that are mostly used to ship materials, goods, and raw materials, which will spur demand growth for marine oils in the North American region The market in the Middle East & Africa is driven by the lubricant consumption in oil tankers. However, the turbulence in the political conditions such as sanctions on Iran may hamper the market growth over the forecast period. On the other side, GCC countries and Turkey account for more than half of the regional marine lubricant demand. Latin America is one of the fastest-growing markets on the back of increased trade activities and the expansion of e-commerce business in the region. Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Chile, and Argentina will greatly drive the marine lube market in the region. Browse Full Premium Report-> https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/3126/marine-lubricants-market/ Drivers: The maritime supply chain is not complete without marine lubricants. Global usage of marine lubricants is anticipated to rise as a result of rising fuel prices and stricter IMO rules. Additionally, shippers are expected to run the engines at a modest steaming level to conserve fuel as a result of the rise in fuel prices. Because marine engines cannot run consistently at low speeds, corrosion issues with the engine and its stressed components and systems may arise. The market for marine lubricants is likely to grow as a result of the growing dependence on these lubricants to maintain engine safety and proper operation. There are many benefits to shipping goods using cargo ships, including their lower cost and higher transport capacity. The utilization of large cargo ships for transportation has expanded over the past few years as a result of the aforementioned factors, which has resulted in a strong demand for engine lubricant oil. Increased demand for cruise ships as a result of the tourist industry's expansion has helped to boost product demand. Marine lubricants market expansion will be fueled by major companies and state governments' increasing investments in the tourist industry. Restraints: When mineral oil is used as a lubricant, there are also significant emissions of VOCs, which are very dangerous for the environment. Environmentally friendly lubricants include those made of synthetic materials and bio-based materials. The development of synthetic lubricants and bio-based lubricants is anticipated to force the phase-out of mineral oil-based lubricants in the future, even though their prices are still higher than those of synthetic lubricants. This will affect lubricant consumption, eventually resulting in a reduction in the number of marine lubricants used per ship. Opportunities: The marine cylinder lubricant manufacturers are being forced to continuously develop new products as a result of the ever-tighter environmental regulations. Major producers have even reacted to the restrictions by providing their customers with newer products in recent years, including Shell and Castrol. Factors considered to choose the better lubricant: Oil Viscosity Viscosity is a measure of an oil's thickness and its capacity to flow at either high or low temperatures. Oil with a high viscosity is thick. By creating a thick film around the engine's components, these lubricants offer better engine protection at high temperatures. Low-viscosity oils, on the other hand, are thinner and flow more readily. Marine engine oils can be mono- or multi-grade, just like in passenger cars. A marine engine oil with multiple viscosities is always a better option. Alkalinity Sulfuric acid, which may lead to acidic corrosion, is carried in the exhaust during fuel combustion. Since alkalinity prevents acidic corrosion, it is crucial to consider it when selecting marine engine oil. Oxidation Resistance Lubricants used in marine engines come into touch with air. Therefore, it is impossible to avoid the presence of oxygen. High temperatures increase oxidation rates, which cause the formation of sludge, bearing corrosion, and the production of acids. For this reason, lube oil additives for anti-oxidation and anti-corrosion are added. Load Carrying Capacity The oil viscosity affects the load-carrying capacity. Heavy internal components make up a marine engine. Therefore, the lube's load-carrying capacity needs to be high enough to withstand the engine pressure. If not, it might result in metal-metal friction and hasten the engine's deterioration. A High Fash Point It represents the lubricant's vaporization temperature at its lowest point. Always set it to a high temperature of more than 220 C. As a result, the chance of a fire hazard decreases as the temperature of the oil rises. Detergency By adding metallic-based additives with superior cleaning properties, detergency is produced. They stop small deposits from building up on metal surfaces. They remove impurities from the ring pack region and maintain a clean combustion space in two-stroke engines. Thermal Stability The engine's components are constantly in motion, generating heat energy. The oil should take the heat away to avoid the marine engine overheating. It should have good thermal stability and conductivity because it cools down the engine's internal components. Key Players: Some of the major players in this industry have taken a leadership position while trying to establish their market through innovative marketing strategies. These leading firms focus on expanding by developing new products or partnering with other companies for strategic initiatives that will help them conquer markets they occupied previously and make gains where it matters most- at home (geographic). BP Plc., Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, TotalEnergies SE, Valvoline, Petronas, Soil, Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd, Petrochemical Corporation, JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation, Gulf Oil Corporation Ltd., ENOC (Emirates National Oil Company), ENI SPA, Indian Oil Corporation, Petro Company Limited, SK INC., CEPSA, Gazprom Neft, ADDINOL Lube Oil GmbH, Bel-Ray Company LLC, Morris Lubricants, Penrite Oil, Liqui Molly GmbH, and Dyade Lubricants Get More Discount on the Marine Lubricants Market -> https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/3126/marine-lubricants-market/#inquire-for-discount Key Questions answered: The research report has been written keeping in mind the following stakeholders: the current companies in the market Environment Suppliers, Manufacturing Companies, End-user companies, and Research institutes. The key questions answered in the report are: What is the market size and forecast of the Marine Lubricants market? Who are the key competitors/Players in this market? What are the key segments of the Marine Lubricants market? Which segment dominates the market? What factors are driving the global Marine Lubricants market? Which is the dominating region in this market? What are the major applications for Marine Lubricants? What are the factors considered while choosing a better lubricant? Related reports: Polyphenylene Market by Type (Polyphenylene Sulfide (PPE), Polyphenylene Oxide/Polyphenylene Ether, Others), Application (Engineering Plastics, Filter Bag, Composites, High-Performance Lubricants, Automotive), End-Use Industry (Automotive, Electronics, and Electrical, Industrial, Coatings) and Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Middle East, and Africa), Global trends and forecast from 2022 to 2029 https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/10241/polyphenylene-market/ Fluoropolymer Additives Market by Product (Polytetrafluoroethylene Micro powders, Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene Micro powders, Perfluoro alkoxy Micro powders), Application (Printing Inks, Coatings, Lubricants & Grease, Thermoplastics & Elastomers) and Region, Global trends and forecast from 2022 to 2029 https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/4597/fluoropolymer-additives-market/ Synthetic Lubricants Market by Type (Polyalphaolefin (Pao), Esters, Polyalkylene glycol (PAG), Group III (Hydrocracking) Product Type (Engine oil, Hydraulic fluids, Metalworking fluids, Compressor oil, Gear oil, Refrigeration oil, Transmission fluids, Turbine oil) End-Use Industry (Construction, Mining, Metal Production, Cement Production, Power Generation, Automotive Manufacturing, Chemical, Marine (Deck Manufacturing), Oil & Gas, Textile, Food Processing) Region (North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, South America, Middle East & Africa), Global Trends and Forecast from 2022 to 2029 https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/4233/synthetic-lubricants-market/ Pour Point Depressant Market by Chemistry (Lubricants, Oil & Gas), End User (Automotive, Industrial, Marine, Aviation, Others), And by Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Middle East, and Africa), Global Trends and Forecast From 2022 To 2029 https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/4137/pour-point-depressant-market/ Refrigeration Lubricants Market by Type (Synthetic Oil (POE, PAG), Mineral Oil), By Application (Refrigerators & Freezers, Refrigeration Compressors, Production of Soft Drinks, Air Conditioning, Transportation, Automotive.), and by Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, Middle East, and Africa), Global trends and forecast from 2022 to 2029 https://exactitudeconsultancy.com/reports/3959/refrigeration-lubricants-market/ Adhesives and Epoxy Dispensing Systems Market by Type (Manual, Automatic), End User Industry (Electronics, Construction, Automotive, Packaging, Others) and Region, Global trends and forecast from 2022 to 2029 -- Certification expands Viralgen's capacity threefold and positions the company as a world-leading CDMO -- -- New facility operates single-use bioreactors from 50 to 2,000 liters and manufactures research, clinical and commercial grade rAAV vectors using Pro10, the leading cell line on the market -- SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Viralgen Vector Core (Viralgen), an independently operated subsidiary of Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (AskBio), and a member of the Bayer worldwide group of companies, has received Certified Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) certification for the manufacture of human medicinal products, investigational medicinal products and sterile or biological active substances. This certification was granted following a successful inspection by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS), a part of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) network. The company now operates two facilities in San Sebastian, Spain, with seven state-of-the-art single-use suites that have up to 2,000 liters of manufacturing capacity, making it a world-leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Viralgen is now licensed for the commercial manufacturing of recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) gene therapies up to 2,000 liters and has completed seven successful runs at this maximum scale. This first phase of the expansion of the new facility, which has added 300,000 square feet of clinical and commercial rAAV manufacturing, is now complete. The new facility currently has three independent state-of-the-art quality control labs and commercial manufacturing suites with 500- and 2,000-liter single-use bioreactors. Viralgen anticipates opening additional manufacturing, science and technology (MSAT) and analytical development space at the same facility at the end of Q1 2023. "Being a fully integrated CDMO, we offer a continuum of products and services, including process, analytical development, stability studies and fill and finish for all types of rAAV serotypes," said Jimmy Vanhove, CEO of Viralgen. "This can significantly shorten the time to market, help with predictable cost of goods and reduce the waiting time experienced by patients who have run out of options and hope for breakthrough treatments." With this approval, Viralgen expands its ability to partner with customers in the rAAV space that are initiating Phase III studies and seeking approvals to commercialize their products. This builds on the company's achievement of its 2022 pivotal milestone, which was the manufacturing over 135 batches of clinical and preclinical material, and its enabling more than 24 INDs since its inception in 2019. "With this certification, we have three times the rAAV production capacity we had previously. This solidifies our position as a global leader in the CDMO rAAV field", said Javier Garcia, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Viralgen. "We are now able to manufacture at the industry's largest scale and supply Phase III and commercial products for our global customers." Viralgen was created in 2017 to respond to the unmet need for the manufacturing of gene therapies, with the goal of helping broaden access to these life-saving therapeutics around the world. Viralgen specializes in the production of rAAV vectors and has built an optimized facility that maximizes the throughput and efficiency of the proprietary Pro10 based suspension manufacturing platform, enabling industry-leading yields, scalability and speed to market. Viralgen is a fully integrated company, which supplies research, cGMP and commercial grade material from 250 to 2,000 liters in scale, including process development, formulation and filling. About Viralgen Viralgen, an independently operated Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), was founded in 2017 as a joint venture between AskBio and Columbus Venture Partners (a venture capital firm based in Spain). As one of the world's leading manufacturers of cGMP-certified AAV, Viralgen uses the Pro10 based suspension manufacturing platform, a technology licensed from AskBio and developed by co-founder R. Jude Samulski, PhD, at University of North Carolina. It is believed that Pro10 increases scalability, performance and precision of AAV therapies. Located in Spain, in the Gipuzkoa Science and Technology Park, Viralgen produces AAV gene therapy treatments for pharmaceutical and biotech companies with the aim of accelerating the delivery of new treatments that can improve patients' lives. The company's clinical facilities have four cGMP manufacturing suites, with 250-liter and 500-liter bioreactors. In 2020, Viralgen expanded within the Scientific Park by constructing a new building for increased manufacturing capacity. The new space includes three additional cGMP suites with a manufacturing capacity of 2,000 liters each. Viralgen has more than 420 employees, with three quarters of these holding advanced degrees. This talented workforce supports a range of core capabilities in quality assurance, quality control, analytical development and process development, all of which are critical to shortening the time to market and supporting customers with the regulatory process. For more information, visit viralgenvc.com. For more information and interviews, please contact: Priscilla Assumpcao +34 640 817 276 passumpcao@viralgenvc.com This information is provided by Reach, the non-regulatory press release distribution service of RNS, part of the London Stock Exchange. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com. WASHINGTON, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Aerospace Materials Market is valued at USD 37.5 Billion in 2021 and is projected to reach a value of USD 61.1 Billion by 2028 at a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 8.5% over the forecast period 2022-2028. One of the most significant economic areas is the Aerospace Materials business, and consistent expansion is projected. Despite the industry's turmoil, numerous things could affect its development or demise. This study assesses both the current trends and the anticipated future changes to provide a full insight of the sector. Additionally, it provides details on the significant industry players and their expansion strategies. The report thoroughly analyzes international producers and suppliers and their current situation and future prospects. It also details the global drivers of the demand for Aerospace Materials, including rising investment requirements, developing technology, and new laws. Get Access to the In-depth Free Sample Report @ https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/aerospace-materials-market-1963/request-sample Market Overview According to Vantage Market Research, some key factors anticipated to accelerate the Aerospace Materials Market growth over the forecast period. The need to expand the aircraft fleet is driven by increased air traffic. As a result, there are more orders for passenger planes, increasing the need for Aerospace Materials among aircraft producers. We forecast that the composites category in Aerospace Materials Market sales will account for more than 30% of total sales by 2028. Composites, a new class of materials for making airplanes, are becoming more widely used in domestic and international markets. Due to their resistance to corrosion and metal fatigue, composite materials outperform aluminum and other metal alloys. Europe dominates the market, and this trend of dominance will continue throughout the projection period. France, Germany, and the U.K. have aircraft manufacturers, stimulating economic growth. In this case, the demand-generating factors are people's high disposable income levels and preference for air travel. Top Players in the Global Aerospace Materials Market Alcoa Corporation (US) Aleris Corporation (US) Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (US) AMETEK Inc. (US) AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group (Netherlands) ArcelorMittal (Luxembourg) Arconic Inc. (US) ATI Metals (US) Constellium N.V. (Netherlands) Cytec Solvay Group (Belgium) Doncasters Group Ltd. (UK) DuPont de Nemours Inc. (US) Global Titanium Inc. (US) Hexcel Corporation (US) Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (US) Kobe Steel Ltd (Japan) Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporations (Japan) NOVELIS (US) NSSMC Group (Japan) PPG Industries Inc. (US) Precision Castparts Corp. (US) Rio Tinto Group (UK) Rochling Group (Germany) Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Saudi Arabia) SGL Carbon SE (Germany) Solvay S.A. (Belgium) Special Metals (US) Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd. (Japan) Supreme Engineering Ltd. (India) Teijin Limited (Japan) Toray Industries Inc. (Japan) For Additional Information on Aerospace Materials Market Players and Detail List, Download a Report PDF Brochure Market Dynamics Increased Demand for Aviation from Low-Cost Carriers and Developing Nations to Boost Market Growth In the best-case scenario, after 2021, when aircraft businesses start operating at full capacity without travel restrictions or supply chain problems, the aviation & military industry will enjoy a strong increase in demand for aviation components. The consumer air transport market had expanded within the global aviation business before the COVID-19 pandemic. Low-cost operators have proven to be fierce competitors in the market, particularly in the emerging nations of APAC and South America. More travelers will travel more regularly in the APAC and MEA. Low-Cost Airlines have Estimated Price Reductions to Drive the Market Growth The need for larger planes is growing as more people use air travel. This need would benefit businesses that offer aviation supplies and other items required by the aviation sector. The rapidly growing aviation industry is the primary factor influencing the material requirements for aircraft. Low-cost airlines are expected to reduce their prices in the future, which will help the Aerospace Materials industry grow. Limited Time Offer | Buy this Premium Research Report with Exclusive Discount and Immediate Delivery@ https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/buy-now/aerospace-materials-market-1963/0 Aerospace Materials Market Recent Developments March 2020, Kymera International completed a transaction with Ametek Inc., based in Pennsylvania, United States. Kymera announced the acquisition of 100% of the shares of Ametek's Reading Alloys business, which includes the development and production of master alloys, thermal barrier coatings, and titanium powders that are used in the aircraft industry. This acquisition expanded Kymera's business and its product portfolio. Top Trends in Global Aerospace Materials Market One trend that Vantage Market Research (VMR) expects to see in the Aerospace Materials industry is the growing demand for aviation parts from the UAV business. Defense UAV (drone) applications have grown and are now a significant tool for the military worldwide. The commercial and civil UAV industry is still in its infancy, despite many unrealized potentials in various applications. Another trend that VMR predicts will continue in the Aerospace Materials industry is the aerospace industry's increased innovation. The growth-promoting factor is a large-scale study to discover alternatives to metal alloys to get beyond their limitations. Airplanes' durability and fuel efficiency will significantly improve with the introduction of contemporary production materials. Moreover, a revolution in aviation will result from using composites and nanofibers to produce Aerospace Materials. Top Report Findings Based on Types, most of the Aerospace Materials Market's revenue is controlled by the composites category. The use of composites, a new class of materials for aircraft construction, is growing on the global market and in the development of new aircraft generations. Polymeric composites surpass aluminum and other alloy steels in terms of corrosion and metal strain resistance. Based on Aircraft Types, most of the Aerospace Materials Market's revenue is controlled by the commercial aircraft category. Huge demand is created by the extensive use of these aircraft for various functions, including cargo transfer and passenger travel. The demand for commercial aircraft is rising due to increased air travelers and low-cost air travel. Based on Applications, most of the Aerospace Materials Market's revenue is controlled by the propulsion system category. A propulsion system is a device that generates thrust to move an item forward. The engine accelerates a gas or working fluid, and the reaction to this acceleration exerts a force on the engine. Top 10 Players Generate More Than 45% of the Global Aerospace Materials Market Revenue The report also found that the largest players in the Aerospace Materials Market are technology providers such as Alcoa Corporation (US), Aleris Corporation (US), Allegheny Technologies Incorporated (US), AMETEK Inc. (US), AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group (Netherlands), and ArcelorMittal (Luxembourg). These companies are expected to benefit from increased demand for their products and services and investments in new products. Other major players include Arconic Inc. (US), ATI Metals (US), Constellium N.V. (Netherlands), Cytec Solvay group (Belgium), Doncasters Group Ltd. (UK), DuPont de Nemours Inc. (US), Global Titanium Inc. (US), Hexcel Corporation (US), Kaiser Aluminum Corp. (US), Kobe Steel Ltd (Japan), Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporations (Japan), NOVELIS (US), NSSMC Group (Japan), PPG Industries Inc. (US), Precision Castparts Corp. (US), Rio Tinto Group (UK), Rochling Group (Germany), Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Saudi Arabia), SGL Carbon SE (Germany), Solvay S.A. (Belgium), Special Metals (US), Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd. (Japan), Supreme Engineering Ltd. (India), Teijin Limited (Japan) and Toray Industries, Inc. (Japan). The latest report published by Vantage Market Research shows that the top 10 companies generate more than 45% of market revenue. Browse market data Tables and Figures spread through 147 Pages and in-depth TOC on Aerospace Materials Market Forecast Report (2022-2028). Commercial Aircraft Category in Aerospace Materials Market to Generate Over 30% Revenue Aerospace Materials are an expensive investment. Vantage Market Research has analyzed the market for Aerospace Materials to understand its current state and potential future growth factors. For better understanding, based on the aircraft type, the Aerospace Materials Market is divided into commercial aircraft, business & general aviation, military aircraft, helicopters, and others. During the forecast period, the market for Aerospace Materials is anticipated to experience the highest CAGR for the commercial aircraft category. The commercial aircraft industry controls the major share of the global aviation equipment market due to its substantial use of various materials, including titanium alloys, aluminum alloys, and structural components, in its manufacturing. There is a growing need for airplanes as the number of passengers flying continues to rise in developing countries. On the other hand, the business & general aviation category is anticipated to grow significantly over the forecast period. The widespread use of such aircraft for various purposes, including passenger and freight transportation, generates enormous demand. As more people fly and air travel becomes more affordable, there is an increasing demand for general aviation and corporate aircraft. Read Full Report: https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/industry-report/aerospace-materials-market-1963 Global Aerospace Materials Market Segmentation By Type Composite Metal Plastic By Aircraft Type Commercial Aircraft Business & General Aviation Military Aircraft Helicopters Other Aircraft Types By Application Interior Propulsion Systems By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East & Africa Regional Analysis The North America Aerospace Materials Market is estimated to be the largest at $19.5 billion by 2025, followed by Europe with a revenue of $14.9 billion and the Asia Pacific with a market size of $11.5 billion. The major factors driving the growth of the North American aerospace materials market are technological advancements in aircraft construction and an increase in demand for new aircraft types, such as regional jets and large commercial planes. Latin America is estimated to have the smallest market size of $4.9 billion by 2025. The Middle East & Africa region is projected to grow slower than Latin America. Scope of the Report: Report Attributes Details Market Size in 2021 USD 37.5 Billion Revenue Forecast by 2028 USD 61.1 Billion CAGR 8.5% from 2022 to 2028 Base Year 2021 Forecast Year 2022 to 2028 Key Players Alcoa Corporation, Aleris Corporation, Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, AMETEK Inc., AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group, ArcelorMittal India Private Limited, Arconic Inc., ATI Metals, Constellium N.V., Cytec Solvay group, Doncasters Group Ltd., DuPont de Nemours Inc., Global Titanium Inc., Hexcel Corporation, Kaiser Aluminum Corp., Kobe Steel Ltd, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporations, NOVELIS, NSSMC Group, PPG Industries Inc., Precision Castparts Corp., Rio Tinto Group, Rochling Group, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, SGL Carbon SE, Solvay S.A., Special Metals, Sumitomo Bakelite Co. Ltd., Supreme Engineering Ltd., Teijin Limited, Toray Industries Inc. Customization of the Report: The report can be customized as per client needs or requirements. For any queries, you can contact us on sales@vantagemarketresearch.com or +1 (202) 380-9727. Our sales executives will be happy to understand your needs and provide you with the most suitable reports. Browse More Reports from Vantage Library: About Vantage Market Research: We, at Vantage Market Research, provide quantified B2B high quality research on more than 20,000 emerging markets, in turn, helping our clients map out constellation of opportunities for their businesses. We, as a competitive intelligence market research and consulting firm provide end to end solutions to our client enterprises to meet their crucial business objectives. Our clientele base spans across 70% of Global Fortune 500 companies. Follow Us on: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook Contact us Eric Kunz 6218 Georgia Avenue NW Ste 1 - 564 Washington DC 20011-5125 United States Tel: +1 202 380 9727 Email: sales@vantagemarketresearch.com Website: https://www.vantagemarketresearch.com/ Latest Vantage Market Research Press Releases Latest Vantage Market Research Blog Vantage Market Research All Reports Blog: Pune, India, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global sickle cell disease treatment market size was valued at USD 1.73 billion in 2021. The market is projected to grow from USD 2.25 billion in 2022 to USD 8.75 billion by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 21.4% during the forecast period. The increasing prevalence of sickle cell diseases and increasing focus on effective drug launches are estimated to propel market progress. Fortune Business Insights presents this information in its report titled Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Market, 2022-2029. Key Industry Development Bluebird Bio Inc. disclosed details regarding its U.S. commercial infrastructures to back rapid access to ZYNTEGLO and its comprehensive patient support initiative. Request a Sample Copy of the Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/sample/sickle-cell-disease-treatment-market-101009 Important Growth Factors for Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Market: High Severity Associated with the Disorders to Propel Market Progress Sickle cell disease treatment refers to a number of procedures designed to cure sickle cell disorders. The demand for effective treatment procedures is expected to increase due to the rising awareness of the disease's severity. Furthermore, the increasing healthcare and medical spending is expected to foster the demand for sickle cell disease treatment procedures. Moreover, a rising focus on the development of effective solutions for the treatment of sickle cell disease is expected to foster the adoption of effective treatments. These factors may drive the sickle cell disease treatment market growth. However, limited availability of treatment solutions may hinder this industrys growth in the coming years. Report Coverage The report provides a detailed analysis of the top segments and the latest trends in the market. It comprehensively discusses the driving and restraining factors and the impact of COVID-19 on the market. Additionally, it examines the regional developments and the strategies undertaken by the market's key players. Click here to get the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this market. Please visit: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/sickle-cell-disease-treatment-market-101009 COVID-19 Impact Lack of Donors Hindered Market Progress During the Pandemic This market was negatively affected during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lack of bone marrow donors. The sudden spike in COVID-19 infections led to the adoption of strict government lockdown regulations, thereby hindering the number of donations. Furthermore, the halt on manufacturing activities created a huge shortage of medical equipment required for treating sickle cell disorders. However, the post-COVID-19 phase empowered businesses to continue their operations, thereby fostering industry growth post the pandemic. Regional Insights Increasing Collaborations and Strong Government Support to Favor Market Progress in North America North America is expected to dominate the sickle cell disease treatment market share due to rising collaborations and strong government support for the development of sickle cell disease treatment. The market in the U.S. stood at USD 1.05 billion in 2021 and is expected to gain a huge portion of the global market share in the coming years. In Europe, favorable reimbursement policies and rising sickle cell disorders are likely to favor market expansion. Furthermore, the increasing adoption of sickle cell disease treatments in the region is expected to favor market expansion. Quick Buy - Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Market Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/checkout-page/101009 Segments Blood Transfusion Segment to Lead Backed by Treatment Modality Stroke Management Benefits By treatment modality, the market is segmented into marrow transplant, blood transfusion, and pharmacotherapy. The blood transfusion segment is expected to lead due to treatment modality stroke management benefits. Hospitals Segment to Lead Owing to Increasing Prevalence of in-patient Visits As per end-user, the market is classified into hospitals, specialty clinics, and others. The hospital segment is expected to dominate due to the rising prevalence of in-patient hospital visits. Regionally, the market is studies across the U.S., Europe, and the rest of the world. Have Any Query? Ask Our Experts: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/sickle-cell-disease-treatment-market-101009 Competitive Landscape Major Companies Deploy Partnerships to Enhance their Offerings The prominent companies operating in the market deploy partnerships to enhance their product offerings. For example, Emmaus Life Sciences, Inc. partnered with UpScript IP Holdings, LLC. (UpScript) to provide telehealth solutions to patients suffering from sickle cell disease in November 2021. This strategy may enable the company to enhance its offerings and boost its brand image. Furthermore, the major players operating in the market devise mergers, partnerships, acquisitions, product launches, innovations, research and development, and industrial automation to boost their market position. List of Key Players Profiled in the Report Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (U.S.) Addmedica (France) Novartis AG (Switzerland) Global Blood Therapeutics, Inc. (Pfizer Inc.) (U.S.) Emmaus Medical, Inc. (U.S.) bluebird bio Inc. (U.S.) Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (U.S.) Get your Customized Research Report: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/customization/sickle-cell-disease-treatment-market-101009 Some major points from Table of Content: Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions Executive Summary Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Key Insights Prevalence of Sickle Cell Disease, For Key Countries/ Regions Addressable Patient Population For Branded Drugs Overview Branded Drugs (Marketed) Pipeline Analysis New Product Launches Key Industry Developments (Mergers, Acquisitions, Partnership; etc.) Impact of COVID-19 on the Market Global Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2018-2029 Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Treatment Modality Bone Marrow Transplant Blood Transfusion Pharmacotherapy Hydroxyurea Branded Products Endari Adakveo Oxbryta PYRUKYND (Mitapivat) Zynteglo CTX001 Inclacumab Vamifeport (VIT-2763) ALXN1820 MGTA-145 FT-4202 Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By End-user Hospitals Specialty Clinics Others Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By Country/Region U.S. Europe Rest of the World U.S. Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2018-2029 Bone Marrow Transplant Blood Transfusion Pharmacotherapy Hydroxyurea Branded Products Endari Adakveo Oxbryta PYRUKYND (Mitapivat) Zynteglo CTX001 Inclacumab Vamifeport (VIT-2763) ALXN1820 MGTA-145 FT-4202 Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast By End-user Hospitals Specialty Clinics Others Continued... About Us: Fortune Business Insights delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in. Contact Us: Fortune Business Insights Pvt. Ltd. 9th Floor, Icon Tower, Baner - Mahalunge Road, Baner, Pune-411045, Maharashtra, India. Phone: U.S. :+1 424 253 0390 U.K. : +44 2071 939123 APAC : +91 744 740 1245 Newark, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The brainy Insights estimates that the USD 3.43 billion in 2022 Cardiogenic Shock market will reach USD 5.6 billion by 2030. The rising awareness about cardiac health and instant treatment are the major factors boosting the growth of the cardiogenic shock market. Furthermore, the increasing technological advancement and improvement in healthcare facilities also adds to the markets growth. Download Report Sample (230+ Pages PDF with Insights) at: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/sample-request/13130 Key Insight of the Cardiogenic Shock Market North America to account for the largest market size during the forecast period. North America is expected to have the largest cardiogenic shock market share. Key factors favouring the growth of the cardiogenic shock market in North America are the presence of technologically equipped and well-built healthcare infrastructure. Furthermore, the programs organized by healthcare officials to spread awareness about cardiac diseases, symptoms and treatments in the region add impetus to the markets growth. In addition to this, the people in North Americal are active and keep themself physically fit to avoid any kind of disease. The drugs segment is expected to augment the cardiogenic shock market during the forecast period. The drugs segment is anticipated to dominate the market over the forecast period. Vasopressor drugs like norepinephrine are recommended in cases of hypotensive and acute cardiogenic shock, allowing the segment to grow. The ambulatory surgery centres segment market size is 0.92 billion in 2022 The ambulatory surgery centers segment held the largest market share in 2022 and is expected to continue during the forecast period. A cardiac catheterization laboratory provides minimally invasive treatments to diagnose and treat cardiovascular diseases such as congestive cardiac failure and breathing problems. Advancement in market In August 2021, due to VOYAGER PAD Phase 3 research results, Johnson and Johnson recently announced that the FDA had expanded the Peripheral Artery Disease indication for a vascular dose of XARELTO to include patients who have undergone a Lower-Extremity Revascularization to treat symptomatic PAD. In September 2022, The European Journal of Heart Failure recently published positive Phase 2 results on Istaroxime treatment of early cardiogenic shock from Windtree Therapeutics. Inquiry Before Buying: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/buying-inquiry/13130 Market Dynamics Driver: Awareness programs started by the government in collaboration with healthcare organizations The government has started many awareness programs to bring people's attention to their heart health in collaboration with the health sector, which has proven to be an excellent source of information. Restraint: Decline in donors for a heart transplant Heart transplants are becoming increasingly necessary due to a growing number of cardiovascular disorders, including valvular dysfunction, systolic dysfunction, and diastolic dysfunction, along with coronary artery disease, cardiac arrhythmias, and mechanical complications, reducing the number of heart donors. Opportunity: Increasing ratio of cardiac diseases As more people become prone to cardiac diseases, the demand for cardiac diseases related treatments is also increasing, which is proven to be a great opportunity for the growth of the cardiogenic shock market. Challenge: There is an increasing need for catheterization labs Basically, catheterization labs are hospitals, but they are located in a chamber or room well equipped with all the necessary equipment required during emergencies. In case of emergencies catheterization labs offer instant treatment. Browse the full report with Table of Contents and List of Figures: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/report/cardiogenic-shock-market-13130 Some of the major players operating in the cardiogenic shock market are: Key Segments cover in the market: Getinge AB Par Pharmaceutical Abbott Viatris Inc. F. Hoffman-La Roche Ltd Bayer AG Terumo Corporation Medtronic AbioMed Astrazeneca By Treatment Type: In-Vitro Test Kits Drugs Devices By End-User: Cardiac Catheterization Labs Hospitals Ambulatory Surgical Centres Others By Region North America (U.S., Canada, Mexico) Europe (Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, Spain, Rest of Europe) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, India, Rest of APAC) South America (Brazil and the Rest of South America) The Middle East and Africa (UAE, South Africa, Rest of MEA) Inquire for Customized Data: https://www.thebrainyinsights.com/enquiry/request-customization/13130 About the report: The market is analyzed based on value (USD Billion). All the segments have been analyzed worldwide, regional, and country basis. The study includes the analysis of more than 30 countries for each part. The report analyzes driving factors, opportunities, restraints, and challenges for gaining critical insight into the market. The study includes porter's five forces model, attractiveness analysis, Product analysis, supply, and demand analysis, competitor position grid analysis, distribution, and marketing channels analysis. About The Brainy Insights: The Brainy Insights is a market research company that provides actionable insights through data analytics to companies to improve their business acumen. They have a robust forecasting and estimation model to meet the client's objectives of high-quality output within a short period. They provide both customized (client-specific) and syndicate reports. Their repository of syndicate reports is diverse across all the categories and sub-categories across domains. Their customized solutions meet the client's requirements whether they are looking to expand or planning to launch a new product in the global market. Contact Us Avinash D Head of Business Development Phone: +1-315-215-1633 Email: sales@thebrainyinsights.com Web: http://www.thebrainyinsights.com Dublin, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "New Zealand Data Center Market - Investment Analysis & Growth Opportunities 2022-2027" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. New Zealand data center market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18.65% during 2021-2027 This report analyses the New Zealand data center market share. It elaboratively analyses the existing and upcoming facilities and investments in IT, electrical, mechanical infrastructure, general construction, and tier standards. It discusses market sizing and investment estimation for different segments. Factors such as the adoption of cloud computing and advanced technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence, the deployment of 5G, and government support for facilities development are driving the New Zealand data center market. The cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft, and Google have a strong presence in the country. For instance, in April 2022, global cloud service provider AWS announced plans to establish the cloud region, consisting of three availability zones (AZs), in New Zealand by 2024. The public cloud industry in the country is estimated to generate a revenue of USD 1.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to cross USD 3 billion by 2027, growing with a CAGR of 16.5%. SaaS will lead the revenue growth by contributing around $0.75 billion. Cloud service provider Microsoft announced a cloud agreement with Auckland Transport to improve transport services by reducing cost, improving sustainability, and innovation. The telecom operators such as Vodafone, 2degrees, and Spark are some significant operators deploying 5G services in the country. For instance, Spark Digital aims to provide 5G coverage to around 90% of the total population of New Zealand by the end of 2023. Key Metrics Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 110 Forecast Period 2021 - 2027 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2021 $672 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2027 $1874.9 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 18.6% Regions Covered New Zealand KEY HIGHLIGHTS New Zealand has around 28 operational colocation data centers. The major colocation operators are Data Vault, Datacom, Plan B, Spark Digital, Chorus, and Vocus. In New Zealand, Auckland hosts major ICT companies and is one of the leading startup ecosystems. It is a significant city for data center investments in the country. Christchurch and Wellington follow it due to low land cost, space availability, and availability of renewable energy. Various free trade zones are witnessing data center development in New Zealand. GEODIS' Free Trade Area provides tax incentives, end-to-end integrated solutions, and supply chain optimization. Most electricity is produced by the country's hydropower, geothermal, solar, and wind. According to the New Zealand renewable energy policy, the country aims to produce 100% of renewable energy by 2030 and reduce greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050 The country has around eight existing submarine cables, including Hawaiki Nui is under development; the cable owned by Hawaiki Submarine Cable will connect New Zealand to Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, and the US with a cable length of 25,000 km, which is expected to come in service in 2025. Aotearoa New Zealand's vision is to develop cutting-edge companies producing and exploiting AI technologies by 2030. WHY SHOULD YOU BUY THIS RESEARCH? Market size available in the investment, area, power capacity, and the New Zealand colocation market revenue. An assessment of the investment in New Zealand by colocation and enterprise operators. Investments in the area (square feet) and power capacity (MW) across locations in the country. During the forecast period, a detailed study of the existing market landscape, an in-depth industry analysis, and insightful predictions about the New Zealand data center market size. Snapshot of existing and upcoming third-party data center facilities in New Zealand Facilities Covered (Existing): 28 Facilities Identified (Upcoming): 06 Coverage: 5 Cities Existing vs. Upcoming (Area) Existing vs. Upcoming (IT Load Capacity) Data center colocation market in New Zealand Market Revenue & Forecast (2021-2027) Wholesale vs. Retail Revenue & Forecast (2021-2027) Retail Colocation Pricing Wholesale Colocation Pricing The New Zealand market landscape investments are classified into IT, power, cooling, and general construction services with sizing and forecast. A comprehensive analysis of the latest trends, growth rate, potential opportunities, growth restraints, and prospects for the industry. Business overview and product offerings of prominent IT infrastructure providers, construction contractors, support infrastructure providers, and investors operating in the industry. A transparent research methodology and the analysis of the demand and supply aspects of the market. VENDOR LANDSCAPE The New Zealand data center market is witnessing the entry of new investors, such as CDC Data Centres and DCI Data Centers, involved in developing facilities in the country. In 2021, the country also witnessed the deployment of modular facilities; for instance, T4 Group is planning to build a modular center in New Zealand with an investment of around USD 34.6 million. In New Zealand, most data centers are procuring renewable energy sources to improve the sustainability of the facilities. For instance, Microsoft is partnering with Ecotricity to power its data center region in New Zealand with 100% renewable energy. The New Zealand data center market has the presence of both local and global construction contractors that cater to major operators in the market. For instance, Hawkins is involved in developing the Microsoft data center cloud region in Auckland, New Zealand. In New Zealand, companies collaborate with IT infrastructure providers to improve infrastructure efficiency in the facilities. Datacom's Orbit Auckland facility is equipped with Stratum-1 NTP (network time protocol) time servers. Major Vendors IT Infrastructure Providers Arista Networks Atos Broadcom Cisco Systems Dell Technologies Fujitsu Hewlett Packard Enterprise Huawei Technologies Hitachi Vantara IBM Juniper Networks Lenovo NetApp Data Center Construction Contractors & Sub-Contractors AECOM Arup Aurecon Beca Hawkins Mott MacDonald Norman Disney & Young (NDY) The Building Intelligence Group TransWorks WT Support Infrastructure Providers 3M ABB Alfa Laval Airedale International Air Conditioning Black Box Climaveneta Caterpillar Cummins Cyber Power Systems EcoCooling Eaton KOHLER-SDMO Legrand Rittal Rolls-Royce Schneider Electric STULZ Thycon Trane Vertiv Data Center Investors Datacom Data Vault Microsoft Plan B Spark Digital New Entrants CDC Data Centres DCI Data Centers EXISTING VS. UPCOMING DATA CENTERS Existing Facilities in the region (Area and Power Capacity) Auckland Other Cities List of Upcoming Facilities in the region (Area and Power Capacity) REPORT COVERAGE: The segmentation includes: IT Infrastructure Servers Storage Systems Network Infrastructure Electrical Infrastructure UPS Systems Generators Transfer Switches & Switchgears PDUs Other Electrical Infrastructure Mechanical Infrastructure Cooling Systems Rack Cabinets Other Mechanical Infrastructure Cooling Systems CRAC & CRAH Units Chiller Units Cooling Towers, Condensers & Dry Coolers Economizers & Evaporative Coolers Other Cooling Units General Construction Core & Shell Development Installation & commissioning Services Engineering & Building Design Fire Detection & Suppression Systems Physical Security Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) Tier Standard Tier I & Tier II Tier III Tier IV Geography Auckland Other Cities For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/1udtso About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Attachment VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Algernon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (the Company or AGN Pharma) (CSE: AGN) (FRANKFURT: AGW0) (OTCQB: AGNPF), a Canadian clinical stage pharmaceutical development company, is pleased to announce that it is planning a 180 patient, 90-day Phase 2b clinical study of NP-120 (Ifenprodil) for chronic cough to begin in Q3 of 2023. Ifenprodil is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist specifically targeting the NMDA-type subunit 2B (GluN2B), which prevents glutamate signaling. Ifenprodil represents a novel first-in-class potential treatment for chronic cough and is thought to interfere with central signalling in the brain, suppressing the urge to cough. I am very pleased Algernon has decided to conduct a stand-alone, Phase 2b study for cough, said Dr. Jacky Smith, Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Manchester, and an Honorary Consultant at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. I recommended, based on Algernons encouraging Phase 2a clinical data, that the Company further explore Ifenprodil in chronic cough in a well-designed, sufficiently powered study that will give clear answers on the potential efficacy of the drug in this population. In addition to being Algernons lead chronic cough advisor, Dr. Smith is also a consultant to Merck & Co. and Bellus Health, both of which are pursuing a drug for the indication of chronic cough. The decision to advance the study is based on positive data previously reported on July 28, 2022, from the Companys Phase 2a study of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and chronic cough, where Ifenprodil showed a significant improvement in mean objective 24-hour and waking cough counts in patients after 4 and 12 weeks. Patients with IPF are usually excluded from trials in refractory chronic cough, and cough in this population is regarded as extremely difficult to treat. The analysis showed that: The geometric mean 24-hour cough counts were reduced by 32.0% at 4 weeks (p = 0.023) and 39.5% at 12 weeks (p = 0.001) compared to baseline The geometric mean awake cough counts were reduced by 30.2% at 4 weeks (p = 0.038) and 37.4% at 12 weeks (p = 0.002) compared to baseline Algernon previously announced on January 14, 2022, that it had received positive feedback from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) at its pre-Investigational New Drug (pre-IND) meeting for its investigation of Ifenprodil solely for the treatment of chronic cough. The Company has since engaged in further discussions with the U.S. FDA, and plans to file an investigational new drug (IND) application shortly. While the Company originally planned to focus on IPF in a Phase 2b study, Algernon has now decided to pursue a chronic cough study first, and to delay planning its IPF Phase 2b study for Ifenprodil until a later date. Study Design The planned study design will include the following elements: Multinational, three-arm, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate NP-120 in approximately 180 patients. Patients will be randomized 1:1:1 to receive NP-120 (20mg TID) or NP-120 (40mg TID), or placebo for 12 weeks. The primary endpoint will be the reduction in geometric mean 24-hr cough count over 12 weeks compared to placebo. Secondary endpoints will include safety, tolerability and patient-reported quality-of-life measures. "The design of Phase 2 studies in chronic cough have been validated in trials conducted by Merck & Co and Bellus Health, said Christopher J. Moreau CEO of Algernon Pharmaceuticals. By mirroring the design of those studies, Algernon will have a direct benchmark for comparison and, if successful, a clear regulatory path for Ifenprodil for the treatment of chronic cough. Chronic Cough Market According to Data Bridge Market Research analyses, the global chronic cough market was valued at USD $6.15B in 2021, and it will grow up to USD $11.38B by 2029. Merck & Co. obtained the rights to Gefapixant, a P2X3 receptor antagonist, as the lead asset in the acquisition of Afferent Pharmaceuticals in 2016. At the time, Gefapixant had interim data from a Phase 2b dose-escalation study in refractory chronic cough. The deal was worth up to USD $1.25B. Bellus Health which is advancing its own novel P2X3 receptor antagonist, BLU-5937, has a market cap of over USD $1.4B. About Chronic Cough Chronic cough is defined as a cough lasting for more than eight weeks in duration and in the United States cough continues to be one of the most common reasons that adults consult medical doctors. Some cases of chronic cough are so debilitating that quality of life is severely impacted leading to depression, anxiety, urinary incontinence, dysphonia, sleep interruption, vomiting, and even rib fractures further adding to the decay in socio-familial dynamics. Chronic cough is believed to be the result of a hypersensitivity of the cough reflex within the neuronal circuitry that governs the urge to cough, wherein one or more aspects that regulate cough are over-active to stimulus, triggering a cough at abnormal levels. Trials of cough suppressants (Antitussives) have shown differences in response that may reflect differing pathological processes driving cough in different patients. Experimental Antitussives often only engage a single receptor, while the overall cough response is governed by multiple receptors triggered by a large variety of stimuli. A compound acting centrally where all peripheral messages are sent and coordinated may achieve a better outcome than what has been achieved in clinical trials. About NP-120 (Ifenprodil) Ifenprodil selectively inhibits N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors containing the NR2B subunit. NMDA receptors are ion-channels found within the central and peripheral nervous system, including the area of the brain responsible for coordinating the cough reflex. They are highly implicated in events such as neuronal plasticity (strengthening of neural pathways) and excitotoxicity (neurotoxic cascade resulting in neuron death). By inhibiting NMDA receptors, Ifenprodil can diminish excitability of neurons and prevent the relaying of information along neuronal circuitry, including the cough reflex. Ifenprodil may also inhibit the neuroplastic enhancement of central and peripheral cough response neurons. About Algernon Pharmaceuticals Inc. Algernon Pharmaceuticals is a Canadian clinical stage drug development and repurposing company investigating multiple drugs for unmet global medical needs. Algernon Pharmaceuticals has active research programs for IPF with chronic cough, and chronic kidney disease, and is the parent company of a newly created private subsidiary called Algernon NeuroScience, that is advancing a psychedelic program investigating a proprietary form of psychedelic DMT for stroke. CONTACT INFORMATION Christopher J. Moreau CEO Algernon Pharmaceuticals Inc. 604.398.4175 ext 701 info@algernonpharmaceuticals.com investors@algernonpharmaceuticals.com www.algernonpharmaceuticals.com. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. CAUTIONARY DISCLAIMER STATEMENT: No Securities Exchange has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. This news release contains forward-looking statements relating to product development, licensing, commercialization and regulatory compliance issues 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 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 Companys expectations include the failure to satisfy the conditions of the relevant securities exchange(s) and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulations. 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. English French TORONTO, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Noranda Income Fund (TSX: NIF.UN) (the Fund) announced today that it has entered into an arrangement agreement (the Arrangement Agreement) with Glencore Canada Corporation (Glencore) by which Glencore will acquire all of the issued and outstanding priority units of the Fund for C$1.42 per unit, by way of a court approved plan of arrangement, for total consideration of approximately C$53.2 million (the Transaction). The purchase price of C$1.42 per unit represents a 45% premium on the closing price on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) on January 6, 2023, the last trading day prior to announcement, and a 62% premium on the 20-day volume weighted average price per priority unit on the TSX for the period ending on January 6, 2023. Glencore currently holds 100% of the Funds special fund units, representing 25% of all issued and outstanding units of the Fund. The Arrangement Agreement was unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees of Noranda Operating Trust (the Board), with those members of the Board who are related to Glencore abstaining from voting, upon recommendation from the Independent Committee of the Board, after arms-length negotiations yielded an attractive offer for the Funds priority unitholders. This transaction has several benefits for the Funds priority unitholders including: Immediate and attractive premium for the Funds priority unitholders; All-cash transaction not subject to a financing condition; and Removal of future dilution, commodity and execution risk. Noranda Income Fund was established in 2002 as an income trust to distribute cash flow from the zinc processing facility in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec, to unitholders. While the Fund distributed significant cash flow to unitholders through to 2017, today the Fund faces various challenges operating as a single-asset zinc processing facility in an environment of rising costs and fluctuating commodity prices and facing material near-term capital expenditure requirements, which inhibits the Funds ability to recommence cash flow distributions in the foreseeable future, said Mr. Anthony Lloyd, Chair of the Board and member of the Independent Committee. The Transaction provides unitholders an opportunity to realize an immediate and attractive premium for their units and is unanimously recommended by the Independent Committee of the Funds Board. Independent Committee Review and Board Recommendations The Independent Committee took into consideration several factors when approving the Arrangement Agreement including: Compelling Value to Priority Unitholders: The C$1.42 per unit purchase price represents a 45% premium on the closing price on the TSX on January 6, 2023, the last trading day prior to announcement, and a 62% premium on the 20-day volume weighted average price per priority unit on the TSX for the period ending on January 6, 2023. Considering associated risks and with challenges still on the horizon for the Fund, the Independent Committee concluded that the consideration represents a compelling value for priority unitholders compared to the status quo. The C$1.42 per unit purchase price represents a 45% premium on the closing price on the TSX on January 6, 2023, the last trading day prior to announcement, and a 62% premium on the 20-day volume weighted average price per priority unit on the TSX for the period ending on January 6, 2023. Considering associated risks and with challenges still on the horizon for the Fund, the Independent Committee concluded that the consideration represents a compelling value for priority unitholders compared to the status quo. Certainty of Value and Immediate Liquidity: The Transaction allows unitholders to realize an attractive price for their units through an all-cash offer, thereby providing certainty of value and immediate liquidity. The Transaction allows unitholders to realize an attractive price for their units through an all-cash offer, thereby providing certainty of value and immediate liquidity. Inability to Generate Distributable Cash: The Fund has not been able to generate distributable cash to proceed with monthly distributions for unitholders since 2017 and with long-term capital expenditures needed in the cellhouse it is unlikely the Fund would be able to recommence such distributions in the foreseeable future. The Fund has not been able to generate distributable cash to proceed with monthly distributions for unitholders since 2017 and with long-term capital expenditures needed in the cellhouse it is unlikely the Fund would be able to recommence such distributions in the foreseeable future. Business Subject to Significant Volatility: The Fund is, by its nature as a single-asset zinc smelter, subject to significant volatility. Following the initial 15-year favourable supply and processing agreement put in place at the Funds inception in 2002, the ability to generate revenue and cash flow is subject to market volatility in treatment charges and zinc prices. The Fund also faces significant working capital requirements and fluctuations thereof. These challenges are exacerbated by the rising cost environment. The Fund is, by its nature as a single-asset zinc smelter, subject to significant volatility. Following the initial 15-year favourable supply and processing agreement put in place at the Funds inception in 2002, the ability to generate revenue and cash flow is subject to market volatility in treatment charges and zinc prices. The Fund also faces significant working capital requirements and fluctuations thereof. These challenges are exacerbated by the rising cost environment. Capex Requirements: The operations of the Fund necessitate meaningful capital expenditure (capex) requirements to maintain zinc smelting operations, which is reflective of the heavy industrial nature of the Funds business. These capex requirements are necessary to ensure the maintenance, stability, safety and efficiency of its operations. This past year, production was negatively impacted primarily by instability in cellhouse operating conditions and the related six-week shutdown of the cellhouse to conduct maintenance and repairs: in 2022, zinc metal production decreased by 33% to 198,182 tonnes, compared to 264,046 tonnes in 2021, and zinc metal sales decreased by 33% to 198,666 tonnes, compared to 263,612 tonnes in 2021. While the Fund believes the cellhouse repairs will contribute to stabilizing near-term cellhouse operating conditions, the cost of a full cell and crane replacement in the cellhouse, required to fully address underlying operational issues, is estimated to be approximately US$100 million. Obtaining financing for this will present a challenge for the Fund. The operations of the Fund necessitate meaningful capital expenditure (capex) requirements to maintain zinc smelting operations, which is reflective of the heavy industrial nature of the Funds business. These capex requirements are necessary to ensure the maintenance, stability, safety and efficiency of its operations. This past year, production was negatively impacted primarily by instability in cellhouse operating conditions and the related six-week shutdown of the cellhouse to conduct maintenance and repairs: in 2022, zinc metal production decreased by 33% to 198,182 tonnes, compared to 264,046 tonnes in 2021, and zinc metal sales decreased by 33% to 198,666 tonnes, compared to 263,612 tonnes in 2021. While the Fund believes the cellhouse repairs will contribute to stabilizing near-term cellhouse operating conditions, the cost of a full cell and crane replacement in the cellhouse, required to fully address underlying operational issues, is estimated to be approximately US$100 million. Obtaining financing for this will present a challenge for the Fund. Negotiations Led by Independent Committee: The Arrangement Agreement is the result of extensive arms-length negotiations between the Independent Committee and Glencore, with the oversight and participation of the Independent Committees external financial and legal advisors, as well as the Funds external legal advisor. The Arrangement Agreement is the result of extensive arms-length negotiations between the Independent Committee and Glencore, with the oversight and participation of the Independent Committees external financial and legal advisors, as well as the Funds external legal advisor. Independent Valuation and Fairness Opinion: Accuracy Canada provided an independent valuation to the Independent Committee, which determined that, as at December 31, 2022, based upon and subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications contained therein, the fair market value of the priority units ranged from C$1.24 to C$1.94 per unit. Accuracy Canada also provided the Independent Committee a fairness opinion to the effect that, as at January 8, 2023, the consideration to be received by the priority unitholders under the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to such holders, subject to the limitations, qualifications, assumptions and other matters set forth therein. Accuracy Canada provided an independent valuation to the Independent Committee, which determined that, as at December 31, 2022, based upon and subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications contained therein, the fair market value of the priority units ranged from C$1.24 to C$1.94 per unit. Accuracy Canada also provided the Independent Committee a fairness opinion to the effect that, as at January 8, 2023, the consideration to be received by the priority unitholders under the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to such holders, subject to the limitations, qualifications, assumptions and other matters set forth therein. Additional Fairness Opinion: Paradigm Capital, acting as financial advisor to the Independent Committee and the Fund, provided an opinion to the effect that, as at January 8, 2023, the consideration to be received by the priority unitholders under the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to such holders, subject to the respective limitations, qualifications, assumptions, and other matters set forth in such opinion. Paradigm Capital, acting as financial advisor to the Independent Committee and the Fund, provided an opinion to the effect that, as at January 8, 2023, the consideration to be received by the priority unitholders under the Transaction is fair, from a financial point of view, to such holders, subject to the respective limitations, qualifications, assumptions, and other matters set forth in such opinion. Minimal Conditionality: The Transaction is not subject to any due diligence condition or financing condition and the Independent Committee and the Board believe that there are limited closing conditions that are outside of the control of the Fund and, as such, there is a reasonable likelihood of completion. The Transaction is not subject to any due diligence condition or financing condition and the Independent Committee and the Board believe that there are limited closing conditions that are outside of the control of the Fund and, as such, there is a reasonable likelihood of completion. Transaction Structure: The Transaction is structured as a court approved plan of arrangement, which provides procedural benefits to unitholders such as dissent rights and which also allows for structural flexibility which may be desirable given the Funds complex corporate structure. The Transaction is structured as a court approved plan of arrangement, which provides procedural benefits to unitholders such as dissent rights and which also allows for structural flexibility which may be desirable given the Funds complex corporate structure. Required Unitholder and Court Approvals: The Transaction will become effective only if, at a special meeting of unitholders called to consider the Transaction, it is approved by (i) 66 2/3% of the votes cast by the holders of the Funds priority units and special fund units voting as a single class, and (ii) a simple majority of the votes cast by holders of the Funds priority units and special fund units after excluding votes from certain unitholders, including Glencore, and, after considering the procedural and substantive fairness of the Transaction, by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List). The Transaction will become effective only if, at a special meeting of unitholders called to consider the Transaction, it is approved by (i) 66 2/3% of the votes cast by the holders of the Funds priority units and special fund units voting as a single class, and (ii) a simple majority of the votes cast by holders of the Funds priority units and special fund units after excluding votes from certain unitholders, including Glencore, and, after considering the procedural and substantive fairness of the Transaction, by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List). Benefits to Other Stakeholders: The Independent Committee believes that the Transaction and integrating the zinc smelter operations into Glencore is in the best interest of the processing facility, its employees and the local community, given that the Fund already has so many important relationships with Glencore, including Glencore being the owner of the zinc smelters manager, which is also the employer of the facilitys employees. The past few years have been difficult for the resource industry, with supply chain disruptions and labour shortages presenting challenges to the sector globally. Following recently announced production issues, the Fund made necessary investments and proceeded to a temporary shutdown of the zinc smelter to make immediate repairs in the cellhouse. While that proved to be the right decision with the cellhouse now reopened, challenges are still on the horizon. The Fund does not intend to provide annual production and sales guidance for the foreseeable future, as the zinc smelters production capacity will remain constrained until the underlying issues impacting cellhouse operating conditions are fully addressed. It is the view of the Independent Committee that the Transaction offers the best value realizable for unitholders and comes at a strategic time. The Fund is grateful to the zinc smelters employees for their hard work and dedication to the Fund, including during the recent shutdown. Background to the Transaction The Transaction is the result of a concerted review by the Independent Committee of the alternatives available to the Fund, begun informally in February 2021 and formally launched in September 2021, to address the financial, liquidity and leverage challenges facing the Fund. Given the suspension of monthly distributions in January 2017 and the Funds financial results during the period from 2017 through to early 2021, in early 2021 the Independent Committee questioned the sustainability of the Fund model and began an informal strategic review. As part of this strategic review, in 2021, a third-party global engineering firm assessed the current state of the Funds performance and strategic alternatives and, in the same year, Paradigm Capital, then acting as financial advisor to the Board, performed an independent review of the strategic and financial alternatives for the Fund. In January 2022, the Independent Committee began to discuss with Glencore more concretely Glencores interest in pursuing a privatization of the Fund. In February 2022, the strategic review was formalized by the Board by way of a supplemental mandate of the Independent Committee. During the months that followed, discussions with Glencore continued, while the Independent Committee continued to explore and evaluate alternatives for the future of the Fund, in the event that a proposal might not result from the discussions with Glencore. In March 2022, the Independent Committee engaged Paradigm Capital as financial advisor to the Independent Committee and the Fund in connection with the potential privatization transaction. During the course of the strategic review, the zinc smelters cellhouse was experiencing accelerated deterioration, resulting in pressing capex needs. By October 2022, managements conclusion was that a replacement of all cells in the cellhouse would be necessary. As mentioned above, the cost of a full cell and crane replacement is estimated to be approximately US$100 million. In October 2022, Glencore International AG (Glencore AG) delivered a proposal letter in which it proposed the privatization of the Fund. As the Independent Committee through its long-running strategic review was of the opinion that the privatization of the Fund was the only viable option, it negotiated with Glencore AG in the following months, during which time it obtained the independent valuation and fairness opinions, which negotiations concluded with the execution of the Arrangement Agreement. Through the strategic review, the Independent Committee completed an in-depth analysis of the Funds status quo, long-term prospects and lack of viable alternatives. The Independent Committee believes that the Transaction presents the best opportunity to deliver value to unitholders and that it is fair to unitholders and in the best interests of Fund and the unitholders. Transaction Summary The Transaction will be implemented by way of a court-approved plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) and will require the approval of: (i) 66 2/3% of the votes cast by the holders of the Funds priority units and special fund units voting as a single class; and (ii) a simple majority of the votes cast by holders of the Funds priority units and special fund units after excluding votes from certain unitholders, including Glencore, as required under Multilateral Instrument 61 101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions, at a special meeting of the Funds unitholders to be held to consider the Transaction (the Meeting). In addition to unitholder approvals, the Transaction is also subject to the receipt of court approval, regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions for transactions of this nature. The Transaction is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. The Arrangement Agreement provides for customary deal-protection provisions, including a non-solicitation covenant on the part of the Fund and a right for Glencore to match any Superior Proposal (as defined in the Arrangement Agreement). The Arrangement Agreement includes a termination amount of C$2.1 million, payable by the Fund to Glencore in certain circumstances, including if Glencore fails to exercise its right to match in the context of a Superior Proposal supported by the Fund. Further details regarding the terms of the Transaction are set out in the Arrangement Agreement, a copy of which will be made available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The Meeting The Meeting is expected to be held on or about February 28, 2023. Unitholders as at the close of business on January 9, 2023, will be entitled to vote at the Meeting. The Meeting will take place in advance of the special meeting of unitholders which has been called for March 28, 2023 in response to the meeting requisition notice received from certain unitholders. Voting in favour of the Transaction provides unitholders with an opportunity to select a certain cash payment at an attractive premium rather than proceed to a special meeting to consider replacing trustees of the Fund. Additional information regarding the terms of the Arrangement Agreement and the background of the Transaction will be provided in advance of the Meeting in the information circular for the Meeting, a copy of which will be made available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Unitholders should read the information carefully before deciding how to vote. At this time, there is no need for unitholders to take any voting action. Attention Unitholders: If you have questions or want to ensure you receive the latest updates directly to your mobile device please call or text Kingsdale Advisors at 1-888-213-0093. Kingsdale Advisors can also help you by email at contactus@kingsdaleadvisors.com. Forward-Looking Information Certain information in this press release, including statements regarding the Arrangement Agreement, the proposed Transaction, the Meeting, receipt of Fund unitholder, court and required regulatory approvals for the Transaction and the cost of and financing of a full cell and crane replacement, are forward-looking information. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "targets", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "an opportunity exists", "is positioned", "estimates", "intends", "assumes", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate" or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "will" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of opinions, assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable as of the date of this press release, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to the factors described in greater detail in the "Risk Factors" section of the Funds Annual Information Form dated March 30, 2022 for the year ended December 31, 2021 and the Funds other periodic filings available at www.sedar.com. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect the Fund; however, these factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Fund expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements containing any forward-looking information, or the factors or assumptions underlying them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. About the Noranda Income Fund Noranda Income Fund is an income trust whose priority units trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol NIF.UN. Noranda Income Fund owns the electrolytic zinc processing facility and ancillary assets (the Processing Facility) located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec. The Processing Facility is the second-largest zinc processing facility in North America and the largest zinc processing facility in eastern North America, where the majority of zinc customers are located. It produces refined zinc metal and various by-products from sourced zinc concentrates. The Processing Facility is operated and managed by Canadian Electrolytic Zinc Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Glencore Canada Corporation. Further information about Noranda Income Fund can be found at: www.norandaincomefund.com. Advisors and Counsel Accuracy Canada Inc. provided an independent valuation and a fairness opinion to the Independent Committee. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP is acting as legal counsel to the Independent Committee. Paradigm Capital Inc. is acting as financial advisor to the Independent Committee and the Fund. Torys LLP is acting as legal counsel to the Funds manager. Kingsdale Advisors is acting as strategic unitholder advisor and communications advisor to the Fund. BMO Capital Markets and McCarthy Tetrault LLP are acting as financial advisor and legal counsel respectively to Glencore. ATLANTA, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Board of Directors of Saras Micro Devices (SMD), a provider of advanced power delivery solutions for high-performance semiconductor devices, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ron Huemoeller as Chief Executive Officer effective January 9, 2023. Huemoeller will assume responsibility for providing leadership, strategy, and technical direction to the talented SMD team in Atlanta, GA; Chandler, AZ; and Cupertino, CA. In addition, he will serve on the companys Board of Directors. Huemoellers more than 25 years of senior/executive management experience in semiconductor packaging and technology will enable him to position Saras for both short- and long-term success. It is a great pleasure to welcome Ron as the new CEO of Saras, to help define and bring SMDs vision to life, said Rama Alapati, SMD Executive Chairman. His wide breadth of experience, leadership capabilities, team building skills, and relationships with customers and semiconductor supply chain partners will help Saras build & deliver best-in-class power delivery solutions for high performance computing applications. I am thrilled to be joining Saras Micro Devices at this critical inflection in the semiconductor industry as integrated packaging takes a more prominent role in system power performance and look forward to building a business that delivers sustainable, profitable growth, commented Huemoeller. I want to thank the Saras Board for their trust in me to lead the company forward. Most recently, Huemoeller served as Managing Director at Applied Materials for their Packaging Business Unit, following his role as President of Nano Circuit Technologies where he provided business and technology innovation services to semiconductor companies globally. Prior to this he served as Corporate Vice President at Amkor Technology as the Head of Global R&D and Technology Strategy. In this role he established corporate technology strategy and direction, bringing more than 250 new products into production and generating more than $2 billion dollars in profitable revenue over a five-year period. Before Amkor, Huemoeller served as Director/Head Engineer of Printed Circuit Operations for Cray Computer Corporation where he led a core team of engineers and technicians in the startup and production ramp of a laminate substrate module operation serving the worlds fastest supercomputers. He has been granted more than 200 U.S. patents, including foundational patents for semiconductor packaging technologies including Fan Out, TMV, Flip Chip, Si-Bridge, TSV and numerous substrate technologies. He is former President/ Past President of the International Microelectronics Assembly and Packaging Society (IMAPS), positions he held from 2016-2020. Huemoeller holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Augsburg University, graduating with highest honors, and a Masters in Technology Management from the University of Phoenix. Alapati added, Were excited to have Ron join us. We are looking forward to him, in collaboration with the senior leadership team, defining and executing on the Saras technology, manufacturing and go-to-market roadmaps, enabling the company to scale and grow to its full potential over the next few years. About Saras Micro Devices Saras Micro Devices is designing and fabricating innovative power delivery solutions to revolutionize next generation electronics products. The companys AIPD products provide flexible design solutions across multiple product categories, including high-performance computing (HPC), power products and mobile solutions. Saras is working with customers and partners to deliver 1st generation products in 2024. www.sarasmicro.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9e093282-1ac0-4ee1-806f-98bd2b94c04c HOUSTON, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crown Castle Inc. (NYSE: CCI) (Crown Castle) announced today that it is commencing a public offering of senior notes, subject to market and other conditions. The notes will be issued by Crown Castle. Crown Castle intends to use the net proceeds from this offering to repay outstanding indebtedness under its existing revolving credit facility and pay related fees and expenses. BNP Paribas Securities Corp., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, MUFG Securities Americas Inc., PNC Capital Markets LLC, RBC Capital Markets, LLC and Truist Securities, Inc. are the joint book-running managers of the offering. The offering is being made pursuant to Crown Castles existing effective shelf registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus supplement and the accompanying base prospectus, copies of which may be obtained by contacting any joint book-running manager using the information provided below. An electronic copy of the preliminary prospectus supplement, together with the accompanying prospectus, is also available on the SECs website, www.sec.gov. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or other jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. CAUTIONARY LANGUAGE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This press release contains forward-looking statements that are based on Crown Castle managements current expectations. Such statements include plans, projections and estimates regarding the proposed offering, including the use of proceeds therefrom. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including prevailing market conditions and other factors. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those expected. More information about potential risk factors that could affect Crown Castle and its results is included in Crown Castles filings with the SEC. The term including, and any variation thereof, means including, without limitation. ABOUT CROWN CASTLE Crown Castle owns, operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers and approximately 85,000 route miles of fiber supporting small cells and fiber solutions across every major U.S. market. This nationwide portfolio of communications infrastructure connects cities and communities to essential data, technology and wireless service bringing information, ideas and innovations to the people and businesses that need them. JOINT BOOK-RUNNING MANAGERS CONTACT INFORMATION BNP Paribas Securities Corp. 787 Seventh Avenue, 3rd Floor New York, New York 10019 Attention: Debt Syndicate Email: DL.US.Syndicate.Support@us.bnpparibas.com Toll Free: 800-854-5674 J.P. Morgan Securities LLC 383 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10179 Attention: Investment Grade Syndicate Desk Facsimile: 212-834-6081 Telephone: 1-212-834-4533 MUFG Securities Americas Inc. 1221 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor New York, New York 10020 Attn: Capital Markets Group Telephone: 212-405-7440 Facsimile: 646-434-3455 PNC Capital Markets LLC 300 Fifth Avenue, 10th Floor Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222 Toll Free: 1-855-881-0697 RBC Capital Markets, LLC Brookfield Place 200 Vesey Street, 8th Floor New York, NY 10281 Toll Free: 866-375-6829 Truist Securities, Inc. 3333 Peachtree Road NE, 11th Floor Atlanta, Georgia 30326 Telephone: 1-800-685-4786 CONTACTS Dan Schlanger, CFO Ben Lowe, SVP & Treasurer Crown Castle Inc. 713-570-3050 Dublin, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "The Corporate Reputation of Pharma in 2021 - The Patient Perspective - Spain Edition: The Views of 154 Spanish Patient Groups" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The 'Corporate Reputation of Pharma' survey - the 2021 Spain edition is now in its 8th year, and two years into the Covid-19 pandemic. Between November 2021-February 2022, the survey collected the opinions of 154 Spain-based patient groups on the performance of the pharmaceutical industry during 2021. Patient groups possess a unique understanding of the needs of the patients and represent their collated views. Patient-group perspectives have become increasingly important to regulators that demand patient input into trial design and conduct, as well as into the evaluation of clinical outcomes. At the same time, many patient groups are also familiar with the complexities of pharma's business. From their vantage point, therefore, patient groups are both able to assess pharma, and recommend ways in which companies can improve - all from a patient perspective. 2021's 154 respondent Spanish patient groups had, collectively, been in communication with nearly 850,000 Spanish patients during the year. 79% of the Spanish patient groups responding to the 2021 'Corporate Reputation of Pharma' survey worked or partnered with at least one pharma company that year. The report provides details on: How the analyst measures pharma's corporate reputation from a patient perspective; The headline results of the 2021 Spain element of the 'Corporate Reputation' survey; The companies included in the 2021 Spain analysis; and The profiles of 2021's respondent Spanish patient groups. COMPANY RANKINGS IN SPAIN IN 2021 The top-three pharma companies in Spain in 2021, out of 20 companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company): ViiV Healthcare, 1st - Janssen, 2nd - Gilead Sciences, 3rd. The top-three pharma companies in Spain in 2021, out of 12 companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the company): Gilead Sciences, 1st - ViiV Healthcare, 2nd - Janssen, 3rd. The top-three 'big-pharma' companies in Spain in 2021, out of 12 'big-pharma' companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company): Janssen, 1st - AbbVie, 2nd - Pfizer, 3rd. The top-three 'big-pharma' companies in Spain in 2021, out of 10 'big-pharma' companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation (as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the company): Janssen, 1st - AbbVie, 2nd - Novartis, 3rd. Each company is profiled by the following measures: The number of respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021. The profile of the respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company (the number of patients reached; specialties; and geographic remit), 2021. The types of relationships that the company had with its respondent Spanish patient group partners, 2021. Company performance in Spain at the individual indicators of corporate reputation in 2021-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company. Competitors' relationships in 2021 with the company's respondent Spanish patient group partners. Overall rankings in Spain for the company-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021 v. 2020. Company rankings in Spain for each of the indicators-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021 v. 2020. Snapshot view: where the company sits in the corporate tiers in Spain for each of the indicators (in the higher, the middle, or the lower tier)-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar, and working, with the company, 2021. Overall rankings of the company in Spain, 2015-2021-expressed on the Patient Corporate Reputation Index (PCRI), a measure designed to standardise the analyst's ranking data (preventing results being skewed by the differing numbers of companies included in Spain's historic analyses over the various years). PCRI ranking is from 0 to 1, with 1 being the best (the highest rank)-as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the company. Profiles of the 20 companies, 2021 AbbVie Almirall AstraZeneca Bayer Biogen Boehringer Ingelheim Bristol Myers Squibb Eli Lilly Gilead Sciences Grifols GSK Janssen MSD Novartis Pfizer Roche Sandoz Sanofi Takeda ViiV Healthcare Key Topics Covered: Executive summary Relationships that Spanish patient groups have with pharma, 2021 Industry-wide findings in Spain, 2021 Rankings of 20 pharma companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of 12 pharma companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the companies Rankings of 12 'big-pharma' companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of 10 'big-pharma' companies in Spain, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent Spanish patient groups working with the companies Profiles of the 20 companies, 2021 (v. 2020) Appendices I. Profiles of respondent Spanish patient groups, 2021 II. List of respondent Spanish patient groups that wished to be attributed, 2021 III. Commentaries and feedback from respondent Spanish patient groups on how pharma can improve, 2021-2022 For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/f13cuc About ResearchAndMarkets.com ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Attachment HERNDON, Va., Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ManTech has been awarded a five-year $57 million contract by Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane to develop world-class technology solutions that support advanced expeditionary weapon systems for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). ManTech won this contract under the Department of Defense Information Analysis Centers (DoD IAC) multiple-award contract (MAC) vehicle. NSWC Crane manages the research, development, prototyping, acquisition, test, evaluation and delivery of expeditionary weapon systems for SOCOM Program Manager-Special Operations Force Lethality (PM-SOF Lethality). Our mission is to deliver state-of-the-art, next generation technology solutions that enhance the capabilities of all NSWC-managed SOCOM platforms, said David Hathaway, Executive Vice President and General Manager of ManTechs Defense Sector. We are proud to support SOCOM forces with world-leading technology solutions that help ensure real-time mission success in every conceivable environment, challenge and domain. Under this task order, ManTech is Bringing Digital to the Mission with next generation integrated weapon systems and ISR capabilities for manned and unmanned air, ground, surface, subsurface and maritime mobility platforms. SOCOM systems and associated subsystems that will benefit from the program include: weapons ammunition; optics; validation equipment; production equipment; sensor and fire control systems; mounts; rocket, missile and gun systems; integrated pilot and operator displays; crew-served weapon systems and associated mounts; and airframe integration systems. As importantly, the program will deliver quick-reaction and engineering analyses for total life-cycle management of expeditionary weapon systems. About the DOD IAC Program The DoD IAC, sponsored by the Defense Technical Information Center, provides technical data management and research support for DoD and federal government users. Established in 1946, the IAC program serves the DoD science & technology (S&T) and acquisition communities to drive innovation and technological developments by enhancing collaboration through integrated scientific and technical information development and dissemination for the DoD and broader S&T community. About ManTech ManTech provides mission-focused technology solutions and services for U.S. federal government agencies. In business more than 54 years, we excel in full-spectrum cyber, data collection & analytics, enterprise IT, systems engineering and software application development solutions that support national and homeland security. Additional information on ManTech can be found at www.mantech.com . Media Contact: Jim Crawford ManTech Executive Director, External Communications (M) 571.446.7550 James.Crawford2@ManTech.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/df613bd6-0711-44c9-a6b2-d2506140f58f New York, NY, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) announced today the election of new Board of Directors leadership. Governor Brad Henry will now serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors of MDA and Christopher Rosa, Ph.D. will serve as the Vice Chairman. Governor Henry has been a committed and dedicated Board member for over a decade, and Dr. Rosa, has been a devoted member of the Board for decades. Both are also exceptional leaders in their fields, with strong personal ties to the community MDA serves. MDA is extremely grateful for the leadership of outgoing Chairman Steven J. Farella, who provided thoughtful leadership and direction for the organization over his three-year term in the role. Farella tirelessly volunteered his time, talent, and resources to support MDAs mission in a variety of capacities over the past 30 years. "We are very pleased to share that both Governor Brad Henry and Dr. Chris Rosa have accepted their new positions on the Board of Directors of the Muscular Dystrophy Association," said Donald S. Wood, Ph.D., President and CEO, MDA. "They have been tremendous assets to building our organization's future and their leadership will help us as we continue to create ever more hope for the millions of patients and their families who are at the heart of MDAs mission and vision. I have never worked alongside a Board with this level of expertise and commitment and with their guidance and support, MDA will continue to make the impossible possible. Working with the Muscular Dystrophy Association I have seen firsthand the incredible progress the organization has made, said Governor Henry. I am honored and humbled to take on this new role and look forward to continuing to work with Dr. Rosa, Dr. Wood and the rest of the Board as we advance this life-changing organization and empower the people we serve to live longer, more independent lives. Governor Henry, a third generation Oklahoman, was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Henry studied at the University of Oklahoma as a Presidents Leadership Scholar, earning a bachelors degree in economics in 1985 and receiving the Letzeiser Gold Medal as the outstanding senior man. In 1988, he received a law degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of the Law Review. After returning to Shawnee to practice law with his father, Henry served as a member of the Oklahoma State Senate for ten years. Henry was sworn in as the 26th Governor of Oklahoma in January 2003 and was reelected in November 2006. The opportunity to serve for 26 years on the Board of MDA, an organization that has done so much to promote wellness, opportunities, and hope for families like mine, has been one of the great honors of my personal and professional life. To have been elected by my peers on the Board each of them value-centered, renowned leaders with decades of service to MDAs life-saving mission is very humbling to me, said Dr. Rosa. Dr. Rosa became President & CEO of The Viscardi Center, a network of non-profits that educate, employ, and empower children and adults with disabilities, in January 2022. He also serves as President of the internationally renowned Henry Viscardi School. Dr. Rosa is a staunch advocate for equity and economic justice for people with disabilities, being a wheelchair-user since age 12 who has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. A published disability studies scholar, he serves in national leadership roles for organizations that promote access and wellness for Americans with disabilities. He is also a sought-after orator and speaks frequently on higher education and social mobility for people with disabilities; disability as a key dimension of diversity, equity, & inclusion; disability and intersectionality; and American disability culture. Learn more about Dr. Rosa in MDAs Quest for Success feature here. MDA is honored to have the following members of its Board of Directors with longstanding commitment, expertise and governance to further its critical mission: Governor Brad Henry, Chairman; Christopher Rosa, Ph.D., Vice Chairman; and Directors, Anjan Aralihalli, John Costantino, Esq., Benjamin Cumbo, III, Dan Fries, Ankur Ghia, Jennifer Gottlieb, John Howell, Nancy Kindelan, Louis Kunkel, Ph.D., Elizabeth McNally, M.D., Ph.D. Hon. Robert Pipia, Matt Plummer, Charles D. Schoor, Esq., Mark Smith, Eugene Williams, Lilian Wu, Ph.D. All these extraordinary leaders demonstrate the core values and commitment of the organization and are dedicated to fulfilling its mission. In Memoriam: MDA mourns the loss of Board Member Victor R. Wright, on December 17. Wright was an accomplished Wall Street trader and executive, and a passionate philanthropist who served as stalwart member of the MDA Board for more than 30 years, including serving as its Treasurer and Executive Committee Member. Through his keen insights into the lived experience of muscle disease, Wright was intimately engaged in all aspects of MDAs life-saving mission, including its path-breaking research program, national network of care centers, and independence-fostering summer camp program. MDA extends its profound sympathy to his wife Joann and daughters, Jennifer, and Samantha. We will be forever grateful for his legacy and leadership. About Muscular Dystrophy Association: Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) is the #1 voluntary health organization in the United States for people living with muscular dystrophy, ALS, and related neuromuscular diseases. For over 70 years, MDA has led the way in accelerating research, advancing care, and advocating for the support of our families. MDAs mission is to empower the people we serve to live longer, more independent lives. To learn more visit mda.org and follow MDA on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Attachment Brooklyn, New York, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to a new market research report published by Global Market Estimates, the Global Magnetorheological Fluid Market is expected to grow from USD 1.6 billion in 2023 to reach USD 6.5 billion by 2028 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 20.8% from 2023 to 2028. The demand for magnetorheological fluid is increasing due to the adoption of fluid-based suspension systems, the rising progress in the robotic industry, and the flourishing automotive and aerospace industry. Browse 153 Market Data Tables and 113 Figures spread through 185 Pages and in-depth TOC on Global Magnetorheological Fluid Market - Forecast to 2028 Key Market Insights As per the type outlook, synthetic hydrocarbon oil is expected to be the largest segment in the global magnetorheological fluid market from 2023 to 2028 As per the application outlook, the automotive segment is expected to be the largest segment in the global magnetorheological fluid market from 2023 to 2028 The Asia Pacific region is analyzed to be the fastest-growing segment in the market North America has the largest share in the market during the forecast period of 2023-2028. Lord Corporation, Arus MR Tech, Liquid Research Limited, QED Technologies, Industrial Metal Powders (India) Pvt. Ltd., CK Materials Lab Co., Ltd., Ioniqa Technologies, MRF-ENGINEERING, Kolektor Group, and Akebono Brake Industry Co., Ltd. among others, are some of the key players in the global magnetorheological fluid market Request for a Sample Copy of the Report @ https://www.globalmarketestimates.com/market-report/magnetorheological-fluid-market-3912 By Type Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2023-2028) Silicon Oil Mineral Oil Synthetic Hydrocarbon Oil Paraffin Oil Hydraulic oil Others By Application Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2023-2028) Electrical and Electronics Automotive Building and Construction Military Defense Medical Others By Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2023-2028) North America The U.S. Canada Mexico Europe Germany UK France Spain Italy Netherlands Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China India Japan South Korea Thailand Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Vietnam Rest of APAC Central & South America Brazil Argentina Chile Rest of CSA Middle East & Africa Saudi Arabia UAE Israel South Africa Rest of MEA Contact: Yash Jain Director- Global Accounts & Strategic Advisory Email address: yash.jain@globalmarketestimates.com Phone Number: +1 6026667238 New York, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Energy Management Systems Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p06379248/?utm_source=GNW Further, cloud services effectively minimize operational costs of software development and maintenance and direct the monetary costs, time, and spent resources on maintaining the in-house IT professionals and infrastructure for gathering, storing, and analyzing energy data.? Cloud services are an ongoing trend responsible for the growth of the market studied. Key Highlights The Internet-of-things (IoT) energy efficiency system is expected to continue expanding into areas of the built environment with end-to-end connectivity. Moreover, BEMS is expected to be the fastest growing among all types of EMS. Reduction in energy consumption has been a primary concern among commercial building owners and managers to save money. According to the world economic forum in February 2022, buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy consumption. Energy efficiency has been increasingly becoming the primary focus of both private enterprises and government authorities worldwide. The increasing economic activities led to high-energy consumption rates and have pushed the global electricity grids to the limits. These factors are expected to drive the energy management systems market in the forecast period. In August 2021, according to the International Energy Agency, the digitalization of energy systems was transforming energy efficiency, introducing technologies, and creating new sources of detailed data supporting new business models and revenue streams. For instance, Indias Building Energy Efficiency Program Dashboard is another digital tool that provides policymakers and others with transparent and accessible data, increasing understanding of the energy systems and supporting energy policy decisions at the highest level. Furthermore, electricity vendors worldwide have been increasingly moving toward adopting smart solutions, under which the incorporation of EMS has become a norm with the global propensity. The investments toward smart grids and the adoption of EMS are expected to increase even further. The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a mixed impact on the Energy management system market as the vendors operating in the market serving the end-user industries are deemed essential by various governments globally. In times of pandemic, the global residential power has seen significant growth owing to home quarantines, thus driving the demand for the deployment of energy management systems. COVID-19 has also affected the renewable energy industry, and major concerns revolved around global supply chains, which considerably slowed down production. Key Market Trends HEMS (Home EMS) to Experience Significant Growth With the rapid improvements in technologies, like network communication, smart grid, bidirectional communication mediums, information infrastructures, energy conservation methodologies, and various techniques, home area networks (HANs) encountered a revolutionary change in multiple areas of power consumption domains, like energy conservation at consumption premises and electricity usage patterns. Due to the increasing concern about the efficient use of energy, there is an expanding focus on installing energy-saving devices in smart households across the world. Energy management systems are cost-effective in primarily all residential buildings, regardless of national energy prices, usage, and climatic factors. Thus they are increasingly being adopted in homes.? According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the overall domestic consumption is expected to grow at 0.3% annually through 2040, which is less than half the rate of population growth. The agency expects the use of residential energy to be flat while transportation energy consumption will decline slightly.? In recent times, there has been a significant surge in the development of connected, intelligent devices, such as smart meters, smart sensors, and smart thermostats that are equipped in smart homes. These devices are experiencing advancements with the rise in the development of power monitoring and display technologies. Europe Accounts for a Significant Share The Europe region is expected to hold a significant share of the market. The United Kingdom remains one of the forerunners in terms of adoption, aided by favorable energy policies and regulations targeted at reducing the countrys carbon footprint through smart meter rollouts, energy-efficient buildings, and systems. The country has a clear rollout strategy, led by the Department of Energy and Industrial Policy. Additionally, due to a high population density and high connectivity, the country has a favorable cost-benefit analysis, further adding to the growth.? According to the European Commission, in July 2022, more than three-quarters of the European population lives in urban areas, and this figure is expected to rise to almost 85% by 2050. Owing to the government regulations in Europe, cost savings, and optimization the energy consumption, homes, industries, and enterprises have been increasingly adopting energy management solutions. Several European policies, proposals, and initiatives promoting more sustainable and competitive urban areas are already in place. These include the implementation of smart technologies in buildings to increase energy efficiency, the promotion of research and innovation efforts to transform European energy systems into low-carbon, and the development of expertise network exchanges to implement the European climate and energy objectives in cities. Furthermore, in May 2022, the Covenant of mayors for climate and energy in Europe launched the Cities Energy Savings Sprint Covenant to accelerate energy savings under the REPowerEU plan. The Cities Energy Saving Sprint is a joint initiative of the European Commission, the Covenant of Mayors Europe, and the European Committee of the regions to encourage cities to take measures that will immediately reduce energy consumption. This initiative is expected to drive the energy management systems market. Competitive Landscape The Global Energy Management Systems Market is very competitive in nature. The market has a low concentration due to various small and large players. Some of the significant players in the market are IBM Corporation, Rockwell Automation Inc., General Electric, Schneider Electric, Eaton, ABB, Oracle Corporation, and many more. The companies are increasing the market share by forming multiple partnerships and investing in introducing new solutions to earn a competitive edge during the forecast period. April 2022 - ABB and Samsung made a strategic partnership to expand the Samsung smart things integration into more homes and buildings. With more efficient usage models, Samsung and ABBs integrated energy management systems run high-impact energy applications like HVAC. Energy and power meters provide users with up-to-date data on energy costs allowing users to strategize appliances used to reduce overall costs. February 2022 - Eaton partnered with LG electronics to deliver flexible load management for renewable distributed energy applications. Eaton will integrate intelligent power management technology, including smart breakers and EV chargers, with the LG ThinQ energy mobile app and LG energy management solutions to simplify load management in the home. Eatons smart breakers are an important element of the home as a grid approach to the energy transition, providing insights and intelligent load control to allow homeowners to manage and monitor energy usage better. Additional Benefits: The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format 3 months of analyst support Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p06379248/?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, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As the hospitality industry emerges from the pandemic and continues to battle headwinds from labor shortages to supply chain issues, Questexs Hotel Operations Group has been pivotal in providing trusted news, insight and event solutions to its 635,000 hotel professionals, arming them with information and connections to get ahead of the latest challenges. As the premier hotel operations media and event provider, the group has created a family of brands that offers a holistic approach to operating hotels efficiently and profitably. The sleek new look spans across its media and events assets including Hotel Management , a trusted advisor of news, trends and analysis for the entire hospitality ecosystem for over 148 years, Hotec matchmaking events and The Hospitality Show, a new event in partnership with The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). The Show will be held June 27-29, 2023 at The Venetian Las Vegas and will bring the Hotel Management brand to life by connecting hoteliers with industry leaders and game changers to leverage technology and operational solutions for maximum returns. Amy Vaxman, Vice President, Questex Hospitality Group says, This is a pivotal time for reinvention in the sector and is a call to action for those looking for innovative ways to drive profitably. We are proud to provide a full suite of offerings for owners, operators, investors, developers and more; and with our new brand identity inspired by acceleration, we are confident that we will continue to help our audience navigate to growth and success. Applications are open for Hotec Operations, June 12-15, 2023 and Hotec Design, June 19-22, 2023 which are both being held at The JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa, AZ. Registration for The Hospitality Show will open in a few weeks. Sign up for event announcements here or contact the team here to learn more about sponsorship opportunities. Subscribe to Hotel Managements newsletters here to receive news, insights and important event announcements to your inbox. Questexs Hotel Operations Group is part of the Questex Hospitality Group, which produces The Annual Hotel Conference bringing together over 1,000 leading UK hoteliers, investors and suppliers each year in Manchester, The Resort & Residential Hospitality Investment Forum which attracts investors and developers from the leisure sector, its flagship event, The International Hospitality Investment Forum, which connects over 2,500 senior hospitality and tourism leaders each year in Europe, and Hospitality Insights, which delivers hospitality investment opinion and content. About Questex Questex helps people live better and longer. Questex brings people together in the markets that help people live better: travel, hospitality and wellness; the industries that help people live longer: life science and healthcare; and the technologies that enable and fuel these new experiences. We live in the experience economy connecting our ecosystem through live events, surrounded by data insights and digital communities. We deliver experience and real results. It happens here. Contact: Alexandra Aldridge, Questex, 212-895-8284; aaldridge@questex.com DULUTH, Ga., Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atlanta Dental announces the unveiling of a new logo and brand identity that supports the company's continued forward motion and digital transformation. Atlanta Dental is one of the nation's leading dental product and technology distributors supporting dentists as they deliver excellent clinical care, while also helping them build a fundamentally strong business. Founded in 1868, Atlanta Dental has grown into a diverse dental distributor with a rich heritage of service to the dental community. The new logo is designed to convey four core tenets of Atlanta Dental's long-term success: respect, trust, accountability and innovation. "Our new brand and logo express our commitment to meet our customers where they are, both on and offline and at their greatest point of need. This is consistent with the steps we have taken to innovate our digital strategy while continuing to deliver the highest quality products, technical service and the full support our customers expect," said Gary Kirkus, CEO of Atlanta Dental. While the new logo portrays graceful stability, it also serves as a strong anchor for Atlanta Dental's sub-brands. "The dental profession and the industry that supports it are continually in a state of transformation," said Tom Richardson, President of Atlanta Dental. "Our new logo represents our desire to contribute to our customers' success as their needs evolve, as well as our partners and our employees who meet and exceed customer expectations on a daily basis." With its new corporate brand, Atlanta Dental is steadfast in its commitment to the advancement of dentistry and investment in its future. Atlanta Dental is independent, privately held, and employee-owned. Learn more by visiting AtlantaDental.com. Contact Information: Tom Richardson President tomrichardson@atlantadental.com 678-584-4830 Related Images Image 1: Atlanta Dental Logo New Logo This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment NEW YORK, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Lava for Goods Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng podcast returns for its powerful second season. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize winner, renowned podcast host and producer Maggie Freleng, the series features intimate conversations in Frelengs unique and celebrated style with people who have spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Freleng has spent decades reporting on our nations criminal legal system, exposing injustice and sparking serious conversations and a push for change. Freleng is one of the foremost journalists in criminal justice reform today. Through her celebrated work as the host and producer of the Pulitzer Prize and IDA Documentary Award-winning series Suave and her work on the powerful podcasts Murder in Alliance and Unjust and Unsolved, Freleng is widely recognized for her deeply human approach to criminal justice reform and reporting. In 2022, she joined the team at Lava for Good alongside renowned media executive, author, and justice activist Jason Flom to host her own episodes and personally-selected stories on the long-running, critically-acclaimed Wrongful Conviction series. (Dont miss Maggie's powerful guest column in Rolling Stone: "Shackled: The Devastating Reality of Childbirth Behind Bars." ) In addition to her acclaimed podcasts, Maggies work has been featured by the LA Times, MSNBC, People, HLN, WNYC, NPR, NBC, WHYY, The Boston Globe, and HuffPost. She was named a NPR Next Generation Radio fellow and counted in Ford Foundations 50 Women Can Change the World in Journalism. Freleng is also a sought-after on-screen expert commentator who has appeared for feature segments on VICE, Oxygen, and Dr. Phil, among others. Last year I was fortunate enough to join Jason Flom and the team at Lava for Good to share the stories of men and women who, in some cases, have lost decades of their lives being wrongfully incarcerated, said Freleng. With season two of this podcast, Im honored to continue amplifying these marginalized voices, particularly the voices of women who have suffered unimaginable mistreatment at the hands of our criminal legal system. Maggie is a fearless journalist who not only presents the jaw-dropping facts, but who moves deeper to tell the human story behind each of these heartbreaking cases, said Flom. One thing weve both learned in our decades of working on wrongful conviction cases is that shining a bright light on these stories can have a profound impact. Each of us has the power and the responsibility to demand changes to this brutal and unjust system. To listen to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng and the current slate of Lava for Good series, find them on all major podcast platforms or visit www.lavaforgood.com to learn more. About Lava for Good Lava for Good creates standout original content, podcasts, and experiences, amplifying the voices of contemporary social justice champions and inspiring action towards a more informed, empathic, and just society. Founded and led by renowned music executive, children's book author, and philanthropist Jason Flom along with Lava Media COO Jeff Kempler, Lava for Goods #1-charting lineup of podcasts, produced in association with Signal Co. No1, have been downloaded over 40 million times and are credited with influencing exonerations, clemencies, pardons, legislation and reforms nationwide. The lineup, hosted by leading experts, attorneys, activists, formerly incarcerated persons, and journalists on the frontlines of human rights and justice movements, currently includes Bone Valley, Wrongful Conviction, Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freleng, Righteous Convictions with Jason Flom, False Confessions, Junk Science, and more, and is available on all major podcast platforms. A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/663b36f5-7ed6-4996-bb6a-df7d919807bf VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Almadex Minerals Ltd. ("Almadex" or the "Company") (TSX-V: DEX) is pleased to announce that it has received results from the third hole (SP-22-005) drilled in 2022 on its wholly owned San Pedro Project located in Jalisco, Mexico (Figure 1). This hole was drilled roughly 60m away from the pad where previously reported holes SP-22-003 and SP-22-004 were drilled from (see Almadex news releases of December 6th and December 12th of 2022). Hole SP-22-005 also intersected long intervals of brecciated rock and returned two separate mineralised intersections including: From 1.35 to 3.85 metres (2.50 metres) of 0.42 g/t gold and 106.5 g/t silver From 141.10 to 144.00 (2.90 metres) of 7.45 g/t gold and 9.5 g/t silver Including From 142.25 to 143.30 (1.05 metres) of 18.65 g/t gold and 20.5 g/t silver The hole SP-22-05 intersected two zones where disseminated sulphides were observed to be associated with silicification in the matrix of the breccia. Vuggy silica texture was recognised in the breccias. With the information currently available, the breccia body appears to have a subhorizontal distribution. Further surface mapping is planned to confirm and refine this interpretation in order to optimise the next drilling program. The San Pedro project covers a large area of acid sulphate alteration, including zones previously described as vuggy silica. Recent Terraspec analysis indicates sericitisation superimposed on propylitic alteration in the mineralised zones with acid sulphate alteration occurring at the north end of the project. Elevated base metals and silver have been returned from outcrop sampling and previous soil sampling surveys. Previous RC drilling by past operators, (shown on attached figures) including Cominco, returned anomalous gold, silver and base metals. Including the hole reported here, four holes have now been completed by Almadex in this Phase 2 program, following on the two completed in 2021 (Figures 2, 3 and 4). The breccia zone intersected in the recent drilling by Almadex is likely to be part of this large high sulphidation system as confirmed by the observation of vuggy silica textures in a breccia fragment. Elevated copper in the form of chalcopyrite may reflect the potential for an underlying porphyry copper system as well. Further interpretation including alteration and fluid inclusion studies will be conducted to help better define additional drilling. The Company plans to recommence drilling when this is complete. Qualified Persons Jocelyn Pelletier, P.Geo, a qualified person as defined by 43-101 reviewed and approved the scientific and technical contents of this news release. The analyses reported were carried out at ALS Chemex Laboratories of Guadalajara, Mexico using industry standard analytical techniques. For gold, samples are first analysed by fire assay and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Samples that return values greater than 10 g/t gold using this technique are then re-analysed by fire assay but with a gravimetric finish. Silver is first analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma - Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Samples that return values greater than 100 g/t silver by ICP-AES are then re-analysed by HF-HNO3-HCLO4 digestion with HCL leach and ICP-AES finish. Of these samples those that return silver values greater than 1,000 g/t are further analysed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish. About Almadex Almadex Minerals Ltd. is an exploration company that holds a large mineral portfolio consisting of projects and NSR royalties in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. This portfolio is the direct result of many years of prospecting and deal-making by Almadex's management team. The Company owns a number of portable diamond drill rigs, enabling it to conduct cost effective first pass exploration drilling in house. About the San Pedro Project Almadex acquired the San Pedro project by staking. The property comprises approximately 1,000 hectares with multiple targets, located approximately 18 kilometers southeast from Juchitlan, 93 kilometers southwest of Guadalajara and 85km from the Barqueno project (Guachinango) of Agnico-Eagle. On behalf of the Board of Directors, J. Duane Poliquin J. Duane Poliquin, Chairman Almadex Minerals Ltd. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release includes forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within it, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Forward-looking statements in this news release relating to the Company include, among other things, the current geological interpretations and the planned drilling activities at San Pedro. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, permitting, continued availability of capital and financing, equipment availability, relationships with third-party clientele and their willingness or ability to continue to use the Companys drills for exploration, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, other than as required pursuant to applicable securities laws. Contact Information: Almadex Minerals Ltd. Tel. 604.689.7644 Email: info@almadexminerals.com http://www.almadexminerals.com/ Photos accompanying this announcement are available at: https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/46fb31bb-2df0-4f1e-b1c7-5a2e5c05ce33 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7fd7b8a3-634b-45b2-9c34-8b5449b83a26 https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/052728ac-69b2-4cba-ae19-b6cbe988eb7c https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cd6238c2-bbbf-4c8f-9b5c-008c4f838400 HOUSTON, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Targa Resources Corp. (NYSE: TRGP) ("Targa" or the "Company") announced today that it has completed the previously announced acquisition of Blackstone Energy Partners 25 percent interest in Targas Grand Prix NGL Pipeline (Grand Prix) for $1.05 billion in cash. The acquisition has an effective date of January 1, 2023, with Targa now owning 100 percent of Grand Prix. Grand Prix has capacity to transport up to one million barrels per day of natural gas liquids (NGL) to the NGL market hub at Mont Belvieu, Texas. Grand Prix connects Targas gathering and processing positions throughout the Permian Basin, North Texas, and Southern Oklahoma (as well as third-party positions) to Targas fractionation and storage complex at Mont Belvieu. About Targa Resources Corp. Targa Resources Corp. is a leading provider of midstream services and is one of the largest independent midstream infrastructure companies in North America. The Company owns, operates, acquires and develops a diversified portfolio of complementary domestic midstream infrastructure assets and its operations are critical to the efficient, safe and reliable delivery of energy across the United States and increasingly to the world. The Companys assets connect natural gas and NGLs to domestic and international markets with growing demand for cleaner fuels and feedstocks. The Company is primarily engaged in the business of: gathering, compressing, treating, processing, transporting, and purchasing and selling natural gas; transporting, storing, fractionating, treating, and purchasing and selling NGLs and NGL products, including services to LPG exporters; and gathering, storing, terminaling, and purchasing and selling crude oil. Targa is a FORTUNE 500 company and is included in the S&P 500. For more information, please visit the Companys website at www.targaresources.com. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions concerning future events and are subject to a number of uncertainties, factors and risks, many of which are outside the Companys control, which could cause results to differ materially from those expected by management of the Company. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, weather, political, economic and market conditions, including a decline in the price and market demand for natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil, the impact of pandemics or any other public health crises, commodity price volatility due to ongoing or new global conflicts, actions by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC oil producing countries, the timing and success of business development efforts, and other uncertainties. These and other applicable uncertainties, factors and risks are described more fully in the Companys filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and any subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Company does not undertake an obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Contact the Company's investor relations department by email at InvestorRelations@targaresources.com or by phone at (713) 584-1133. Sanjay Lad Vice President, Finance & Investor Relations Jennifer Kneale Chief Financial Officer Highlights 2 environment and permitting professionals appointed to Patriots management team Alix Drapack joins as Vice President of Environment, Social and Governance Andr e e Drolet joins as senior advisor Environment and Permitting e Both Alix and Andree previously held senior positions for Osisko Mining Inc. a leading Quebec based gold exploration company exploring the Windfall Lake Gold deposit in the Eeyou-Istchee James Bay region. VANCOUVER, British Columbia and SYDNEY, Australia, Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Patriot Battery Metals Inc. (the Company or Patriot) (TSX-V:PMET) (ASX: PMT) (OTCQX: PMETF) (FSE: R9GA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Alix Drapack, P.Eng., MBA, ICD.D to its Management Team in the role of Vice President Environment, Social and Governance (ESG). Ms. Drapack will oversee the companys ESG activities including Environment, Community relations and First Nation relations, agreements, and partnerships. The company is also pleased to announce that Ms. Andree Drolet, P.Eng. has joined the PMET team as senior advisor Environment and Permitting. Ms. Drapack and Ms. Drolet are two highly experienced professionals in their respective fields and will be instrumental for the advancement of the Corvette Property located in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay Region of Quebec. Alix Drapack comments: Andree and I are very pleased to be working together again on this exciting project in Eeyou Istchee James Bay. The Corvette Project gives us an opportunity to continue our positive and productive relationship with the Crees and the Quebec government regulators. The Patriot team has completed an impressive amount of ESG work to date as an exploration company. The permitting path has strong foundation, and we look forward to progressing the environmental assessment process through to a successful completion. Blair Way, Company President, CEO and Director, comments: I am very pleased to bring on board two key team members as we grow the Company for advancing the Corvette Property. Alix and Andree have considerable experience in their respective fields with a focus on developing mineral resource projects in Quebec. I look forward to working with them as we grow the Company. Ms. Alix Drapack, P.Eng., MBA, ICD.D, is a Professional Engineer with over 30 years of experience in managing mining, environmental and transportation/infrastructure projects in Canada and the USA, spanning operations, consulting, and corporate office settings. Ms. Drapack was the Chief Sustainability Officer for Osisko Mining Inc. where her portfolio included health & safety, environment, human resources, and indigenous and community relations. During her time at Osisko she focused on permitting the Windfall Lake Project in Northern Quebec and initiated and led the combined federal and provincial environmental assessment process for the Hammond Reef Gold Project in Ontario, a proposed 30,000t per day open pit gold mine near Atikokan Ontario which included permitting involving impacts to fish bearing waterbodies with the federal Department of Fisheries and Ocean (DFO). Ms. Andree Drolet is a mining Engineer, member of the Ordre des ingenieurs du Quebec, with 23 years of experience in the mining industry. She worked in water and mine waste management, mine closure and permitting. Ms. Drolet was the Environment Director for Osisko Mining Inc., leading the environmental assessment and the permitting of the Windfall project located on the traditional territory of the Cree First Nation of Waswanipi. About Patriot Battery Metals Inc. Patriot Battery Metals Inc. is a mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of mineral properties containing battery, base, and precious metals. The Companys flagship asset is the 100% owned Corvette Property, located proximal to the Trans-Taiga Road and powerline infrastructural corridor in the James Bay Region of Quebec. The land package hosts significant lithium potential highlighted by the 2.2 km long CV5 spodumene pegmatite with drill intercepts of 159.7 m at 1.65% Li 2 O and 193 ppm Ta 2 O 5 (CV22-042), and 70.1 m at 2.22% Li 2 O and 147 ppm Ta 2 O 5 , including 40.7 m at 3.01% Li 2 O and 160 ppm Ta 2 O 5 (CV22-017). Additionally, the Property hosts the Golden Gap Trend with grab samples of 3.1 to 108.9 g/t Au from outcrop and 7 m at 10.5 g/t Au in drill hole, and the Maven Trend with 8.15% Cu, 1.33 g/t Au, and 171 g/t Ag in outcrop. The Company also holds 100% ownership of the Freeman Creek Gold Property in Idaho, USA which hosts two prospective gold prospects - the Gold Dyke Prospect with a 2020 drill hole intersection of 12 m at 4.11 g/t Au and 33.0 g/t Ag, and the Carmen Creek Prospect with surface sample results including 25.5 g/t Au, 159 g/t Ag, and 9.75% Cu. The Companys other assets include the Pontax Lithium-Gold Property, QC; and the Hidden Lake Lithium Property, NWT, where the Company maintains a 40% interest, as well as several other assets in Canada. For further information, please contact us at info@patriotbatterymetals.com Tel: +1 (604) 279-8709 or visit www.patriotbatterymetals.com. Please refer to the Companys continuous disclosure filings, available under its profile at www.sedar.com and asx.com.au, for available exploration data. This news release has been approved by the Board of Directors, BLAIR WAY Blair Way, President, CEO, & Director Competent person statement (ASX Listing Rule 5.22) The information in this news release which relates to previously announced exploration results for the Corvette Property were first released by the Company in its prospectus for its ASX listing dated 9 November 2022 and released to the ASX platform on 5 December 2022 (Prospectus). The Company confirms it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the exploration results included in the Prospectus. Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information 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, including but not limited to references to a proposed mineral resource estimate and prefeasibility study, 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 Companys expectations include the results of further exploration and testing, and other risks detailed from time to time in the filings made by the Company with securities regulators, available at www.sedar.com. 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. No securities regulatory authority or stock exchange has reviewed nor accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. Surrey, BC/Territories of the Coast Salish (Kwantlen, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen First Nations), Jan. 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westland Insurance announced today that it has acquired Edmonton brokerage, RiskTech Insurance Services, as of January 1. The RiskTech team complements Westlands leading Commercial insurance practice in Alberta. RiskTech is a respected brokerage that delivers specialized capabilities and technical expertise with a focus on large and mid-market Commercial clients. "RiskTech is an extremely exciting acquisition for Westland as we continue to build upon and enhance our platform across Canada. The team brings a breadth of technical expertise to complex risks and cross-border insurance placements," says Jamie Lyons, President & CEO of Westland. "Douglas, Sean, Kent, and Jason are dynamic and skilled professionals who intimately understand and help mitigate the risks their clients face. We are delighted to welcome them to the Westland family. With this acquisition, Westland welcomes Douglas H. Morrow as its new Vice President, Commercial Alberta. Were thrilled to welcome Douglas to the Westland team, says Donna Barclay, EVP Commercial & Specialty at Westland. Douglas is a well-respected industry veteran known for his entrepreneurial track record of building great insurance businesses. Douglas was most recently President & CEO of Excel Insurance Group, of which RiskTech was a member. Douglas is passionate about the insurance industry, and we are fortunate to add him to our senior leadership team. Westland continues to invest in and grow its business in Canada, both organically and through strategic acquisitions. - 30 - About Westland Insurance Group Westland Insurance Group is one of the largest and fastest-growing independent insurance brokers in Canada. Trading over $2.5 billion of premium, Westland continues to expand coast to coast. Westland's brokers provide expertise and advisory-based services across commercial, personal, employee benefits, farm, and specialty insurance segments. Since its founding in 1980, Westland has remained a family-owned company that is committed to supporting its clients, industry partners and local communities. For more information, please visit westlandinsurance.ca. Attachment Pakistani PM hails China's great help for flood relief aid Xinhua) 10:34, January 09, 2023 Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif (4th L) attends a ceremony for donation of funds to the flood-affected people by the China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC) in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, Jan. 6, 2023. (PID/Handout via Xinhua) ISLAMABAD, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has appreciated China and Chinese enterprises' great help to the flood-affected people of the country. Speaking at a meeting for donation of funds to the flood-affected people by the China Energy Engineering Corporation (CEEC) at the Prime Minister's House here on Friday, Sharif expressed his gratitude to China for its support to Pakistan. The prime minister thanked Chinese companies for the help they have provided to the Pakistani people in flood-affected areas since severe floods hit Pakistan last year. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has brought benefits to the people of Pakistan with Chinese enterprises' contribution in the fields of energy and infrastructure in Pakistan, Sharif said, adding that Pakistan welcomes Chinese enterprises to invest in the new energy industry, especially photovoltaic energy project. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) The invasion of the National Congress, the Planalto Palace and the Supreme Court yesterday (8 January) by Bolsonarista groups in opposition to the electoral result and demanding military intervention must be firmly repudiated and fought by the labour, popular and student movements. Read original in Portuguese | We say this not because the working class has an interest in defending the institutions of the bourgeois state. Rather, we say this because this attack on these institutions comes from the extreme right, which wants to replace them with something even worse. These demoralised, right-wing extremists, this human scum, behaves in an adventurist manner, plundering and destroying property. Their methods have nothing to do with the traditional methods of working-class struggle. The invasion of these buildings was clearly only made possible with the connivance of the forces of state repression. The reactionary mob, which arrived in Brasilia in around 100 coaches, was escorted by the Military Police of the Federal District to the Praca dos Tres Poderes (Three Powers Plaza). Videos show the police fraternising with Bolsonaristas and standing by passively in the face of the mobs invasion and plundering. These events had been publicly organised and called for days in advance. There is no way the state forces can claim they were caught by surprise. The behaviour of the police contrasts with how it confronts popular mobilisations in the federal capital. To give a recent example, in 2017 the mass mobilisation of workers and youth in Brasilia against labour counter-reforms by the Temer government was met with a climate of terror. A heavy police presence deployed rubber bullets and gas bombs helicopters were even flown over the heads of protesters, from which machine guns were pointed at the masses and tear gas was thrown from on high. The working class should not rely on the forces of repression to resolve the current situation. These are institutions of the capitalist state, whose behaviour has favoured the development and actions of these extreme, right-wing, coup-plotting groups. The working class and the youth can only rely on their own strength, their own organisation and unity, and the independence of their mobilisation. The Lula-Alckmin government, a government of national unity with the capitalist class, extends its hand to the representatives of the right and even the extreme right to join the Cabinet. The Minister of Defence, Jose Mucio, who should head the defence of the government in the face of coup-plotting behaviour, classified the tent camps [of Bolsonaro supporters] in front of the military barracks, which were calling for military intervention, as an expression of democracy. How could it be otherwise? He is, after all, a member of the PTB, the party of Roberto Jefferson. When he was accepted as one of Lulas Ministers, he publicly declared that he had voted for Bolsonaro. Meanwhile, the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Carneira, has links with the milicia in Rio de Janeiro [the illegal paramilitary groups made up of serving and former police officers], and is affiliated to Uniao Brasil, the party of former judge Sergio Moro [who led the case against Lula and was Bolsonaros minister of Justice]! This is the path leading to the governments defeat! Lula should use the opportunity of this first incident to change the direction of the government, beginning with the expulsion of the Bolsonarista ministers. Mobilisation in workplaces, schools, neighbourhoods and factories are necessary to bury the coup-plotting right wing, and open the way for the fulfilment of the demands of the people, beginning with the repeal of all the attacks on the rights and achievements of the working class carried out by previous governments. The Trade Union Confederation (CUT) and the trade union and peoples organisations must call for and organise mobilisations to defeat the far right, and to politically bury Bolsonaro and the Bolsonaristas. For instance, these organisations must coordinate resistance against Bolsonarists attempts to invade oil refineries and to return to road blockades. UNE, UBES, ANPG and all the student organisations as a whole have a duty to organise assemblies in schools and universities, mobilising for action against the right and in the fight for the demands of youth. Mobilising a united front of the proletariat can open the way for the victories of our class, for the advance of the struggle for socialism, defeating those who intend to install a regime of terror in the country, defending the democratic freedoms and rights of the youth and workers: Investigate and punish the organisers and financiers of the coup-plotting actions in Brasilia! Confiscate the assets and companies of those who funded them! For the end of the Military Police! Unity, organisation and independent mobilisation of the working class! Defeat the coup-plotting right wing, defend democratic freedoms! All out for todays mobilisations (January 9th) by the unions and the peoples movement against the attacks of the extreme right! Join the 11 January rally in Brasilia! Executive Committee of Esquerda Marxista, 9 January 2023. On Friday 30 December, the South Florida U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom, ordered four Florida-based cruise companies (Carnival, MSC SA, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian) to pay more than US$100 million each in damages to Havana Docks. The latter, a US company, had owned a 1934 concession to several piers in Havana harbour, which was expropriated in 1960 by the Cuban Revolution. This decision, the first successful application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, is capable of having a devastating impact on the Cuban economy and should be strongly rejected as an illegal act of imperialist bullying. The decision follows an earlier ruling in March 2022. At that time, the same judge ruled that the companies, which are not US registered but have their main place of business in Florida, had committed trafficking acts and engaged in prohibited tourism by sailing to Cuba and using facilities in Havana, which over 60 years ago had belonged to the US-based company. The ruling is based on the Helms-Burton Act, initiated by Republican representatives and signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. The Act makes the illegal imperialist US blockade on Cuba extraterritorial, by giving US courts the power to prosecute non-US companies if they trade or invest in Cuban assets expropriated by the revolution after 1959. The law was clearly designed to inflict maximum damage on the Cuban Revolution by threatening any potential foreign investors, at a time when the collapse of the Soviet Union had dealt a severe blow to the island, leaving it at the mercy of the world capitalist market. Ever since the passing of the Helms-Burton Act, cynically known by reactionary Cuban exiles as the Libertad Act, the application of its Title III had been suspended, in a decision that has been renewed yearly. But on 2 May 2019, president Trump decided not to renew the suspension of Title III, thus bringing it into effect. The Helms-Burton act gives US courts the power to prosecute non-US companies if they trade or invest in Cuban assets expropriated by the revolution after 1959 / Image: Public Domain That means that any reactionary Cuban emigre whose property was expropriated without compensation by the Cuban Revolution can bring a case in a US court. They could do so against US or foreign companies that conduct business with Cuba, involving what US imperialism interprets as wrongfully confiscated property. Let us go back to 1960 and the beginning of the US blockade against the Cuban Revolution. The actual sequence of events reveals that it was Washington that took the initiative in attacking Cuba, leading the Cuban Revolution to take defensive action by expropriating US property. US-owned oil refineries refused to handle oil coming from the Soviet Union. The Cuban revolutionary government decided to put them under state intervention at the end of June 1960. The US responded by cutting the sugar cane quota it had agreed to purchase from Cuba. The Cuban Revolution responded to this act of economic aggression by expropriating all US-owned corporations on the island between July and October 1960. At this time, the US was already engaged in funding terrorist activities against the Cuban Revolution, although the latter (by their own admission) counted on the overwhelming support of the Cuban people. It is also wrong to say that the nationalisations were carried out without compensation. In fact, the Cuban revolutionary government officially communicated to the US government that it was prepared to discuss appropriate compensation. The 6 July 1960 expropriations Law 851 includes a mechanism for compensating the former owners through 30-year Cuban state bonds. The US rejected this outright and continued to escalate its aggressive response to the sovereign decisions of Cuba, culminating in the failed CIA-organised Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) invasion of 1961. The injured party here was clearly the Cuban people, who were punished for the temerity of carrying out a revolution, which freed them from imperialist domination. The price they paid, and are still paying, is enormous. The Cuban government has calculated the price of the US blockade on Cuba to be US$130 billion in damages over six decades, an unbearable cost for the small Caribbean nation. It ought to also be noted that all other countries affected by the nationalisations carried out by the Cuban revolution have already settled their claims with Cuba. This was the case with Switzerland and France (1967); Britain, Italy and Mexico (1978); Canada (1980) and Spain (1986). Companies from these countries have investments in Cuba from which they are profiting, but the US does not. Up until now, most claims filed in US courts arising from the lifting of the suspension of Title III of the Helms Burton Act by Trump in 2019 had been dismissed on different grounds. The case against the four cruise companies is therefore the first successful implementation of this particularly vindictive piece of imperialist legislation. Some of the details of the case are particularly scandalous. First of all, Havana Docks interest in the Havana Cruise Port Terminal is based on a concession it held before the 1959 Cuban revolution, a concession which was set to expire in 2004, that is, before the alleged trafficking in expropriated property took place! US-based cruise ships only started serving Cuban destinations in 2016 as part of the Obama thaw, that is 12 full years after the expiration of the concession on which the Havana Docks claim is based. In fact, originally the District Judge dealing with the case dismissed it precisely on such grounds, only to later change her mind and allow it to go through. The cruise companies pointed out that the Obama administration allowed US citizens to travel to Cuba under a lawful travel exemption of the blockade regulations. Furthermore, the cruise companies had been licensed by the Treasury Department to sail to Cuba. None of this mattered to the judge who ruled in March 2022 that, The fact that the Treasury Department issued travel licences and executive branch officials, including the president, encouraged Defendants to do so, does not automatically immunise Defendants from liability if they engaged in statutorily prohibited tourism. US-based cruise ships only started serving Cuban destinations in 2016 as part of the Obama thaw / Image: The White House Here the argument was that the cruise companies, as well as providing travel to Cuba, which was legal at the time, had also offered their passengers additional tourist services in Cuban soil, which were illegal. The amount awarded by the judge in the case, nearly US$440 million, plus attorney fees and costs, is so high because the Helms Burton Act allows the court to triple the damages awarded. The cruise companies have already announced that they will appeal against the ruling, but the danger is that this first successful case of the application of Title III, after so many were previously dismissed, will set a precedent triggering a flood of other claims. This will have a chilling impact on third-country companies with investments in Cuba at a time when its economy has been severely hit by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism as well as higher energy prices. There is strong pressure amongst US capitalists for Biden to once more suspend the application of Title III, as many US companies stand to lose out from it, not only from successful claims against them, but also because of potential loss of business opportunities. So far, Biden has only repealed two or three of Trumps 243 separate measures to strengthen the blockade against the Cuban revolution. He is faced with two opposite pressures. On the one hand, there is the pressure of sections of the US ruling class to end a failed policy and adopt other methods to defeat the revolution (this was the meaning of Obamas thaw). It would also be in the interest of some US businesses to be able to invest in and trade with Cuba. On the other hand, there is the pressure of the reactionary Cuban lobby in Florida, which is powerful and bipartisan, and is opposed to anything other than a policy of head-on confrontation with the Cuban Revolution. Florida is a crucial state in a presidential election, and there is therefore a strong incentive for Biden to appease the gusano lobby. The whole of the US blockade against Cuba reveals imperialist arrogance and callousness. Washington thinks it has the right to interfere in other countries policies and determine which governments they are allowed to have (or not). When they do not comply, it resorts to military aggression, illegal meddling, promoting military coups and economic sanctions. The rationale behind such measures is do as you are told or suffer the consequences. It is the duty not only of revolutionary socialists but of all consistent democrats to oppose US imperialist bullying against the Cuban Revolution. Indias sales of new vehicles totaled at least 4.25 million units, based on preliminary results, topping the 4.2 million sold in Japan, according to a Nikkei report. New vehicles delivered in India totaled 4.13 million between January and November 2022, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Adding Decembers sales volume reported Sunday by Maruti Suzuki, Indias largest carmaker, brings the total to roughly 4.25 million units. In Japan, 4,201,321 vehicles were sold in 2022, down 5.6% from 2021, according to data from the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and the Japan Light Motor Vehicle and Motorcycle Association. In 2021, China continued to lead the global auto market, with 26.27 million vehicles sold. The US remained second at 15.4 million vehicles, followed by Japan at 4.44 million units. Indias 2022 sales volume is expected to rise further with the inclusion of pending fourth-quarter sales figures for commercial vehicles, along with year-end results yet to be released by Tata Motors and other automakers. Vehicles powered by gasoline, including hybrid vehicles, accounted for most of the new autos sold in India last year. Electric vehicles hardly have a presence. Autos for the Indian market are seen having fewer semiconductors than those sold in advanced economies. India is home to 1.4 billion people, and its population is expected to outstrip China sometime this year and continue growing until the early 2060s. Incomes are rising as well. British research firm Euromonitor estimates that 8.5% of Indian households owned a passenger vehicle in 2021. A survey (National Family Health Survey 2019-5 (2019 - 2021)) released by Indias Ministry of Health and Family Welfare found that in India, an average of 7.5% of households owns a car, with the percentage varying broadly across states (e.g., 45.2% in Goa to 2% in Bihar). Per the same survey, 49.7% of Indian households owns a two-wheeler. Tecnimont Private Limited, Indian subsidiary of Maire Tecnimont Group, has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with NTPC, Indias largest power generation company. The objective of the MOU is jointly to evaluate and explore the possibility to develop commercial-scale green methanol production facilities at NTPC projects in India. The Green Methanol Project involves capturing carbon from NTPC power plants and converting it into green fuel. Green methanol has a wide range of applications, including serving the chemical industry as a base material, being used as an energy carrier for storing electricity generated from renewable sources, and serving as a transportation fuel. It is considered as a substitute fuel for maritime fuel applications. Separately, NTPC has commissioned Indias first green hydrogen blending project. Green hydrogen blending has been started in the piped natural gas (PNG) network of NTPC Kawas township, Surat. The project is a joint effort of NTPC and Gujarat Gas Limited (GGL). NTPC and GGL achieved this milestone in record time after the foundation stone laid on 30 July 2022. This set-up is geared up to supply H2-NG (natural gas) to households of Kawas township at Adityanagar, Surat. Green hydrogen in Kawas is made by electrolysis of water using power from an already installed 1 MW floating solar project. Island residents line up along the sidewalk of the Guam Regional Medical City in Dededo on Jan. 8, 2021. The hospital received its third accreditation from The Joint Commission, the organization that evaluates healthcare facilities for compliance with national standards for safety and quality of care. Guam has recorded another three COVID-related deaths, according to a news release from the Joint Information Center. The 412th COVID-19 fatality was an 86-year-old unvaccinated man with underlying health conditions who died Jan. 1 at Guam Memorial Hospital. The 413 COVID-related death was a 58-year-old vaccinated man without booster shots. He had underlying health conditions and died Jan. 3 at Guam Regional Medical City. The 414th COVID-related death was a 90-year-old woman who was pronounced dead on arrival Jan. 7 at GMH. She was vaccinated without booster shots and had underlying health conditions. We extend our sincerest condolences to their families and friends, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero stated in a news release. Although the Public Health Emergency has expired, we must keep in mind those in our community who continue to suffer losses from this deadly virus and do our part to protect one another as best as we can. Recognize symptoms of COVID-19, get tested if you are sick and seek treatment if needed. There currently are nine patients hospitalized with the virus, including one pediatric admission. Of these, five patients are admitted at GMH, including one pediatric patient. Four patients with COVID-19 are admitted at GRMC, including two patients in the intensive care unit with one on a ventilator, according to the Joint Information Centers news release. New casesThe Department of Public Health and Social Services also reported a total of 224 new cases of COVID-19 taken from 2,038 specimens analyzed from Jan. 3-8. TestingResidents can still receive free COVID-19 testing from 9 a.m.-noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, excluding government holidays, at the Southern Region Community Health Center in Inalahan. Individuals with COVID-19 symptoms must make appointments by calling 671-828-7604/5/7518. Testing also is available by appointment beginning at 9 a.m. from Monday through Saturday at the Northern Region Community Health Center in Dededo. For appointments, call 671-635-7525/6. COVID-19 vaccinations also are available by appointment only at both regional health centers. Four years after the Archdiocese of Agana filed for bankruptcy over a torrent of sexual abuse claims made against its Catholic clergy, the legal and other professional costs have reached nearly $9 million. The church has been obligated to pay that amount, and most of the money goes to law firms representing the archdioceses creditors and the archdiocese itself. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, who serves as bankruptcy judge in the case, approved a fresh batch of billings exceeding $1.5 million for services rendered last year, bringing the total court-approved professional fees to almost $9 million since 2019. The archdiocese has so far paid most, or more than $7 million, of the court-ordered amounts, based on a separate financial report that the archdiocese recently filed in court. Law firms Most of the court-approved amounts since 2019 are bills that a total of nine Guam and U.S.-based law firms submitted for their services related to the archdiocese bankruptcy, either as counsels for the archdiocese or its unsecured creditors such as the abuse survivors. Prior approved billings included those for professional services rendered by at least six real estate and accounting firms. The money to pay lawyers, accountants and real estate professionals providing services in the archdiocese bankruptcy case is drawn from the archdioceses assets, including portions of the sale of the former Accion Hotel and seminary in Yona. Higher fees The higher fees mean less to split among survivors of clergy sexual assaults, the judge and the parties in the case said in prior court hearings. Both the judge and the U.S. Trustee reviewed the latest batch of billings that law firms submitted. The reviews and the attorneys decision to write off billable hours during court hearings and meetings, resulted in a reduction of some of the amounts. As an example, the Minneapolis-based law firm, Stinson Leonard Street LLP submitted an initial $1.127 million-plus for its ninth round of billings but that was reduced to $1.103 million, on top of reimbursable expenses. Stinson represents the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors including clergy abuse survivors. In her order, Tydingco-Gatewood said the court appreciates attorney Ed Caldie, of Stinson, for having written off the most hours, a total of 33.20. Based on Tydingco-Gatewoods separate orders, the following billings from law firms were approved: $1,103,338 for Stinson Leonard Street LLP, the Minneapolis-based counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors; a reduction from the original $1,147,128.61 billing for March 1 to Sept. 30 services; over $4.378 million has been court-approved thus far. $247,534 for Elsaesser Anderson Chtd., the Idaho-based counsel for the archdiocese: Reduced from initial submission for April 1 to Oct. 31 services; nearly $1.85 million has been court-approved thus far. $50,470 for Patterson Buchanan Fobes & Leitch, Washington State-based archdiocese special counsel: Reduced from proposed $50,610 for April 1 to Oct. 31 services; $908,905 has been court-approved thus far. $44,384.50 for Blank Rome LLP, archdiocese special insurance counsel for April 1 to Sept. 30 services; no change from proposed billings; nearly $293,000 has been court-approved thus far. $40,237.50 for John C. Terlaje, Guam-based counsel for the archdiocese: Reduced from $40,412 previously submitted for April 1 to Oct. 31 services; Over $348,000 has been court-approved thus far. $21,504.86 for Hiller Law LLC, Delaware-based special counsel for the creditors committee: Reduced from $22,137.36 initial billings for March 1 to Oct. 31 services; $28,000-plus has been court-approved thus far. $15,973.73 for Camacho Calvo Law Group LLC, Guam-based archdiocese counsel, for previously approved but unpaid amount; $82,593 has been court-approved thus far. Survivors of clergy sexual assault, meanwhile, have yet to receive compensation from the archdiocese in the four years since the archdiocese sought bankruptcy protection in January 2019, saying its the only way to compensate abuse survivors and keep its churches, schools and programs open. Joint plan The archdiocese is supposed to transfer its cash and real property assets to a trust from which payouts to clergy abuse survivors will be taken. But the whole process takes months. The court confirmed in October the joint plan to get the archdiocese out of bankruptcy. The plan includes a $34 million to $101 million settlement with clergy abuse survivors, although archdiocese attorneys said the settlement could only be in the $34 million to $45 million range. Once survivors receive their payout, the attorneys representing them in their individual claims get a cut from the compensation. More doctors and health workers are needed to meet the islands prenatal and childrens health needs, according to Guam Memorial Hospital Authority Administrator and CEO Lillian Perez-Posadas. In December, four more doctors were hired to support the Maternal Child Health Department. OB-GYNs Dr. Jennifer Linden and Dr. Shayla Nesbitt now work at the hospital to increase in-person care. Neonatologists Drs. Biju Thomas and Ish Gulati have joined GMHA by providing consultation services using telemedicine, a virtual system where doctors in the states can monitor a patient and consult with hospital staff. If the physician is not able to come here physically, sometimes they offer that they can do telemedicine, so at least we have the capability for that and we welcome it, said Perez-Posadas. She said the hospital has several telemedicine systems currently available and is working to acquire more. Despite the addition of new employees, recruitment efforts are ongoing in part because of a low retention rate, Perez-Posadas explained. Some issues are Guams remote location and salary disparities between private health care providers and hospitals make it hard for government to compete. We are continuously recruiting for another OB-GYN doctor so that we can give the ones that are here time off and if one gets sick we have backup coverage, said Posadas. There is also a need for pediatricians, who are especially needed right now with a surge in respiratory infections such as bronchitis and flu among children. GMH hopes to soon recruit a neurosurgeon to support the hospital as there only is one neurosurgeon serving the local population, which has a high rate of stroke. Doctors or health professionals interested in learning more about open positions can call 671-647-2330. The Navy and the government of Guam have not yet agreed on the terms for a long-term lease of military land in Mangilao, according to Rear Adm. Benjamin Nicholson, commander of Joint Region Marianas. GovGuam currently has a two-year license to access the 102-acre Eagles Field site, where the governor plans to build a new government medical campus and public hospital. The license expires Nov. 30, and the Navy and GovGuam have been negotiating a lease, possibly for as long as 99 years. Master plan A military-funded master plan for the medical campus has been completed, according to Guam Economic Development Authority Administrator Melanie Mendiola, who said the plan soon will be posted on GEDAs website. GEDA consultant Matrix Design Group had a $1.48 million contract to prepare the master plan and provide related services to the administration. The contract expired Dec. 31. The medical campus could cost Guam taxpayers about $1.4 billion over several decades to purchase the facility on a lease-to-own basis. A Guam law from October 2021 allows the governor to sign a contract to finance, design and build a new government health care center, which will include a new Guam Memorial Hospital and new facilities for the Department of Public Health and Social Services and the Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center. The law authorizes up to $35 million per year in lease payments, for up to 40 years. GovGuam also plans to build a new $32 million military-funded public health biosafety lab at the medical complex, on the southeast corner of the property. Land Management Director Joe Borja on Tuesday said there has been a topographical survey performed on part of the site. The Mangilao site is part of a larger 741-acre parcel of land that was condemned by the Navy in July 1950. Some of that land was transferred to the U.S. Air Force in May 1960, and the Air Force built several communications towers and a radar facility on the site. The towers and buildings later were dismantled, and the land currently is vacant, except for the 9-acre Eagles Field. Ancestral owners Some of the lands ancestral owners and their descendants want the property returned to them if the military is not using it, but Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero has said it would be almost impossible, to do that because of restrictions in federal law. A long-term lease for the Mangilao site was expected to be negotiated and signed before the end of last year, but it could take several more weeks or months to complete the agreement. Hopeful The Department of the Navy met with our government of Guam counterparts to discuss the terms of a land lease for a new hospital complex, Rear Adm. Nicholson stated this week. We continue to work with GovGuam to achieve a win-win in these negotiations and remain hopeful we can find the right lease provisions that not only protect the investments of GovGuam, but also reduce any potential risks/liabilities for the (Department of the Navy). Nicholson said the negotiations went well, but some of the proposed provisions will require review and approval at a higher level. If all parties concur, Joint Region Marianas hopes to sign the lease agreement early this year on behalf of the (Department of the Navy), Nicholson stated. Our View: Abortion rights should be taken to referendum Published on 2023/01/09 | Source New stills added for the upcoming Korean movie "Next Sohee" (2022) Advertisement Directed by July Jung With Bae Doona, Kim Si-eun-I, Kim Woo-kyum, Song Yo-sep, Kwon Da-ham,... Started filming: 2022/01/16 Synopsis A work that deals with the incident experienced by So-hee, a high school girl who went on a field trip to a call center, and the story of Yoo-jin, a female detective, who doubts her. Release date in Korea : 2023/02 The royal prerogative of mercy was originally used to permit the monarch to withdraw, or provide alternatives to death sentences; was used since at least 1617. It is now used to change any sentence or penalty.However,The Royal Pardons which does not go uncheck nowadays in the UK. Presidential pardons and the Mauritian Constitution The Commission on the Prerogative of Mercy is found in Article 75 of the Constitution. This article gives the President of the Republic the power to grant to any person convicted of any offence a pardon, either free or subject to lawful conditions, as well as to reduce or lessen a conviction. This prerogative of mercy in Mauritius is exercised through two bodies: Firstly, there is a Commission on the Prerogative of Mercy (the Commission) consisting of a chairman and not less than 2 other members appointed by the President. The Constitution mentions that the Commission acts in its own deliberate judgment. Secondly there is the exercise of the power of the President of the Republic who acts on the directive of the Commission and who has the following prerogatives: (a) to grant to any person convicted of any offence a pardon, either free or subject to lawful conditions; (A free pardon is exceptional in as much as the offence committed will not appear in the certificate of character of the convict). (b) to grant to any person a respite, either indefinite or for a specified period, of the execution of any punishment imposed on that person for any offence; (c) to substitute a less severe form of punishment for any punishment imposed on any person for any offence; or (d) to remit the whole or part of any punishment imposed on any person for an offence or of any penalty or forfeiture otherwise due to the State on account of any offence. The President has the option to request the Commission to reconsider any advice tendered by it and shall act in accordance with such advice as may be tendered by the Commission after such reconsideration. In the exercise of the powers as conferred above upon the President, he shall act in accordance with the advice of the Commission. Therefore, The President has the ultimate power, acting in his own deliberate judgment to appoint or revoke the Commission; The President has the power to request the Commission to reconsider his recommendation. This relationship between the President and the members of the Commission cannot be considered as devoid of a certain lien de subordination between the President and the Commission. The Problem Controversial use of presidential pardons: a brief recap In the past, several Mauritian presidents have used their power to grant controversial pardons in some high-profile cases. For instance, Peroomal VEEREN was granted such presidential pardons.Last example,the case DIP the son of the Commissionner of Police Rethinking presidential pardons in Mauritius The cases discussed above indicate that in Mauritius, the granting of presidential pardons have been abused, as they seem to have undermined the role of the judiciary, rather than rectify miscarriages of justice. This is evidenced by the fact that several sentences in the above cases were affirmed by the Supreme Court, which is the highest and final superior court of record in the Republic, as highlighted in the Constitution. Therefore, presidential pardons should be subject to checks and balances. Such checks and balances are vital to uphold the separation of powers between the three branches of government a doctrine incorporated in the Mauritian Constitution. Some countries have empowered their judiciaries to review executive pardons. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the courts have the jurisdiction to review the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by the monarch (on advice of the justice secretary) in accord with accepted public law principles. Thus, in the United Kingdom, the power to grant pardons does not go un-checked. Meanwhile, in India, through the landmark case of Epuru Sudhakar & Anor v. Government of Andhra Pradesh & Ors, the Indian Supreme Court held that it has jurisdiction to judicially review the pardoning power of the president. The recourse available in Mauritius None all judicial review has failed Conclusion The current practice of granting presidential pardons in Mauritius is deeply problematic. However, a reform to amend our Constitution, the course of action provided through for the Supreme Court to review pardons is much needed. It can provide an avenue to maintain checks and balances on executive power, and prevent a culture of injustice, which undermines the rule of law. KM SAWOO President Lespace Citoyen Travellers from China will be required to present a negative coronavirus test taken no earlier than 48 hours before their departure for Finland. Crew and passengers on flights to and from the country will also be required to wear face masks. FINLAND will impose restrictions on travellers from China, the ministerial working group in charge of managing the coronavirus epidemic decided on Thursday. Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru (SDP) on Friday conceded on YLEs A-studio that the controls are not a means to prevent new coronavirus variants from entering Finland, but rather a means to buy time before more accurate data on the spread of the virus is made available by Beijing. Well be able to buy time before this information is handed over from China, she said. Its about [finding out] what kind of a virus we should expect on top of our current burden. The burden on hospitals is at a pretty high level. EU countries are naturally concerned how big of an additional burden therell be. Kiuru told Helsingin Sanomat earlier that she is worried about the lack of data on coronavirus infections, hospitalisations and deaths in China. The EU has called for more information from China. Infections are being significantly under-reported in China. We have no information on the burden on the countrys hospital system. Itd provide us important new information on how the new variant is behaving, she commented to the daily newspaper. She also revealed that the mask mandate is already being implemented by Finnair, the Finnish majority state-owned airline. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health and Ministry of the Interior are presently looking into how quickly the testing requirement could be implemented in practice. Early next week will tell how quickly we can start requiring negative test results, told Kiuru. The upside of advance testing is that it doesnt strain Finnish health care. We naturally hope we wont be the last country that implements the advance testing requirement. The delay would channel air travel where the requirement [] is not in effect. The EU moving as a united front is important. Kiuru admitted that the timetable is tight but necessary due to the extent of infections detected in air travellers arriving from China to the EU. The information is pretty shocking. At worst, 3050 per cent of air travellers may have tested positive. Finland will also start collecting wastewater samples from aircraft to develop a better understanding of the situation. Its a new task for us, stated Kiuru. Whats new is that wastewater analyses would be carried out for aircraft and airports. [The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare] THL will start this as soon as possible, no later than next week. Aleksi Teivainen HT A rooming house for troubled women was approved Wednesday night as a use for a single-family home on West Broad Street in Bethlehem by the citys Zoning Hearing Board despite the misgivings of some neighbors. Miriam Rodriguez, executive director of the Nehemiah Wall, told the board her organization plans to buy the four-bedroom home at 822 W. Broad St. and use it to provide transitional housing for up to 10 people women and, if applicable, children. The residents will include women who might be dealing with problems including substance abuse, domestic violence and homelessness, said Rodriguez, assistant pastor of Greater Shiloh Church in Easton. She also acknowledged, after some prodding from neighbors, that some of her residents will be ex-convicts transitioning to life after prison. In August, the Easton Zoning Hearing Board rejected a similar proposal from the Nehemiah Wall for 815 Lehigh St. in the citys West Ward. In the Easton case, however, the house was in a neighborhood zoned for residential use. The Bethlehem house is in a limited commercial district, where rooming and boarding houses are permitted by special exception, which the Zoning Hearing Board granted in a split decision, with Michael Santanasto casting the dissenting vote in a 3-1 decision. Board member James Schantz recused himself from participating in the decision. More than a half-dozen residents who live near the home objected to the proposal. The consensus seemed to be that the mission of the rooming house is worthy, but not suitable for their neighborhood. Some also questioned the Nehemiah Walls preparedness to fulfill its mission, as it has never before operated a home this large, nor owned a property that it used to provide housing. Kathy Bulman, who lives on the 500 block of Eighth Avenue, said adding this rooming house would provide too high a concentration of these kinds of services in the neighborhood. Valley Youth House operates a shelter on her block. Another neighbor, John Fisher, pointed out that a boarding house for men is directly across the street at 821 Broad St. Fisher, who lives there, told the board that many of that homes residents have drug and alcohol problems and that it might become a magnet for the new residents. The Nehemiah Wall is a faith-based nonprofit that according to its website has a mission of helping ex-offenders, but Rodriguez told the board the mission has expanded to include others who have not been incarcerated. We want to help as many people as possible, she said. Daryl Nerl is a freelance writer. YLE on Thursday reported that popular support for the populist right-wing opposition party has jumped by 1.9 percentage points to 19.3 per cent since early December. RIIKKA PURRA , the chairperson of the Finns Party, believes the Finns Party should set its sights on becoming the largest party in the upcoming parliamentary elections in light of its rising popularity in polls. Itd be pretty crazy if the number-one spot wasnt the partys goal. Of course thats the goal, Purra stated to YLE on Friday. The government is where legislative changes are made, where you take care of this party. An opposition party doesnt have that opportunity. Purra indicated that the party leadership shares the concern of experts about converting support in polls to actual votes on election day particularly because the party secured fell three to four points short of its poll ratings with its vote share of 11 per cent in the county elections held in January 2022. It feels like citizens want change, and hopefully they understand that the only way to create change is to vote in the elections, she said. The National Coalition, though, is confident it can hold on to its number-one spot until the parliamentary elections organised on 2 April, according to the party secretary of the right-wing opposition party, Kristiina Kokko. The election spring is underway and parties approval ratings are shifting. Were delighted to be in this position and to be holding the top position, she commented to YLE. Well invest everything in the elections, naturally. Its a really important step forward. Well see what kind of a group of parties will start forming the next government after elections. Its too early to speculate on the governments composition. Antton Ronnholm, the party secretary of the Social Democrats, estimated that the ability to mobilise supporters will be key also for the electoral performance of the ruling party. Its obviously unusual that the prime ministers party has seen its popularity increase during the electoral term. We can be pleased about it, but well run a tough campaign in the spring to make sure well come out on top on election night. Voting the Social Democrats to the top spot is the only way to make sure you dont get a right-wing government, he added. Ronnholm denied being concerned about either the rising popularity of the Finns Party or the wide advantage of the National Coalition. The campaigns have yet been run and people will decide whom to vote later. Its obviously clear that if the two parties currently in the top positions will form the government, the situation will be very different. We have to work hard, he said. Polls from recent years and decades have shown how much the ratings can swing. Once the campaigns get underway and people see what options are available to them, I think the ratings will become more even and our campaign will yield a good outcome under the leadership of [Prime Minister] Sanna Marin. Aleksi Teivainen HT Foundation is accepting applications for $600,000 worth of scholarships The Community Foundation of Henderson County is receiving applications this month for 2023-24 academic year scholarships. The Foundation is offering more than $600,000 in new and renewable academic scholarships for the upcoming school year through 274 award opportunities for local students. Graduating seniors, current college students and returning adult/non-traditional students are encouraged to apply. All scholarship applications must be submitted no later than 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31. The wide range of available scholarships seek to support students with a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, achievements, and higher education goals. Scholarship opportunities offer valuable assistance to area students pursuing a higher education degree and are made possible through generous donors. Questions about the online scholarship application and opportunities may be directed to Donor Services Manager, Wendy Hamil at (828) 697-6224 or whamil@cfhcforever.org. MOST residents will be able to travel more cheaply by bus for the first three months of this year thanks to a new government scheme. The bus fare cap will limit the price passengers will pay for an adult single fare to 2 on most routes operated by participating bus firms including Arriva, Thames Travel and Reading Buses. Liz Leffman, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, said: We know cost of living pressures are affecting many people and hopefully these discounted fares will help residents to cut costs as they use buses to get to school, to work and to visit our town and city centres. Swapping car journeys for bus trips also helps reduce the number of cars in our town and city centres, reducing congestion, cutting emissions and improving the environment. The temporary 2 bus fare cap on adult fares does not change the concessionary fare scheme or impact free travel. Services where singles already cost less than 2 are also not included. Blair County Republican Rep. Jim Gregory on Monday asked new House Speaker Mark Rozzi to resign, claiming Rozzi broke a promise to switch his political status from Democrat to independent. The request from Gregory who just last Tuesday nominated Rozzi for the speaker job was in a letter hand-delivered to Rozzi on Monday, Gregory said. The move by Gregory got support from the chambers top Republican, Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County, who told reporters late Monday, Promises, and our word, in this business are very important. The statements came as Rozzi tried to start his first full week as speaker by convening a special session that had been requested by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. Rozzi became speaker in dramatic fashion Tuesday, winning a 115-85 vote with the support of 16 Republicans including Cutler. His vow to run the House as an independent was a key to him winning the job. But almost no action took place in the House for the rest of the week, and operating rules that are typically adopted at the start of a two-year session were not even introduced. Mondays special session ground to a halt almost immediately without rules in place. On Monday evening, it was postponed indefinitely. In a written statement, Rozzi did not address Gregorys call for him to resign. He said rulemaking was delayed because the Democratic and Republican Caucuses are too far apart to proceed in a scenario that showed the partisan divide that has plagued Pennsylvanian politics for far too long. Rozzi said he would put together a working group of three Democrats and three Republicans to try to find a path forward for the stalled chamber. In comments made from the rostrum immediately after he received the gavel Tuesday, Rozzi said, As we enter 2023, the fastest growing voting coalition is independents, and we continue to be the deciders in our closely divided commonwealth. A moment later, he added, The commonwealth that is home to Independence Hall will now be home to this commonwealths first independent speaker of the House. That line was met with whooping and applause. Rozzi vowed not to caucus with either political party and to hire people of both parties to staff his office. Later Tuesday, Cutler told reporters an important moment in the building of support for Rozzi came when Rozzi indicated he was willing to change to independent. In the Monday letter, Gregory said Rozzi affirmed to him three times he would switch his party affiliation from Democratic to independent. Then, according to Gregory, Rozzi on Saturday made a different characterization. It was with great sadness for me as your friend that you would admit to me Saturday that you are only thinking about switching, Gregory wrote. You made a commitment to uphold your promise to me, to the members of this body, and to the people of Pennsylvania. Rozzi and Gregory have been leading advocates for survivors of child sex abuse. Gregory wrote, The bonds of trust between friends as close as you and I have been are now broken. As a result of your broken promises, I must sadly and respectfully ask for you to immediately resign the office of Speaker. Special session called Rozzis first full week in the top post in the House started Monday by convening a controversial special session on child sex abuse lawsuit legislation. Almost immediately, there were questions about what rules would apply during the special session. Cutler questioned Rozzi from the House floor about rules, and the chamber went into a lengthy recess a short time later. Wolf requested the special session Friday. The child sex abuse issue, more than any other, gave Rozzi as a rank-and-file member the standing to pull off the surprising win in the vote for speaker. The special session is intended to give second passage to a proposed constitutional amendment that would retroactively extend the timeline for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file lawsuits. State law requires a proposed constitutional amendment be approved in two two-year sessions of the Legislature, then be approved by voters. The proposed amendment was approved in the 2019-20 session, and again early in the 2021-22 session, but an error in the Wolf administration derailed the process. Lawmakers restarted it with an another, initial approval last year. Top Republican lawmakers criticized the calling of the special session. They said it would be more efficient and less disruptive to other lawmaking to act on the proposal in traditional session. Very difficult spot Rozzis words last week about being independent had appeal in a chamber that had been mired in partisan bickering since a very close November election led to disputes about which party was actually in control. As of Monday, there are 101 Republican House members and 99 Democrats, with three vacant seats that will be filled via special elections. Republican Rep. Mark Gillen has known Rozzi for years, because both have represented districts in Berks County. Asked about Gregorys letter, Gillen said both Rozzi and Gregory are passionate about the same issue. I hope they can reconcile their differences, Gillen said. He said Rozzis striving to operate as an independent is making his opening days difficult. Trying to get your footing as an independent is going to be uniquely taxing, Gillen said. When you have a rank and file member who suddenly and unexpectedly and even dramatically ascends to the speakership, they are going to be under a unique set of pressures, he said. Rozzis surprise election produced high expectations from both sides of the aisle, Gillen said. Mark is in a very difficult spot if you look across the panorama of the state House. Morning Call Capitol correspondent Ford Turner can be reached at fturner@mcall.com. A bipartisan pair of Pennsylvania senators plan to renew their long quest to let nurse practitioners care for patients without contractual tethers to doctors, and an advocate says the states experience with the COVID-19 pandemic may help them. Sens. Camera Bartolotta and Lisa Boscola a Washington County Republican and a Northampton County Democrat said they will refile a bill that eradicates the requirement nurse practitioners have collaboration agreements with two doctors. They called them archaic restrictions that no longer reflect modern medicine. Instead, their bill will call for practitioners to fulfill a three-year, 3,600-hour physician collaboration period. After that, they would be free to provide care independently, in their specific areas of expertise. These are groups of people who are highly educated. Many have masters degrees, Bartolotta said. Both she and Boscola noted that about 25 states let nurse practitioners operate without contractual tethers to doctors. Versions of their bill have been around in Harrisburg for years but never cleared the Legislature. Sen. Lisa Boscola, shown at an event last year, is joining with Washginton County Sen. Camera Bartolotta to renew a push for fewer restrictions on nurse practitioners. It is unnecessary controversy around this bill, because all it would do would be benefit people who need health care, Boscola said. You never replace doctors. That is not what this is about. It is about people getting more health care. That contradicts the position of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, which represents physicians around the state. It is in the best interests of patients to have a physician-led team lead their overall care, said Dr. F. Wilson Jackson, a Cumberland County gastroenterologist and society president. Lawmakers arrived in Harrisburg this week for a two-year legislative session. Bartolotta and Boscola have circulated a memo on their intent to refile the bill. Cheryl Schlamb, president of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, said the outcome may be different for the bill in this legislative session because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis in health care during the pandemic, she said, prompted the state to waive some restrictions on nurse practitioners. The 17,000-member coalition heard no complaints about quality of care, she said. We have good outcomes for decreased cost, and we had good outcomes during the pandemic, Schlamb said. Beyond that, Schlamb said, registered nurses who want to work as practitioners have more opportunities in states without permanent doctor-collaboration requirements. At least three of those states New York, Maryland, and Delaware border Pennsylvania. This is a work force issue, Schamb said. They will go to neighboring states where they have relaxed regulations. Medical society opinion Jackson said there is no question people in Pennsylvania and across the nation need better access to primary care, but patients feel more comfortable when a physician is at the center of their health care team. Data gathered in states that have fewer restrictions on nurse practitioners, he said, shows those starting new practices gravitate toward urban areas undercutting the argument that loosening restrictions in Pennsylvania will help fill the need for health care providers in rural areas. Schlamb said Pennsylvanias current collaboration agreement system requires the agreements get Board of Nursing approval. The process, she said, is cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. Pennsylvania Medical Society President Dr. F. Wilson Jackson said patients feel most comfortable when a physician is at the center of their care team. Jackson, though, said the system is not top down in nature and lets each doctor-nurse practitioner pair craft an agreement that suits their professional relationship. It can be modified over time. In addition, Jackson said, Pennsylvanias law gives nurse practitioners more authority to prescribe medicines than those in many other states. In his own medical practice, Jackson said, he was worked with two nurse practitioners and several physicians assistants. Their professionalism is respected, he said, but patients appreciate having the knowledge that I am 10 steps away. Several years ago, the medical society backed a legislative bill to create a pilot program to let eligible nurse practitioners practice independently in a federally recognized health professional shortage area. The bill cleared the House but stalled in the Senate. Jackson said the society was open to negotiation. Why would we not want to come up with a way to provide better care? he said. Long haul The most recent version of the bill eliminates certified registered nurse practitioner references and calls for the Board of Nursing to set up an advance practice registered nurse-certified nurse practitioner license. The license would require a 3,600-hour, three-year collaboration period before a nurse could practice independently in a specific focus area in which the nurse is certified. Under the most recent version of the bill, those included family care, adult gerontology, neonatal, pediatrics and womens health. During the last two-year session, the bill stalled after clearing a Senate committee. In the 2019-20 session, the bill received approval from the full Senate in a 44-6 vote and then stalled in the House. Sen. Camera Bartlotta, a Washington County Republican, is teaming up with Democratic Sen. Lisa Boscola on an effort to loosen state restrictions on nurse practitioners. On June 12, 2019, the day the Senate approved it, both Bartolotta and Boscola spoke on the floor of the chamber. Boscola said, For many years, we have been working on this . We have made many, many compromises and continue to do so. Morning Call Capitol correspondent Ford Turner can be reached at fturner@mcall.com. Joseph Hardy III, founder of the 84 Lumber chain of building materials stores and developer of the Nemacolin resort, has died. He was 100. A family statement provided by the company said the family had lost its patriarch and all-around great man. A profile posted on the companys website said he died on his 100th birthday Saturday surrounded by his loving family singing Broadway show tunes to comfort him at his home in Farmington. Many knew Joe as a brilliant businessman and enthusiastic entrepreneur, said the statement provided by Amy Smiley, 84 Lumbers vice president of marketing. Even with his vast success, Joe always remembered what matters most: people. He helped make the American dream real for so many, and he will be greatly missed. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported Hardy was credited with rethinking the lumber business in the late 1950s with a cash-and-carry approach focused on professional contractors and builders. He then expanding the company to become the nations largest privately owned building materials supplier. He also developed the Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa, now known simply as Nemacolin, and entered the harness-racing business, operating the Meadows Racetrack in North Strabane Township in Washington County. Born Jan. 7, 1923, in Pittsburgh, Hardy attended Lehigh University and in his final year there enlisted in the Army Air Corps, serving as a radioman during World War II. After the war, he worked in the family-owned jewelry store, earned an industrial engineering degree at the University of Pittsburgh and with family and a friend started Green Hills Lumber, which eventually became 84 Lumber (named after the town where it was headquartered) and now has more than 250 stores nationwide. My father was always asking, Whats next? his daughter, Maggie Hardy, to whom he turned over control of 84 Lumber and Nemacolin Resort, said in the profile. He wanted to conquer the next challenge or make something even better. He taught us never to be satisfied and push to be better today than we were yesterday. Joe was a true American success story, former Pennsylvania Gov. and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the Post-Gazette. And he was a true gentleman. He could have demanded to be treated like a tycoon, but instead he wanted to be known as Joe. The family statement said Hardy had proven that nothing is impossible by willing himself to his 100th birthday, which had made the family beyond proud of him for making this final accomplishment. A funeral service for Hardy, whose survivors include eight children and 15 grandchildren, is scheduled Thursday in Westminster Presbyterian Church followed by full military honors and private interment. Faiek El Saadani is now general manager of Lapita resort in Dubai, shifting gears from his previous stint as boss of W Abu Dhabi - the luxe hotel built on an active Formula 1 track. El Saadani has stayed with Marriott since 2003, but his latest role at the Autograph Collection resort is one of his few posts in a more family-focused environment. He was GM at W Abu Dhabi since 2019, overseeing its rebranding to such, and also ensuring its triumphant return to the market after unfortunately becoming one of the first places in the country to record a case of Covid-19. From 2003 onwards, he held director of food & beverages positions, across Marriott Hotels in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangkok. In 2015, he returned to UAE as hotel manager of St Regis Hotel Dubai then, located within the centre of the Al Habtoor City Complex. After a year, he was promoted to the general manager position of the same hotel and being a part of the opening team of The St. Regis Dubai, he has played a key role in setting up all operational and strategic elements. Wang On Properties and Angelo Gordon has Acquired Pentahotel Hong Kong, Kowloon for HKD2 Billion Hong Kong-based Wang On Properties Limited (WOP) has partnered with US-based Angelo, Gordon & Co, L.P. (AG) to acquire Pentahotel Hong Kong, Kowloon from Hong Kong-based New World Development Company Limited for HKD2 billion. Situated in San Po Kong, Kowloon, the 695-key property has a total gross floor area of approximately 285,000 square feet, and a site area of 23,800 square feet. The property features one food and beverage outlet, five meeting rooms, a swimming pool, a fitness centre, and parking spaces. This acquisition is WOPs first major investment in the hospitality sector, and WOP has planned to renovate and rebrand the property. Berjaya to Acquire Freehold Lands in Yokohama, Japan to Develop a Mixed-use Development Berjaya Yokohama Hospitality Asset TMK, a subsidiary of Malaysia-based Berjaya Corporation Berhad (Berjaya) has entered into a land sale and purchase reservation agreement with the City of Yokohama for the proposed acquisition of six parcels of freehold land in Minato Mirai, Yokohama, Japan for JPY12.657 billion. The land measure in aggregate about 20,977 square metres, and the land is the last undeveloped waterfront area in Yokohama City. It is situated in the vicinity of key city landmarks of Yokohama such as the Yokohama Landmark Tower and the Yokohama Museum of Art. Berjaya plans to develop a Four Seasons Yokohama Harbour Edge project on the land comprising a luxury hotel and upscale residences, an aquarium, and retail outlets. The gross development cost of the entire project is estimated to be JPY101.54 billion (including the land acquisition cost). Chip Eng Seng to Sell The Sebel Mandurah for AUD18 million Singapore-based Chip Eng Seng Corporation Ltd (CES) has sold its Perth hotel asset, The Sebel Mandurah (TSM) for AUD18 million, estimated to be AUD214,286 per key, to Australia-based Acure Funds Management Ltd (AFML). CES acquired the property in 2017 for AUD15 million, which translates to a gain of 20% post-sale for CES. The 84-key property which sits on a freehold site with an approximate land area of 6,712 square metres includes meeting facilities, a swimming pool, a fitness center, and a barbeque area. Situated at 1 Marco Polo Drive, which takes less than an hours drive from Perth Airport, the property has a view overlooking the citys Mandjar Bay. TSM will change its management company from Accor Hotels to MF Hospitality Management Ltd after the transaction. The disposal of the asset will allow CES to recycle capital arising from the net sale proceeds and to pursue higher-yielding and/or capital appreciation assets in the future. ARA US Hospitality Trust to Acquire Home2 Suites by Hilton Colorado Spring Singapore-based ARA US Hospitality Trust (ARAUHT) announced on 4 January 2023 that ARA H2CS, a wholly owned subsidiary of ARAUHT has entered a conditional purchase and sale agreement to acquire Home2 Suites by Hilton Colorado Springs South hotel from US-based CH Tenderfoot Hill LLC (CHTH) for SGD38.9 million. The 119-key property was a recently built hotel designed for long-stay travellers. The property is situated in the south of Colorado Springs, where the centre of the Rocky Mountain recreation activities is. Surrounding the property also includes the Fort Carson military base and the Broadmoor Convention and Resort with over 18,500 square metres of meeting space. The property is currently managed by US-based Chartwell Hospitality, a fully integrated platform that specialises in the acquisition, development, and management of branded, limited, and full-service hotels. The management company manages a wide portfolio of 27 hotels across the United States. About HVS HVS is the world's leading consulting and valuation services organization focused on the hotel, restaurant, shared ownership, gaming, and leisure industries. Established in 1980, the company performs more than 4,500 assignments per year for virtually every major industry participant. HVS principals are regarded as the leading professionals in their respective regions of the globe. Through a worldwide network of over 50 offices staffed by 300 experienced industry professionals, HVS provides an unparalleled range of complementary services for the hospitality industry. For further information regarding our expertise and specifics about our services, please visit www.hvs.com. HSMAI Europe, the European arm of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), the industrys leading advocate for intelligent, sustainable revenue growth globally, is starting 2023 as it means to go on in growth mode by hosting its three-day business event for the regions hospitality commercial elite. Taking place at InterContinental Park Lane in London from January 18 to 20, the core event is #ROC2023LONDON, the associations annual pan-European revenue optimization conference and awards, staged on January 19, dovetailed by two complementary events a Leadership Day on January 18 for members of HSMAI Europe's various advisory boards, student council members and rising leaders councils, and invitation-only Chief Officer Executive Roundtables on January 20, fostering high-level discussions on pertinent industry topics. ROC 2023s theme, Ride the Wave, sets the tone for the three days with HSMAI Europes members and partners meeting in person to engage in meaningful dialogue, focusing on commercial strategies to drive revenue and enhance the customer experience despite current global market uncertainty. HSMAI Europes three-day London event is designed to maximize opportunities for like-minded hospitality commercial leaders to ride the wave together as we enter a New Year presented with multiple challenges, but also, immense opportunities. Ingunn Hofseth, President & CEO, HSMAI Region Europe Having overcome the difficult circumstance of the last few years, the industry has emerged stronger, and that is reflected in the expansion of HSMAI Europe membership after the pandemic, with more growth planned for 2023 in tandem with the industrys accelerated recovery. As we grow, so our collaborative efforts to tackle issues and spearhead innovation become more powerful and impactful, and our triple event kick-starts this momentum. HSMAI Europes trifecta starts with Leadership Day on January 18, an event last staged pre-pandemic in September 2019. Involving members of several HSMAI Europe advisory board members, the student council and the rising leaders council, the wide-ranging agenda will include global certifications updates, survey results, discussion groups on business and industry issues, as well as areas of focus for HSMAI, with an onus on membership growth, plus group presentations and a working dinner. The following day (January 19), 2023 HSMAI Europe ROC will bring together commercial leaders from hospitality to discuss the most important strategic issues facing the sector under the Ride the Wave theme. Professionals attending are those responsible for leading revenue optimisation and pricing for brands, management companies, ownership groups, hotels, and resorts. ROC will also showcase partner companies serving this audience. Keynote speakers will include customer experience thought leader Steven Van Belleghem whose session is entitled Human and Tech: How to create the perfect CX by combining these two interfaces. HSMAI Europe is also proud to welcome back their Platinum Sponsor Duetto. We are thrilled to be back at HSMAI ROC in London to meet and exchange with the revenue community in Europe - we're delighted to sponsor this important event and look forward to seeing everyone there. Chris Crowley, Chief Revenue Officer at Duetto ROC 2023 is designed to maximize interaction between the audience speakers, and panels and will involve polls, quizzes, live feeds and more. The day will culminate with the hotly anticipated HSMAI Europe Awards ceremony and dinner. Based on HSMAI Europe member feedback signaling a need to focus on attracting and retaining talent, the association has added more categories to the 2023 awards, which recognise the great work of hospitality people and companies in 2022. There are seven Individual Achievement Award categories and five Best in Class categories for companies. See here for a full list. The three-day HSMAI Europe extravaganza ends with three exclusive, invitation-only Executive Roundtables on January 20. Chief Digital Officers will discuss predictive personalization, Chief Revenue Officers will ask, In 2023, do you know what your revenue managers are doing?, and Chief Sales and Distribution Officers will debate sales versus distribution the equation of how to ride the wave and maximizing collaboration between the two. For more information visit HSMAI Europe. If you would like to join the ROC & Awards Dinner, please contact us. About HSMAI Europe HSMAI Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International is a global organization founded in the US in 1927. HSMAI Region Europe is the European arm of the organisation. HSMAI Europe aims to be a key influencer, pioneer and the go-to industry resource for professional development, commercial strategies and sustainability in the hospitality, travel and tourism industry. For more information about HSMAI Europe, click here. Bianca Miholca +447593675636 HSMAI Europe The practice of Stay home and stay safe is constantly being replaced by revenge travel and socialising. The new sense of freedom is encouraging a majority of people to step out and get the best of what they couldn't enjoy during the global pandemic. This passion for socialising is also fuelling new consumer expectations where guests seek convenience and sophistication from their favourite brands. In fact, a McKinsey study revealed that around 75% of consumers tried a new shopping behaviour in the early years of the pandemic, and more than 80% of those intend to continue with the new behaviours. An experience-centric industry like hospitality needs to adapt fast, which means innovation is coming. While the hospitality industry has embraced countless strategies over the last two years, let's look at the predicted top 7 trends gaining momentum globally and how the industry can respond to these changes effectively. 1. Customised accommodation for more RevPAR Modern consumers are independent and prefer better control over what they purchase or experience. This is where Attribute-Based Selling (ABS) comes into play, offering guests the power to pick and mix the amenities they require over the standard room facilities. ABS lets the traveller define the nature of their facilities and the level of luxury they enjoy. A Skift article states that 85% of travellers consider standard hotel rooms with pre-set amenities uncertain. In contrast, ABS allows guest to pick their own attributes when booking a hotel room and experience the stay they envisioned. Does the guest prefer a room with a city view? Perhaps, combined with a walk-in shower instead of a bathtub? Instead of the pre-set amenities, which the guest may not even use, ABS enables guests to enjoy facilities that they require for their vacation, with the option to pay for only what you use. ABS can also benefit hoteliers through up-selling of rooms based on the demand for specific amenities, which in return, provides more revenue for room (RevPAR). Businesses can even prepare customised packages for guests based on previous purchases and entice them into repeat purchases. 2. Mixing business and leisure Contemporary travel is a mix of business and leisure. Statista reveals 41% of respondents are planning to combine their business trips with leisure activities in 2023. Hospitality venues are facing the pressure to step up their game with blended accommodations that meet the needs of these bleisure travellers. It's time for hotels to upgrade and restructure their designs for wider usage than accommodating just leisure and rest. In-room blended amenities can include on-demand equipment and furniture to accommodate the needs of business-work environments. Non-room spaces can include amenities beyond standard facilities, like charging docks, meeting spaces, temporary workstations and more. Bleisure travellers have their own set of needs; a mix of finding the time to let go while meeting their professional responsibilities. Accommodating these blended needs will enable hoteliers to cater to a wider market and tap into ancillary revenue streams. 3. Smart front desk with mobile and contactless technology Technology continues to revolutionise the world of hospitality. The pandemic led to a spike in mobile and contactless solutions by 66%, according to a report by Accenture, and these self-evolving technologies will only continue to rise in the post-pandemic digital revolution. Enterprise cloud solutions are now providing total contactless guest journeys from the time of check-in to check-out. Options like QR code scanning, self-check-in options, booking software and EPOS systems are providing solutions to the constant demands of the industry. Contactless technologies accelerate the check-in and check-out process, personalise room services and enable digital access control in room doors via mobile apps, enabling guest journeys and making them sanitary, safe and effortless for the guests. Implementing contactless and mobile technologies will ease operations with tech-powered workflows and give a competitive advantage, especially with todays challenges of labour shortages and increased costs. 4. Better guest experience with Artificial Intelligence Joining in with mobile and contactless tech is artificial intelligence. AI is already making a change with solutions like ChatBots deployed by Marriott International's Aloft Hotels. The future of AI promises something bigger; think of AI-powered analytics that track, monitor, and predict future customer behaviour or even robot receptionists who can take over routine tasks. Between chatbots that enable guests to request early morning wake-up calls and analytics tools that simplify the management of big data sets, hospitality is headed towards a sophisticated and smart future. Satisfying guests, tracking buyer behaviour and forecasting trends will keep the industry agile and ready for unprecedented changes. These Innovative technologies will require the need for skilled workforce. A new thought for new investments for training employees to navigate the digital revolution better will be a must. 5. The death of PMS PMS systems in the hospitality industry are witnessing the end of their era as more hotels move to operations platforms and cloud platforms. Full-stack centralised and integrated solutions, which include a suite of tools for check-in, check-out, cash settlement, contactless operations, housekeeping, point-of-sale and guest management, are today's requirements in hospitality. Cloud and mobile-first solutions also make it easier to use full-stack operational modules. More sophisticated solutions are centralising all operations on a single platform, encouraging collaboration between multiple venues and departments, thus eliminating the usage of standalone systems. Technology solution providers in the hospitality industry are now focused on Open API and all-in-one solutions that effortlessly work in unison. 6. Green is a responsibility. Modern consumers do not settle for greenwashing. Hoteliers have no choice but to satisfy contemporary guests who are sensitive to social responsibility and committed to sustainability. The CCS Insights Predictions report on sustainability predicts that by 2025, a new green certification will be displayed by websites using low-energy design and code, indicating to guests what brands genuinely commit to their sustainability goals. Eco-conscious efforts have also become cost-effective for big and small hotels alike. Digitised cloud-based solutions to reduce wastage are already preferred over traditional ones. Utilising technology already on hand, hotels can use mobile devices that track carbon footprints to align their processes with sustainable development goals. According to Abhijit Sunil, a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, environmental sustainability is forecasted to be a strategic imperative for businesses in 2023. Being a part of this green revolution is not a marketing trick anymore, but a responsibility for hotels. 7. Ethical labour According to Hospitality Insights, 94% of hotels were understaffed, and 47% were severely understaffed in 2022. Contemporary hospitality employers are forced to reimagine staff management strategies as many workers have resigned during the last few years due to employee burnout and underpaid labour. Ethical labour will be a focal address in 2023. Technologies like automation can free workers and let them focus on tasks that require human intelligence. A great example is housekeeping modules connected to cloud platforms that help workers stay connected to their task lists, avoiding missed responsibilities or overwork. Most hoteliers are now focusing on new year goals, which focus on improving staff safety and welfare. This has led to most hotels on the lookout for safety solutions like panic buttons and other employee safety devices (ESDs) to help them alert relevant authorities if they are faced with difficult situations. Looking at the highlights, 2023 appears to be an exciting year with possibilities for the industry; many new trends await to be implemented to ensure greater guest satisfaction levels. Hoteliers are left with numerous options for service enhancement and seamless guest journeys. However, a strategic approach is vital in implementing the right trend at the right time in the right place to maximise the benefits each innovation offers. As a customer-centric industry that always requires human touch in each of its services, an erroneous approach can leave an unhappy guest and a bad reputation on the entire hotel ranking system. Planning for the right equilibrium in modern hospitality services will help businesses envision the right path for them in the upcoming year. Incorporating both innovation and traditional methodologies will maintain a familiar feel that ensures personalisation, adoptive accommodation, just the right amount of technology, green revolution and empowered labour and will enable hoteliers to provide the ultimate guest experience. As new trends continue to flourish and meet guest demands, hoteliers will continue to innovate the sector with bigger and better solutions to satisfy the continuous market fluctuations. About IDS Next Founded in 1987, IDS Next became India's largest hotel software company in its first decade of operations and Asia's largest in 2009. Today, IDS Next is the leading provider of smart hotel software across Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, Africa, and Oceania, serving over 6,000 customers in 45 countries with $10 million in daily transactions and 300,000 daily check-ins. With the goal to redefine the way hotels operate through smart software solutions, IDS Next has been a trusted technology partner and preferred supplier to the international hospitality industry. From contactless check-in, front desk, guest request and housekeeping management to payroll, finance, inventory management and procurement, IDS Next's award-winning software automates and streamlines front and back-office hotel operations, making sure all departments are covered. With an open API approach, IDS Next integrates with over 100 of the world's leading, best-in-breed technology partners to ensure hotel operations run smoothly and securely to complement a hotel's existing systems and solutions. Available in single modules and as an all-in-one solution, IDS Next's smart hotel software is designed by hoteliers for hoteliers through the company's in-house development team comprising 135 hospitality technology professionals and supported 24/7 by 90 customer services agents in 30 languages. With all software PA DSS certified, front-of-house solutions GDPR compliant, and the business ISO 27001 certified, IDS Next's smart software solutions are accredited, certified, and compliant with the industry's most stringent standards for data protection and security. There are many ways to use artificial intelligence in the hospitality industry effectively. Today, host Robin Trimingham discussed the why with Simone Puorto, the founder, and CEO of Travel Singularity. In this episode, they discuss the reasons why hotels are the perfect place to implement and develop AI and machine learning technologies. Download the podcast here. Simone: Humanity and technology. They're not in competition. They're always in cooperation and thinking that you can, an industry that is getting more and more complicated by the hour, continue to operate without some level of tech. To me, at best, it is entrepreneur blindness. Robin: Welcome to the Innovative Hotelier podcast by Hotels magazine with weekly thought-provoking discussions with the world's leading hotel and hospitality innovators. Welcome to the Innovative Hotelier Podcast brought to you by Hotels Magazine. I'm your host, Robin Trimingham, and my guest today is Simone Puorto, founder, and CEO of Travel Singularity. Today, we're discussing why the hotel industry is the ideal environment for the mass adoption of AI. Robin: Welcome Simone. Simone: Thanks for having me. Robin: Well, I'm very excited to be chatting with you today because I have to say, you are my first travel industry metaverse ambassador. Simone: Ok, that's fine. Robin: I think we're going to have a great conversation here. And I've been doing quite a few interviews with people who are in some way involved in AI and the hospitality field because I'm trying to help my listening audience understand all of this better. So let's just start with something pretty basic here. It's fair to say that advances in technology have already reshaped global politics, the economy, medicine, biology. Why, in your opinion, is clinging to the idea that the travel industry is any different a mistake? Simone: So first of all, when we think about hospitality, we always think about high touch industry, right? That's probably the more high-touch industry that comes to mind. This is partially true, of course, but hospitality has always been a high tech industry as well. And I always make this comparison. Let's say you got a. A 20, 20, 30 room property, Right? In order to operate, you will need at least half a dozen software anyway. Right. And this has always been the case. Now, if you if you compare that with with with a restaurant, for example, it's a very similar business to hotels, and a small restaurant for 20 people could simply operate just with a POS to get credit card payment. So I think that we got a problem of perception when it comes to the hospitality industry. Right. And it's interesting to me because I've been in this space for almost 25 years now. I actually started as a receptionist while I was paying my university. And back in the day, I think that the kind of approach we used to have there was, of course, less tech-savvy, but was, in a way close to the original idea of what hospitality should be. And whenever I teach, for example, to my students, I always ask the same questions. And these questions are about the experience they have with the hotels, right? And before COVID and pretty much 2022 has been the same. Simone: I used to travel like at least one-third of the year. So and I've been doing this for quite a long time. So I think I have, I don't know, probably 1000 check-ins under my belt. The problem is that I don't remember a single good one. And the problem is that it's not that we don't have good people; it's that we are using these people to do stuff that should be automated in a way, right? And I always say, look, this is like this binary scheme. It's not working anymore because the more you invest in technology and even if it can sound like a paradox, the more human the industry becomes because it puts back the human workers where they can bring real added value, and that is taking care of guests. And it's not taking care of the software. You know, it's not data crunching or just a copy-pasting information on an Excel file. So humanity and technology, they're not in competition. They're always in cooperation and thinking that you can, in an industry that is getting more and more complicated by the hour, continue to operate without some level of tech. To me, it, at best is entrepreneur blindness. Robin: I think you're making a very valid point because when you're checking in, it doesn't matter how nice the person is behind the desk. If there's a crush of 40 other travelers all trying to check in at the same time, it's going to be a stressful, time-consuming experience regardless of how wonderful the person behind the desk is or how well they've been trained. And I do agree with you. There is a real argument to be made. Those hoteliers in general, have been looking at how to avoid changing or fixing the problem instead of turning the table upside down and saying, ok, how could we do this differently? How can we make this a better experience? Simone: Let me add something to that. If you look at like a job, open job positions on LinkedIn, for example, and in Europe for example, but in the US as well, we got this crazy labor shortage problem in the industry. And it's always interesting to me that when you see this position, you see that hotels are looking for people with mainly hard skills. A receptionist today should know five different places, three channel managers, and at least be fluent in Excel. But you don't see any mention of human skills, you know, soft skills. And that to me, it's like it's crazy. It doesn't make any sense. It looks like we were hiring devs instead of receptionists. And that's a tech problem, not because we're using too much tech, but we're not using in tech. And on top of that, all the tech we use work in silos. So basically, you need these humans to do these repetitive tasks and they can, of course can, not focus on the guest. Robin: I'm going to take your point one further because a lot of the big brands, will use personality profiling software in the hiring process and they'll be looking for a particular personality set for these positions. So what you end up with is a highly caring, highly sensitive person greeting people at the front desk who's getting more stressed out by the moment when they're the crowd is too big, or the system isn't updating fast enough, and they burn out. So it's really sort of a catch-22 situation, if you will, in a lot of respects. Simone: That's true. Robin: So in the case of the pandemic, the medical field, for example, they, because of the extreme circumstance, were highly motivated to transition beyond the state of viewing it as being AI versus human to a state in which the industry now is clearly working in harmony with AI to serve humanity and solve problems. Why is the hotel industry not following suit? Simone: That's a good one. But again, I think the main problem is a perception problem because human feelings, when it comes to artificial intelligence or tech in general, change considerably according to the applications of the technology. Right. And you're right. In a medical field, for us is that was Ex machina AI, for example, can increase accuracy in disease detection or we can use tech AR, for example, or VR to during the surgical procedure. It makes everything safer. But when it comes to hospitality, even the slight allusion to AI is perceived as heresy. And again, I think that the problem is caused by prejudice that we do have as human beings before hoteliers in regards to AI. And let me tell you something that to me was always fascinating. The most famous test to evaluate the intelligence of a machine is the Turing Test and the Turing test is highly anthropocentric. You can determine whether or not a machine is a machine only by comparing it back to a human. The human is always the ultimate terms, the ultimate term of comparison. So in a way, we're obsessed with human, even when we shouldn't be really. And on top of that, high tech is always perceived as the opposite of high touch. We think that when we go to the tech way, the service is going to be inferior. Well, that's not really the case. You know, just Google Translate. It speaks better than the average underpaid waiter that we hire. So that's again, I think it's still a question of perception and a question of bias we do have when it comes to AI. Robin: Yeah, there's definitely a perception problem and also a misunderstanding of how these things can be valued by the customer. Why, though, should hoteliers actually be more concerned with the impact of a stressed out or unfriendly or poorly trained staff member on the guest experience than with the introduction of this next level technology? Simone: Look, partially it's because they don't understand, and I can relate to that. I know that when you work in a hotel, most of your working hours will be spent on operational tasks and at some point the quality of your mattresses or pillows would be more important than the quality of your software. And so I do understand that. But you need to see the other side of things. And there is this very interesting poll published by Gallup, and it said that the negative attitude of employees is causing an annual loss of around $300 billion in the United States only, and that's just loss of productivity. People that are not happy with their job, they're not doing the job right and so forth. And there was another study I was reading a few weeks ago that said something I could be slightly off, but it said that like 57% of negative experiences in hotels are due to the staff. And again, it's not because humans are bad. It's just they're they're overworked and they're doing things that should not be done by humans. They should be done by machines, by algorithm, by robotics. But again, it's a double-standard issue. Most people, especially in the hospitality space, they cannot get out of this binary scheme: AI versus human intelligence. And that is really the problem. Robin: Yeah, I think from an interesting perspective, you're quite right, because what does a human being crave? A human being craves at the core of their being, being valued, being interested, being creative learning. And a lot of these basic hotel tasks really aren't about any of that. So it's kind of odd that we should expect that humans would be delighted to do these tasks endlessly and never get upset, never wear out. But the machine will do it quite happily because it doesn't feel in the same way that a human does. Yet anyway. Simone: If you go to a desk and somebody is making a copy of your passport or your credit card, that's not hospitality. That's just the logistics of things. And I always make the same example in hospitality. We're always a few years late with regards of what the airline companies are doing, right? This was the case for revenue management. This was the case for marketing, for enticement and so forth. So I always ask the same question, Look, you don't go 4 hours before to the airport because you want the human touch of the guy that gives you the ticket because that's logistics. You don't care about that. There's no added human value in that. Exactly. Like there's no added human value in a person, a human being, biological staff, charging your credit card. So we need to divide the concept of hospitality from the concept of the logistics of travel. And I understand that this is quite hard at times. Robin: Which is exactly why we have conversations like this. So let's talk about the tough one. At least for the hoteliers, a lot of hoteliers simply struggle to see why when they are a luxury brand whose entire price point and value proposition is sustained on delivering that sense of luxury, why they should be involving themselves in AI at all because their understanding, their definition of luxury is it's all done by a person for a person. Simone: Ah, the luxury question. That's always a good one. I have a theory. I think that in the next few years we will see three different types of hotels, Right? And they will not be classified based on stars or reputation like we do now, but on the number of human staff they hire. So I can see, for example, think about budget, hotels or hostels. These properties can benefit from replacing humans with algorithms or robots or self-checking apps or kiosks and so forth. Automation in general, because this will put the cost of personnel way down and they will be able to offer more competitive rate. So I have no problem seeing like a hotel where you basically have no two little humans and you're exchanging the quote-unquote "human experience" with the fact that you're actually paying less. Like in the business side of things, this will probably work. Simone: On the other side, probably there will be like something like we're seeing now, hybrid hotels. So properties where the human and the artificial element coexist. Right. So you can maintain the service that is as human as possible. But can you reduce the cost and you can improve processes wherever it is feasible. And this is pretty much where we are right now with the majority of properties. Simone: Luxury on the other side. I think that the. In the future, we may be willing to pay extra money for human-only service. So that's actually an interesting thing because like today we pay more for like a handmade items compared to those created on an industrial scale. Maybe in the future we will be willing to pay more just because there is a human person taking our luggage. And again, look, there's no added value in that. But probably that is going to work like that. But on top of that, what most people don't understand is that when we talk about tech, the first thing that comes to mind, especially to techno phobic, is you remember this Japanese hotel, the I don't know if you ever heard of that, like dinosaurs checking in. And I think the problem with that is that we watched so many eighties and nineties science fiction movies. So what do we think about AI? In our mind is like physical robots. So we think about, okay, we're implementing artificial intelligence and you start thinking that you, you have robots just running around like Terminator. That's not the case. A lot of AI is just it goes behind the curtain. You're not embracing AI because you're turning your property into a robot-centric property. You're just embracing AI because you can make the process easier and the guests will not even see that. Like good technology really works like magic. You don't see it. Robin: I want to ask you a what-if question. What if the real way forward here is something in the middle. I'm going to call this a hybrid. What I'm wondering, based on all the conversations I've had with different people in the field, is that what we really have to help hoteliers understand is what they can do with the same amount of labor. If these people aren't tied up doing the menial tasks, the checking in, whatever, what if a resort property with a beach took the money they were spending on labor for all these jobs that could easily be replaced and offered cabanas where every single cabana had their own attendant, a real physical person. That would be an extremely great example of luxury, something that even a five star might not be able to really afford at the moment. That could be quite feasible if things were all thought about differently. Simone: Totally. Look to me, I always make it the credit card example. I still see to this day hotels manually charging credit cards. So whenever they got a reservation, this poor guys just take out a POS and they start charging credit card manually. Now, let's do the math. We're doing something like that manually will take you, I don't know, 5 minutes per reservation, even more like if the credit card doesn't work and you need to get another one and so forth. Let's say you got 20 reservation a day. It's small property. It's 100 minutes that you're spending just charging credit cards. Now, if you think that this is the fact that it's a human charging your credit card, if you think that's luxury, fine. That's not luxury for me, because you're completely right. It's 2 hours. This person could actually create some kind of connection with the guest. And so it's not even about reducing the stuff. It's about replacing parts of what the human staff does with more valuable interaction with humans. And again, you do the math. It's crazy. You can just go in from charging credit card manually to a payment gateway. And we're talking about like basic tech. You can save up, I don't know, like a small property can save up to 15 K a month. A year. That's great. Yeah. Robin: Yeah, I agree. Okay. The typical pushback from some hoteliers would be that spending more on AI has limited value at the moment because they've just been through the awful experience of their existing RMS software basically being useless for much of the pandemic because it wasn't able to predict properly. How do you respond to something like that? Simone: They're using the wrong RMS. Robin: Fair enough. Simone: Look, revenue managers, most revenue managers take out this crazy idea that it's all about historical data. No, you can still do a lot of things when it comes to 2020, 2021 in terms of their black swans. They're like, statistically relevant. Fine. But there are things happening outside of your property that are pretty interesting, like the cost of gas, the weather, the events and whether you can or cannot travel. And all these external factors are harder to process than just looking at historical data. So I understand why a lot of revenue managers are lost. Because they always been used to do exactly the same things. We look at last year and we predict what next year could be. But that's not revenue management. That is just you see what you've done last year and you want to do the same thing next year. And maybe what you did last year was wrong anyway. And the RMS's good RMS's. Well, average RMS's, it's not even good. They don't take into consideration all the historical data. They take into consideration everything else around. So this is just a reduction of ad absurdum, as I say, all the time. It's just doesn't make any sense to me. On top of that, consider that the human brain can take. Think about I was reading about 3000 decision a day 3000 looks like a lot but when you compare it to an average RMS, the number goes up to 35,000. So it means that to get to the same level of accuracy, you need 12 revenue managers. It doesn't make any sense to me. To cut a long story short, if this is the perception you're totally using the wrong RMS. Or even worse, you're doing things on an Excel file. Robin: Yeah. Okay. I can see your point. We've got a couple of minutes left here. In any radical systems change scenario, there's always early adopters, fence-sitters, and resisters. When do you anticipate, based on all of your research, that we're going to reach the tipping point with AI adoption? And what do you foresee? What do you believe the hospitality landscape will look like once we do? Simone: Look, I think we've got another problem to solve first, and that is the fact that now the majority of properties are not free to choose whatever they want in terms of technology. And this is because they are quote-unquote "kidnapped" by their system. I still see most properties in Europe working with old legacy systems with no APIs. It's pretty much impossible to connect technology. Now, in a perfect world, what I see is an industry where you can try out technology. If it doesn't work for you, you just replace it with something else. And this is very easy and it's free of charge. Now, the problem is that when you work with software that have been built in the eighties or in the nineties, connecting anything is a struggle and it's costly. So let's say tomorrow you're working. I'm not going to namedrop anything, of course, but let's say you got you've got like a legacy VMS coded in the eighties and now you want to integrate an RMS and this will cost you 20k for integration, integration at six months of waiting. And then when you do that, you see that this is not the real best that RMS in the market and you want something else and you start all over again. Simone: Now, if you go with a cloud-native, API-first kind of approach, basically you can change your tech stack like you change the apps on your iPhone. And so it's not even a question of tipping point or artificial intelligence, like the technology is pretty much already there. It's a question of we need to get rid of all these old systems that we do have. And you go back to my first point, we're a tech industry. We're not only a human industry, we always needed tech. And that's the innovator's dilemma. We're paying a debt because we are using all these technologies that have been built years ago. It's interestingly enough, like the apartment rental industry that is younger in a way they don't have all these problems because they already started with software that were built post the Internet, post API, post cloud, and so forth. So it's not a question of reaching a level of the tipping point of AI; it's a question of getting rid of all these platforms that are limiting innovation. Robin: I love your try before you buy idea aging myself here, but back in the dark ages, that's exactly how they used to sell really big photocopiers, and the sales rep would come with the catalog and say to you, okay, I think this would be good for you. Now let me have it delivered. You try it for a month. If it's no good, we take it away on the truck; we bring a different one. And that worked. Well. Maybe something like that will be coming our way. Simone, I have to thank you so much. Very interesting conversation. You've been listening to the Innovative Hotelier podcast brought to you by Hotels magazine. Join us again soon for more up-to-the-minute insights and information specifically for the hotel and hospitality industry. You've been listening to the Innovative Hoteliers podcast by Hotels Magazine. Join us again soon for more conversations with hospitality industry thought leaders. Wait! Before you go Please sign up for our Evening Digest and Breaking Newsletters Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Pancake flower makers in E China's Shandong breathe new life into traditional delicacy People's Daily Online) 10:41, January 09, 2023 Loude pancake is a well-known delicacy in Tai'an city, east China's Shandong Province. Zhang Ping, a woman born in the 1980s in Loude township, can turn them into beautiful flowers, breathing new life into the traditional technique while contributing to rural revitalization in the locality. Photo shows flowers made of pancakes. (Photo/Chen Yang) "This 'pancake flower' is edible. I managed to color the pancakes by adding fruit and vegetable purees to the batter. After the pancakes were ready, I made them into different shapes by using moulds. Then I used glue made of sticky rice and honey to join the pancake pieces together to form the flower," Zhang explained. "I first made 'pancake flowers' to attract customers so that my products could sell better. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the 'flower pancakes' were well-received," she said. Photo shows flower petals made of pancakes. (Photo/Chen Yang) Zhang and her husband hope that they can help more villagers get involved in the business. Their pancake factory has provided jobs for many local villagers and Zhang's pancake workshop has recruited three apprentices. "We plan to teach the 'pancake flower' making technique to more villagers and help them increase their incomes through pancake making skills," said Zhang. Photo shows daffodils" made of pancakes. (Photo/Chen Yang) Photo shows a variety of "pancake flowers." (Photo/Chen Yang) Zhang Ping and villagers make "pancake flowers." (Photo/Chen Yang) Photo shows a bouquet of "pancake flowers." (Photo/Chen Yang) (Web editor: Hongyu, Du Mingming) In a recent Morning Call article, a gas drilling company, Coterra Energy, pleaded no contest to contaminating the wells of 20 residents in Susquehanna County, resulting in a $16 million settlement and paying the water bills of the affected residents for the next 75 years. The well contamination occurred 14 years ago and was just now settled. I am convinced that without the leadership of Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the case would still not be settled. This story reminds me of a similar one that occurred in Washington County, about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. The gas drilling company, Range Resources, contaminated wells in two towns. A 2018 book, Amity and Prosperity, documents the problems caused by the gas driller, including well contamination, air pollution, sick and dead pets and farm animals, as well as seriously sick residents. Ed Sokalski The main subject of the book, Stacey Haney, turned out to be not only smart, she kept very thorough notes and records as she fought with Range Resources to get water trucked in, information, and to hold it accountable. Only after working with a husband-and-wife law firm from Washington County did things start to happen, yet the Smiths case, Haney vs Range, filed in May 2012, was many years in the making, with settlement not until 2018. Drilling started in Washington County around 2004. Without the Smiths legal work and Haney, I am convinced there would never have been a settlement with Range. The Smiths invested hundreds of thousands of dollars with no guarantee of getting anything back. In both cases, no financial settlement would have occurred without a champion to take on the gas drillers: Josh Shapiro against Corterra, and the Smiths and Haney against Range. In neither case did anyone from either gas drilling company admit guilt or go to jail even though they violated laws, took shortcuts and were negligent. Without any company executives going to jail, they will just shrug it off, and this disregard for the environment and the community will happen again. Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, is deep drilling to extract primarily natural gas and some oil. Cracks are opened and widened by injecting water, chemicals and sand at high pressure. The gas tightly trapped in hard shale rock formations is released and comes to the surface through the well piping. However, along with the natural gas and oil comes all the undesirable waste products: contaminated fracking water with injected chemicals including benzene, plus everything else released from the rock, such as mercury and sulfur. There are hundreds of fracking chemicals used primarily to reduce water viscosity to penetrate the cracks created during fracking. Additionally, large quantities of water are required, and a big problem is what to do with this contaminated water. I am not against fracking, which provides jobs as well as less expensive natural gas, but drillers cannot be allowed to exploit and pillage the land and then leave after they are done. Not all drillers are bad, but regardless, they cannot be allow to run roughshod, destroying Pennsylvanias beauty and natural resources. Fracking can be done safely, but we have to keep them honest. To protect Pennsylvania, its resources and its citizens, drillers with bad environmental reputations should be excluded. All drillers should be required to post bond into an escrow account equal to the maximum foreseeable environmental damage. This is similar to a security deposit that renters pay. If there is damage to the apartment when the lease is over, the landlord keeps some or all of that money. If there is no damage, the renter gets the security deposit back. Pennsylvania and the local government should have control of the escrow. If environmental issues occur, the money would be used immediately to remedy the problems. Environmental issues could be water well contamination from leaking evaporation pond liners, air pollution from these ponds, or dust and noise created from truck traffic delivering and removing materials from the site. All of these environmental issues can have negative impacts on nearby residents. It would be assumed that the drilling company is responsible for an environmental issue until it can prove otherwise. Frackers must prove they didnt do it not the citizens having to prove that they did it. When there are environmental issues, well-drilling activities must be stopped immediately until the issues are identified and resolved to the satisfaction of local and state environmental agencies. Only after remedial actions are taken should drilling be allowed to resume. Watchdogs, not employed by the drilling company, should be hired to work in the drilling company with access to all company records, meetings, emails and the drilling site at all times. The watchdogs salaries would be paid by the drilling company, but the watchdogs would report to the local and state government. The idea is to trust the drilling company, but keep them honest. Trust but verify. This may all seem over the top to some, but the consequences of environmental disasters are too important. Once a water supply well is contaminated, it cannot be uncontaminated. Again, fracking can benefit everyone if done properly. Let in the drilling companies with good records, then trust but verify. Ed Sokalski, a Salisbury Township resident, is a retired mechanical engineer. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. If you have already been getting our print edition mailed to you and you were never mailed a login and password you can create one yourself and attached the customer account and zip to get access. You simply use the account number and zip from the front cover of your print edition. 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If you have an existing print subscription, please make sure your email address on file matches your HudsonValley360 account email. ADVERTISE Hypebot & MusicThinkTank With the internet and digital technologies driving rapid change within the music industry, articles about new releases and who has been hired and fired are no longer enough. Our up to the minute industry news alongside insightful commentary helps our readers sift through the rumors and developments to find the information they need to keep their businesses moving forward. Hypebot is read daily by more than 30,000 music industry professionals including executives and senior staff of music related tech firms, internet based music sites, every major label group and most indies as well as many managers, artists and members of the live music community: Contact us for the latesst stats, ad rates and sponosorship opportunites. We also offer combined rates with MusicThinkTank. DALTON, Mass. The Historical Commission is in support of the the more than $600,000 in renovations planned for the 1890 Town Hall building but also wants its historic features to be preserved. "I think we definitely all of us want it to be brought up to the most efficient it can be brought up, modernized buildings definitely needs it," co-Chairwoman Louisa Horth said. "But what the Historic Commission would be concerned about is the look of the building." The discussion came on Wednesday when commissioners were asked by Green Dalton Committee member Dr. Thomas Irwin their thoughts on the renovations to make the building energy efficient. "What they're doing right now with the asbestos and all that is in preparatory work not provided over by grants," he said. "Once those grants are done, then we would move into a phase where we could actually do other modifications to the building." The plans for the building include updating, replacing or relocating ceilings, electrical, lighting, smoke detectors and other wiring in the first-floor and opera house area on the third floor, install a new substructure in some areas and add flex ducts and insulation. The commissioners asked how the building would be heated. "Comparing gas to electricity, you're going to pay three times as much for the electricity as you would for gas for the same comfort level," Irwin explained. "We can't afford that so of course what you have to do to compensate for that is two things. One, insulate the building better and put in solar panels." The age of the building may mean the heat can't drop below a certain temperature, which if gas is used will mean a furnace. A more efficient design instead of steam would be circulating hot water so there would potentially be a modification to the radiators, said Irwin. This would impact the knobs on the radiators that the commissioners had previously expressed liking. The solar panels would have to go on the south side of the building to be effective, which is not visible from the road. The commissioners agreed that the panels would be acceptable as long as they are not seen from the street. "We appreciate that and we don't want it to change but at the same time we realize that our arm is pretty badly twisted by climate change. And we ain't got much choice," Irwin said. Grants will not fund solar panels at this point but the Green Dalton Committee is hoping they will support heat pumps, insulation, and maybe some architectural modification to support the installation, Irwin said. He mentioned that when it comes time, the Historical Commission can choose the design of the insulated quilted curtains. "There's three or four different styles you guys could choose. I don't care what style it is. It's all R-7, 8 but you can pick style and color if it was something of interest to you," Irwin said. "These are the old-style window coverings, which you might like in the library, that they had 200 years ago. This is the way they used to do it before they had the little double-pleated shades." Some commissioners expressed concerns regarding how the curtains would make the rooms dark, however, the point of the curtains would be to preserve energy during the times the building is not in use. The curtains would be opened during business hours and closed when offices are closed, Irwin said. As questions arise through this project, Irwin said he will come back to the Historical Commission to keep it updated. In other business: George White stepped down from his position as chairman due to some ongoing health issues that are hindering his ability to attend meetings. He considered taking over the position of vice chair but reconsidered due to the uncertainty of how many meetings he will be able to attend. He will remain a member. The board voted to have co-chairmen, electing Louisa Horth and Debora Kovacs. Thom Snyder was elected as vice chairman. The board voted for Carolina Galliher for the position of secretary and Mary Walsh for treasurer. The commission is in the process of making the Fitch Hoose House brochures and hopes to cover the cost either from the town account or by using donations. Horth said the commission may be unable to apply for grants through the Massachusetts Historical Commission for a second historic district this year. The commission does have money from the town's matching grant. The commission hopes to have a representative from Mass Historical walk the district and see what is going on. This walk with the representative has to happen before applying for a grant, Horth said. County Retirement Board Votes 5% Staff COLA PITTSFIELD, Mass. Berkshire County Retirement Board voted to set the cost-of-living adjustments at a 5 percent increase during its meeting on Wednesday morning. The Berkshire County Retirement System conducted a salary survey that recommended a COLA of 7.1 percent. The COLA policy that the board previously approved was calculated between 2.5 to 5 percent but the board has the discretion to approve above that calculation in certain circumstances, Executive Director Sheila LaBarbera said. Staff looked into comparable positions for retirement coordinator in Western Mass, including Lowell and Lawrence because they are the two most economically depressed areas in the state of Massachusetts, LaBarbera said. What their findings showed is that the average salary for a retirement coordinator is $63,000. The average for employees just starting out is averaged at $55,000 to $60,000. Berkshire County staff are currently at $55,500. "So basically, [Brian Shepard and Jill Hersey] have only had a $500 raise in the last 14 months since they've been here," LaBarbera said. "And I think that the 5 percent, which is relevant to the COLA policy that you approved, the 2 percent would actually just give them a bump, to help them come more in line with the people who are doing the same jobs as they are implemented fairly." Members of the board noted that a year ago they hired the coordinators on the higher end of the salary scale. When LaBarbera explained that they did not do a comprehensive salary survey at the time of hiring, board members asked where the numbers for their current salary came from. LaBarbera responded that the board "made them up." "Well, we had numbers and then they were added to because they seemed low so I think there was a substantial increase at the time," Chairman Michael Ovitt said. He also noted that they were not discussing salary comparisons and raising the salary but were talking about the cost of living. "We're below the cost of living. The cost of living is 7 percent. So at 5 percent, we're behind. That doesn't even make up for probably what we'll see in health insurance increases and things of that nature," LaBarbera argued. The board had previously voted to cap COLA at 3 percent on the first $14,000 for retirees so if they were to raise the cap for staff, they would also have to raise it for retirees to be fair, Bashara argued. LaBarbera has been with BCRB since 1996 and compared how her salary is one of the closest in Western Mass based on how much experience she has. "[Administrators in other areas] are all about making what I make with one year of service. The difference is about $3,000. So, it speaks for something, again, almost, if not close to the lowest, one of the lowest paid administrator," LaBarbera said. "I can't speak for the other members but the fact that we're not even sure if we can get them an extra 2 percent and if we do, that's 5 percent and that's only based off of $14,000," Bashara said. "Once again, that's not on you but I also feel that I'm here to advocate for the retirees. So I try to look at what's a good compromise in the middle. So that's why I recommended the maximum of our cap." He added that he understood what she was saying but that if they were to go based on that they would have an "astronomical figure." "I'm going to be honest, I feel like for a long time, we've had more discussion about staff, nothing bad, just things we've discussed, than we have about the retirees and I really want to start focusing on retirees, and with what we can do for them, what we can accomplish," Bashara said. "So to me, that's why I made the motion. It's a reasonable compromise. Is it exactly what everybody wants? No, but to me, it's the best we can do to at least keep us not going backwards." Some board members agreed with Bashara while others expressed how they felt 5 percent was higher than they would like but agreed to vote for the approved cap. "I'd like to say something, so you want fair, which I understand but I think everyone has a different perspective on that," Karen Williams said. "And so what I have to offer to this as a collector treasurer, in Stockbridge, I was making $60,000 a year. I'm like borrowing and I just think it's a whole different level of responsibility compared to Jill and Brian. I agree with Mark that 5 percent I think it's fair." The board voted for the 5 percent increase on the cost of living increase with four in favor and one abstaining. Cloudy Skies, Some Precipitation Later this Week Berkshire County should stay out of the freezer this week with temperatures anticipated to be above 30 for the entire week. Today, Monday, Jan. 9, expect a high of 35 with cloudy skies. There will be similar weather conditions Tuesday but expect a low of 17 overnight, according to Accuweather. On Wednesday, Jan 11, expect more clouds with some sun. There will be a high of 35. Accuweather predicts a morning rain or snow shower on Thursday, Jan. 12. There should be a drizzle throughout the afternoon. There will be a high of 40 degrees. Friday will be warmer with a high of 50. Expect cloudy skies and some rain. Temperatures will drop this weekend. Expect cloudy skies Saturday with a high of 37. There will be more clouds Sunday with a high of 33. Dalton Policy Restricts New Membership for Green Committe DALTON, Mass A town policy that does not allow family members to join the same committee blocked the addition of a Green Committee member. Green Committee members Wendy E. Brown informed her peers at a meeting on Jan. 4 that her son expressed interest in joining the panel, however, a new town policy does not allow residents from the same family to join the same committee. Town Manager Tom Hutcheson said this new policy is in place to avoid "the potential excessive weight of one opinion" and to get a broader range of opinions to best reflect the population. Green Committee member David Wasielewski questioned why some other committees have family members on the same panel. Hutcheson said committees that already have family members on the same panel prior to the new policy have been "grandfathered in." There are 4 vacant seats on the committee. Currently, the Green Committee only has three members. There has been little interest from members of the public in filling these vacancies. The last member to join was Thomas Irwin who joined 17 months ago. "The unfortunate thing here is that we have so few people on the committee that if somebody sneezes then the committee has no quorum, and we can't do anything," Irwin said. With that in mind, Irwin asked if this is something they could take to the Select Board to get a possible exception to this policy. Hutcheson preferred not to attempt this. "I would much rather not do that. I would recommend against that, I'm afraid. I realized that the position that committee is in but it is, unfortunately, a bad precedent that I would not like to see repeated in other committees," Hutcheson said. Another concern raised is that if someone resigns, then the Green Committee would no longer exist, Irwin said. Irwin felt because of this and with many boards struggling to fill their ranks, the town should reconsider this policy. Hutcheson said he would look at where the town advertises for committee members to confirm the Green Committee is on that list. The board mentioned possibly bringing Browns son, who is 22 years old, on, having him on to help out. He would not be a voting member. ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) is proud to announce its new 2023 laptop lineup, complete with new CPUs and GPUs from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, as well as significant improvements to the already outstanding Intelligent Cooling Technology. The 2023 Strix family features new models with drastically improved cooling and enlarged 16- and 18-inch screens, the new Zephyrus M16 arrives with an AniMe Matrix display to take the thin-and-light world by storm, and a redesigned Flow X13 and XG Mobile have both been upgraded to take advantage of the latest hardware. Brand new machines debut, while ROG Nebula Displays and ROG Intelligent Cooling continue to push the boundaries of innovation All-new CPUs and GPUs max out horsepower For 2023, ROG has included the latest hardware from its partners on all of our models. Brand new 13th Gen processors from Intel feature a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores, new AMD Ryzen Zen 4 processors increase core counts to new heights, and the GeForce RTX 40 Series Laptop GPUs from NVIDIA offers incredible rasterization performance and a range of additional features like DLSS 3 and AV1 encoding. Paired with the best gaming displays and an incredible cooling solution, ROG continues to push the bar for laptop gaming performance ever higher. Improved Nebula Displays and Intelligent cooling grace every series ROG knows that next-level graphics are nothing without beautiful displays. Instead of forcing gamers to wade through technical specifications, ROG created the Nebula badge in 2022, which denotes panels that meet a strict criteria of fast motion, bright backlights, and vivid colors. This year, ROG is bringing Nebula Displays to even more models, and in more form factors. From a compact 13-inch laptop all the way to an incredibly immersive 18-inch display, gamers wont find Nebula Displays anywhere else. In addition, ROG has further refined its Intelligent Cooling technology, a complete solution that carefully balances cooling performance with acoustics. Efficient cooling is one of the unsung heroes of gaming laptops, as high-powered hardware with an insufficient cooling capacity means the components wont boost as high or as long as they should. ROG has brought two key innovations to more laptops in 2023: a larger full-width heatsink and Tri-Fan Technology, both introduced last year on the Flow X16. The upgraded heatsink design now spans the entire rear of the chassis for select devices, drastically increasing surface area compared to traditional designs that only have half-sized fins near the half-sized exhaust vents. This heatsink has been added to this years redesigned Zephyrus M16, while the Strix 16-inch and 18-inch models have an extra-thick variant of the design, giving these gaming juggernauts even more headroom to push their hardware to the limit. As the name suggests, Tri-Fan Technology adds a third fan into the thermal design, providing critical airflow to internal components and helping the GPU to expel waste heat more efficiently. When paired with the new full-width heatsinks, this third fan pushes the performance of both ultraportable and esports-focused gaming machines to new heights, all without sacrificing acoustics. ROG Strix continues to define gaming leadership The Strix SCAR lineup has long stood as the performance flagship of ROGs lineup, and 2023 is no different. The Strix SCAR 16 and 18 have been renamed, thanks to a chassis redesign that accommodates the larger 16-inch and 18-inch 16:10 aspect-ratio screens. These 16- and 18-inch panels allow gamers to see the enemy more clearly than ever before, and the 16-inch model can even be equipped with ROGs new QHD, 240Hz Nebula HDR display with Mini LED technology. ROG has also amped up the cooling performance of this new chassis, allowing more headroom for the CPU and GPU to boost for maximum framerates. Now equipped with an extra thick full-width heatsink and Tri-Fan Technology, the new Strix SCAR 16 and 18 allow for much more efficient removal of waste heat. The Strix SCAR 16 and 18 sport Intels top-of-the-line 13th Gen Intel Core processor, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU at 175 W. Combined with Thermal Grizzlys Conductonaut Extreme liquid metal and a higher thermal headroom, it allows the silicon to boost higher and longer than ever before. The 2023 upgrades dont stop with the SCAR family. The new Strix G16 and Strix G18 are equipped with the same 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, and can be configured with powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU for excellent esports performance. With up to an AMDs Ryzen Zen 4 processor is an absolute beast for gaming and content creation alike, so the Strix G17 and Strix SCAR 17 have both been refreshed with this monster CPU. Combined with NVIDIAs latest GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU in the top-tier models, the entire 2023 Strix lineup is ready to rain fire down on the competition. ROG Zephyrus melds power and portability The Zephyrus lineup is all about exceptional performance in thin-and-light form factors that can easily travel anywhere. This year, the entire series has been elevated to new heights, starting with the Zephyrus M16. Built for gamers and creators alike, the ultra-sleek M16 has been redesigned from the ground up, retaining a thin-and-light design but boasting an improved cooling system featuring Tri-Fan Technology and our full-width heatsink. This allows the 2023 Zephyrus M16 to run 25 watts higher compared to last years model providing even more power to the 13th Gen Intel Core i9 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU with a MUX Switch and NVIDIA Advanced Optimus in this flagship machine. The Zephyrus M16 is also the first 16-inch device equipped with ROGs iconic AniMe Matrix, allowing gamers to show off their unique flair wherever they are. The Zephyrus M16s display has also been upgraded to a 16-inch, QHD Nebula HDR Display with Mini-LED technology. With 1,024 dimming zones, double the amount of last years panel, stunningly deep blacks stand against 1100 nits of peak brightness for an HDR image that pops right off the screen. With a 240 Hz refresh rate and 100% DCI-P3 coverage, gamers can rest assured that all of their content will look its absolute best with the Zephyrus M16. The other members of the Zephyrus family have also received upgrades for 2023. The Zephyrus G14 features brand new internals including up to an AMD Ryzen Zen 4 CPU and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU with a MUX Switch and NVIDIA Advanced Optimus. Even more impressive, the G14 proudly introduces ROGs first 14-inch Nebula HDR display, with 504 dimming zones, 600 nits of peak brightness and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space for vivid and immersive content. Finally, the legendary Zephyrus Duo 16 continues to stand at the apex of our lineup. With a dual display setup comprising of a 16-inch 4K touchscreen Mini LED panel that slides to meet it automatically as the laptop is opened, the Duo 16 is a dream machine for gamers and content creators on-the-go. This year, the Duo 16 has been upgraded with even more power, featuring an AMD Ryzen Zen 4 processor with 16 cores and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series Laptop GPU with a MUX Switch. No matter how many tasks gamers are juggling at once, the Zephyrus Duo has all the tools needed to maximize FPS and productivity. Ride the wave with ROG Flow The 2023 Flow X13 now features up to an AMD Ryzen Zen 4 processor and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU a huge upgrade over its predecessor. A dedicated MUX Switch and NVIDIA Advanced Optimus for the highest performance in game, and the best battery life for everything else. The Flow X13 comes equipped with up to 32 GB of ultrafast LPDDR5 RAM, which in addition to boasting a 50% faster data rate while using 18% less power than LPDDR4, helping the X13 last all day. The 2023 Flow X13 chassis has also had a complete redesign, shrinking its footprint by 10 mm while maintaining the 15-inch keyboard layout and increasing battery capacity from 62 to 75 Wh. The hinge was reimagined, and now allows for more access to fresh air, in addition to adding a unique texture to the aluminum lid inspired by gravitational waves that adds grip for easy carrying. When combined with the Flow X13s new touchscreen QHD, 165 Hz Nebula Display on a 360 hinge, this incredible convertible device is ready to game anywhere, anytime. The Flow Z13 is equally impressive. This year, the GPU was upgraded with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU, with a TGP of up to 65 W a 62% increase compared to the previous generation Z13. The Z13 also has a dedicated MUX Switch with NVIDIA Advanced Optimus support. Liquid metal and vapor chamber technology make this possible, and the incredible 13-inch QHD 165 Hz refresh rate Nebula Display will make gamers favorite content truly shine. Finally, the ROG Flow X16 has gotten new internals, with up to a new Intel Core i9 13900H processor and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU with a MUX Switch and NVIDIA Advanced Optimus. Its Nebula HDR Mini LED touchscreen display has been improved, with 1100 nits of peak brightness and a blazing 240 Hz refresh rate, offering the best possible HDR experiences available with an ultraportable machine. Of course, the 2023 Flow family is joined by a brand-new XG Mobile, this time with the incredible horsepower of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU with a maximum TGP of 175 W. Unlike other external graphics solutions, which are big and bulky, the compact XG Mobile provides loads of extra ports as well as a significant boost in graphical horsepower, while being easily portable for travel and able to quickly dock and transform a Flow machine into a desktop-class experience anywhere. ASUS TUF Gaming F15/17 and A15/17 (FX507/707 and FA507/707): Powerful and resistant Jump right into the action with the ASUS TUF Gaming F15/17 and A15/17. The F15/17 comes with up to an 13th Gen Intel Core i9 processor and the TUF Gaming A15/17 comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 Zen 4 processor so gamers can stream and multitask with ease. Gameplay graphics are silky smooth with the latest GeForce RTX 40 series laptop GPU, which reliably delivers high frame rates in plenty of modern games even at 1440p. There is also a dedicated MUX switch and NVIDIA Advanced Optimus. With AI-powered technology like DLSS, supported titles will run at even higher frame rates for ultra-fluid motion. Users can leverage the full gaming performance of the GeForce RTX 40 series laptop GPU with a dedicated MUX Switch. When your game library gets full, an empty M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen 4x4 SSD slot makes upgrading storage capacity a breeze. High-performance hardware demands superior cooling. As part of the cooling system, dual Arc Flow Fans feature an 84-blade design, and provide up to 13% more airflow than their predecessors and are quieter than last years design. They also provide access to higher GPU power targets for even more performance. With its impressive cooling design, the TUF Gaming family is sure to give gamers every advantage in 2023. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today shared its vision for a calmer connected world through cutting-edge technologies that enhance the lives of users by providing smarter and more intuitive experiences. Speaking at a press conference at CES 2023, Samsung and its key partners came together to outline details about how they plan to build a better-connected world while contributing to a more sustainable future. Samsung outlines strategy and commitment to deliver on the promise of the connected experience and contribute to a more sustainable future Jong-Hee (JH) Han, Vice Chairman, CEO and Head of the DX (Device eXperience) Division at Samsung Electronics opened the companys presence at CES by highlighting Samsungs strategy to deliver on the promise of the connected experience across the key touchpoints in our lives in our homes, cars, and at work while also working to build a more sustainable future. The strategy outlined during the press conference focuses on the companys aim of bringing calm to our connected world so that devices and innovation can genuinely enable better, more personal, and more intuitive experiences. To do this, Samsung is focusing on seamlessly connecting devices and designing products to make the everyday use of technology more sustainable. We recognize our vision is a big one, said CEO JH Han. Its about solving real challenges today and understanding consumers future needs and aspirations. It will take time, innovation, and cooperation with partners worldwide. But we are committed to achieving it, and already getting started. Samsung Incorporates Sustainability at Every Level To address our planets ongoing challenges, Samsung highlighted how it continues to prioritize the environment through a combination of sustainability targets, innovative product design, and strategic partnerships. As a result, by 2050, all of Samsungs businesses will match their electricity needs with renewable energy and reach net zero carbon emissions. In the nearer term, the DX Division will transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2027 and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030. To further the companys sustainability goals, Samsung outlined how Everyday Sustainabilitybuilding sustainability features into the companys most popular products and serviceswill contribute to a healthier environment. This includes creating more sustainable products through innovative design in materials and energy efficiency. By building sustainability into the product experience, we, and the many people around the world who use our products, can contribute to a healthier planet, said Inhee Chung, Vice President of Corporate Sustainability Center at Samsung. As a result, some of our most popular products are now some of our most sustainable. Samsung announced that many of its TVs and smartphones use recycled materials, including recycled plastic from discarded finishing nets, while the companys home appliances, memory and 5G radio network chipsets are contributing to energy savings for customers. In addition, Samsungs connected services, such as SmartThings Energy and AI Energy Mode, are also helping consumers save energy and cut costs while lowering their overall climate impact. Samsung also shared the stage with Patagonia, a global leader in outdoor clothing, to discuss a partnership to combat the issue of microplastics the tiny particles often found in clothes and released into oceans, lakes, and rivers through the laundry. Vincent Stanley, Director of Philosophy at Patagonia, spoke at the Samsung press conference about how the two companies have developed a new wash technology called the Less Microfiber Cycle, currently being incorporated into Samsung washing machines, which can reduce microplastic release by 54% during a laundry cycle. Like the Less Microfiber Cycle, Samsung and Patagonia recently developed the new Less Microfiber Filter, which reduces microplastic discharge by preventing them from escaping into the ocean at the end of a wash cycle. Meanwhile, James Kwon, Product Manager, ENERGY STAR for Consumer Electronics at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that Samsungs connected home experience with SmartThings is the first mass-market Smart Home Energy Management System to earn the prestigious ENERGY STAR SHEMS Certification. Samsung also continues to collaborate with diverse stakeholders in its sustainability efforts. For example, Samsung joined with the Carbon Trust and other technology leaders to develop the industrys first specification for measuring, accounting for, and decarbonizing the emissions associated with connected devices while being used by customers. A Connected Home and Connected Life Built on Convenience Samsung detailed plans to fulfill the connected experience today and in the future. During the companys press conference, Jaeyeon Jung, Executive Vice President and Head of SmartThings, highlighted how features like SmartThings Home Monitor and SmartThings Pet Care bring convenience to the connected experience by monitoring and sharing alerts for anything out of the ordinary for people and pets. Prompted by Samsung Smart TV, these services are some of the many ways Samsung and the connected platform SmartThings are creating an even smarter home. A key part of this vision is increased interoperability, enabling consumers to connect more of their devices, whether they are Samsungs or from a partner brand. As the industry looks to bring about a new level of compatibility through the Matter smart home standard, Samsung stated its commitment to this partnership philosophy. SmartThings was one of the first brands to adopt Matter, and Samsung is a founding member of the Home Connectivity Alliance (HCA). Also, at the CES press conference, Samsung announced the latest smart home innovation, with the SmartThings Station its first product to have Matter support built-in right from the beginning. It is a convenient, new way to kick-start SmartThings experiences at home and make it easier to interact with connected devices. SmartThings Station turns Samsungs wireless charger into a smart home hub that can seamlessly transform the state of your home at the touch of a button. The focus on connected experiences also extended to unveiling new partnerships, including announcing an expanded collaboration with Philips Hue. Jasper Vervoort, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Philips Hue discussed a new way to sync the content from Samsung TVs with Philips Hue lighting through the Philips Hue Sync TV app, which can be downloaded from the app store on Samsung TVs. This is the first solution to sync lighting and content from Samsung TVs without additional hardware. With more devices connected than ever, Samsung also detailed how security and privacy innovations will be keys to building connected device ecosystems. The company is taking its device security experiences to the next level with its upcoming solution, Samsung Knox Matrix, which will conveniently and safely sync credentials across devices, while protecting sensitive information via multi-layered mutual monitoring enabled by private blockchain technology. The connected experience is also extending to your commute. Marcus Futterlieb from Harman unveiled Samsung and Harmans plans to inject a new level of intelligence, personalization, and convenience into the in-cabin experience (ICX). Central to this effort is Harman Ready Care, which uses a machine learning algorithm to gather and process data from the cars sensors to measure driver drowsiness and distraction, providing tailored interventions to mitigate risks and help improve the well-being of the driver. A Vision for the Future The company also showcased next-generation innovations and technologies using the latest artificial intelligence (AI). Experiences enabled by Spatial AI like in the JetBot AI+ are laying the groundwork for better in-home experiences specific to the dimensions and environment of your space. Samsung also gave a preview of Relumino Mode, which will come to select 2023 Samsung Neo QLED 8K and 4K TVs this year to make content viewing possible for people with vision impairment. Relumino Mode highlights outlines and improves contrast and color so that content is clearer and easier to enjoy. In addition, Samsung also displayed a new pair of Relumino glasses, which first debuted at CES 2018 as part of its startup acceleration program C-Lab project, as well as its mobile app to make the visual experience more enjoyable and personalized on every screen. Indias exports have soared in the past two years on the back of robust manufacturing and an enabling policy landscape. While Indias merchandise exports registered a record high of US$417.81 billion in FY 2022, the government estimates that India will achieve an export target of US$450 billion during FY 2023. Additionally, despite the fact that the world economy is expected to slow down amidst the ongoing global headwinds and the resulting supply chain disruptions, India will only see a minor impact, avoiding a large one because of its robust domestic market and recent free trade deals with Australia and the UAE. In this article, we examine the major trends affecting Indias export industry, and list Indias leading export destinations for FY 2023. Over the past few years, exports from India have soared tremendously on the back of robust manufacturing in several sectors and an enabling policy landscape. In the financial year (FY) 2022, Indias merchandise exports soared to a record high of US$417.81 billion, surpassing the governments target of US$400 billion. The export growth was mainly driven by a surge in demand for products like petroleum, cotton yarn, textiles, chemicals, and engineering goods. The government estimates that India will achieve an export target of US$450 billion during FY 2023. During FY 2023 (April-November 2022), exports stood at US$295.26 billion, compared to US$265.77 billion in the same period last year, recording a growth of 11 percent. As per a recent report by the economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), India is set to achieve the highest ever export turnover in calendar year (CY) 2022. Its total merchandise and services export turnover will be in the range of US$740-750 billion. Merchandise exports are expected to be in the range of US$440450 billion, while service exports are expected to be in the range of US$295300 billion in CY 2022, as compared to US$254 billion in CY 2021. Indias leading export destinations: Netherlands and Brazil leapfrog ahead in FY 2023 The US, UAE, Netherlands, China, Bangladesh, Singapore, Brazil, UK, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Germany, Hong Kong, etc. are among Indias leading export destinations. During the April-November 2022 period, the Netherlands and Brazil leaped ahead of their previous positions on Indias list of export destinations. While the Netherlands is now Indias third-largest export destination, Brazil, which was Indias 20th largest export destination between April and October 2021, is currently in the eighth position. The US and UAE maintained their top positions during the first eight months of FY 2023, and Indian exports also saw a diversified basket of goods and have expanded into non-traditional markets like Africa, Latin America, and the Oceania region. The ongoing fiscal saw a threefold increase in exports from India to the African nation of Tanzania, mainly on account of petroleum and diesel. What constitutes Indias export basket? In terms of the export basket, while Indias total exports rose 12.5 percent to over US$263 billion during April-November 2022, oil product exports soared by around 70 percent. This is mainly because while several countries have reduced their dependence on Russia-refined oil products, India, which has seen a sharp spike in crude imported from Russia, is seen to be processing it and exporting it to many countries, especially in Europe. Major items that dominated Indias export basket in FY 2022 include gems and jewelry (16 percent of total shipments), mineral fuels, oils and waxes, and bituminous substances (12 percent); vehicles, parts, and accessories (five percent); nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery, and mechanical appliances (five percent); pharmaceutical products (five percent); and organic chemicals (four percent), etc. Future outlook for Indian exports: Global headwinds might cause moderate slump, FTAs to boost Indias exports According to Santosh Kumar Sarangi (Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT)), Indian merchandise exports are likely to maintain similar or higher levels in FY 2024, despite global recessionary trends. According to the DGFT, Indias recently signed free-trade agreements (FTAs) with the UAE and Australia are expected to provide a boost to exports in the next fiscal. The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) officially came into effect on December 29, 2022, while the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) entered into force in May 2022. They aim to boost bilateral trade to US$50 billion and US$100 billion, respectively, within the next five years. Additionally, India is also in the midst of negotiating FTAs with the UK, the European Union (EU), Israel, and other countries. The GTRI report hints at a moderate slump in Indian exports in the upcoming fiscal year due to weak global demand and a recession in large economies. According to the think tank, with the US effort to create alternate supply chains that do not include China, India is well-positioned to benefit from supply chain restructuring and has recently seen many large manufacturing firms relocate from China to India. Factors driving export growth in India Export promotion measures by the government Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) : The FTP 2015-20, originally scheduled to expire on March 31, 2021, has been repeatedly extended; initially because of the COVID-19 epidemic and more recently because of volatile geopolitical and economic trends brought on by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Currently set to expire on March 31, 2023, FTP 2015-20 is anticipated to be replaced by the new FTP around that time. The new FTP, according to DGFT, envisages outlining the roadmap for attaining US$2 trillion in exports (goods and services) by 2030. It would also concentrate on a variety of other new and developing trade-related fields, such as exports from e-commerce. : The FTP 2015-20, originally scheduled to expire on March 31, 2021, has been repeatedly extended; initially because of the COVID-19 epidemic and more recently because of volatile geopolitical and economic trends brought on by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Currently set to expire on March 31, 2023, FTP 2015-20 is anticipated to be replaced by the new FTP around that time. The new FTP, according to DGFT, envisages outlining the roadmap for attaining US$2 trillion in exports (goods and services) by 2030. It would also concentrate on a variety of other new and developing trade-related fields, such as exports from e-commerce. Interest equalization scheme (IES) on pre and post shipment rupee export credit: This scheme has been extended up to March 31, 2024. Under this scheme, an eligible exporter has to submit a certification of the external auditor to the concerned bank to claim this benefit. Banks provide IES benefits to the eligible exporters and claim a reimbursement from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) based on the external auditor certification furnished by the exporter. The scheme helps the identified export sectors to be internationally competitive and to achieve a higher level of export performance. Trade Infrastructure for Export Scheme (TIES): This scheme aims to assist Federal and State government agencies in the creation of appropriate infrastructure for the growth of exports. The scheme can be availed by States through their implementing agencies, for infrastructure projects with significant export linkages like border haats, land customs stations, quality testing and certification labs, cold chains, trade promotion centres, export warehousing and packaging, special economic zones (SEZs) and ports/airports cargo terminuses. Market Access Initiatives (MAI) scheme : It is an export promotion scheme envisaged to act as a catalyst to promote Indias exports on a sustained basis. The scheme is formulated on focus product-focus country approach to evolve specific market and specific product through market studies/survey. : It is an export promotion scheme envisaged to act as a catalyst to promote Indias exports on a sustained basis. The scheme is formulated on focus product-focus country approach to evolve specific market and specific product through market studies/survey. Rebate of State and Central Levies and Taxes (RoSCTL) scheme : This scheme has been implemented since March, 2019 to promote labour oriented textile export. : This scheme has been implemented since March, 2019 to promote labour oriented textile export. Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme : This scheme has been implemented since January 2021 with an outlay of INR 124.54 billion (US$1.68 billion). It is a tax neutralization scheme which will refund the central, state, and local duties or taxes to exporters who do not benefiting from pre-existing rebates or refund schemes. This scheme replaces the previous Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS), which was not considered compliant with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. : This scheme has been implemented since January 2021 with an outlay of INR 124.54 billion (US$1.68 billion). It is a tax neutralization scheme which will refund the central, state, and local duties or taxes to exporters who do not benefiting from pre-existing rebates or refund schemes. This scheme replaces the previous Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS), which was not considered compliant with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Common Digital Platform for Certificate of Origin (CoI) : The common digital platform is a single point access for certificates of origin for all FTAs and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) for all agencies and all products. It is designed to facilitate exporters through a secure, electronic, paperless CoI issuance process. All designated CoI issuing agencies are required to work through this portal. : The common digital platform is a single point access for certificates of origin for all FTAs and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) for all agencies and all products. It is designed to facilitate exporters through a secure, electronic, paperless CoI issuance process. All designated CoI issuing agencies are required to work through this portal. Champion service sectors : Identification of 12 champion services sectors for promoting and diversifying services exports by pursuing specific action plans. These include information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES), tourism and hospitality services, medical value travel, transport and logistics services, accounting and finance services, audio visual services, legal services, communication services, construction and related engineering services, environmental services, financial services and education services. : Identification of 12 champion services sectors for promoting and diversifying services exports by pursuing specific action plans. These include information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (ITES), tourism and hospitality services, medical value travel, transport and logistics services, accounting and finance services, audio visual services, legal services, communication services, construction and related engineering services, environmental services, financial services and education services. Districts as export hubs: Under this initiative , products and services (including GI products, agricultural clusters, toy clusters etc.) with export potential are identified in all districts of the country. Districts Export Action Plans are prepared for identified products and services for overseas markets, which includes specific actions required to support local exporters / manufacturers in producing/manufacturing identified products in adequate quantity and requisite quality, for reaching potential buyers outside India. These plans also include identifying and addressing challenges for exports of such identified products/services, improving supply chains, market accessibility and handholding for increasing exports. Under this initiative products and services (including GI products, agricultural clusters, toy clusters etc.) with export potential are identified in all districts of the country. Districts Export Action Plans are prepared for identified products and services for overseas markets, which includes specific actions required to support local exporters / manufacturers in producing/manufacturing identified products in adequate quantity and requisite quality, for reaching potential buyers outside India. These plans also include identifying and addressing challenges for exports of such identified products/services, improving supply chains, market accessibility and handholding for increasing exports. Relief packages announced in light of the COVID-19 pandemic to support domestic industry through various banking and financial sector relief measures, especially for MSMEs, which constitute a major share in exports. Production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme To develop India into a global manufacturing hub and speed up job creation, the government has rolled out PLI schemes in 14 sectors since 2020, with incentives amounting to INR 1.97 trillion (US$23.81 billion). The scheme, which is in tune with the Make in India program, is intended to boost domestic manufacturing and simultaneously catapult Indias export sector. National Logistics Policy (NLP) To make Indian exports globally more competitive, India also recently released the National Logistics Policy, which provides for the seamless integration of multiple modes of transportation by leveraging technology, processes, and skilled manpower. The policy, which is in line with PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, will give a massive boost to Indias US$200 billion logistics sector, thereby enabling smooth movement of goods both domestically and internationally. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policy Within the ambit of this policy, the federal government has approved 100 percent FDI under an automatic route in many sectors in order to give a thrust to Indian exports. Is Pakistan going the Sri Lanka way? Pakistan is staring at bankruptcy even as it managed to repay about $1 billion to two foreign commercial banks on Saturday. In the next three months, Islamabad will have to repay more than $8 billion. But Pakistans foreign exchange reserves have fallen to an all-time low of $4.5 billion that are not adequate to pay for imports of essential goods even for a month. Much like Sri Lanka, gross mismanagement of finances and misplaced priorities over the years have only worsened its economic situation. Pakistans Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who took charge in September last year has come under the spotlight. After strongly criticising the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for attacking stringent riders for its loan programme, a desperate Dar has now said that he is ready to accept them. The refusal to accept the real economic situation and the overconfidence of the finance minister has led to more problems, an analyst with a ratings agency who refused to be identified told India Narrative. The IMF revived the $6 billion loan package under Extended Fund Facility late last year but already ran into uncertainty after Dar reversed the policies reducing fuel prices. The IMF had asked Pakistan to eliminate fuel subsidies and increase the tax net by imposition of new taxes. The scarce forex reserves have severely dented the countrys economic activities which have also led to loss of livelihood. Critical sectors including manufacturing and exports have suffered a blow. According to reports, Dar, who is in Geneva, will meet IMF officials on the sidelines of a conference in Geneva as Pakistan desperately hopes to restart the bailout package. Pakistan is also hoping to get $3 billion from Saudi Arabia in the next few days. Pakistans Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir is also in Saudi Arabia to hold talks with top officials of the kingdom. The analyst said that even if Pakistan manages to receive financial assistance from other friendly countries, the amount will be directed to repay debts. The country needs money for its domestic economy as well, you need money for social and development sectors, otherwise the degeneration will continue and impact human index, which in turn will be detrimental for the country. It will not be immediate but the problem is that the political class will tend to overlook the needs of the society, the analyst said. Food prices have soared. Besides many essentials including ghee, cooking oil, among other things could be in short supply. The situation has rattled its citizens. A Pakistani citizen living outside told India Narrative many people who live in the country are now desperately looking to relocate. A study by Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) conducted last year revealed that more than 40 per cent of the Pakistanis were willing to leave the country and the number is highest among the youth. In 2021, Pakistans Bureau of Emigration Overseas Employment (BEOE) data showed that as many as 2,86,648workers registered for overseas employment a 27.6 per cent rise over the previous year. Chinas new ambassador to Nepal, Chen Song, who arrived in Kathmandu on Sunday to assume his office, has pledged to deepen strategic partnership with the South Asian nation. But the chances of achieving success are uncertain as strategic competition with India in South Asia, including Nepal, is red-hot. In his arrival statement at the Tribhuvan International Airport, the Chinese diplomat said I am ready to work closely with Nepali friends from all walks of life, gather wisdom and pool strength to bring more benefits to the two peoples, and jointly write a new chapter of the China-Nepal Strategic Partnership of Cooperation Featuring Ever-lasting Friendship for Development and Prosperity. Its been a privilege and a great honor for me to serve as the 22nd Chinese ambassador in Nepal. Arriving in Kathmandu today, I was amazed by its magnificent beauty and unique culture, and impressed by peoples kindness and warmth.1/3 pic.twitter.com/CkDXsSSDPd Ambassador Chen Song (@PRCAmbNepal) January 8, 2023 The phrase China-Nepal Strategic Partnership of Cooperation Featuring Ever-lasting Friendship for Development and Prosperity was first used in a joint communique issued after the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal in October 2019. The two countries had elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership during the visit. The ambassador also claimed that China-Nepal practical cooperation in various fields has been improved both in quality and efficiency in recent years under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Global Development Initiative (GDI). Contrary to the ambassadors claim, not a single project has been executed under the BRI in Nepal. The Himalayan nation joined China-led BRI in May 2017. Since then, the successive governments in Nepal have shown little interests towards executing BRI projects owing to debt trap fear. With the new communist-dominated government came to power under the leadership of Maoist Chairman Prachanda late last month, China has nudged Nepal to expedite BRI projects. In his statement, the ambassador also said that trans-Himalayan Multi-Dimensional Connectivity Network, a strategic network, has gradually taken shape. The big network is also a part of the BRI which involves the building of railways and communication networks. A team of Chinese railway engineers is presently in Nepal to conduct the feasibility study of the cross-border railway to link Chinas Tibet with Kathmandu. The ambassadors statement can be described as Chinas continued attempts to expand its influence in Nepal through various initiatives including the BRI, analysts said. Chen, a senior Chinese diplomat, has replaced Hou Yanqi who returned to Beijing after completing her four-year controversial tenure in October last year. Hou, who faced criticism for her overt and covert meetings to unify the communist parties during her stay in Nepal, has been appointed as Chinas ambassador to ASEAN. Prior to this, Chen oversaw Chinas ties with South Asian countries including Nepal, India and Pakistan. Also Read: China reopens key border port four days after Prachanda becomes Nepals new PM (Santosh Ghimire is India Narratives Nepal correspondent based in Kathmandu) Irrfan Khans demise came as a severe jolt, leaving a void in the industry that will be difficult to fill. There has perhaps never been a Hindi film actor so unanimously regarded as the best of his generation. The 54-year-old actor was not just an acclaimed actor in Bollywood but had become a familiar face internationally as well. He has left us with a variety of feature film performances that showcase his consistently brilliant abilities as an actor, effortlessly morphing into each new character with ease. From the scores of memorable moments hes left us, here is a list of his best performances that give a sense of his journey and his versatility as an actor. 13. Slumdog Millionaire IMDb Danny Boyles Academy Award-winning film on a slum boy who becomes a millionaire had the actor in a small role, where he played the police inspector who beats Dev Patels character, Jamal, believing him to be a cheat. He has to explain himself to the cop. Khans mixture of tough, no-nonsense yet jagged authority with a hint of gentleness makes him just right for the role, a diametric opposite to the dramatic and hollow host of the show played by Anil Kapoor. 12. Haider TOI An out-of-focus figure in the distance limps toward the screen as a wicked bass riff plays. In Vishal Bhardwajs adaptation of Hamlet, Irrfan played Roohdar, bringing the narrative essence of the film in his story of Haiders father, of the days they spent together as rooh and sharir (soul and body), daria and pani (river and water), inseparable in anguish until the latters death by gunshot. 11. Madaari TOI Madaari, directed by Nishikant Kamat, was a story of a common man where Irrfan Khan, played by Nirmal Kumar, who loses his son in a tragedy caused by corruption and decides to seek justice by kidnapping the son of the countrys home minister (Tushar Dalvi). As a single parent avenging his sons death, his nuanced performance was the main reason for watching the film. He soars even as the film fails in certain aspects. The subtleties he brings to his character make it impossible to look away even when too much else around him does not add up. 10. Qarib Qarib Singlle IMDb Qarib Qarib Singlle, starring Irrfan and Parvathy as a made-for-each-other couple who meet through a Tinder-like dating website, had the late actor as Yogi, a wandering poet who is akin to mansplaining and manspreading all the time. He is a mature 40-year-old and unabashedly annoying. Perfect rejection material, one would think, in the context of the film. But with time, he grows in front of our eyes to reveal that he is the good old-fashioned guy who pursues you with words and his life experiences. 9. Angrezi Medium IMDb Angrezi Medium was the last film the late actor was part of; he had taken a break from work to undergo treatment for a neuroendocrine tumor and had even returned to complete the shooting of the film post-recovery. Angrezi Medium is genuinely funny in parts, but it is due in large measure to the lead actors ability to salvage scenes that barely pass muster. 8. Talvar Hotstar The story is important. Its not about my performance, its not about Irrfan, the actor had said about the Meghna Gulzar film based on the real-life story of the Arushi Talvar murder case. It is a completely physical performance, and Irrfan Khan gets it just right, bringing the physical presence of the character into a room full of chaos with the marked confidence of a man who knows his job. 7. 7 Khoon Maaf YouTube In Vishal Bhardwajs adaptation of Susannas seven husbands, Irrfan played Waseeullah, an intense, brooding poet. Irrfan was a poet and a pervert. For the public, he was a gentle Kashmiri poet reciting beautifully penned words. In private, he is a brute and an animal who gets sexually excited by beating up his wife, Priyanka Chopra. Irrfans deep-set eyes and quiet intensity did perfect justice to one of the darkest characters he played on screen. He was terrifying and deeply unsettling in a supporting role that left its mark on a sea of multiple characters in the film. 6. Hindi Medium IMDb Irrfan Khan portrayed the role of a Chandni Chowk-based boutique owner, Raj Batra, in the movie, who goes to every extent to keep his wife and daughter happy. captures Raj Batras endearingly rustic spirit with such aplomb that you are one with him in his endeavor. It is a performance that builds up throughout the screen time that slowly grows on to become unforgettable. 5. Haasil The Indian Express It was during Dhulias debut that everyone in the Bollywood film industry saw the brilliance of Irrfan. Set against the backdrop of Allahabad University, the film tracks the budding romance between two students: theater artist Aniruddh (Jimmy Sheirgill) and Niharika (Hrishitaa Bhatt), a strong-minded, popular girl on campus. They both get embroiled in a devious game of political manipulation when Niharika catches the fancy of ambitious student leader Rannvijay Singh (Irrfan). In more ways than one, this performance created a template for the Hindi film antagonist, at once mercurial, without clinging to the mainstream demands of a physicality required for it. 4. Qissa Variety Arguably one the toughest, most intense performance of his career came in Anup Singhs Qissa, where Irrfan played Umber Singh, a father who brings up his daughter to be a boy. Emotionally scarred, Irrfan Khan infuses the character with profound desperation so that even when he commits to regain control of his destiny, he invariably throws himself and his family deeper into a psychological display of quagmire. Like most of his memorable performances, this one, too, rested on his peerless ability to emote just through his eyes without doing anything. 3. Piku IMDb As Rana Chaudhary in Shoojit Sircars charming slice-of-life film, Irrfan gave a performance that slowly became the silent ingredient for the films favor. Piku starred Irrfan Khan in a somewhat unusual role, the romantic hero. He played an unsophisticated taxi owner who reluctantly drives Piku and her impossible father from New Delhi to Kolkata, falling in love with the somewhat capricious Piku on the way. 2. Maqbool TOI Vishal Bhardwaj somehow brought out the best in Irrfan. In Maqbool, his adaptation of Shakespeares Macbeth, he cast Irrfan as the tragic hero. In one of the many unforgettable sequences in the film, at an outcrop overlooking the sea, Nimmi (Tabu) trains a revolver on Maqbool, her secret lover and right-hand man of the gang lord whose mistress she is. She wont give it back unless he says Meri Jaan (my love); she fires into the air, scaring him. So he says the words, first under duress, then like hes actually enjoying it. Irrfans changing expression in the scene is a masterclass in acting. 1. The Namesake YouTube In Mira Nairs The Namesake, Irrfan played Ashoke Ganguli, an Indian professor in the US. Irrfan brought gentleness and vulnerability to the role, which was simply heartbreaking. In one scene, he gives his college-bound son (Kal Penn), named for Gogols The Overcoat, a copy of the book for his birthday. Hes about to tell Gogol the story of how he got the name, but Pearl Jam is blaring, and the boy is distracted, impatient with his father. Irrfans silence before he gives up pats his son on the shoulder, and leaves are beautifully poised, a moment of connection that seems just about there but never there. The sun usually sets by the early afternoon in Denmark, a small country in northern Europe, made up of the Jutland Peninsula and more than 400 islands in the North Sea. The country is almost 76 times smaller than India and understandably, has a visibly different culture that may baffle many Indians. What is most interesting about Denmark, however, is that trust weaves the social fabric and sits at the very helm of life here. Despite the arguably cold demeanour, Danes appear rather inclined to trust each other and the outcome of this trust is a sense of safety that lingers in most if not all walks of life. Even short walks to the local convince store, where it is likely to spot unattended babies sleeping in a stroller on a sidewalk every few steps, while the parents leisurely run the days errands. A Cultural Shock? Unsplash/Representational image For Ashwathi Moncy, a 37-year-old mother of two from Indias tropical Malabar Coast, who immigrated to Norway some nine years ago, and has been living in Aarhus, Denmark for half a decade now, this was a sight that merited initial bewilderment. When I first moved here, I lived in a rented apartment. My landlords were a Danish couple, both doctors. They would routinely leave their babies out to nap in the balcony. They told me, its supposed to be great for the babys health, helps the young be acclimatised to the weather and makes for peaceful sleep, said Moncy. However, the Indian mothers first encounter with the practice was several years ago when she moved to Norway, a Scandinavian country with a culture and climate not markedly different from Denmark. I was totally shocked to see a baby left like this. It was all very new to me, she recounted her astonishment. A Huge Part of Danish Culture Pooja Yadav According to 23-years old Kirstine Vinther Uttrup, who is Danish and has worked in a local Kindergarten, it is natural for Danes to leave their babies to rest wherever the sun shines. She believes, almost every Danish child experiences unattended naps on the sidewalk growing up. It is part of the parenting culture here, come rain or snow. We have a saying here that there is nothing like bad weather, just bad clothing. Children need fresh air and it is very important for their health, said Uttrup commenting on the efficacy of the practice during Aarhus's frigid winters. People who are new to Denmark find it weird, and it is often a cultural shock for them but when I came to know its not that common in other parts of the world, I felt weird too, she added. Safety Is Not A Concern Talking about the factors that help in the prevalence of this culture, Uttrup said, our society thrives on social trust and we know nobody will harm the children, we also help each other take care of children if needed. Speaking further, the former kindergarten teacher pointed out that the Danish infrastructure is also built to support this practice. We have several child-friendly spaces where strollers can be parked. Even the strollers used come with roofs and special bedding. It keeps the baby warm and shelters them from winds and precipitation. We have security belts tied to the baby so they dont fall and there are alarms installed in the stroller, in case of baby wakes up or cries, she added. Moncy, who has raised two kids over her five years in Denmark and has grown to see the nordic country as her and childrens home, is however keen to point out that there is often general misinformation that Danish citizens leave their babies unattended. We dont leave the baby unattended, but we are very attentive towards them and in fact, keep a constant check while doing our errands . Unsplash/Representational image Can This Practice Be One For India? In India, the number of crimes committed by and against children is steadily rising, highlighting the need for more child-protective policies in the country. According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, there were 1,49,404 cases of crimes committed against children in 2021 in India, out of which 53,874 or 36.05 per cent were registered under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). Pooja Yadav This particular practice may not be the one for big, bustling countries. The possibility of adopting such a practice in India, Ashwathy said, is unfathomable. I could not even imagine doing this in India as one cannot deny the rising crime cases against children, abduction has increased and also pollution and weather would not benefit the child anyway, the mother commented. Similarly, Uttrup also believes that this particular practice may not be the one for big, bustling countries. The size of the country also affects the trust factor and every country and its people have different ethics, morals and values. But when immigrants come to Denmark from anywhere around the world, they take some time to observe and learn, and eventually end up adopting the practice during their time here, she opined. Are Indians Keen To Adopt The Practice? Moncy, who was quick to adopt the practice, believes that it was the element of trust in the Danish society that inspired her to do as the Danes do. Its such a common practice here, I saw it everywhere around me. I could see the Danes were confident about their babies being secure when left outside, and soon the sense of security rubbed off on me too, she said. Pooja Yadav The education level and socio-economic class of immigrants affect the willingness to assimilate or the ability to adapt to a new reality. According to Rashmi Singla, who is an Associate Professor and International coordinator in psychology at the Department of People and Technology at Roskilde University, she too moved to Denmark almost four decades ago and has raised her kids in this nordic country. Singla, who has also authored literature on the integration of mixed-married couples, when commenting on the situation pointed out that the education level and socio-economic class of immigrants affect the willingness to assimilate or ability to adapt to a new reality. Pooja Yadav Adding to Moncys sentiments, she also said that opposed to popular belief, Danes dont leave their children completely unattended. Some of Rashmis students use baby monitors when leaving babes strapped in strollers outside class, others keep a check on their babies from time to time. There is less possibility of adopting this culture in India because of several factors such as air pollution, different climate conditions, many diseases in big cities, different levels of security and etc, the associate professor concluded. The relationship between banks and customers has been built on trust, loyalty, and offering personalised services over the years. Data analytics has redefined how business is done in the banking industry in the last decade. The rise of technology has not only redefined customer experience and access but has also helped banks offer sophisticated products and services and provide a superior customer experience. The use of data analytics and modern solutions like machine learning and artificial intelligence have changed how data is captured, processed, and used to generate actionable business insights. According to a McKinsey study, artificial intelligence in banking can add a potential value of 2.5 to 5.2% in revenues, or $200-300 billion annually. Unsplash How has data analytics redefined the banking sector? By the very nature of the industry, banks always had access to sensitive customer data. The emergence of data analytics has ensured that a wide variety of customer data is made available and stored securely to provide a better customer experience. Here is how data analytics has redefined the banking sector: Risk mitigation The use of data analytics in banking has ensured that there are increased checks and balances in place to reduce the level of risk involved. With predictive indicators to analyse credit and liquidity risks, banks can implement preventive measures for efficient business performance. Unsplash Product development With a better understanding of the competition, customers and market trends, banks can develop better products that meet the requirements and expectations of customers. Also read: After A Significant Year For Tech, What Can We Expect From Technology In 2023? Customer retention Data analytics enables banks to segment and prepares in-depth portfolios to provide a superior customer experience. With the rising competition in the industry, it plays an integral role in improving the level of customer retention. Unsplash Compliance requirements Banks have been responsible for complying with various regulatory requirements. With the increasing amount of data generated from customers and businesses, data analytics help transform the processes instantly with regulatory changes with better data organisation and report generation frameworks. Streamlined operations A data universe is essential in streamlining operations with robust data integration and embedded analytics. A business intelligence and data analytics platform can improve resource allocation and simplify operational procedures. Future of banking with data analytics Data analytics is expected to continue to play a critical role in the growth of the banking sector. Here are some areas where data analytics will play an essential role in the future: Collection models Data analytics will continue to reduce risk and develop analytics-enabled business models. Rather than taking blanket decisions as per standardised criteria, data analytics will help build every customer as a 'segment of one' with a customised action plan. Unsplash Machine learning pricing models Pricing has been a challenge in the banking industry with complex products, evolving payment technologies and layers of services. For instance, merchant services, corporate cards, treasury services, etc., include various products with distinct fees and tenure. Using machine learning models can help establish pricing models at a granular level and help banks achieve better pricing models in the organisation. Also read: 2023 Is Artificial Intelligence's Big Year: Industry Pros Tell Us What To Expect Handling fraud The banking industry's threat of payment fraud with customers has increased substantially in the last few years. Be it ATMs, digital payments, card payments or any other medium, fraudsters have developed new and sophisticated ways to cheat. Data analytics can help banks build systems to achieve an analytics-driven fraud defence system. Unsplash Building an effective analytics organisation is the right way to make a future-proof banking organisation. Data analytics can also be critical in other vital areas, like managing people and driving an organisation's overall customer satisfaction score. It is better to spend some time designing a data transformation model that helps derive value from the beginning. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com. Disclaimer: Naren Vijay is the EVP of Growth at Lumenore. All views and opinions expressed above are of the author and do not represent Indiatimes. Today marks an exciting moment for us as we welcome Assurances R. Legault to Westland, said Westland president and CEO Jamie Lyons. We are thrilled to be expanding our presence in Quebec, a province that remains key to our national story and our ambition to be Canadas favourite insurance brokerage. We feel tremendous cultural alignment with Philipp, Isabelle, and the incredible team at Legault. Last week, DAE reported that the fleet size of its DAE Capital division for the full year 2022 stood at around 500. The number spans the companys owned, managed, committed, or mandated-to-manage aircraft. DAE Capital has 118 customers in 59 countries, while the DAE Engineering segment served over 50 customers in 25 countries in FY22. We had an account recently where we had a very challenging situation, and the standard market came back in for no additional premium on a couple of hundred-million-dollar contract and gave a 244, which saved us a tremendous amount on the umbrella, he said. The asylum system will have to be expanded to include a new category for people fleeing the effects of climate change, the Integration Minister has said. Check out our Sustainability and Climate Change Hub where you will find the latest news, features, opinions and analysis on this topic from across the various Irish Examiner topic desks and their team of specialist writers and columnists. Roderic OGorman also believes the visa system should be widened to allow more economic migrants into this country in the coming years to fill positions where there are currently skills shortages. A total of 13,319 people applied for asylum in Ireland last year, according to data released by the Department of Justice, the highest figure since records began. This did not include almost 70,000 Ukrainian refugees who have been granted protection in Ireland in the last year. Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Roderic OGorman, told the 'Irish Examiner' asylum systems worldwide must provide for climate refugees. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins Mr OGorman warned that he does not see this as a temporary spike and Ireland will have to prepare to cater for increased numbers of people arriving here each year. In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr OGorman said people forced to leave their homes because of climate change will have to be included in the asylum process in future. The climate crisis is creating an uncertain future for people in many parts of the world, with increasing drought, soaring temperatures, and rising sea levels impacting communities. This year, Fiji, which is made up of more than 300 Pacific islands, drafted a plan to relocate 42 villages in the next five to 10 years to higher locations away from the shore. Mr OGorman said: I think all of Europe is going to have to expect more migration, more inward migration. Parts of Europe have experienced very significant amounts in the last decade. By and large Ireland has been receiving relatively small amounts and I think its likely that thats going to change. He said there is now a real humanitarian element to climate change, and this is something governments will have to grapple with as the issue becomes more pronounced in the years to come. In this context, Mr OGorman said a defined group within the asylum process will have to be established to take in those fleeing their homes due for climate reasons. He said it would have to be done at an international basis. I think thats something I would like to see but I think thats something that would have to be done at an international basis, the Green Party TD said. "It is very real that habitable land is being rendered uninhabitable and that is going to have impacts across the world for the European Union and for Ireland. Thats something international law is going to have to grapple with because they are not economic migrants in the in the traditional sense some of them are fleeing a place that no longer exists, or at least may no longer be habitable for humans. He said that, in the medium term, the Government will have to examine other ways to allow economic migrants to enter this country legally. I think we know there are very significant demands in certain parts of the economy, certain parts of the labour market, he said. There are shortages, and we will need people to come and work and take up those positions. I think we will certainly have to look at expanding work visas. In a shocking image from 2021, a local man tries to fight forest fires approaching his village on Evia, Greece's second-largest island. Picture: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Were going to have to build a migration system that recognises that, build a system that does provide legal pathways for those who want to come here for economic reasons." Mr OGorman added that applications from those fleeing war and persecution will have to be processed in a timely manner. We dont want to go back to a situation we had 10 years ago where people were waiting five, six, seven years which of course was entirely unacceptable. However, he added that deportations will have to be a factor in any system as international protection is for a particular purpose. It is there for people who are fleeing war or fleeing conflict, fleeing torture or political persecution in their own country, and it has to be kept for those people who need it. Burma Myanmar Junta Arrests PDF Fighters Amidst Inle Lake Clashes Photos of the PDF members and supporters arrested and killed by junta forces near Inle Lake. / Cincds Myanmars military regime arrested four members of a Peoples Defence Force (PDF) and four of their alleged supporters near Inle Lake in late December and early January. Inle Lake, in eastern Myanmars Shan State, is one of the countrys most popular tourist destinations and, up to now, has been spared the fighting that has engulfed much of Myanmar since the 2021 coup. In a statement released on Saturday, the junta said that its forces arrested U Zawana a.k.a Soe Than Win, the abbot of Inn Tain Nyaung monastery in Inn Tain Village, Nyaung Shwe Township, where Inle Lake is located, on December 27, accusing the monk of supporting resistance groups. Two members of Inle PDF Zaw Zaw Aung and Aik Yon were arrested in nearby Heho on December 29, along with PDF supporter Than Zaw Htay, Two other PDF supporters, Daw Tin Tin Nyo and Min Min Oo, were detained in the Shan State capital Taunggyi on December 31. Another two PDF members, Zaw Myo Aung and Zwe Nyi Tun, were arrested near Kan Village in Nyaung Shwe Township on January 4, according to the junta statement. The regime claimed also to have killed four Inle PDF fighters, including Ko Phoe Khwar, also known as Inn Phoe Kywar, on January 3. The spokesperson for the Inle PDF told The Irrawaddy that they could only verify the detention of three of the people named in the junta statement. They [the regime] arrested innocent people saying that they are PDF supporters, and they should be released immediately, said Inn Sar Kuu, the Inle PDF spokesperson. On January 3, clashes broke out between Inle PDF and Myanmar military troops, along with junta-allied Pyu Saw Htee militia and Pa-O National Organization fighters, near Than Htaung Village in Nyaung Shwe. Inle PDF said that their commander, 30-year-old Ko Phoe Khwar, another officer and a fighter were killed in the clashes, which started with junta forces ambushing an Inle PDF column. At least 12 regime forces were killed and many others injured in the fighting, said Inle PDF. The battle was the first clash near Inle Lake since the coup. Inle PDF officially joined the resistance forces of the National Unity Government in December 2022, as infantry battalion 1,009. Burma Political Inmate Killed as Myanmar Junta Forces Open Fire on Protest A photo released by the junta claiming to show destruction caused by the protest at Pathein Prison. One political prisoner was killed and around 70 were injured, nine severely, when junta security forces opened fire on a protest by inmates at Pathein Prison in Ayeyarwady Region on Friday. The slain victim was identified as Ko Wai Yan Phyo, 35, a resident of Chaungtha Beach in Pathein. He was detained in Pantanaw Township in June last year and charged with terrorism. He was hit by three bullets to the head and died immediately, a source in Pathein Prison said. Nine other inmates remain on the critical list at Pathein Hospital heavily guarded by junta security forces, he added. The protest broke out when one political prisoner, identified as Ko Mei Gyi, failed to return after being taken away and tortured by prison officers. The prison governor and staff took away eight political prisoners on the evening of Jan. 5, alleging that they had found a phone belonging to Ko Mei Gyi, the source said. They were badly beaten and interrogated the whole night. Seven were sent back to their cells the following morning, but not Ko Mei Gyi. When inmates demanded to see Ko Mei Gyi, authorities launched a crackdown. A unit of about 30 junta policemen arrived at the prison and opened fire on the protesters on Friday. Citing prison sources, former political prisoner U Tun Kyi said the phones discovery was just an excuse to target eight political prisoners, including Ko Mei Gyi, who had been protesting the construction of a prison gallows to hang a striking teacher on death row. It is as if prisons have a license to slaughter political prisoners and it is not a crime to kill them, he said. Authorities at different levels help cover up crimes against political prisoners. Perpetrators in this Pathein Prison case must be held accountable. Following the crackdown, more than 60 political prisoners were forced to sit in the sun for hours before being beaten by prison guards and convicted criminals on Friday. Prison authorities have also banned deliveries of food and packages to Pathein inmates. Those who went to deliver food to detained relatives [on Friday] said they heard the noise of beatings from outside the prison, a source told The Irrawaddy on Saturday. I was told that the [prisoners] heads were shaved today and they were also forced to stay under the sun the whole day. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights watchdog that monitors junta arrests and killings, said Pathein prison is managed by four regime officials, namely prison governor Nay Min Htet, Pathein city police surveillance chief Myint Aung, and police officer Kyaw Oo. Those who ordered these crimes at Pathein Prison, and the prison officers who carried them out, are responsible and must be held to account, said the AAPP statement, which condemned the use of extrajudicial murder and torture in the crackdown. A regime statement said the incident began after guards confiscated a keypad phone from a prisoner on Thursday night and took disciplinary action. About 70 prisoners escaped from their cells on Friday morning and attempted to attack prison staff while damaging property, it added. Police arrived at the prison at 9.45 am and used sticks and shields while also firing warning shots to stop the riot, the statement said. It claimed that one prisoner had died and 63 others were injured during fighting among themselves. Two policemen and nine prison staff were also reportedly injured during the incident. Local sources dismissed the junta statement as a lie. They said they heard four gunshots followed by a burst of gunfire in the prison. I doubt inmates would employ violence given they have nothing to use as weapons. [Political] prisoners would only make verbal demands and stage hunger protests, said a local resident. Burma Pro-Junta Militias Forcing Myanmar Voters to Attend Election Propaganda Sessions A pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia group training in Kantbalu, Sagaing Region. Pro-regime militias are forcing voters in Sagaing and Mandalay regions to attend election campaign meetings where junta administrators are canvassing for the militarys proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), local sources say. Pyu Saw Htee militias have reportedly been forcing households in Shwebo and Kantbalu districts, Sagaing, and Mandalays Myingyan district to attend meetings on the so-called election that the junta plans to hold in August. One person per household is required to attend the meetings, where junta officials are canvassing for the USDP. Such meetings took place in villages in four Myingyan townships last month. According to the district anti-coup committee, residents in Myingyans No. 18 Ward were told in the last week of December they would be supplied with rice and oil if they voted in the election. A resident who attended the meeting in Taungtha said regime officials used racial and religious hate speech to get their message across. They mainly talked about the current situation of the military, that power would be transferred after the election, and that Peoples Defense Forces are committing terrorist acts while it is the Tatmadaw [Myanmar military] that has always saved the country from trouble. They also said that people needed to take part in the election, the resident added. Also urging voters to support pro-military parties is influential monk U Wasawa from the ultranationalist Association for Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha. U Wasawa has been forming Pyu Saw Htee militias in Sagaing since November 2021, with recruitment focused in Kantbalu Township where many male villagers have been conscripted. One Kantbalu resident said: The monk has been talking recently about how Buddhism had declined under the National League for Democracy government, and asking villagers to vote for parties that can protect Buddhism and the Bamar race in the upcoming election. He also called for the killing of PDF members and worship of the military. The worst part is that [he] threatens to torch villages if residents refuse to attend his meetings. The regime-backed Pyu Saw Htee militias are recruiting ex-military personnel, USDP members and junta supporters to help the military in its campaign against resistance forces across the country. Armed Pyu Saw Htee members carry out killings, atrocities, and arson attacks along with junta forces in resistance strongholds. Pyu Saw Htee militias led by U Wasawa coerced residents of Karboe Village in Kantbalu District into attending a meeting at the village school on December 25. Some 700 residents from 900 households joined the meeting after militias warned they would be fined if they failed to attend. Officials at the meeting portrayed PDFs as terrorists while also soliciting votes, said one resident, adding that Pyu Saw Htee militias are growing stronger in Kantbalu and subjecting civilians to daily human rights abuses. In Myingyan district, a group led by former Air Force colonel Nyan Tun Aung of the USDP has ordered households in villages and wards to attend meetings and bring their household registration certificates, warning that the houses of those who refuse will be torched. Nyan Tun Aung is a senior member of the USDP who was defeated in the 2020 general election in Mandalay Region. USDP chairman Khin Yi also led campaigning in Sagaing Region in December. A PDF fighter in Kantbalu Township said: Military tensions remain high in the township, so it is likely that the voting will take place in Kantbalu town and [other] Pyu Saw Htee strongholds. Their election is unlawful and we will oppose the sham poll. Groups of junta-appointed administrators and teachers who didnt join the Civil Disobedience Movement have been ringing doorbells in urban wards of Mandalay since late December to count voters. They also routinely summon voters to the meetings, an activist from Natoegyi Township said. Uneducated people will be swayed. But many people are aware of the objective conditions of the country, so what they are doing now will not succeed, the activist said. The military seized power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government after the NLD won the 2020 general election by a landslide. In his Jan. 4 Independence Day address, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said power would be transferred to the party that wins the vote. The parallel National Unity Government, the NLD, and other revolutionary forces have called the election a sham aimed at cementing military rule, an assessment echoed by democratic countries across the world. The regime plans to replace the current first-past-the-post system with proportional representation at the election. With the military constitutionally guaranteed 25 percent of seats in Parliament, the USDP and other pro-military parties only need 26 percent of total votes to form the government and claim legitimacy. Burma With Eye on Poll, Myanmar Military-Allied USDP Meets Charities, Social Groups USDP chair U Khin Yi during a meeting with pro-junta social organizations and charities in Yangon. The Myanmar military regime-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has met with some pro-junta social organizations and charities in Yangon ahead of a so-called election the junta plans to hold in August. Since he was installed as the chair of the military-backed party in October last year, Khin Yi, a former brigadier general and a henchman of successive juntas, has been doing his job, making moves to solidify the USDPs position ahead of the planned poll. Khin Yi met 235 representatives of 29 Yangon-based organizations on Saturday at the USDP office in Yangon. According to his Facebook, among the organizations present at the three-hour meeting were social organizations and charities as well as teachers from so-called Sunday Schools where children are taught about the basics of Buddhism, and supposed philanthropists from the film industry. Details about the names and nature of the attending organizations are unknown. Sunday Schools however are known to have ties with the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, a nationalist group better known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha. Meanwhile, a handful of pro-military artists have been cast in the juntas propaganda films. The meeting, reportedly held under the aegis of the Yangon-based Three Season Foundation, was the first between Khin Yi and such organizations since he became the USDP chief. According to his Facebook page, Khin Yi reportedly elaborated on the partys nationalist policies, repeated the militarys narrative on post-coup conflicts, and explained how attendees should cooperate for the sake of the Bamar race and Buddhism. He also offered to help solve the difficulties facing the organizations, in a visible attempt to solicit votes from them. The meeting took place just two days after he held an informal meeting with 37 pro-military parties in Naypyitaw. Also present at that meeting was former Lieutenant General Myo Thein Zaw, who retired from the Myanmar military in October last year and became Khin Yis deputy; and former electricity minister in Thein Seins quasi-civilian government Khin Maung Soe. As the head of the Yangon USDP chapter, Khin Maung Soe helped organize pro-military rallies targeting the then Union Election Commission before and after the 2021 coup. Khin Yi and Khin Maung Soe also visited former Ma Ba Tha chairman U Tilawka Bhivamsa on Dec. 26 and sought his advice. Khin Yi is not alone in helping Min Aung Hlaing claim legitimacy on the international stage. His former colleagues and ministers of previous regimes are also backing him. With 25 percent of seats constitutionally reserved for the Myanmar military in the national legislature, Khin Yi simply needs to make sure the USDP and allied parties get 26 percent of the vote to put Min Aung Hlaing on the presidential throne. With the regime switching to a proportional representation electoral system in the coming poll, it appears that Min Aung Hlaings presidential ambitions are on the way to becoming a reality. War Against the Junta Women Resistance Fighters Blow Themselves up to Avoid Arrest by Myanmar Junta A selfie taken by Daw Su Su Yee shortly before the bombing./ KR Team Analysis Around 31% of Ethnic Fighters in Myanmar Actively Supporting Resistance A United Wa State Army commando unit Myanmar has dozens of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), the youngest of which were founded more than a decade ago, while some emerged with Myanmars independence in 1948. They have become a tower of strength for resistance forces from central Myanmar who began to take up arms in 2021. EAOs can be roughly divided into four groups since the countrys Spring Revolution in 2021. Those in the first group have publicly joined hands with pro-democracy forces from central Myanmar. Among them are the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Karen National Union (KNU), the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), the Chin National Front (CNF) and the All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF). They welcomed resistance forces from central Myanmar, providing military training and arming them. They publicly cooperate with the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) and its armed wing, the Peoples Defense Forces (PDFs), and carry out joint military operations against the regime while flatly rejecting the regimes ceasefire offer. Their combined strength stands at around 45,000 troops. The regime has been conducting large-scale military operations in Kachin, Karen, Kayah and Chin states, where those groups are based. The second group is the tripartite military alliance known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance consisting of the Arakan Army (AA), the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). They provide military training and weapons to resistance forces of the Spring Revolution, and also engage with the NUG and the PDF. But they dont publicly cooperate with them, and have not yet conducted joint military operations with them. And they engage in limited fighting with the regime. At the time the Spring Revolution broke out in Myanmar in 2021, the Rakhine State-based ethnic revolutionary group the AA was observing a truce with the Myanmar military. After engaging in nearly five months of intense fighting with junta troops in 2022. It entered another ceasefire with the regime in November. The TNLA also avoided fierce clashes with the regime in 2021 and 2022. It mainly fought a rival ethnic armed group, the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), in those years. The armed group recently fought a fierce clash with junta troops when the latter entered its controlled area in Namhsan in northern Shan State, but there was not any intense fighting except for that. There were fierce clashes between the MNDAA and junta troops in 2021, but there have been fewer clashes since last year. There was little fighting between those three EAOs and the regime, partly because the three were consolidating control in their regions, and expanding their armies. The three groups met the regime around the end of 2021, but there was no agreement. Similarly, the latest truce between the AA and the regime is also fragile. The AA also rejected the juntas offer of peace talks in 2022. The regime wants to hold its fire against the three groups temporarily. It has mainly prepared for defense rather than conducting attacks. The regime apparently thinks that fresh fighting could erupt at any time with them. So, it has been forced to fortify its defenses in Rakhine and northern Shan State, where the three groups are based, and dares not deploy its troops from there to other fronts. So, the three groups effectively deny the regime room for maneuver, though they have not carried out many military operations over the past two years. Their combined strength stands at around 45,000 too. The third group consists of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP)/Shan State Army-North, and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA, or Mongla Group). The three groups are currently observing ceasefires with the Myanmar military. Their combined strength is also around 45,000. The last time the UWSA or the NDAA fought the Myanmar military was three decades ago. They have total control over their territories, and are not under the control of the central government. The SSPP has fought a few clashes with the Myanmar military since the coup. But its bitter enemy remains the rival Shan armed group the RCSS, which it has continued to fight over the past two years. The UWSA has backed up the SSPP in fighting the RCSS. Alongside the SSPP troops, UWSA troops are deployed in southern Shan State. The SSSP however handles its own administrative functions. The three groups have attended three rounds of peace talks with Min Aung Hlaing since the junta chief invited EAOs to peace talks in 2022. While the Myanmar military has been pushing EAOs to join the peace process through the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) framework, the three groups have refused to sign it. The UWSA has demanded official statehood in the form of a Wa State. The NDAA has also demanded a self-administered zone, while the SSPP upholds the Shan Principle, also known as the Taunggyi Principle, which refers to basic principles for the Union adopted at a conference in Shan States Taunggyi in 1961. So, it is unlikely that the three groups and the regime will reach any political agreement. However, they wont fight because of that, either. Since April last year, the regime has pressured the SSPP and UWSA to withdraw its troops from mountains in Panglong, Mong Kung and Monghsu townships in southern Shan State. The regime has also put on displays of force to threaten them. However, the regime never names the UWSA when it makes such threats, only targeting the SSPP. The SSPP responds strongly whenever the regime puts pressure on it. The fourth group consists of seven EAOs: the RCSS, the New Mon State Party (NMSP), the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), the Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army-Peace Council (KNU/KNLA-PC), the Arakan Liberation Party (ALP), the Pa-O National Liberation Organization (PNLO), and the Lahu Democratic Union. Only the RCSS and the NMSP have relatively large armies; the others have few troops, and some do not have any. So, the main strength of the fourth group is the RCSS and NMSP, and their combined numbers total around 12,000. All seven groups are NCA signatories, and currently engaged in peace talks with the regime. When the regime invited them to a third round of talks, except the RCSS and the NMSP, the five groups without troops attended the talks after previously deciding to boycott them altogether. So, those five groups will be available for the regime to play with. It is expected that the RCSS and the NMSP will however not allow themselves to be easily subjugated by the regime. Anyway, the fourth group is unlikely to fight the regime in the near future. There are around 150,000 EAO troops, and some 31 percent of themthe first group consisting of the KIA, the KNU, the KNPP, the CNF and the ABSDFare fully cooperating with the Spring Revolution. Another 31 percent, the second group consisting of the AA, the TNLA and the MNDAA, have been only partially involved in the Spring Revolution, but they effectively contain junta troops. Another 31 percent, the third group consisting of the UWSA, the SSPP and the NDAA, are not currently involved in the Spring Revolution. They are not engaged in active fighting with the regime, and it also appears that they are not helping the resistance forces either. The fourth group, which accounts for 7 percent of the total troops, are unlikely to join democracy forces in the Spring Revolution for now. So, only around 31 percent of EAOs are actively fighting the regime in the ongoing Spring Revolution. What the regime wants is to observe separate ceasefires with EAOs and crush democracy forces from central Myanmar. On the other hand, only 7 percent of EAOs have joined hands with the regime. So, the remaining 62 percent of EAOs, or the two other groups, play important roles. Both groups lack political trust in the regime. There is a need to persuade those two groups to join the Spring Revolution. For that to happen, there is a need to recognize ethnic identity, and equality, self-determination and self-administration while strongly opposing the unitary system controlled by the central government. If the 62 percent of EAOs can be persuaded to join the Spring Revolution, the revolution will be 50 percent won. Today Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. Low 61F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible. Tonight Partly cloudy skies. Gusty winds during the evening. Low 61F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible. Tomorrow Some clouds early. Mostly sunny along with windy conditions during the afternoon. High 79F. Winds W at 20 to 30 mph. Higher wind gusts possible. 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. The UK will host a meeting of justice ministers in March to discuss ways to support the International Criminal Court's investigation of alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the government said Saturday. The ICC based in The Hague is currently carrying out an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan is set to take part in the March meeting with ministers from around the world, London said. Khan in December urged the international community to get behind and fund the ICC probe, saying: "We need the tools to do the job. We do not have those tools." The UK government said the meeting "aims to increase the global financial and practical support being offered to the ICC and coordinate efforts to ensure it has all it needs to carry out investigations and prosecute those responsible". Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who will co-host the meeting, said the participants will discuss how to help gather information and share evidence of atrocities as well as how to support victims. "Russian forces should know they cannot act with impunity and we will back Ukraine until justice is served," Raab said. He stressed "the international community must give its strongest backing to the ICC so war criminals can be held to account for the atrocities we're witnessing". The meeting's co-host, Dutch Justice Minister Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius, said the meeting participants would "coordinate with our partners to ensure that support to the ICC and the Ukrainian authorities is offered". European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in December said that the ICC could not try Russia, a non-member state, for the "leadership" crime of aggression without a United Nations Security Council resolution, which Moscow would instantly veto. She instead proposed a UN-backed special court to prosecute the Russian leadership for the "crime of aggression" over its invasion of Ukraine. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said last month that Russia's massive missile attacks on Ukraine targeting civilian infrastructure "constitute war crimes and are barbaric. All those responsible shall be held accountable." Ukrainians and Russians marked Orthodox Christmas on Saturday under the shadow of war, as fighting persisted despite Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's order for his forces to pause attacks. War-scarred cities in eastern Ukraine saw no significant let-up in the fighting, with AFP journalists in the town of Chasiv Yar south of the frontline city of Bakhmut hearing heavy artillery fire throughout much of Saturday morning. The Russian defence ministry insisted its forces were observing the unilateral ceasefire but also said the army had repelled attacks in eastern Ukraine and killed dozens of Ukrainian soldiers on Friday. Ukrainian authorities said only three people were killed on Friday. In Moscow, 70-year-old Putin stood alone at a service at a Kremlin church, the Cathedral of the Annunciation, to mark Orthodox Christmas. In Kyiv, hundreds of worshippers attended a service at the 11th-century Kyiv Pechersk Lavra as Metropolitan Epifaniy, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, led a liturgy in the pro-Western country's most significant Orthodox monastery. President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his evening address, said he was happy to see so many people attend the service on a day that "has already become historic for Ukraine, for the spiritual independence of our people". On the Orthodox Holy Day, "the world was once again able to see how false any words of any level coming from Moscow are," he added. "They said something about an alleged ceasefire... But the reality is Russian shells that again hit Bakhmut and other Ukrainian positions." Ukraine had previously dismissed the ceasefire -- due to last until the end of Saturday (2100 GMT) -- as a tactic by Russia to gain time to regroup its forces. Putin's order to stop fighting came after Moscow suffered its heaviest casualties in a single attack yet, with Ukrainian strikes killing at least 89 troops in the eastern town of Makiivka. - 'Truly historic event' - Ukrainian worshippers hailed the Kyiv mass. "We've waited for this shrine for a long time," Veronika Martyniuk told AFP outside the church. "This is a truly historic event, which I think every Ukrainian has been waiting for. Especially after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion," said the 19-year-old head of a choir from the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk. Security was tight: Worshippers had their passports checked and entered through metal detectors. In the battered town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, worshippers gathered in the basement shelter of an apartment building instead of their church down the street, wary of possible shelling. The congregation numbered just nine, down from its pre-war total of 100, as many residents have fled to safer territory. In both Russia and Ukraine, Orthodox Christianity is the dominant religion and used to be seen as one of the strongest bonds tying the two nations. The Ukrainian Church was previously under Moscow's jurisdiction but severed ties after Russia launched its invasion last February. Ordinary Ukrainians have also largely turned their backs on the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader Patriarch Kirill has backed the invasion. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was established in 2018 but remains unrecognised by the Moscow Patriarchate. - 'Fake ceasefire' - Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak on Saturday accused Russian troops of firing along the entire contact line despite the announced ceasefire. The general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said Russia launched one missile strike and fired 20 rockets from multiple launchers over the past 24 hours. Two people died and seven were wounded in the eastern region of Donetsk, while in the southern region of Kherson one person was killed seven were injured Friday, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidency. "Peaceful settlements in the region were attacked with artillery, anti-aircraft guns, mortars and tanks," said Yaroslav Yanushevych, the head of the Kherson regional administration. In a message released by the Kremlin, Putin congratulated Orthodox Christians, saying the holiday inspired "good deeds and aspirations". He also praised the Orthodox Church for "supporting our soldiers taking part in a special military operation", using the Kremlin term for the offensive in Ukraine. Meanwhile the British government announced it would host a meeting of justice ministers in March to discuss ways to support the International Criminal Court's investigation of alleged war crimes in Ukraine. In December ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who is set to take part in the March conference, urged the international community to support and fund the inquiry, saying: "We need the tools to do the job. We do not have those tools." Ukrainians and Russians marked Orthodox Christmas on Saturday, as the 36-hour ceasefire ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin ran its course with little sign the fighting had eased. War-scarred cities in eastern Ukraine saw no significant let-up in the combat. AFP journalists in the town of Chasiv Yar south of the frontline city of Bakhmut heard heavy artillery fire throughout much of Saturday morning. The Russian defence ministry insisted its forces were observing the unilateral ceasefire, which ended at 11:00 pm in Kyiv (2100 GMT). But they also said they had repelled attacks in eastern Ukraine and killed dozens of Ukrainian soldiers Friday. Ukrainian authorities said only three people had been killed on Friday. In Moscow, the 70-year-old Putin stood alone at a service at a Kremlin church, the Cathedral of the Annunciation, to mark Orthodox Christmas. In Kyiv, hundreds of worshippers attended a service at the 11th-century Kyiv Pechersk Lavra as Metropolitan Epifaniy, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, led a liturgy in the pro-Western country's most significant Orthodox monastery. President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his evening address, said he was happy to see so many people attend the service on a day that "has already become historic for Ukraine, for the spiritual independence of our people". On the Orthodox Holy Day, "the world was once again able to see how false any words of any level coming from Moscow are," he added. "They said something about an alleged ceasefire... But the reality is Russian shells that again hit Bakhmut and other Ukrainian positions." Ukraine had previously dismissed the ceasefire -- due to last until the end of Saturday (2100 GMT) -- as a tactic by Russia to gain time to regroup its forces. Putin's order to stop fighting came days after Moscow suffered its heaviest casualties in a single attack yet, with Ukrainian strikes killing at least 89 troops in the eastern town of Makiivka. - 'Truly historic event' - Ukrainian worshippers hailed the Kyiv mass. "We've waited for this shrine for a long time," Veronika Martyniuk told AFP outside the church. "This is a truly historic event, which I think every Ukrainian has been waiting for. Especially after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion," said the 19-year-old head of a choir from the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk. Security was tight: Worshippers had their passports checked and entered through metal detectors. In the battered town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, worshippers gathered in the basement shelter of an apartment building instead of their church down the street, wary of possible shelling. The congregation numbered just nine, down from its pre-war total of 100, as many residents have fled to safer territory. In both Russia and Ukraine, Orthodox Christianity is the dominant religion and used to be seen as one of the strongest bonds tying the two nations. The Ukrainian Church was previously under Moscow's jurisdiction but severed ties after Russia launched its invasion last February. Ordinary Ukrainians have also largely turned their backs on the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader Patriarch Kirill has backed the invasion. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was established in 2018 but remains unrecognised by the Moscow Patriarchate. - 'Fake ceasefire' - Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak on Saturday accused Russian troops of firing along the entire contact line despite the announced ceasefire. The general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said Russia launched one missile strike and fired 20 rockets from multiple launchers over the past 24 hours. Two people died and seven were wounded in the eastern region of Donetsk, while in the southern region of Kherson one person was killed seven were injured Friday, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidency. "Peaceful settlements in the region were attacked with artillery, anti-aircraft guns, mortars and tanks," said Yaroslav Yanushevych, the head of the Kherson regional administration. In a message released by the Kremlin, Putin congratulated Orthodox Christians, saying the holiday inspired "good deeds and aspirations". He also praised the Orthodox Church for "supporting our soldiers taking part in a special military operation", using the Kremlin term for the offensive in Ukraine. Meanwhile the British government announced it would host a meeting of justice ministers in March to discuss ways to support the International Criminal Court's investigation of alleged war crimes in Ukraine. In December ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who will attend the March conference, urged the international community to support and fund it. "We need the tools to do the job," he said. "We do not have those tools." Chile's leader Gabriel Boric on Saturday replaced his justice minister following a row over presidential pardons she had advanced. Boric granted 13 pardons at the end of last year on the recommendation of minister Marcela Rios, who was tasked with finalizing the list. They were mainly for people convicted of crimes committed during the social uprising against inequality and rising living costs that started in October 2019 under his predecessor Sebastian Pinera. Pardons for those involved in the protests that left about 30 dead and 400 injured, had been a Boric campaign promise. But his decision was brought into question when it turned out one of the beneficiaries had previous convictions for robbery and theft. Opposition parties said they would seek to bring charges against the minister who advised the president. "Because there were shortcomings in the execution of my decision to grant pardons... I have decided to accept the resignation of Marcela Rios Tobar," Boric announced on Saturday. "When such situations occur in politics, we must assume responsibility." He named lawyer Luis Cordero Vega in her place. Rios's replacement is the third ministerial change in Boric's nine-month-old administration, during which he has also seen a referendum reject a proposed new Constitution -- another of his campaign promises. This is not the first time presidential pardons have caused a public outcry in Chile: Pinera was widely criticized for clearing the records of people convicted of crimes against humanity under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. JUSTICE INFO: Germany has been on the forefront of prosecuting crimes committed in Syria, by the Bashar al-Assad regime and its allies. Two Syrian secret service officers have been convicted of crimes against humanity in Koblenz, and a Syrian doctor stands accused of them in Frankfurt. Who is the defendant in the latest trial, that started last summer in Berlin? PATRICK KROKER: Moafak D. was a leading figure in a pro-Assad militia in Yarmouk, a refugee camp and district of Damascus. He is accused of war crimes for launching a grenade into a crowd that had gathered to collect UN aid packages in March 2014. At the time, Yarmouk was under siege by the Assad regime that considered its population rebellious. From the end of 2013, the mostly Palestinian inhabitants had no electricity, no water, and no food. For greater political reasons, the regime had allowed humanitarian aid deliveries to Yarmouk. But it was playing the well-known game of despots: to allow aid, but then obstruct its distribution. For example in Yarmouk, it was not unusual that snipers shot at people collecting aid packages. But the defendant is said to have had a personal motive for the crime. His nephew was allegedly killed a few days before in a shootout with members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that controlled another part of Yarmouk. The defendant is said to have fired at the starving civilians out of revenge for that. The Koblenz trial took an in-depth look at the structure of the Syrian secret services. Is the court in Berlin doing the same with the regime militias? The militias are extremely important for understanding the Assad regimes crimes. They were employed to oppress the uprising from the very beginning: not only to compensate for the weakness of the Syrian army, but also to add a sectarian component to the conflict. Unfortunately, this issue is not represented sufficiently in this trial. Moafak D. is charged with war crimes, and so the relevant fact is merely that he belonged to a group that participated in the armed conflict. Yarmouk was founded in 1948 as a refugee camp for Palestinians and has since developed into a district of Damascus. The defendant was stateless, and a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) as well as of the Free Palestine Movement (FPM). The victims, too, were Syrian Palestinians. How were they involved in the Syrian civil war? The Palestinian militias had been present in the camp from the time, when a large number of Palestinians were forced to leave their country and resettle to Syria. Some militias supported the regime early on, when Bashar al-Assads father was still in charge. They are hardly connected to Palestine anymore. They were instrumentalized time and again by the Syrian regime. When the uprising started in 2011 in Syria, it was unclear which side the Palestinian population of Syria would be on. Then, in 2012, Yarmouk saw some big anti-Assad demonstrations. After that, pro-regime militias like the PFLP and FPM were further militarised by the Assad regime and employed to control the camp, terrorize its population and enforce the siege. The defendant arrived in Germany in 2018. How did the prosecution take notice of him? Once again, the Syrian civil society played an important role. The defendant was well known in Yarmouk, many even knew his name. He held a prominent position in the militia and was notorious for his cruelty. There are reports about him personally shooting at protesters, and about people being disappeared, tortured, raped and even killed at the checkpoints he commanded. He had a distinctive look: a white beard that he coloured black above and under the lips. And he fired an anti-tank weapon [used to fire the grenade] in broad daylight where anyone could see him. Soon, this event was discussed in Arabic media and on Facebook. In early 2020, former inhabitants of Yarmouk found out that Moafak D. was in Germany, and contacted the Syrian lawyer Anwar al-Bunni. He collected the information and spoke to witnesses. Then he shared his findings with the general prosecutor who started investigating. Lawyer Patrick Kroker, from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Bernd Lauter / AFP What evidence has been presented against Moafak D.? Unlike in a traditional homicide trial, there is no murder weapon, no access to the crime scene and no bodies among the evidence. This is not unusual for an international trial. At the Superior Court of Justice in Berlin, the testimonies of nine eyewitnesses have been most important. They are supported by quite a large amount of imagery, partly from social media, which was recorded before the crime and afterwards in the hospitals. But there is no material from the moments just before and after the crime was committed. The court has to reconstruct whether the weapon seen by the eyewitnesses is corroborated by other witnesses and by the injuries people suffered. Two men who survived the attack and are now joint plaintiffs in the case have had their injuries examined. One of them still had grenade parts in his body that match the assumed weapon. On top of all that, we have heard experts on the political context in Syria. There are no bodies but do we know who was killed? None of the witnesses have been able to name someone they knew personally that died. But they knew names from Facebook or had heard them from others. We have testimonies from people who stood close to where the grenade hit. Some said they saw injuries that nobody could have survived. There are reports from the hospital that many people died. However, there was a shooting after the attack, which could have caused some deaths. But we also have a witness who is sure that he saw deaths in the hospital that were caused by a bigger explosion, by the kind of grenade that the defendant launched that day. I am certain that around twenty people were killed, even if we cannot identify them by name. We will see how many deaths the court will consider proven. Were the victims civilians? Yes, all the victims and bystanders were normal civilians who hardly left their houses, because they knew how dangerous it was. They had to go out, because they were starving. The situation in Yarmouk must have been awful. One person said they ate their cat, because they were so hungry. These people did not participate in any conflict. They were queuing for food out of desperation. Two of them have joined the trial as plaintiffs and are represented by you and your colleague Sebastian Scharmer. What did they go through? The two men, aged 48 and 57, were citizens of Yarmouk and had gone out to collect a food parcel. There is a video that shows my client in the emergency room, undergoing surgery on the aorta on his thigh a life-threatening surgery, and yet he keeps asking were his food parcel is. The other plaintiff had grenade pieces in his body and suffers from massive back issues until today. Both of them are mentally strained. In December, the defendant commented on the events for the first time. His lawyers read out his statement, in which he claims that he had not been to Yarmouk since the end of 2012. What strategy have you observed on the side of the defence? I cannot understand the tactics behind the defendants statement. It seems to me like an act of desperation on his part, maybe even against his lawyers advice. It makes no sense to say, I was not there. I saw pictures that show him in Yarmouk before and after the crime. Apart from this statement, the defence has focused on carving out the discrepancies between witness testimonies. However, these are not unusual they happen, when one person describes the same event twice, and especially, when different people talk about the same event several times. The exact location of the crime has been one of the points where testimonies did not match. These people had never used Google Maps in Yarmouk, not until their asylum hearing in Germany. So, there might have been some discrepancies, but they all agreed that someone fired a grenade in the direction of a sand bank where many people were standing. I consider the differences between the testimonies marginal. Overall, the chain of evidence is very strong. What verdict do you expect? I expect that Moafak D. will be found guilty of the war crimes, murders, and attempted murders of which he is accused. That would be a mandatory life sentence. The plaintiffs have requested to accuse and convict the defendant not only of war crimes, but also of crimes against humanity. Why is that important to them? This request is based on how witnesses described the conditions in Yarmouk at the time. Even the UN special rapporteur for Syria called Yarmouk the lowest circle of hell. The Assad regime waged a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population starting from April 2011 and thereby committed a crime against humanity. The first verdict from Koblenz is now legally binding and confirms this. The trial there focused on the torture of prisoners, but besieging and starving districts like Yarmouk was an important part of this crime. It is a typical method used by the regime to punish parts of the population that it perceived as disloyal. The same happened in Daraa and Zabadani. All the witnesses who appeared in this court started their testimonies by saying: First, I have to tell you how terrible it all was, how we suffered, how these groups terrorized us. The war crimes charge fails to register all that. For the efficiency of the trial, it makes sense to focus on war crimes, because the court does not have to prove the whole context, the so-called chapeau element. But it does not fully reflect the injustice that happened in Yarmouk and the suffering of the victims. New year means a slew of new fresh K-dramas to air. With these, amid a variety of series in store for viewers, several top Korean actresses are returning to the small screen this 2023. From Kim Hee Ae, Jeon Do Yeon, Moon So Ri, and more, viewers will get to see these familiar faces and top stars reigning in various K-dramas this year. Lee Bo Young Other than being Ji Sung's wife, Lee Bo Young is also known for her versatility. Her last K-drama appearance was the thriller mystery drama "Mine" along with the equally talented Kim Seo Hyung and Ok Ja Yeon, the 43-year-old actress is back on the small screen after two years. Lee Bo Young will have a bold return as she stars in back-to-back K-dramas. One of which is the drama series "Hyde" directed by Kim Dong Hwi of "Fight for My Way" and "The Tale of Nokdu." Interestingly, the other Lee Bo Young drama is an upcoming series "Agency." She will be joining APINK's NaEun, award-winning veteran Jo Sung Ha, Han Joon Woo, and Jeon Hye Jin as lead stars. In the upcoming life drama series, Lee Bo Young will portray the role of Go Ah In, the first female executive in the advertising agency. Kim Hee Ae Following the major success of "The World of the Married" where Kim Hee Ae plays the lead star along with Han So Hee and Park Hae Joon, Kim Hee Ae returns to K-dramaland with an upcoming series "Queen Maker." Playing the role of girl boss Hwang Do Hee, she is a skilled career woman and a leader of the Strategic Planning Office at Eunsung Group, president Identity (PI) consulting. Kim Hee Ae is joined by top stars Moon So Ri, Kim Tae Hoon, and Ryu Soo Young as the stars who will headline the upcoming drama. "Queen Maker" will be under Netflix and scheduled to premiere in 2023. Moon So Ri As mentioned, Moon So Ri's comeback project after "On the Verge of Insanity" is Netflix's "Queen Maker." She will transform into a labor rights lawyer Oh Seung Sook who is dubbed as the "crazy rhinoceros" by her colleagues and is also a self-proclaimed Korean Lady of Justice. Apart from being a lawyer, she also serves as the president of the Women's Worker Association, and leader of the Worker's Solidarity with Rights foundation, and Korean Women's Human Rights Wave, Jeon Do Yeon The award-winning actress will return as a frustrated athlete named Nam Haeng Sun in the upcoming K-drama "Crash Course in Romance." Jeon Do Yeon will team up with Jung Kyung Ho, who is set to portray Choi Chi Yeol, a known instructor in the private education field and dubbed as "Ilta Instructor" or the most popular instructor. Set to premiere on January 14, "Crash Course in Romance" will be available on tvN and Netflix. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Jeon Do Yeon and Hwang Jung Min's Netflix Movie 'Kill Bok Soon' Confirms Production KDramastars owns this article Written by Geca Wills While waiting for "The Glory" Part 2, the cast participated in an interview along with the director and writer. There, it was revealed that Song Hye Kyo and Lee Do Hyun almost shared a kiss while filming. Cast Shares Anecdotes on Behind-the-Scenes of 'The Glory' Commentary & Reaction' On January 6, Netflix Korea gifted fans and viewers with "The Glory Commentary & Reaction" video on YouTube. In the commentary video, the drama's director Ahn Gil Ho, screenwriter Kim Eun Sook, Song Hye Kyo, Lee Do Hyun, Lim Ji Yeon, and Yum Hye Ran gathered to watch "The Glory" together, and shared behind-the-scenes narratives. In the series, Lee Do Hyun, who will turn as "the executioner who'll wield the knife" for Song Hye Kyo rather than be her knight and shining armor, was complimented as "handsome" by Kim Eun Sook. Did Moon Dong Eun Reject Ju Yeo Jeong? When Song Hye Kyo (played as Moon Dong Eun) burst into laughter at Lee Do Hyun's (played as Ju Yeo Jeong) confession, the male star exhibited a sad reaction, saying, "Song Hye Kyo sunbaemin scoffed at me." In response, Song Hye Kyo said, "No, that was a real laugh, she was really happy," (they were talking about a specific scene in the drama). As the conversation continued, the production team asked if Ju Yeo Jeong was rejected by Moon Dong Eun. Lee Do Hyun immediately replies that Dong Eun didn't reject him, making everyone in the room laugh. In contrast to what he said, everyone insisted that Dong Eun's response was actually a rejection. Veteran actress Yum Hye Ran then jokingly commented that the male star wasn't quick at picking up on things. Song Hye Kyo & Lee Do Hyun Almost Had Kissing Scene in 'The Glory' Episode 4 Lee Do Hyun expressed that he was worried that he was filming a different drama genre alone. According to him, "When we were filming, I asked Director Ahn, 'We are filming The Glory, right?' Because the scenes shot the day before that, all had beating, bleeding, cursing, and relationship affairs." But to his surprise, the scenes where Song Hye Kyo and he were filmed were very sweet. The "18 Again" actor confessed that he felt like he was filming a romantic drama by himself. In response to what Lee Do Hyun said, screenwriter Kim Eun Sook said that if director Ahn didn't stop them, Song Hye Kyo and Lee Do Hyun would end up having a kiss scene in episode 4 of the drama. She added, "It's a cardinal rule, but thanks to that I think we ended up with the coolest couple." IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Is Jung So Min Pissed? Actress Complains About THIS While Filming Her New Project What can you say about the news? Share your thoughts/replies in the comments! For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity news, keep your tabs open here at KDramastars. KDramastars owns this article. Shai Collins wrote this. Kim Nam Gil, Cha Eun Woo, and Lee Da Hee face new powerful demons and are about to begin another adventurous journey together in "Island" episode 3. 'Island' Episode 3: Van Begins Working With Won Mi Ho Won Mi Ho (Lee Da Hee) starts working at the school and tells Butler Jang (Oh Gwang Rok) that she hires Van (Kim Nam Gil) as her bodyguard. However, Mr. Jang is skeptical about Van but seems to calm down once he sees the demon hunter. On their way to the school, Van asks her about Butler Jang but ignores all questions. When they arrive at Tamra High School, she informs the principal that Van will be around her as a bodyguard. As Mi Ho instructs him on what to do, Van interrupts her and asks her to stop directing orders. She goes straight to class after and loses her temper due to the students' rude attitude towards her. Boo Yeom Ji (Hur Jung Hee) leaves the class and visits her friend Su Ryeon (Chung Su Bin), who is sobbing because she's badly beaten up by her boyfriend. She scolds her for not breaking up with him, but later on, sympathizes with her friend as she discovers how Su Ryeon tried to collect evidence to show proof to the police of his treatment toward her. However, she cannot report him as her boyfriend threatens to kill her once he gets exposed. After knowing her situation, Yeom Ji asks for help from Won Mi Ho to save her friend but fails to get anything from her. The teacher asks her to reach out to the police instead. Butler Jang Suspicious of Van's Presence at Won Mi Ho's Life Meanwhile, Butler Jang visits Geum Baek Joo (Ko Du Shim) and talks about Mi Ho, also known as Wonjeong from years ago. She recognizes him as the young priest from the Ancient Jeju era who had witnessed Van in action as the demon slayer. Mr. Jang claims that he is worried that Van might hurt Mi Ho again as he did years ago. Baek Joo asks Butler Jang to trust Van because he was guilty of hurting Mi Ho all those years ago. Mr. Jang is somewhat relieved by what he has heard. Meanwhile, Won Mi Ho continues with her antics, she compensates Van with cash in exchange for working for her. Gives him new clothes and assumes he had fallen for her tactic of luring him with money. While assisting him, Mr. Jang asks Van to protect Mi Ho but the demon slayer is not easily swayed and disappears immediately. Su Ryeon recalls Yeom Ji's story about the Benjulle and tries to visit the place. She offers fruits and summons the spirit, asking for help to punish her boyfriend. She successfully performs the ritual, which shocks Baek Joo and Van who senses something sinister. Yo Han Starts Exciting Journey in With Won Mi Ho and Van Won Mi Ho officially meets Father Yohan. Butler Jang introduces him as his nephew. They have a chaotic conversation and Mi Ho stops him from dressing her informally. The two get drunk when Van appears out of nowhere. Yo Han just watches him and later on asks Mr. Jang about Van and learns more about the demon slayer. Yo Han meets Van and hokes about his age, outfit, and other trivial things. The demon slayer, on the other hand, leaves him with a warning asking him to steer clear of a demon hunter but it just adds excitement to Yo Han's journey. The next morning, Yo Han and Van accompany Mi Ho. In the middle of driving, Van favors her to stop as he senses something bad and goes to the forest to check it. The two go straight to the school when Yeom Ji suddenly appears in front of her car and asks for help. Benjulle Awakens New Demon To Kill Won Mi Ho She tells them Su Ryeon was possessed by Benjulle. Yo Han and Mi Ho visit Su Ryeon's house. Van, on the other hand, notices the mountain structure collapse, and new insects come out of the pit. Yo Han and Mi Ho check on Su Ryeon who was quietly sleeping. Later on, the spirit starts causing her to have a seizure. Yo Han starts the exorcism and asks for help from Mi Ho. But as he continues, the spirit does not leave the girl's body. Both are shocked as the insects start to appear under Su Ryeon's bed. Yo Han and Mi Ho are no longer in the room but in the forest, while Van meets a familiar face in the woods. For more K-Drama, K-Movie, and celebrity updates, keep your tabs open here at KDramastars. KDramastars owns this article. Shai Collins wrote this. Toronto Police Superintendent Steve Watts of the Organized Crime Enforcement unit, listens during a press conference announcing new gun control laws, in Toronto on August 5, 2022. The Toronto Police Services Board is set to meet today to decide whether to approve a nearly $50-million funding increase for the city's police force, which would see the addition of 200 officers. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston Manzhouli-Zabaikalsk port reopens on Sunday, first time since April 2020 (Global Times) 11:14, January 09, 2023 Customs officers at Manzhouli port inspect the first batch of people entering the country after the passenger customs clearance restored at the Manzhouli highway port. Photo: In courtesy of Manzhouli port. A passenger vehicle containing 16 passengers slowly rode into the Manzhouli-Zabaikalsk land border port on Sunday morning, marking resumption of passenger customs clearance at the largest land port between China and Russia, the Manzhouli port informed the Global Times. The port located in Manzhouli, a major China-Russia trade hub in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has been closed since April 2020 following a wave of COVID-19 outbreaks. As China moved to optimize its coronavirus management measures by reopening borders, the Manzhouli port also resumed passenger clearance. At 8:00 am on Sunday, the two-way international passenger shuttle bus between China and Russia that carried 16 inbound and 6 outbound passengers successfully passed customs clearance at the port. A statement sent by Manzhouli port to the Global Times cited a passenger surnamed Zhang as saying that he couldn't help feeling excited upon thought of having a reunion with his family ahead of the Spring Festival. "The Manzhouli port finally opened. I was so excited that I could not sleep last night." he said. Customs officers at Manzhouli port inspect the first batch of people entering the country after the passenger customs clearance restored at the Manzhouli highway port. Photo: In courtesy of Manzhouli port. Wang Tielin, deputy head at the Manzhouli border inspection station, said that the port will implement services and measures such as entry and exit customs clearance guide and green channel for urgent passengers, so as to promote and guarantee the exchange of Chinese and foreign personnel as the Spring Festival approached. At the same time, they will further tighten port inspection and control to ensure that the entry-exit management is stable and orderly, and the port is running safely, Wang said. Being an important channel that links China with Russia and European companies, the Manzhouli port's resumption of business will play an important role in improving business environment and facilitating international trade exchange. China-Russia trade surged by 32 percent on a yearly basis in the first 11 months last year in US dollar terms. Similar to Manzhouli port, other land ports in China are reopening after the country's new measures on coronavirus prevention kick in. On Sunday, Hekou, a major land port in southwest China's Yunnan Province that links China and Vietnam reopened, resulting in flocks of Chinese tourists traveling to Vietnam. The mainland also reopened the border with Hong Kong on Sunday for the first time in three years. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) 11 Shares Share Hes batshit crazy, fellow physician Karen eagerly confides while describing another colleague, Kevin, in a private office conversation. I laugh, assuming intended hyperbole. No. Really. He is, Karen says. Hes been hospitalized several times. And his kids are crazy, too. Theyre all crazy. I jolted into an instant somber, Oh, Im so sorry to hear that. Karen looks disappointed. Her intended collusion collides with my concern. We stare at each other momentarily and uncomfortably until she awkwardly pivots to another topic. But I cannot concentrate. My thoughts linger on our colleague Kevin. Hes not just crazy, but batshit crazy. I wonder what, exactly, is the difference between the two? When is crazy qualified as batshit, and where should apeshit fall on that continuum? In subsequent days I find myself returning to the conversation like an itch that no scratch can soothe. It irritates me. It unsettles me. It gnaws at me. I hurl disappointment in Karen into the universe, and it boomerangs as fear. Fear that I, too, will be judged like Kevin for anything for everything. Karen and I have known each other for almost 20 years beginning in the roles of senior resident and intern and I am startled at the thought that I do not honestly know her. Now, she seems indistinguishable from many of our professional peers who dismiss patients with behavioral health struggles. No doubt we have all heard, and maybe even initiated, the glib check-out that includes the catch-all disclaimer, the patient is crazy or likely supra-tentorial etiology. Why do health care providers feel the need to assert this disclaimer? Perhaps as absolution for our inability to understand, diagnose, treat or heal challenging cases. Its them, not us. Carl Jung would disagree and insist it is us, that our professional annoyance is a projection of our own insecurities and foibles. Altogether absent from the dismissive descriptor crazy is the recognition that observed behavior rarely arises in a vacuum. There is almost always a back story that contextualizes the conduct. If we providers take a moment or two longer in a clinical encounter to even just begin to try to understand, the seemingly bizarre and our accompanying unease may cease to be so. I can cite multiple examples of crazy in my professional work: The verbally abusive patient hurling offensive epithets at the medical staff The disruptive physician defying administrative directives The pediatric patients hostile mother conveying her disappointment Beyond the travesty of judgment providers harbor lies the missed opportunity for compassion. What if we providers were so grounded, so meta-cognitively aware, that we could look past the superficial behavioral antics and step into our patients and colleagues worlds for even just a moment? That verbally abusive patient? He feels hopeless because he is chronically unemployed, his marriage is failing, and his daughter born after several miscarriages has multiple medical problems. The disruptive physician? His professional calling clashes with contemporary medicines metric-driven morass, and hes just been prescribed antidepressants for which he is deeply ashamed. The pediatric patients hostile mother? She lashes out at the medical team because it is far easier than confronting her absentee husband, who works long hours and frequently travels for a high-stress, high-visibility job. Certainly, understanding does not solve problems. But, it lessens the divide between us and others. It gets us a step closer to helping and healing, which is a main tenet of our profession, no matter our motivation for entering it. So, what can providers do to try to understand their patients behaviors? Suspend, or at least conceal, judgment Make eye contact while listening uninterrupted with occasional nonverbal support Imagine how it might feel to experience the hardship being described Stop the behind-the-scenes derision of these patients These seemingly simple tools nudge us to pause in the hustle and bustle of overscheduled work days and be present even if just momentarily for our patients and colleagues. There is infinite healing for both sides in the pause. I use this same approach when I have conversations with my colleague, Kevin. His supposed batshit craziness? It doesnt phase me. If anything, I am more focused on conversations with him. I try to understand and ease his path in any little way I can as he works through his lifes issues. As for my colleague Karen? Im rooting for her. I know she can evolve. The Karens of our profession set our collective orientation towards behavioral health struggles. They are us. This is us. De-escalate their discomfort, and we will successfully destigmatize much-needed mental health care for others and ourselves. Kasi Chu is a preventive medicine physician. 32 Shares Share I love joggers. If I had to pick a piece of clothing to wear every day for the rest of my life, it would be joggers. I wear them constantly outside the hospital, that is. These days, this choice makes me an anomaly. Like the ubiquitous clogs in the OR, jogger-style scrubs have taken over hospital floors, replacing classic ill-fitting, hospital-issued scrub sets. This is especially true among young women. Noticing this shift in attire has led me to reflect on the utility of scrubs and on the role uniforms play in shaping our professional identities. For me, the rising popularity of trendy, high-end scrub substitutes reveals insidious cultural problems in medicine. As medical students, in addition to learning how to take a robust patient history or appropriately time bathroom breaks in the OR, we are also absorbing hospital culture. More than anything, medical students seek to fit in, to finally become a part of the team we have spent years trying to join. Therefore, we attend closely to hospital norms, or oft-referenced hidden curriculum, as we benefit when we mirror the behaviors of those around us. Being comfortable at work matters, especially in health care, where long hours and demanding work conditions are common. Jogger-style scrubs fill a need. Historically, health care professionals have had few options for scrub wear. Because hospital-issued scrubs were designed as unisex, they tended to fit male bodies well and female bodies poorly. New scrub companies have tailored scrubs to accommodate different body shapes; additionally, they improved designs by adding functional pockets and using wrinkle-resistant and stain-repellent fabrics. Perhaps, by fitting all body types, they promote workplace inclusivity, allowing people to present themselves in a way that both flatters and offers full coverage. Perhaps having a choice in work wear provides opportunities to express identities more fully. However, perhaps tight-fitting jogger scrubs have become another way gender is performed in the workplace. Perhaps jogger scrubs promote inequity. With their stylish, form-fitting appearance, jogger scrubs reinforce certain culturally-accepted norms of femininity. When dressing at 5 a.m., I am usually thinking about little other than getting to rounds alive and caffeinated. At times, though, the choice feels weightier than the fabric. Am I choosing to feel comfortable and stylish? Am I choosing what makes me feel seen as an equal? Why is this even a choice I need to make? Although just a few months into clinical rotations, I have been mistaken for a nurse, despite wearing hospital-issued scrubs and a prominently-displayed medical student badge. One would be hard-pressed to find a woman physician who hasnt experienced similar confusion. Ive also been told by my trusted mentors to wear my glasses at the hospital. You want to look smart, dont you? Clearly, scrubs alone are not the sole factor influencing gender dynamics in health care. Yet, at the risk of being trite, I dont think my male colleagues worry about how their clothing, eyewear, or physical appearance will influence how they are perceived in the hospital. Professional attire is not the only lever in the power-hierarchy control room, but it is one that feels influential, perhaps because we interface with it every day and are able to exercise some degree of personal agency over it. Hospital-issued scrubs serve as uniforms that flatten power dynamics. Scrub vending machines dispense the same scrubs to a neurosurgery attending and a first-year medical student. By contrast, jogger scrubs are expensive, with a price tag often out of reach for most student doctors, many of whom are (like me) in debt from financing their education. In part because of this cost, they have increasingly become a hospital status symbol, promoting a sleek, aspirational health care-hustle culture actively marketed through social media. In contrast, hospital-issued scrubs have always been the great equalizer: Whether one loved or hated their boxy, amorphous appearance, everyone wore the same thing. We pay the price when we abandon this shared uniform. As a uniform, scrubs embody the medical profession. They clarify and distinguish roles in an often otherwise overwhelming environment. When we don our scrubs, we step into our professional identities. They remind us of the oath we took to respect and uphold the dignity of every person entrusted to our care. Maybe traditional unisex scrubs are anachronistic, symbolizing a time when only white men were welcomed as physicians. Maybe hospitals should offer tailored scrubs that fit more body types and are made of higher-quality fabric that hides sweat stains. But what values are we signaling to our patients, our colleagues, and our communities if we are stepping into joggers? Is this the professionalism we aim to convey? While theres nothing problematic about wanting to look good and be comfortable while working hard, theres nothing casual, comfortable, or athleisure about medicine. Maybe our profession benefits from sharing a uniform that reminds us of this truth. Kenzie Whitcomb and Sarah Becker are medical students. Kilkenny's annual Church Christmas Crib Walk took place on Saturday, December 31 beginning at the Friary Church. This year, the walk joined the community of Santiago De Compostela, which celebrated Holy Crib Day. On this day, pilgrims converge on the ancient crib of Santiago de Compostella to ask for health and happiness for the year ahead as they make their pilgrim way through life. Fr Willie Purcell, who lead the walk said it was great to join with hundreds, maybe thousands of pilgrims who made the pilgrim walk of the cribs of the shrine of Compostela. "This is something we have been doing for years, but this year adds a special dimension to the event," he said. A blessed medal from the ancient shrine in Santiago was given to each walker. "We begin at the Capuchin Friary on Friary Street because about 1223AD, something marvelous happened," said Fr Willie. "St Francis made a living crib, an enactment of the birth of Christ near the town of Greccio on Christmas Day, and so popularized the making of a crib scene in our homes, workplaces, churches, hospitals, schools, and shops at Christmas. And so, out of Greccio was made a new Bethlehem! "Francis stood before the manger overcome with joy, and Mass was celebrated over the crib. After the celebration, Francis insisted that care be taken of the hay and the animals, reminding us to take care of every created thing even after we no longer need it." The annual Crib Walk of the Churches in Kilkenny is a reflective walk on the meaning and traditions of church cribs in Kilkenny. Each church has its own tradition in its Christmas Crib, and its design and structure often reflect not only the community of the present, but the communities of the generations gone before who formed and built the various church cribs. Almost 500 people were waiting for a bed in hospitals across the country on Monday morning, including 28 in Kilkenny, as hospital staff prepare for another week of overcrowding. Figures from the Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation (INMO) trolley watch show that 489 admitted patients were waiting for beds on Monday morning. Almost 400 of those patients were waiting in the emergency department, while 99 were in wards elsewhere in the hospital. The hospitals worst affected include University Hospital Limerick (UHL) with 48 patients waiting, Cork University Hospital with 38 and Letterkenny University Hospital with 37 patients. "It is soul destroying. We didn't sign up to go into crisis management. We want to be there for our patients." Sarah, an Emergency Department nurse describes how we are losing experienced nurses because of the conditions they have to work in. pic.twitter.com/r5L2nlW8UE Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (@INMO_IRL) January 8, 2023 More consultants and senior decision-makers were deployed in hospitals over the weekend to ensure a more consistent flow of discharges across Saturday and Sunday. More than 400 patients were discharged on Saturday, compared with 278 the previous Saturday, figures show. However, some 537 patients who were well enough to leave hospital were delayed. Last week, Ireland recorded its highest ever number of patients waiting for a hospital bed on a single day at 931. The number has decreased in the days since as the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE) moved to address the overcrowding issues. Senior staff were asked to attend work over the weekend to try to address patient safety concerns. The chief clinical officer of the HSE Dr Colm Henry said there has been some relief in the number of people waiting on a hospital bed since last Tuesday. He said however, that the current figure remains too high. It is clear that from the extraordinary efforts of our staff, who heeded our call to address the patients safety issue clearly associated with long stays in our emergency departments, turning up this weekend and working really hard after a difficult Christmas to try to clear those logjams in the hospitals and ensure a better flow of patients into and out of hospital, he told RTEs Morning Ireland programme. There was a whole of system response and we had more senior decision-makers in than we normally do. We brought in senior decision-makers but also the support network around them to ensure that when they make decisions in identifying the right patients who could go home, that the right diagnostics were there, the right managers were there and the right community services were there. We asked for extra effort from staff who are already exhausted so we could address clear issues for patient safety. These extra efforts from staff were not in response to criticism, they were in response to address the patient safety concerns for patients who had presented to emergency departments. He said that the HSE is working with the Private Hospitals Association (PHA) to secure additional beds. Of the 188 private beds secured by the HSE, 148 patients are already in those beds. Asked how many more beds are needed from private hospitals, Dr Henry said: We are seeking additional beds in case this surge in viruses, which has not yet peaked, continues to cause impact on our healthcare system. We are looking for as much as we can get. Each individual hospital has been given funding to link with our local private hospitals to maximise the number of beds. On Monday, UHL started a pilot project to help the pressure on its emergency department. The project will see doctors and paramedics at Ennis Hospital assessing patients to establish whether or not they need to go to the Limerick hospital. Housing Minister Darragh OBrien said he was disturbed by protests held outside a centre in a north Dublin suburb where migrants were being housed. Videos emerged on social media over the weekend of a crowd of people outside a building in Ballymun where families were living, chanting get them out. One person was seen holding a sign saying Ireland is full. Lord Mayor of Dublin Caroline Conroy, from Ballymun, said the scenes were embarrassing and upsetting, and she believed the protests had been orchestrated. Its not what were about in Ballymun, she told RTE Radio. She said members of the far-right were stoking anger with leaflet drops, but that community groups and schools had contacted her to express their upset at the protests. Theres a lot of people that arent from Ballymun. There are people who are locals there, definitely, but an awful lot are far-right wing protesters. So they are not locals behind the scenes here on this particular protest. On Monday, Mr OBrien said he was concerned by the scenes over the weekend. Im very disturbed by them, frankly, he said. People have a right to protest, but in the appropriate place. They dont have a right to intimidate people either. Weve been a welcoming country, and rightly so. We know from our own history what its like to be people whove had to leave our own shores due to oppression, due to war, due to famine. And the vast majority of people living in Ireland here are people who support the effort to look after our friends from Ukraine and indeed from other countries where people are fleeing persecution. So it concerns me to see that, to be very frank, and I think that if people have a different viewpoint, theyre entitled to it, but theyre not entitled to intimidate people. Similar protests have been held in East Wall in recent months, with local people saying there was not enough consultation before migrants moved into an old ESB building. As of January 2, Ireland is housing more than 51,955 Ukrainian people who have sought accommodation from the state and more than 19,300 asylum seekers a significant increase in the numbers recorded in previous years. About 1,500 Ukrainians and asylum seekers arrived in Ireland over the Christmas period, and despite a government pledge to stop housing people in tented accommodation, 88 people were in tents in Co Clare as of last week. The Government has said that the numbers arriving in Ireland have resulted in the largest humanitarian effort in the states history. This, coupled with the housing crisis, has put severe pressure on the states ability to house those in need of accommodation. As of November, there were 11,542 people recorded as homeless the fifth consecutive month where a new record high has been reached since the Department of Housing began recording the number of people in emergency accommodation. The Irish foreign affairs minister has welcomed progress between the EU and the UK on post-Brexit data sharing. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris met European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic in London on Monday, in ongoing talks between London and Brussels to find a solution to the Northern Ireland Protocol row. They reached agreement in the area of data sharing and EU access to British IT systems amid friction over the implementation of the post-Brexit arrangements, which has seen the DUP insist it will not take part in devolved government at Stormont until its concerns are resolved. Tanaiste Micheal Martin welcomed the progress, adding this provides a new basis for EU-UK discussions. It is important that joint solutions are found, he said, adding that he will be in Brussels on Tuesday for meetings around the protocol and other issues. Mr Martin also spoke with Northern Ireland political leaders on the telephone on Monday. He described good engagement, and said he is focused on getting the Stormont government back up and running. The Stormont parties are due to meet Mr Heaton-Harris later this week around the latest collapse of the institutions. Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle ONeill described a good call with Mr Martin. She tweeted: We share a common commitment on way forward to get negotiated outcome on Protocol and immediate restoration of power-sharing. Good call with Tanaiste @MichealMartinTD We share a common commitment on way forward to get negotiated outcome on Protocol and immediate restoration of power-sharing. My priority is to work with all parties & both Governments to achieve this in days and weeks ahead. Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) January 9, 2023 My priority is to work with all parties & both Governments to achieve this in days and weeks ahead. Meanwhile DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson welcomed what he termed recognition in London, Dublin and Brussels that the protocol is a problem for unionists. It was a mistake for the protocols authors to press ahead with an agreement that has harmed Northern Irelands constitutional and economic place within the United Kingdom, he said. More and more voices now recognise the unanimous view amongst unionist MLAs. We have an opportunity to get an outcome from these negotiations which replaces the protocol by arrangements that restore NIs place in the UK internal market and our constitutional position is respected. I am committed to the restoration of Stormont, but such a restoration can only be durable if it is built on solid foundations which are supported by unionists and nationalists. He described his telephone conversation with Mr Martin earlier as a useful conversation as the Republic of Ireland is an EU member state and fits as part of a wider programme of engagement with influential voices in London and Brussels. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said he discussed with Mr Martin the urgent need to restore the powersharing institutions at Stormont. I had a productive call with the Tanaiste this morning, he said. Our shared priority remains the restoration of the devolved institutions at Stormont. With crises facing the delivery of public services and household finances in every community, it is vital that the Assembly and executive are back up and running as soon as possible. The Supreme Court on Monday sides with a Texas death row inmate who is trying to overturn his conviction based on faulty DNA evidence. Yes, by at least $1 Yes, by $2 or more No Vote View Results Everyone knows how much of a treat horror films are. Even though it's a matter of preference, people usually enjoy this classic genre due to the tension, jump-scares and other aspects which makes horror-binging an experience. When it comes to horror films, these 7 K-pop male idols are popular for loving the genre, and are indeed people you can watch horror with! 7 K-pop Male Idols Who Love Horror Films 1. EXO Kai EXO Kai is notorious for his love of horror movies! Kai was once reached out by a fan and asked him to recommend movies. In an amusing attempt, Kai recommended the horror flick "The Visit" to the fan, which led him to explain that the film is a "healing movie," causing hilarious confusion for everyone. 2. Stray Kids Han Stray Kids Han is also not afraid to express his love for horror films. The idol once mentioned in a V Live that he and fellow member Lee Know watched the horror movie "Epitaph." He also recommended "Paranormal Activity" to fans, in which he indicated to be the first scary movie he has watched. 3. BTS Jungkook Jungkook is not the golden maknae of BTS for nothing. It's a popular notion within ARMYs and BTS members that Jungkook isn't afraid of horror movies, which makes him a perfect buddy in binging horror! 4. TXT Soobin TXT Soobin joins this list, due to his love for horror movies. According to MOAs, the TXT member mentioned on Vlive that he watched "Saw," a horror film which is famous for its gore and vivid sequences. It sure would take grit to watch a movie like that, and Soobin stomached it with no problem! 5. Stray Kids Lee Know Stray Kids Lee Know also accompanies fellow member Han in binging horror movies! The two once mentioned they watched scary movies on multiple occasions. He's definitely a person who can accompany anyone in watching horror. 6. OnlyOneOf Yoojung OnlyOneOf's Yoojung also expressed his love for horror movies. According to fans, he even joins with fellow members to watch! 7. NCT Renjun Lastly, NCT Renjun takes the cake for loving horror! In their program Dream vs. Dream, he shared that he once watched a horror movie with fellow member Ten. Renjun claimed how the movie "Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum" was indeed scary, but Ten screaming in the background made it even scarier for the boys! Do you know any other K-pop male idols who love horror films? Let us know in the comments below! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: THESE 5 K-pop Male Idols Are Notorious For Being 'Spoiler Kings' KpopStarz owns this article Written by Israel Monte SEVENTEEN BooSeokSoon revealed a teaser poster for their 1st single album! Read more to see further details. SEVENTEEN BooSeokSoon Reveals Teaser Poster For 1st Single Album On January 8, SEVENTEEN's sub-unit BooSeokSoon has unveiled a new teaser poster online. The photo consists of an oval running track, which contains the following details. For its title, it contained the caption "Ladies and Gentlemen They Call Us," which is presumed to be their album's name. It also included specific details such as the date of its release, which declares February 6, 2023. The upcoming release will be the sub-unit's first album since their debut release with single "Just Do It" in 2018. SEVENTEEN BooSeokSoon consists of members Hoshi, DK and Seungkwan. BooSeokSoon First Comeback: CARATs Excited For Sub-Unit's Upcoming Release BooSeokSoon's comeback announcement made buzz online, leading CARATs to express their excitement. They explained how long it has been, since their previous release of "Just Do It." CARATs were also thrilled by the fact that the upcoming release will be an album, instead of a digital single. "I really liked 'Just Do It.' Please release another song to help me work out "Seventeen is always appearing in the HOT category nowadays. What's up with their buzz worthiness? They've been promoting for so long. I'm surprised to see their popularity still increasing." "BooSeokSoon is coming back! Finally!" "Wow this isn't a digital single but a single album." Others were amazed by SEVENTEEN's hard work in putting out content, such as albums and solo releases. They also commended SEVENTEEN's excellent music quality, and group stability due to their teamwork. "It amazes me how Seventeen constantly puts out albums/solos for the individual members, groups, and units all year round. Their dedication and hard work are applaudable." "SEVENTEEN members are really impressive for just how consistently they release music and how the quality of their songs rarely disappoints. The fact that they haven't lost a single member since debuting almost 8 years ago, is a testament to their teamwork in my opinion." SEVENTEEN Ventures Out for Their 2022 World Tour 'BE THE SUN' In other news, SEVENTEEN ventured out for their "BE THE SUN" World Tour in 2022. SEVENTEEN made their plans for a tour this year public on May 17. Their previous "Ode To You" tour in 2019 to 2020 was their last tour, and this makes "BE THE SUN" their first major world tour in two years. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: SEVENTEEN Seungkwan Reveals Awkward Interaction With NewJeans- What Happened? SEVENTEEN then took off to North America, where they performed in 12 different cities. Before starting an Asian tour, SEVENTEEN performed shows around six domes in Japan, from November to December 2022. On December 17, the group traveled to Bulacan, Philippines, and on December 28, they performed in Jakarta, Indonesia. Are you excited for BooSeokSoon's comeback? Tell us in the comments below! Read KpopStarz for more K-pop news. Source: (1) (2) KpopStarz owns this article Written by Israel Monte Gazette Editor Casey Gisclair joined The Lafourche Gazette in January 2020 and became our Editor in September 2021. Casey has covered our area as a reporter since 2010, and has a passion for telling the stories of our people in Lafourche Parish. Casey is also the host of Play by Play, a local talk radio show and is The Voice of South Lafourche Athletics. Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], January 9 (ANI): The first meeting of the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) Working Group of G20 under the Finance Track of India's G20 Presidency began with a symposium through an engaging session on the role of digital public infrastructure to augment digital financial services. The State Bank of India, GTX, UIDAI and Nabard, among others, took part in the symposium highlighting India's digital innovations for advancing financial inclusion. Also Read | These Are the 50 Companies to Watch in 2023. Read The Big Take Latest Tweet by Bloomberg. Delegates of G20 visited the stalls in the symposium and discussed digital innovations and steps that showcased innovations of digital inclusion of the masses on Monday. Saurabh Garg, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UIDAI said, "Through this workshop, digital innovations can help financial inclusions which in turn help in productivity gains which is being shown to all the G20 countries during this workshop. We have different organisations which are showing their products, such as Aadhaar, UPI, trade receivables, eSign or Digi Locker." Also Read | Bat Attack, Bite Three Siblings in Mexico Village; Two Die of Rabies. "The objective is to help how India's stack can be effectively utilised by people of different countries. And, it's an exchange of information so that the people of different countries can benefit," the CEO said during a media interaction. On Saturday, the West Bengal government had put a special focus on the beautification of crucial ports in Kolkata, ahead of the G20 event in the state. According to sources, the government had taken steps to make the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port in Kolkata, which happens to be the only major riverine port in India, cleaner, greener, more environment-friendly and commercially more attractive for multipurpose visitors. A beautification drive was undertaken from Man-o-War Jetty to Howrah Bridge. Also, all the Mooring Buoys at the port were painted on the Hooghly riverside. In addition to this, repair and painting works were undertaken at the city's major riverside landmarks by Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata, in consultation with Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). According to G20 India's statement, the working group would discuss ways to improve financial system infrastructure, pursue policies conducive to harnessing emerging technologies, facilitating remittance flows and reducing the cost of remittance transfers, financial literacy and consumer protection, digital financial literacy and bridging the digital divide, among others. During the first month of the Presidency of G20, meetings were held in Udaipur, Mumbai and Bengaluru. There were cultural programmes and excursions held during the meetings in Udaipur, Mumbai and Bengaluru and so it would be an opportunity for Kolkata to showcase its rich culture, cuisine and heritage sights. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Hyderabad, January 9: Congress poll strategist in Telangana Sunil Kanugolu on Monday appeared before the Hyderabad Police in connection with a case booked against him over alleged derogatory remarks on social media platforms against Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his family. Kanugolu appeared before the Cyber Crime Wing of Hyderabad Police after a notice was issued to him under Section 41A of the CrPC and he has been examined today, a senior police official told PTI. "We will call him again, as part of further investigation," the official said. In a related development, a notice was issued to Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) senior vice president Mallu Ravi under section 41A of CrPC asking him to appear before the police on January 12 as part of investigations in the case. Hyderabad Beat Bengaluru in IT Jobs Creation, Says Telangana Information Technology Minister KT Rama Rao. The Telangana High Court on January 3 had rejected Kanugolu's petition seeking to quash the FIR registered against him and also the notice issued under Section 41A of the CrPC. The High Court directed Kanugolu to appear before the police and cooperate with the investigators, though it ordered the police not to take any coercive action against him. The Hyderabad Police had raided the office of Kanugolu here in December 2022 in connection with cases registered over alleged derogatory posts in social media against the Chief Minister, his family members and the ruling BRS government. KCR Insulted the State by Removing 'Telangana' from His Party's Name: Congress' Mahesh Goud. After the raid, three persons working at the office of Kanugolu were taken into custody, but they were later let off even as police named him as an accused in the case. Subsequently, Kanugolu had approached the High Court challenging the FIR against him and also the notice. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, Jan 9 (PTI) Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Monday laid the foundation of a school that will have a total of 160 rooms equipped with modern facilities on land freed from the clutches of the city's land mafia at Sunder Nagri. The Dr BR Ambedkar School of Specialised Excellence will have four storeys and 160 rooms, including 87 magnificent classrooms and four large classrooms. It will have eight laboratories equipped with modern technology and a hall with a capacity of hundreds of children. Also Read | #Beijing: Liang Wannian, Leader of #COVID19 Expert Response Team, Insists Winter Was the Latest Tweet by IANS India. Government officials said the land on which the school will come up was in the land mafia's possession for a very long time. On the occasion, Sisodia, who is also the education minister of Delhi, said, "A new flame of education will be ignited at Sunder Nagri with the laying of the foundation for a new school. Now that the government has got the land freed from the clutches of the land mafia, a magnificent school will be constructed here." Also Read | Bengaluru Shocker: Woman Kills Lover With Husband's Help After He Forces Her to Take Up Sex Work, Dumps Body Near Nice Road. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader also said usually, those in power try to grab government land for themselves. Sisodia said the construction of the school will be completed by December. "Till now, parents used to send their children to Kota for the preparation of JEE, NEET but now, they will have (Chief Minister) Arvind Kejriwal's Dr BR Ambedkar School of Specialised Excellence that will support the dreams of the children living in this area," he said. The deputy chief minister said the school will be like a luxurious five-star building with all state-of-the-art facilities, which will help the students rise high in their careers. (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], January 9 (ANI): All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi has said the BJP will have a clear edge over the Opposition forces in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections if a particular face is pitted against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In the latest episode of 'Podcast with Smita Prakash', the AIMIM chief said the Opposition needs to galvanise in each Lok Sabha constituency to defeat the BJP. Also Read | Kerala Food Poisoning Case: Death of Student Not Due to Food Poisoning; Police Suspect a Plot. Owaisi said, "The Opposition should look to put up a tough fight for all the 540 parliamentary constituencies. If a single opposition face fights against BJP, the latter will benefit. If it's Modi versus (Arvind) Kejriwal or Rahul Gandhi, the PM would be at an advantage." In 2019, the Opposition had formed a grand alliance in a bid to unseat the Modi government. However, the alliance did not succeed in its objective and eventually fell apart. Also Read | Delhi Hit-and-Run Case: Victim Anjalis House Ransacked, Some Articles Stolen by Unidentified Robbers (Watch Video). With the focus now on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the AAP recently claimed the battle for 2024 will be one between Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The AAP claimed that the BJP and PM Modi are shaken by Kejriwal's growing popularity, his model of governance in the national capital and the AAP expanding electoral footprint in the country. A known baiter of the BJP at the Centre, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, too, remodelled his party, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi into the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and got recognised as a national party in a bid to upstage the saffron party in the LS polls. On whether Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee should be pitted against PM Modi, the AIMIM chief said, "Mamata Banerjee (recently) held a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. So one is not certain if she should be the Opposition face against PM Modi." The West Bengal CM had earlier called on the chief ministers of all Opposition-ruled states to come together and put up a united fight against the BJP in 2024. "CM Banerjee passes a resolution in the Parliament against BJP, but then praises PM Modi," said the AIMIM chief. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Joshimath, January 9: With the prevailing situation in Joshimath grim in the wake of the land subsidence incident, the Chamoli District Magistrate Himanshu Khurana said all dangerous buildings in the holy town have been marked with a red 'X' symbol. After the district administration declared these buildings as "unsafe areas which are unfit for living", the residents have been shifted to a safer place. "Under the Disaster Management Act, we have marked some unsafe areas which are unfit for living. These areas include Sindhi Gandhinagar and Manohar Bagh," Chamoli District Magistrate Himanshu Khurana told ANI on Monday. Joshimath Land Subsidence: Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami Calls High-Level Meeting, Team of Experts to Review Situation. Joshimath has been declared a 'sinking zone' in the wake of continuing land subsidence, with several homes and roads developing cracks over the last few days, driving residents outdoors and triggering fear. Joshimath Land Subsidence: PM Narendra Modi Speaks to Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami; Inquires About Rehabilitation of Affected Residents. Located at a height of 6150 feet (1875 m), Joshimath is a gateway to several Himalayan mountain climbing expeditions, trekking trails and popular pilgrim sites like Kedarnath and Badrinath. More than 600 houses in the area have developed cracks in the wake of the landslide and subsidence, officials said. Taking note of the situation, the Centre constituted a team of experts from seven different organisations to study and submit its recommendations after a high-level meeting on Joshimath. The experts from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), National Institute of Disaster Management, Geological Survey of India, IIT Roorkee, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, National Institute of Hydrology and Central Building Research Institute have been tasked with assessing the situation and giving recommendations on preserving the holy town. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, Jan 9 (PTI) Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena has approved a proposal of the Delhi government to provide a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family of a 20-year-old woman who was killed at Kanjhawala after being dragged by a car for more than 12 kilometres on January 1, officials said on Monday. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the victim's family and said his government will appoint the best lawyer to fight her case. He had also promised that the government will bear the cost of treatment of the victim's ailing mother. Also Read | Haryana: 14-Year-Old Boy Dies After Being Hit on Head with Stick by Teenager During Fight in Faridabad. Saxena has approved the proposal sent to him by Kejriwal to give a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the victim's next of kin, the officials at the LG's office said, adding that he has also assured all possible help to the family. The woman was killed in the early hours of January 1, after her scooter was hit by a car and she was dragged for more than 12 kilometres, entangled with the left front side of the vehicle, in outer Delhi's Kanjhawala. Also Read | Karnataka Govt Invites Pennsylvanias Higher Education Institutes in US for Collaboration. All the occupants of the car have been arrested. (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, January 9: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 17th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention in Indore, Madhya Pradesh on Monday, said a press release from the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister released a commemorative postal stamp 'Surakshit Jaayen, Prashikshit Jaayen' and also inaugurated the first-ever digital PBD Exhibition on the theme 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav - Contribution of Diaspora in Indian Freedom Struggle'. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas 2023 Greetings and Images: Share Quotes, Wishes, WhatsApp Messages, HD Wallpapers and SMS To Celebrate NRI Day. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) Convention is the flagship event of the Government of India that provides an important platform to engage and connect with overseas Indians and enable the diaspora to interact with each other. Pravasi Bharatiya Divas or NRI Day 2023 Date and Theme: Know History and Significance of the Day That Marks the Contribution of NRIs in Indias Development. The theme of this PBD Convention is 'Diaspora: Reliable partners for India's progress in Amrit Kaal'. Over 3,500 diaspora members from nearly 70 different countries have registered for the PBD Convention. Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister remarked that the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is taking place in all its glory after a gap of four years and highlighted the significance and joy of personal interaction. Welcoming everyone on the occasion on behalf of 130 crore Indians, the Prime Minister said that the event is taking place on the land of Madhya Pradesh which is known as the heart of India and famous for the holy waters of Narmada, the greenery, the tribal culture and spirituality. The Prime Minister mentioned the recently dedicated Maha Kaal Maha Lok and hoped that dignitaries and delegates will be able to visit the sacred place. Talking about the host city, Indore, the Prime Minister said Indore is a city as well as a phase, "It is a phase that walks ahead of time while preserving its heritage.", He also mentioned the culinary fame of Indore and its achievement in the Swachata movement. The Prime Minister remarked that the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas are special in numerous ways as India completed 75 years of its independence only recently. He also informed that the first-ever digital PBD Exhibition on the theme 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav' has also been organised which brings the glorious era to the fore once again. Highlighting the significant role of Pravasi Bhartiya in the next 25 years of the journey of Amrit Kaal, the Prime Minister stated that India's unique global vision and its role in the global order will be strengthened by them. Mentioning the Indian philosophy of treating the entire world as one's own country and considering humanity as our brothers and sisters, the Prime Minister said that our ancestors laid the foundations of India's cultural expansion. Speaking about the world of today, the Prime Minister highlighted that Indians have traversed all parts of the globe while living among different cultures and traditions and yet found ways to unlock the gates of prosperity through business partnerships. The Prime Minister observed that when we look at crores of Pravasi Bhartiyas on the global map, myriad images emerge simultaneously which paint the picture of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' and the feeling of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat comes to the fore when two Pravasi Bhartiyas meet on any foreign land. " The feeling of pride in being the mother of democracy increases manifold when Pravasis are talked about as the most democratic, peaceful and disciplined citizens in different parts of the world", the Prime Minister remarked. The Prime Minister stated that he calls every Pravasi Bhartiya a national ambassador of India as they echo the voice of a powerful and capable India when the world evaluates their contributions. "You are the Rashtradoots (national ambassadors) of India's heritage, of Make in India, of Yoga and Ayurveda, of India's cottage industries and handicrafts", Modi continued, "At the same time, you are also the brand ambassadors of India's millets." He mentioned that 2023 has been declared the International Year of Millets and appealed to everyone to take some millets products back home. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Guwahati (Assam) [India], January 9 (ANI): With the aim to ramp up capacity in Pandu port in Guwahati, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the foundation stones for of Ship Repair Facility and inaugurate Maritime Skill Centre for Northeast on January 13. Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal on Monday announced major initiatives planned for Assam by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways this year for the development of inland waterways in Guwahati. Also Read | Odisha: Woman Falls While Trying to Board Train in Puri, Dies. Prime Minister will also lay the foundation of an elevated road connecting the MultiModal Terminal at Pandu with National Highway 27 in Guwahati. The facilities are part of major initiatives planned by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways for revamping inland waterways in Assam and the Northeast. According to the Ministry, the Ship Repair facility at the Pandu Terminal will save time and money. The facility will cater for the repair of vessels of IWT, Government of Assam, IWAI, Indian Army and other private operators plying in NW-2 and 16. The dedicated road connecting the Pandu Terminal with the NH27 will enable 24-hour smooth and swift connectivity making a sound business proposition for cargo operators. Also Read | Doordarshan Channels To Air Without Set Top Boxes With Help of Built in Satellite Tuners Soon. The Maritime Skill Centre for Northeast will be instrumental in honing our rich talent pool and acquiring much-valued skill sets by the candidates for better employment opportunities in the bourgeoning logistics industry, added the Ministry statement. Sonowal also announced an investment of Rs 1,016 crore for the development of inland waterways in Assam for the forthcoming years. A comprehensive package to develop Brahmaputra (NW2) has now been enhanced to Rs 474 crore as well as an enhanced package of Rs 148 crore has been earmarked for the development of Barak river (NW 16) recently. The Ministry also approved the development of Dhansiri river (NW 31) and Kopili river (NW 57). Highlighting the success of the rejuvenated waterways as an alternative conduit of logistics under the Modi government, the cargo movement in Indo Bangladesh Protocol Route (IBPR) has increased from 2.00 MT in 2014-15 to 5.43 MT in 2021-22, Sonowal said. Speaking on the occasion, Sonowal said, "Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, our Ministry has taken up major initiatives to power the waterways of the region in order to convert them as the avenues of economic progress, development and growth of the region. Be it the cargo or passenger movement via waterways, we are planning and executing policies to build capacity in the region." Sharing views on the scheduled launch of Ganga Vilas world's largest river cruise from Varanasi to Dibrugarh, Union Minister said, "Ganga Vilas will open up a new vista for tourism in the country. As the cruise will spend more than ten days in Assam, the foreign tourists will be able to explore and experience a new horizon of socio-cultural hue along the river coast." From Dhubri to Dibrugarh and from Mayong to Majuli, this cruise has curated an interesting journey where the natural beauty of Assam will be relished, he said. The Ganga Vilas will stop at Dhubri, Goalpara (Jogighopa), Guwahati (Pandu), Pobitora, Tezpur, Silghat, Nemati Ghat before anchoring at Dibrugarh (Bogibeel) in the state. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Jaipur, January 9: Amid an unprecedented cold wave in Rajasthan, three people, including a child, died due to suffocation from the smoke of a makeshift fireplace in Churu that has been recording sub-zero temperatures. Police said the incident took place in Gaurisar village of Churu. The condition of another three-month-old child and another family member was critical, as per sources. Delhi Winter 2023: National Capital Shivers at 1.9 Degrees Celsius; IMD Issues Red Alert of Severe Cold Wave Till January 9. Rajasthan is reeling under severe cold wave conditions. The minimum temperature was recorded below freezing point last week, the Meteorological department said that has issued an orange alert in the desert state. Heart Attacks Increase in Winter: Avoid Outdoor Morning Walks in Winter Before Sunrise, Suggests Sr Cardiologist. On January 6 night, the minimum temperature was recorded at zero degree Celsius in Churu and 0.6 degree Celsius in Pilani. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Jaipur, Jan 9 (PTI) A Rajasthan Congress MLA's son was arrested on Monday for allegedly raping a minor girl, police said. Deepak alias Dilip Meena, the son of Congress legislator from the Rajgarh assembly constituency Johari Lal Meena, is one of the three accused in the gang-rape of the 15-year-old girl in February 2021, the police said. Also Read | Bengaluru Shocker: Woman Kills Lover With Husband's Help After He Forces Her to Take Up Sex Work, Dumps Body Near Nice Road. The two other accused had been arrested earlier. The MLA's son was arrested on the directions of a special court hearing cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. The court sent him to judicial custody till January 13, Mahua police station SHO Jitendra Solanki said. Also Read | DGCA Issues Show Cause Notice to Air India in Two Cases Passenger Misbehaviour in Paris-Delhi Flight. The gang-rape case was lodged at Mandawar police station in Dausa district in March 2022, he said. In the complaint, it was alleged that the accused took the girl to a hotel on the Mahwa-Mandawar Road and raped her. The accused allegedly made an obscene video and threatened the girl. It was also alleged that one of the accused had extorted Rs 15 lakh in cash and jewellery items from the girl by threatening her to upload the video on social media. The matter came to the light during the probe into a complaint lodged by the girl's family members after cash and jewellery went missing from their house. The family members had initially lodged a complaint of theft in the matter. (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], January 9 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Monday sought the assistance of R Venkataramani, Attorney General for India, in a plea claiming that fraudulent and deceitful religious conversion is rampant across the country. A bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar looking into the seriousness and importance of the matter asked Attorney General to assist the court. Also Read | Himachal Pradesh Has Inherited Debt of Rs 75,000 Crore Due to Financial Mismanagement by Previous BJP Government, Says Ministers Anirudh Singh. The apex court retitled the case as an "issue of religious conversion" after Tamil Nadu said that the issue before the court was "politically motivated" as petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay was a spokesman of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "This is a politically motivated PIL. There is no question of such conversions in Tamil Nadu. Let the legislature decide such things," senior advocate P Wilson appearing for Tamil Nadu told the bench. Also Read | Gurugram Fire: More Then 200 Shanties Gutted After Massive Blaze Erupted in Slum Near Ghasola Village in Sector 49. Taking a serious view of Tamil Nadu describing the matter as "politically motivated", the court said, "Don't tell us it is politically motivated. Once we take up a matter, it is decided on merits. It is not the cause of the matter." Posting the matter for further consideration on February 7, the apex court said the issue is what should be done with the religious conversion by use of force, allurement or something else. The apex court said that it has to consider the issue from a larger perspective. "We are not going to consider allegations or counter-allegations. We are not concerned with one, two or three States but concerned with the entire country. If it is happening in your State, it is bad. If not, good. Do not see it as targeting one State. Do not make it political," the bench said. The court further said that there is no law or provision in Indian Penal Code to deal with forced/wrongful conversion. Earlier, the apex court had asked the Centre to file a detailed affidavit after collecting information from the State governments on anti-conversion laws while saying that the issue of forced or deceitful religious conversion is serious. Every charity or good work is welcome, but the intention has to be checked, the bench has observed. The top court had earlier also remarked that forced religious conversion is a "very serious issue" and may affect "security of the country" along with the freedom of conscience of citizens as far as religion is concerned. It had said, "It is a very dangerous thing. Everyone has freedom of religion. What is this forceful conversion?" The plea claimed that fraudulent and deceitful religious conversion is rampant across the country and that the Central government has failed to control its menace. The plea sought directions to the Law Commission of India to prepare a report and a Bill to control "deceitful religious conversion". The Central government has also filed an affidavit in the apex court stating that freedom of religion does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion. It is "cognizant of the gravity and the seriousness" of the issue, said the Centre adding that such issue of conversion shall be "taken up in all seriousness by the Union of India and appropriate steps shall be taken as the Central government is cognizant of the menace". The Gujarat government also filed an affidavit saying that the right to freedom of religion does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion and that too through fraud, deception, and allurement. (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, January 9: Traffic is likely to be affected in parts of the national capital on Monday owing to a procession to be taken out on the 811th Urs-e-Mubarak of Sufi Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer Sharif. The Delhi Police on Sunday issued an advisory informing commuters about the likely traffic congestions. According to the advisory, traffic restrictions, regulation or diversion may be imposed on Lodhi Road, Safdarjung Road, INA Market, Aurobindo Marg via Hauz Khas IIT upto Qutub Minar Mehrauli where the procession will be taken out during the day. Delhi Traffic Update: Ashram Flyover To Be Shut From January 1 Due to Construction of Connecting Road, Check Details. The route of procession on Monday is Lodi Road, Safdarjung Road, INA, Green Park, Hauz Khas-lIT Gate, Adhcini Village, Dargah Mai Sahiba -- two hours rest on Mai Sahiba Major stop on the day at Dargah Qutubddin Rahmat Tullah, it stated. People are advised to avoid the mentioned roads, stretches and the area where the procession will be taken out, it said. The commuters going to railway stations, ISBT and IGI Airport should leave before sufficient time, the advisory said. Avail public transport to help decongestion on roads. Delhi Traffic Update: Police Issue Advisory, Ask Commuters To Plan Journey in View of Ashram Flyover's Extension to New DND Flyover; Check Details Here. Park your vehicles only at designated parking lots. Avoid roadside parking as it causes hindrance to normal flow traffic. In case any unusual/unidentified object or person is noticed in suspicious circumstances, information should be given to the police, it added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi [India], January 9 (ANI): The Vice President and Rajya Sabha chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar will address the inaugural session of the 83rd All India Presiding Officers' Conference in Jaipur on January 11. The All India Presiding Officers' Conference (AIPOC) is the apex body of the Legislatures in India that completed its hundred years in 2021. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the inaugural session of the 82nd AIPOC in 2021 in Shimla. The first Conference was also held in Shimla in 1921. Also Read | Uttarakhand | CM Pushkar Singh Dhami is Meeting the Officials of the National Disaster Latest Tweet by ANI UP/Uttarakhand. This is the fourth time that the Conference will be organized in the city of Jaipur. The 83rd session will focus on themes of contemporary relevance in its day-long discussions. There will be a discussion on the leadership of India in G-20 as the "mother of democracy". Also Read | Religious Conversion A Serious Issue, Should Not Be Given Political Colour, Says Supreme Court. Further, there will be a discussion on the need to make Parliament and Legislature more effective, accountable and productive. One of the key themes of the Conference includes the integration of State legislatures with Digital Parliament. Further, there will be a discussion on the need to maintain a harmonious relationship between the Legislature and the Judiciary in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution. A book exhibition will also be inaugurated on occasion. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh and presiding officers of legislative bodies from across the states will attend the Conference. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Thane, Jan 8 (PTI) A delegation from Mauritius led by its health minister Dr Kailesh Kumar Singh Jagutpal has praised the health system of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, a civic official said on Sunday. Also Read | Bharat Jodo Yatra Getting More Response in Northern India, Says Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi. Jagutpal and other officials from his nation visited the Navi Mumbai Municipal Public Hospital in Vashi and also saw the e-hospital and AYUSH centre on Saturday as part of their visits to various medical facilities nationwide, he said. Also Read | 7th Pay Commission: Central Government Employees to Get 4% DA Hike Before Republic Day 2023? Check Latest News Updates Here. "Jagutpal praised the health system of Navi Mumbai, which has a population of 15 lakh when compared to Mauritius' 12.7 lakh. He said he would convey his praise of the civic health system here to Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the delegation meets him," the official said. Medical Health Officer of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Dr Pramod Patil and Medical Superintendent of Vashi Public Hospital Prashant Jawade were present during the visit. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Prague, Jan 9 (AP) A Prague court on Monday acquitted former Prime Minister Andrej Babis of fraud charges in a USD 2 million case involving European Union subsidies. A prosecutor requested a three-year suspended sentence and a fine of 10 million Czech koruna (USD 440,000) for the populist billionaire. The prosecution still can appeal. Also Read | Bat Attacks, Bites Three Siblings in Mexico Village; Two Die of Rabies. Babis pleaded not guilty and repeatedly said the charges against him were politically motivated. He wasn't present at Prague's Municipal Court on Monday. His former associate, Jana Nagyova, who signed the subsidy request, was also acquitted. Also Read | Afghanistan: Ban on Women From Working by Taliban Paralyses NGO Work in the Country. Judge Jan Sott said what they did is not a crime". At the same time, Sott dismissed the notion that Babis was persecuted because of his political activities. INNOCENT!" Babis tweeted after the verdict. I'm really glad that we have an independent judiciary and the court confirmed what I kept saying from the beginning. That I am innocent and haven't done anything illegal." I'm glad that the court recognized the arguments of my defence," he said later on Monday. The ruling is a boost for Babis just days before the first round of the Czech presidential election. I'm running to help the people, Babis said. Babis is considered a front-runner in the two-day election starting on Friday, along with retired army Gen. Petr Pavel, former chairman of NATO's military committee, and former university rector Danuse Nerudova. Prime Minister Petr Fiala said it's necessary to accept the verdict of an independent court. What's crucial: The real political battles in democracies take place at elections, and not in court rooms, Fiala tweeted and asked Czechs to go to the ballot box in the forthcoming election. Both Pavel and Nerudova are backed by the current coalition government. The Babis case involved a farm known as the Stork's Nest, which received EU subsidies after its ownership was transferred from the Babis-owned Agrofert conglomerate of around 250 companies to Babis' family members. Later, Agrofert again took ownership of the farm. The subsidies were meant for medium- and small-sized businesses, and Agrofert wouldn't have been eligible for them. Agrofert later returned the subsidy. Lawmakers have had to lift Babis' immunity from prosecution three times over the years in the case, which dates back to 2007. Prague's public prosecution office completed the review of the case in March and went ahead with Babis' indictment. It was repeatedly recommended by police investigators. Babis' centrist ANO movement finished a surprise second in the 2013 parliamentary election with an anti-corruption message to become a junior partner in the government with Babis as finance minister. Four years later, he won the election and became premier. Babis has become a divisive figure in Czech politics. A quarter of a million people took to the streets the biggest such demonstrations since the 1989 anti-Communist Velvet Revolution twice in 2019 to demand that Babis step down over scandals, including the conflict of interest over EU subsidies involving his former business empire. Babis' movement lost the parliamentary election in October. A coalition of five parties formed a new government, and ANO ended up in opposition. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Kathmandu, Jan 9 (PTI) Nepal's first Parliament session after the appointment of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' will begin here on Monday, with the focus on elections of the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. The session will also focus on Prime Minister Prachanda's vote of confidence. Also Read | Brazil: Presidential Palace, Supreme Court and Congress Cleared of Protesters, 170 Arrested After Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro Stormed Govt Offices. The first meeting will be chaired by the senior-most member of the House, Pashupati Shamsher JB Rana, according to The Rising Nepal newspaper. As per the call of President Bidya Devi Bhandari, the meeting of both the Houses will began at 1 pm on Monday, the report said. Also Read | Brazil: Supporters of Former President Jair Bolsonaro Storm Congress in Rio De Janeiro (Watch Videos). Top leaders of the major political parties will address the first meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR), which is scheduled to take place at the Parliament Building here. Last month, Nepal President Bhandari called the first session of the new Parliament on January 9 after the country went to polls on November 20. Prachanda, the 68-year-old CPN-Maoist Centre leader was sworn in as the Prime Minister for the third time on December 26 last year after he dramatically walked out of the pre-poll alliance led by the Nepali Congress and joined hands with opposition leader K P Sharma Oli. He was appointed as the prime minister as per Article 76 clause 2 of the Constitution with the support of 169 HoR members. A prime minister appointed through such provision is required to seek a vote of confidence within 30 days of his or her appointment. After Prachanda's vote of confidence, the process of electing the Speaker and Deputy Speaker will get underway, the report said. According to constitutional provisions, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker should be elected within 15 days of the first parliamentary meeting. Prime Minster Prachanda needs 138 votes for a clear majority in the House. He has the support of seven parties, including Oli's Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) and the newly-formed Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP). (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Islamabad, Jan 9 (PTI) Pakistan's renowned clerics on Monday issued a fatwa (religious decree) denouncing terrorism and terror activities, amid a sharp uptick in attacks by the militants across the country. The clerics belonging to a number of seminaries, including Darul Uloom Peshawar and Jamia Darul Uloom Haqqania, in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province issued the fatwa, terming the taking up of arms against the state's police and military "haraam" (forbidden) in the Sharia (Islamic law), Geo TV reported. Also Read | Senegal Road Accident: 40 Killed, Dozens Injured in Bus Crash in Gniby Region, President Macky Sall Announces Three-Day National Mourning. The fatwa issued by the clerics from the militancy-hit province declares that only the head of the Islamic state has the prerogative to declare "jihad" (holy war). "Not everyone has the right to declare jihad," the fatwa said. Also Read | COVID-19 Vaccines Based on m-RNA Technology Can Increase Serious Adverse Events, Including Sudden Cardiac Deaths: US Researcher. It further said that taking up arms against the police and military personnel is against both the Sharia and the state, and anyone who rebels against the constitution and laws of Pakistan will be punishable by law. The 14-page fatwa has been signed by religious scholars from difference schools of thought, including Maulana Qari Ehsanul Haq, Mufti Subhanallah Jan, Dr Maulana Attaur Rehman, Maulana Hussain Ahmed, Mufti Mukhtarullah Haqqani, Allama Abid Hussain Shakri and Maulana Abdul Kareem, Dawn reported. The development comes as the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) intensified its attacks on security forces, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. The fatwa came two days after the TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud said in a video message that his group is "open to guidance" from Pakistan's religious scholars if they believe the direction of our jihad is wrong. The TTP, which has ideological linkages with the Afghan Taliban, executed around more than 100 attacks last year, most of which happened after August when the group's peace talks with the Pakistan government began to falter. In November last year, the TTP called off an indefinite ceasefire agreed with the government in June 2022 and ordered its militants to carry out attacks on the security forces. The TTP, also known as the Pakistan Taliban, was set up as an umbrella group of several militant outfits in 2007. Its main aim is to impose its strict brand of Islam across Pakistan. The TTP, which is believed to have close links to al-Qaeda, last week threatened to target top leaders of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's PML-N and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari's PPP if the ruling coalition continued to implement strict measures against the militants. PTI (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Taipei [Taiwan], January 9 (ANI): Taipei has slammed Beijing for escalating the situation at the Taiwan Strait after more than 57 Chinese jets crossed the median line on Monday as part of the latest round of military exercises around the self-governed island. "57 PLA aircraft and 4 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected by 6 a.m.(UTC+8) today. R.O.C. Armed Forces have monitored the situation and tasked CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond these activities," Taiwan Defence Ministry tweeted. Also Read | Senegal Road Accident: 40 Killed, Dozens Injured in Bus Crash in Gniby Region, President Macky Sall Announces Three-Day National Mourning. "We seek neither escalation nor conflict! Recently, PLA aircraft and PLAN vessels around Taiwan were commonly detected, and some aircraft had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. #ROCArmedForces will keep monitoring the situation and safeguarding our homeland and people," the ministry added. In a separate statement on its website, Taiwan said China's provocative actions have seriously damaged the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait, a 180-kilometre-wide strait separating the island Taiwan and continental Asia. Also Read | COVID-19 Vaccines Based on m-RNA Technology Can Increase Serious Adverse Events, Including Sudden Cardiac Deaths: US Researcher. "The national military uses the joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance system to fully grasp the situation in the Taiwan Strait and its surrounding areas, adapt to the situation, and has the ability, determination, and confidence to ensure national security," the statement added. China's military activity on Monday came during the second round of military exercises focused on Taiwan since US President Joe Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law on December 23, Taiwan Focus reported. According to the Taiwanese publication, the NDAA authorized USD 10 billion in loans to Taiwan to buy U.S. weapons over the next five years, but those loans did not make it into the Consolidated Appropriations Act passed in late December, which authorizes government spending. Taiwan has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949. Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan - a territory with its own elected government - maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence. Beijing opposes any official contact of foreign states with Taipei and considers Chinese sovereignty over the island indisputable. (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, January 9: Automaker MG Motor India on Monday unveiled a new SUV -- "next-gen Hector" with Autonomous Level 2 technology that offers 11 Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), including Traffic Jam Assist (TJA) and Auto Turn Indicators to deliver complete peace of mind, safety, and comfort. The new SUV, with its all-new striking bold exterior and interiors, evolved safety features, and elegant design elements offer an unprecedented drive and user experience. MG Motor India Logs 53% Rise in Retail Sales at 4,367 Units in October 2022. "This Next-Gen Hector enhances the stance of the MG Hector through looks, interiors, and technology. It comes with the assurance of our MG Shield programme, which offers a hassle-free and smooth ownership experience for our customers who can experience the Next-Gen Hector for themselves at our 300 centres across India," Rajeev Chaba, President and Managing Director, MG Motor India, said in a statement. MG Motor to Invest Rs 2,500 Crore by 2022-End to Ramp Up Halol Plant Capacity. The company said that the new SUV comes in 5, 6, and 7-seater options in dual-tone argil brown and black interiors and offers intelligently designed seating options, plush interiors, and ample space. Moreover, the Next-Gen Hector comes 14-inch HD Portrait infotainment system and a first-in-segment Digital Bluetooth key with a key-sharing function. It also offers intelligent Auto Turn Indicators with i-SMART technology with over 75 connected car features. The Next-Gen Hector also has other key safety features such as 6 airbags, a 360-degree HD camera, Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Traction Control System (TCS), Hill Assist Control (HAC), all four-wheel disc brakes, a 3-point seat belt for all seats, electric parking brake (EPB), and front parking sensors, said the company. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 09, 2023 07:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, January 9: Amid the continuing power tussle between them, Lt Governor V K Saxena on Monday invited Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for a meeting to discuss the provisions governing administration in Delhi. In a letter to Kejriwal, Saxena asked the chief minister to hold regular meetings with him for "conflict-free" governance of the national capital in the interest of its residents. The LG's office and the AAP government in Delhi have often found themselves at loggerheads over various issues, including the now-scrapped excise policy. Kejriwal, in his recent letters to Saxena, questioned the nomination of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (MCD) presiding officer and aldermen as well as members of the Haj committee, saying if LG as "administrator" meant ignoring the elected government in Delhi. In his letter, Saxena said the provisions governing administration in Delhi "... are amply clear for any practitioner of statecraft, lawyer and scholar as indeed a common citizen. I would like to invite you for a meeting where we could discuss issues threadbare". He said the provisions governing administration in Delhi emanate out of serious deliberations in Constituent Assembly, State Reorganisation Commission and Parliament. They have also been clearly interpreted by the Supreme Court on several occasions, he added. Citing various letters sent by the chief minister to him over the past few days, Saxena appreciated Kejriwal for "having started taking governance in the city seriously". The LG said the chief minister used to meet him regularly till October 2022 but later he expressed his inability to do so due to his preoccupation with assembly and municipal polls. Since the polls are over, the meetings should be resumed for "deliberative and conflict-free" governance of the city in the interest of the people, Saxena said. The Chief Minister's Office may fix any mutually convenient date for a meeting, he said. Gurugram, January 9: More than 100 shanties were destroyed on Monday after a massive fire broke out in Ghasola village in Gurugram's Sector-49. Fire personnel evacuated residents from the huts and it took them about three hours to control the fire. No casualties or injuries have been reported. According to the fire officials, a call of the incident was received at around 11.55 a.m. at the Sector-29 fire station. Rajesh Kumar, a fire official, said that over 20 fire tenders were pressed into service. West Bengal Fire: Massive Blaze Erupts at Factory in Naxalbaris Rathkhola Area; No Casualty Reported (See Pics). Gurugram Fire: More than 100 shanties were destroyed after a massive fire broke out in Ghasola village in #Gurugram's Sector-49. Fire personnel evacuated residents from huts and it took them about three hours to control the fire. pic.twitter.com/ZaHHlgNYkD IANS (@ians_india) January 9, 2023 "Teams of several fire personnel, civil defence and police personnel were deployed in the fire-fighting and evacuation operations. Most probably the incident was caused by an electric short-circuit," he said. These huts are covered with plastic covers, tarpaulin sheets, wood and bamboo. These materials were another reason for the fire to spread across the area very rapidly. Noida Fire: Massive Blaze Erupts at Factory in Phase 2 Industrial Area; No Casualty Reported (See Pics). "There was some property loss to residents but no death or injuries were caused. The residents are daily wage labourers working at construction sites and houses," he said. (The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 09, 2023 03:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com). New Delhi, January 9: Inability to vote due to internal migration, along with "urban apathy and youth apathy", is contributing to low voter turnouts, the Election Commission (EC) told a parliamentary panel on Monday while discussing the feasibility of remote voting, sources said. Senior officials of the EC and the Department of Legislative briefed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, chaired by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Bihar chief minister Sushil Modi. Poll Preparedness: EC to Visit Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland This Week. Stating that it has always been concerned about the issue of "about 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise" and a differential voter turnout in different states, the EC said there are multifarious reasons for a voter not exercising his right to vote. "Amongst the many reasons like urban apathy and youth apathy, inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migration) is also one prominent reason contributing to low voter turnouts," the poll panel said during the presentation. Discussing remote voting, especially for migrant voters, with the panel, the EC said it entails a host of legal, statutory, administrative and technological interventions on a spectrum of issues, requiring wider consultations with all stakeholders. Describing remote voting as a "matter of importance", the poll watchdog said it is actively deliberating on the matter. Plans to Force British Voters to Show Photo ID Have Come Under Renewed Criticism. "It is important that any system of remote voting has to take into account the confidence and acceptability of all stakeholders of the electoral system -- voters, political parties and election machinery," the EC said. The poll panel said in its view, the technology for remote voting should be standalone like electronic voting machines (EVMs) and should not be connected to any network in any form to rule out any transmitting data. Accordingly, the EC said it is working with a committee of technical experts, Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) and Bharat Electronics Limited. Bengaluru, Janury 9: Aimed at galvanising the support of womenfolk ahead of Assembly polls in Karnataka, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be addressing a women's convention here on January 16, party's State president D K Shivakumar said on Monday. He said the party is planning a separate manifesto for women ahead of polls, due by April-May, and want's to release a "guarantee letter" expressing Congress' commitment towards them. The KPCC chief was speaking to reporters after inducting JD(S) leaders from Ramanagara and Mandya districts - Vishwanath and Radhakrishna - respectively along with their supporters at the party office here. Vishwanath had even contested against Shivakumar in Kanakapura assembly segment earlier. Rahul Gandhi Shares Joyful Moment With Sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra During Bharat Jodo Yatra (See Pics and Video). "Women are 50 per cent of the population, Congress has decided to prepare a separate manifesto for women regarding the ways in which the party can contribute to betterment of their lives and addressing the issues faced by them. Also building leadership among them and strengthening them," Shivakumar said. Highlighting Congress' programmes for the betterment of women, he said, the party intends to release a "guarantee letter" for womenfolk along with the manifesto ahead of elections, and as part of this effort suggestions and inputs have been invited from all leaders till January 15. "Also a massive convention of women leaders from Panchayat and society level to right up to the top level has been organised on January 16 at Palace Ground in Bengaluru, several national leaders will be attending this event including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra," he said. Noting that she will "review the process", and address the convention and make some announcements for women on behalf of the party, the KPCC chief said, details about the event will be shared soon. This will be Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's first "political visit" to the State, and she will be sending a message to the womenfolk of Karnataka, he added. Claiming Congress as the champion of women's cause by having reservation for them, Shivakumar in response to a question said, it is the party's resolve to give them strength politically, educationally, economically and socially in accordance with their population. Stating that price rise has become a major issue that is affecting normal lives of people, Shivakumar said, the BJP government had promised to double the income, which did not happen, but the price of essential commodities is increasing. The Congress is thinking about how to address the issue of price rise and is preparing a manifesto under the leadership of senior party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, he said. "We will also be soon coming out with details and BJP's misrule and misdeeds." Bharat Jodo Yatra: Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Her Husband Robert Join Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh (See Pics). Shivakumar also said that both him and Siddaramaiah will be starting a statewide tour soon in the run up to Assembly polls, and will share the details about its nature, reason and number of days of the tour soon. Her expressionless mug has been featured on countless toys, not to mention bowling balls, motor oil, a Fender Strat, a pricey Judith Leiber clutch, sanitary napkins and mens underwear. Shes inspired a controversial song by Avril Lavigne, works of sculpture by Tom Sachs and a pretty spectacular dress worn by Lady Gaga. I am talking about Hello Kitty, the adorable cultural force that began life as a character on a coin purse in Japan 1974. Produced by Sanrio, she arrived in the United States two years later. And shes been a part of global popular culture ever since. This fall, she is set to take L.A. by storm, with a full-blown retrospective of Kitty art, merch and fashion at the Japanese American National Museum, which opens in mid-October. Two weeks later, the first ever Hello Kitty Con, will be held at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Advertisement Christine R. Yano is an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii (and currently a visiting professor at Harvard) who has spent years studying the phenomenon that is Hello Kitty. She is also the author of the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kittys Trek Across the Pacific, published by Duke University Press last year. She says that Kittys unreadable features (she usually doesnt have a mouth), along with clever merchandising, has helped cultivate the characters following. Hello Kitty works and is successful partly because of the blankness of her design, Yano says. People see the possibility of a range of expressions. You can give her a guitar, you can put her on stage, you can portray her as is. That blankness gives her an appeal to so many types of people. That also makes her more than just another fabrication of Japans culture of cute, known as kawaii. She doesnt have this insipid cuteness, explain Yano, who is also serving as curator for the Japanese American National Museums retrospective. Its something clever and creative which contributes to a certain cool factor. For example, take Precious Moments [giftware]. Thats cute. But theres nothing cool about Precious Moments. Hello Kitty has the potential to be so many other things. This year, Kitty turns 40 and her power as icon and brand shows no sign of abating. But theres a lot we dont know about Hello Kitty. And, Yano, who is currently wading through hundreds of objects for the exhibition at the the Japanese American National Museum (including the famous Gaga dress), gives us the lowdown: Hello Kitty is not a cat. You read that right. When Yano was preparing her written texts for the exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum, she says she described Hello Kitty as a cat. I was corrected very firmly, she says. Thats one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat. Shes a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. Shes never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and its called Charmmy Kitty. I grew up with Hello Kitty everything and all I have to say is, MIND BLOWN. Hello Kitty is British. Kitty is actually named Kitty White and she has a full back story. She is a Scorpio. She loves apple pie. And she is the daughter of George and Mary White. She has a twin sister, adds Yano. Shes a perpetual third-grader. She lives outside of London. I could go on. A lot of people dont know the story and a lot dont care. But its interesting because Hello Kitty emerged in the 1970s, when the Japanese and Japanese women were into Britain. They loved the idea of Britain. It represented the quintessential idealized childhood, almost like a white picket fence. So the biography was created exactly for the tastes of that time. Hello Kitty has special significance to Asian Americans. Yes, shes worldwide. But Hello Kitty has had special resonance with Asians who grew up in the United States. When Hello Kitty arrived in the U.S. in the mid-1970s, it was a commodity mainly in Asian enclaves: Chinatowns, Japantowns, etc., explains Yano. In talking to Japanese Americans who grew up in the 1970s, they say, That figure means so much to us because she was ours. Its something they saw as an identity marker. This is why the exhibition is being held at the Japanese American National Museum. Its about reconnecting her to this community. It gives the whole thing a certain poignancy and power. Hello! Exploring the Supercute World of Hello Kitty, opens Oct. 11 at the Japanese American National Museum, 100 N. Central Ave., downtown Los Angeles, janm.org. Hello Kitty Con runs for four days starting Oct. 30 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 152 N. Central Ave., downtown Los Angeles, sanrio.com. Twitter: @cmonstah Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, was finally laid to rest in the Vatican on Thursday, with his successor, Pope Francis, overseeing his funeral rites. The former pope, who chose to be known as "pope emeritus" upon his resignation, left behind a somewhat checkered history. His teachings are still being taught to millions of Catholics, while critics say he did not do enough about pedophile priests. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, spoke to Vatican News about the late pope emeritus' legacy. He compared Pope Benedict XVI to his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who was already canonized as a saint. He noted that while Saint John Paul II was a missionary pope flying around the world to spread the Word of God, Pope Benedict XVI was a scholar who was a good teacher and a good listener, as he always listened. The archbishop added that the late pope emeritus was always engaging and never put off by challenging questions. Pope Benedict XVI changed how the Roman Catholic Church was run and even famously changed a few traditional prayers like the Apostle's Creed. That may be his lasting impact, as he changed much in the Church's organization. READ NEXT: Pope Francis Shares Emotional Message After Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Dies in New Year Sex Abuse by Clergy Hounded Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI was a more traditional pope than his predecessor and successor, who were more active in engaging in events outside the Church. However, one matter kept hounding the late pope emeritus's 8-year tenure as the Archbishop of Rome, which is about sexual predators in the priesthood. As the Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Ratzinger ran the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which directly dealt with sex abuse by priests. David Gibson, the director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, told NBC News that the late pope had an "inside view of what was going on." Because of his office, Benedict knew how bad it was, but Gibson noted that "he had such a high view of the priesthood, and that affected his judgment." Benedict did go after many of these sexual predators, and as pope, more than his predecessors. He also apologized on behalf of the Church, but critics say his apologies were too little, too late. There were also those outside the Church who defended him, saying that his portrayal was too harsh and did not show how much good the former Cardinal Ratzinger did at the CDF in fighting sex abuse by priests. Pope Benedict XVI Seen to Become a Doctor of the Church After His Death In the end, Pope Benedict XVI's legacy will be as a theologian rather than as a missionary like Saint John Paul II or a man of the people like Pope Francis. He was so respected in theological circles that the late pope may be named a doctor of the church one day. Doctors of the Church are recognized as saints who have made a significant contribution to theology. Tracey Rowland, the St. John Paul II Chair of Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia, thinks he would qualify as one. She told the National Catholic Reporter that Pope Benedict XVI defended the faith against "the social theories of the New Left." And while the world around him changed, the late pope stuck to his beliefs but still knew what needed to be done. READ MORE: The Vatican Dismisses Pro-Trump Priest for Blasphemous Posts on Social Media This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: The Life of Benedict XVI, the Pope Emeritus - From CBS Sunday Morning After months of being criticized for not visiting the border, President Joe Biden finally did as he visited El Paso, Texas, for about four hours on Sunday. However, Texas Governor Greg Abbott greeted him with a letter still criticizing him as "his trip is $20 billion too little and 2 years too late. " Hand-delivered a letter to President Biden today during his first visit to the border. His trip is $20 billion too little & 2 years too late. Im calling on Biden to do his constitutional duty to protect our nation. pic.twitter.com/cy8xgh5EJ2 Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) January 8, 2023 In his letter, Abbott accused the president's border policies of destroying Texas property owners' lives and sidestepping "areas where mass illegal immigration occurs." He also accused El Paso, which has long been a Democrat stronghold, of sanitizing the migrant camps before his visit. Abbott claimed that downtown El Paso had been overrunned by migrant camps and that the Biden administration wanted to shield him from reality, so they had them cleaned up before the president's visit. Abbott also claimed that under former President Donald Trump, the United States had the lowest numbers in illegal immigration. On the other hand, Biden has implemented an open border policy, despite the current administration's efforts to stop migrants from coming in. "Your open-border policies have emboldened the cartels, who grow wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings," Abbott wrote, as he implored the president of enforcing federal immigration laws as well as designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations, according to Fox News. READ NEXT: Joe Biden Toughens Stance on Immigration; Stop Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans From Coming Through Mexico Joe Biden Meets With Greg Abbott Personally as He Tours the Border Joe Biden will be heading to Mexico City for the North American leaders' summit with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. However, before that, he had to stop by El Paso first to visit the U.S.-Mexico border. During his trip, Biden visited El Paso's busiest land border crossing, the Bridge of the Americas port of entry, which he assessed as the administration mulls implementing $600 million in improvements. He met law enforcement officials there and watched demonstrations. The president also visited the El Paso County Migrant Services Center. He arrived with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and met with several Texas state lawmakers and El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser. Biden also met with El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego. However, his biggest meeting was with Greg Abbott, whom he often butts heads with over multitude issues in the past months. Abbott noted that he presented Biden with five solutions to immigration problems. The two leaders shook hands, with Abbott admitting that the White House reached out in advance to invite him to meet the president. Joe Biden Makes Unannounced Appearance at Donald Trump's Border Wall Joe Biden had a packed schedule while in El Paso, but still had time to visit the border wall. According to ABC News, he was in the area for around 27 minutes. Biden told reporters he had not yet read Greg Abbott's letter. He also condemned what happened in Brazil, where protesters stormed government buildings. He called the act "outrageous." El Paso has been the epicenter of the migrant surge over the past few months. However, despite Abbott's claims, illegal border crossings around the city are down more than 70% since the recent surge in December, as Border Patrol agents make around 700 apprehensions a day on average. It is way below the numbers last December, which peaked at 2,500 arrests per day. READ MORE: El Chapo's Son, Member of Sinaloa Cartel, Arrested After Chaotic, Messy Chase in Mexico This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Biden Arrives in Texas for First Time Southern Border Visit - From MSNBC Some pro-Donald Trump Republicans are in trouble as Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced that she will be probing the "fake electors" scheme that was allegedly part of the former president's bid to overturn the 2020 election results. According to Detroit News, the Michigan Attorney General had a press call with the Democratic Attorneys General Association on Friday. There, she noted that her probe would occur alongside an ongoing federal investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. She saiid the final report from the House January 6 committee had given "clear evidence" about the "fake elector" scheme, which had 16 fake Republican electors ready to overturn Joe Biden's victory as president. "I thought there was already a substantial amount of evidence in that case. But now, there is just clear evidence to support charges against those... 16 false electors, at least in our state," Nessel noted. She initially referred the case to federal prosecutors last January 2021 as she noted that it seemed to be a coordinated multi-state effort. However, she changed her stance on the case on Friday and said that a year had passed, and she was not sure what the federal government was going to do. "I think that type of activity can't go without any consequences," the Michigan AG noted. READ NEXT: Donald Trump Could Face Multiple Criminal Charges for Capitol Insurrection Based on January 6 Committee's Referral to DOJ Michigan State Senate Pressured to Push for Donald Trump's Fake Electors Scheme In a statement to the January 6 committee, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican, admitted that after the 2020 elections, he was pressured to award Michigan's electoral votes to Donald Trump rather than Joe Biden, who won in Michigan. He testified to the committee last June that he met with three lawyers, including Grand Rapids attorney Ian Northon and Amistad Project Director Phill Kline, former Kansas attorney general. The third lawyer is Hillsdale College Vice President Robert Norton. Shirkey denied their requests, knowing that putting forth fake electors would break the law. "I'm not going to suggest to you that there were specific threats, but the pressure was real and the expectations were, for the most part, unambiguous," he told the committee. According to The Detroit News, Norton planned to have the fake Michigan electors hide in the state Capitol overnight from December 13 to 14, 2020. They would then be introduced as the actual electors and cast their votes for Trump rather than Biden. Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox did not agree with them and called the scheme "insane and inappropriate." What Really Happened That Made Donald Trump's Fake Electors Scheme Fail? According to The Hill, the fake electors might be facing charges involving the forgery of a public record and election-related forgery. So, how were they found out? The fake electors reportedly met at the Michigan Republican headquarters and walked to the state Capitol. However, as they arrived, Democratic electors were already there to meet and cast their ballots for Joe Biden. Security officials then rejected the fake electors' entrance, leading to Biden's lawful win in Michigan. READ MORE: Donald Trump Suffers Another Legal Defeat as Appeals Court Halts Special Master Review of Mar-a-Lago Documents This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Michigan AG Nessel Re-Opens Case Into Trump Fake Electors in State - From MSNBC A series of shootings have happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as attacks on several homes and offices in the city have been reported. However, these attacks were targeted and went after several people, namely elected Democrats. One home had its front door and garage shot up, while in another home belonging to another Democrat, the Associated Press reported that three bullets went into the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl. Three homes belonging to Democratic officials, as well as a Democrat's office and a campaign office associated with a pair of county commissioners, two state senators, and New Mexico's newly elected attorney general, were all targeted by these attacks. The first attack happened at the home of Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa. The second attack happened just seven days later at the home of former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O'Malley. New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez's former campaign office was attacked next, though nobody was inside then. The latest targets are State Senator Linda Lopez's home and the office of State Senator Moe Maestas. Police have reported that nobody was injured so far in these attacks, but this marks the sharp rise in threats to public officials after the events of January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in an effort to overturn the election results. Since then, several officials, from lawmakers to school board officials, have been targeted in attacks or have been harassed and intimidated in an increasingly polarized country. No Motive or Suspect Yet on Attacks Against New Mexico Democrats Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina held a news conference and said that the attacks started happening last December. He admitted that they still do not have a suspect, nor do they have an established motive for these attacks yet, but stated that it was important to notify the public nonetheless. The police chief then added that they are still processing evidence, and they did not announce the attacks as it was still not clear last December whether or not there was a pattern. However, the New York Times confirmed that he did raise the possibility that the Democrats were targeted in these attacks and that they were "possibly politically motivated." READ NEXT: January 6: Special Counsel Jack Smith Subpoenas Local Election Officials, Investigates Donald Trump's Fake Electors Scheme Bullet casings recovered from the crime scenes will be analyzed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosive to determine whether they were discharged from the same firearm. CNN reported that the FBI has now joined the investigation, as was announced by FBI Special Agent in Charge Raul Bujanda. They will be working with the Albuquerque Police Department and the New Mexico State Police. Rising Number of Attacks Against Democrats Since January 6, more and more Democrats have been attacked, as pointed out by the New York Times. The highest profile attack happened on Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, who was attacked by a craze Trump supporter who planned to attack and kidnap the then-House Speaker. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State was harassed by a man who came armed with a semiautomatic handgun outside her home, while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was almost kidnapped by a far-right group. READ NEXT: Some Pro-Donald Trump Republicans in Trouble as Michigan Attorney General Reopens Probe of 'Fake Electors' Scheme This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Rick Martin WATCH: Police investigating shootings targeting New Mexico elected officials | NewsNation Prime Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger was reportedly seen attending the victims' vigil days after their murders, according to online sleuths. Internet users speculated that the man who resembled the 28-year-old was actually the Idaho murder suspect attending the vigil at the university on November 30. One Twitter user noted that the guy wearing a blue coat at the vigil seemed to have an "identical profile" as Kohberger, citing that the person seen on the video has the same weak chin, "same long nose," and "hollowed out eyes" as Kohberger. The claims triggered a debate among social media users, with some arguing that the guy wearing a blue coat seemed to be older than the 28-year-old Idaho murder suspect. One user said that the "blue coat guy" has a receding hairline and his ears are "slanted." Meanwhile, the father of Kaylee Gonclaves, Steve Gonclaves, earlier acknowledged the likeliness of Kohberger to the man on the vigil. Steve said in early December that it was part of the reason they had refused to hold a funeral for their daughter, as it was his wife's "biggest fear" that their daughter's killer would show up at the service. The Idaho murder suspect was also assumed to be posting in a Facebook group about the case under the alias "Pappa Rodger." READ NEXT: Idaho Murders: Surviving Roommate Did Not Call 911 After Chilling Encounter With Killer Suspected to Be Bryan Kohberger Bryan Kohberger Motive Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania on December 30, around seven weeks after the four victims' killings. The victims were identified as 21-year-old Gonclaves; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20. The four victims were found stabbed in an off-campus home. Meanwhile, there are matters that remain in question such as why the surviving roommate failed to immediately call 911 or why she and the other roommate was spared. In addition, Kohberger's motive for the killing remains unanswered. Police noted that they are still looking for the murder weapon. Authorities have not publicly announced whether Kohberger knew any of the victims. Bryan Kohberger Parents Personal details about Kohberger surfaced on the internet after his arrest, including his family background. It was reported that Kohberger's parents both worked for the Pleasant Valley School District, with records showing that his father, Michael Kohberger Jr., was a maintenance worker for the school district from 2006 through June 2019. Meanwhile, his mother, Maryann Kohberger, was a paraprofessional assisting special-needs students until 2020. Michael flew to Washington to accompany his son on the 2,500-mile drive back to Pennsylvania. The two were pulled over twice for speeding and tailgating, driving the white Hyundai Elantra, which was linked to the Idaho murders. Kohberger had been a university student since August studying to get his Ph.D. in criminology. The 28-year-old was also part of the teaching assistant staff in the Department of Criminal Justice. Kohberger also applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in the fall, writing in his application essay that he was interested in "assisting rural law enforcement agencies" regarding the better collection and analysis of technological data. READ MORE: Scott Peterson Case Update: Convicted Murderer Moved Back to State Prison as He Awaits Next Court Hearing This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Chilling details revealed about Idaho college killings | NewsNation Prime - from NewsNation Prince Harry is not holding back when it comes to releasing revelations about Queen Consort Camilla, his stepmother, in his "Spare" memoir. Harry promoted his memoir during an interview with Anderson Cooper on Sunday night on "60 Minutes." The Duke of Sussex said that Camilla's need to rehabilitate her image from being a "villain" in the British press made her "dangerous" to him due to the connections King Charles' second wife was creating with the British press. Harry added that there was "open willingness on both sides" to exchange information. He noted that being the Queen consort, there will be "people or bodies left in the street because of that." The British royal told Cooper he was one of the "bodies." Harry has previously mentioned that his family threw him and his wife, Meghan Markle, to gain better public perception. The duke alleged in their Netflix docuseries "Harry & Meghan" that both Charles and his brother Prince William leaked stories about them while also "trading" stories to the press. READ NEXT: Taliban Accuses Prince Harry of 'War Crimes,' Killing Innocent People After Revealing He Killed 25 Fighters in Afghanistan Prince Harry and Camilla Relationship Harry also noted in the Sunday interview that Camilla was the "villain" and the "third person" in Charles and Princess Diana's marriage. He also confirmed that he and William begged Charles not to marry Camilla at the time. Harry said they wanted their father to be happy and saw how happy he was with Camilla, which made it okay then. Harry wrote in his memoir after their private meetings with Camilla, the Queen consort started to "play the long game," aiming at marriage and eventually the crown. Another part of the memoir stated that his stepmother reportedly turned Harry's bedroom into her dressing room at the Clarence House in London shortly after he moved out. Harry also likened his experience of first meeting Camilla to an "injection," with the duke further saying, "close your eyes and you won't even feel it." Prince Harry Memoir 'Spare' Leaked Harry detailed his sadness when his late mother died, leading him to seek help from a woman claiming "to have powers." Harry noted that the woman told him that she is living the life the late Princess of Wales wanted from him. The Duke of Sussex also reported in his memoir that his older brother "ripped his necklace and knocked him to the floor" when William arrived at his London cottage. Harry wrote that his brother was critical of Markle, with the now Prince of Wales describing the American actress as "difficult," "rude," and "abrasive." The younger British prince said that his brother was "parroting" the British press narrative. Harry also claimed that he was offered a line of cocaine at someone's house when he was 17 years old and even admitted to partaking in drugs on several occasions. He described smoking cannabis at Eton College's bathroom and taking magic mushrooms during a California trip in 2016. READ MORE: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Royal Titles Could Be 'In Danger' With New Monarch as King Charles - Royal Expert This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: Prince Harry details his feelings about Camilla, the Queen Consort - from 60 Minutes California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he is seeking to ask federal aid from U.S. President Joe Biden's administration after California faces a series of brutal storms, prompting the state to cut power and leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without electricity. Newsom told state residents to expect the worst of the storm and "very intense" weather in the next 48 hours during a winter storm update on Sunday. The California governor said to "not test fate," adding that just a foot of water will cause cars to float and that "half a foot of water and you're off your feet." The National Weather Service announced that "atmospheric river events" will remain to violently pass California this week, with the most potent system to arrive on Monday. NSW noted that more rains on saturated soil will cause flooding, mudslides, and burn scar debris flows. The weather service added in a statement that there would be widespread mountain snow and high winds on top of other weather issues across the state of California. AccuWeather meteorologist Ariella Scalese said that it could be "a deadly situation and the storm will likely be a billion-dollar disaster." READ NEXT: California Tesla Driver Arrested After Intentionally Driving off Cliff in Attempt to Kill His Family, Himself California Storms Now Another winter storm system was projected to arrive on Sunday in Southern California, bringing heavy downpours in the said areas. Monday and Tuesday are projected to bring two solid days of rain. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, people can expect a high temperature of around 63 degrees with cloudy skies and a chance of a drizzle. Meteorologists announced that there will be a Level 3 storm on Monday in the San Francisco Bay Area. The same area weathered a Level 5 storm last Wednesday, which caused some flooding on roadways and highways around the region. Newsom noted that the state government has mobilized resources to address the flooding, power outages, and other major disasters across the state. In addition, the California National Guard has mobilized troops and has deployed four rescue helicopters to be on standby. Federal Aid in California Newsom said that 12 people lost their lives as a result of violent weather during the past 10 days, with warnings that storms could be even more dangerous. The California governor said that he planned to allot $202 million for flood safety investments in the upcoming budget proposal. One homeless woman was killed in Sacramento after a tree fell on her tent, according to the Sacramento Fire Department. A powerful storm had also uprooted trees, which triggered widespread power outages in Sacramento. More than 424,000 utility customers remained without power across California, as of Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, around 2,900 people were under evacuation orders. The weather service's Sacramento office said that widespread power outages and difficult driving conditions will likely continue due to the downed trees. In Sonoma County north of San Francisco, about 13,000 residents were issued evacuation warnings. The state's Transportation Department also warned motorists to stay off mountain roads due to heavy snow and ice. READ MORE: Scott Peterson Case Update: Convicted Murderer Moved Back to State Prison as He Awaits Next Court Hearing This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Mary Webber WATCH: California Winter Storm: 5 p.m. Update | Jan. 8, 2023 - from ABC10 Police reported that a 6-year-old Virginia kid shot an elementary school teacher Friday afternoon. Police in Newport News, Virginia, a city in the state's southeast, released a statement saying they had arrested the kid suspected of shooting a female teacher at Richneck Elementary School. According to The Guardian, the police were reportedly informed at around 2:00 p.m. that a teacher had been shot during some altercation at the school. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew assured reporters that there was no evidence of anyone going around the school shooting. However, he did confirm that there was a shooting situation at a specific spot. He also said that the shooting was intentional. The student has been arrested, and the elementary school teacher in her 30s was rushed to the hospital with "life-threatening injuries," as reported by the police. He did not say how the Virginia kid got the pistol used for shooting. However, as authorities were still processing evidence at the scene of the incident, the chief assured the media that all students on campus had been transferred to the school gymnasium and were safe. READ NEXT: Wisconsin Boy Who Fatally Shot Mom in Face for Not Buying Him a Virtual Reality Headset Charged as an Adult Elementary School Teacher Is in Stable Condition According to a statement released by the Newport News Police Department on Saturday, the condition of the elementary school teacher has improved, and she is now in stable condition. They also said that the chief has spoken with her and her family, CNN reported. "Chief Drew asked that you continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers," police said, stating that there is an ongoing investigation. During a news conference Friday, the chief said they would complete the investigation as there are things they need to know, like where the gun came from and the situation. Mayor Phillip D. Jones of Newport News stated that investigations were underway Saturday to provide answers to the many issues that have been plaguing residents ever since the incident. "It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6-year-old 1st grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher," the mayor said in a statement on Twitter. Newport News Mayor Says the Incident Is a 'Red Flag for the Country' Considering the continuing investigation, police on Saturday chose not to comment on what caused the incident or what else transpired in the classroom. Jones also refused to comment on who owned the pistol or how the Virginia kid got his hands on it. Jones characterized the situation as a "red flag" for the country, said AP. He also said that there would be a countrywide discussion on preventing these sorts of things after what happened. In Virginia, a child younger than six cannot be prosecuted as an adult. Furthermore, a 6-year-old cannot be sent to the Department of Juvenile Justice's care upon conviction. A juvenile court judge, however, might remove a kid from their parents' care and give legal custody to the state's social services agency. Meanwhile, Jones declined to provide the location of the Virginia kid's detention. "We are ensuring he has all the services he needs right now," Jones said. According to the Virginia Department of Education website, there are around 550 kids in kindergarten through fifth grade in Richneck. As per Jones' announcement, the school would be closed on Monday and Tuesday. "Today our students got a lesson in gun violence," said George Parker III, Newport News school's superintendent, "and what guns can do to disrupt not only an educational environment but also a family, a community." READ MORE: Victoria Lee, Hawaiian Rising MMA Star, Dies at 18 This article is owned by Latin Post. Written by: Bert Hoover WATCH: 6-year-old shoots teacher at Virginia elementary school, police say - From CBS Evening News Interview: Former Bolivian foreign minister calls U.S. political model "outdated" Xinhua) 13:52, January 09, 2023 This photo taken on Jan. 6, 2023 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie) The U.S. democratic model is in decline now as it has not adapted to the current global reality and the changes that are taking place in the political, social, and economic spheres, said former Bolivian foreign minister Fernando Huanacuni. LA PAZ, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol two years ago and the bitter battle over the speakership of the U.S. House of Representatives have shown the world that the American political model is "outdated," former Bolivian foreign minister Fernando Huanacuni has said. The democratic model of the United States "is outdated and worn out because it now generates violence and intolerance, with assaults on institutions," Huanacuni told Xinhua on Friday. The U.S. democratic model is in decline now as it has not adapted to the current global reality and the changes that are taking place in the political, social, and economic spheres, said the Bolivian politician. On Jan. 6, 2021, supporters of outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump violently stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C., disrupting a joint session of Congress to affirm the results of the 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden won. According to the Department of Justice, more than 900 people were arrested for crimes related to the destruction of the Capitol. And in recent days, there was also an unprecedented lack of consensus over the election of the speaker of the House of Representatives, who failed to be chosen with 14 ballots. These two events show the fragility of U.S. institutions, which need to adjust to the current times, said Huanacuni. On the future of democracy in the country, the former foreign minister said that there needs to be a new social pact, and the relaunching of a process of democratic change based on the new reality. "The global political scenario is changing. The axis of the new political order must be a democracy that characterizes and stimulates the needs of the people," he said. If changes are not made, he said, the United States is destined for failure, fragmentation, and the deepening of democratic decadence. He stressed that a new political model is necessary to provide answers to the needs of the people through consensus and dialogue. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) The chairperson of Portlaoise Tidy Towns has welcomed the rise in the town's litter ratings, but said the work is never finished to keep the Laois capital town clean and tidy. Portlaoise jeweller Gerry Browne commented as the latest Irish Businesses Against Litter (IBAL) survey found that Portlaoise has improved from 26th to 20th position, out of 40 Irish cities and towns, judged by An Taisce. It is still a long way from the lofty number one position that Portlaoise was awarded in September 2021 as Ireland's Cleanest Town, falling to second place in January 2022, and dramatically dropped to 26th last June. "It is an ongoing thing, it yo-yos up and down. Generally people who come to the town remark on how clean it is," he said. The judges praised Portlaoise Main Street, a Dunnes Stores site and Hinds Square, but said one vacant site on Harpurs Lane remains "heavily littered". Read more below. "There is very little that we as a group can do about a building site down a side street. It would be the same in every town in Ireland. "The people of the town and people coming in appreciate that. We never get on top of it, but you keep nibbling. "We do have great volunteers, we have come a long way. Anybody who came to Portlaoise five years ago would see we have come on in leaps and bounds, in every area, let alone litter," Gerry Browne said. Prospective Laois homeowners are being left in limbo due to delays by crisis hit An Bord Pleanala, a Laois Offaly TD has said. Deputy Carol Nolan said she is deeply concerned about the increasing number of representations being made to her by constituents and people in rural Ireland. She claimed they are being left in planning limbo due to the inordinate delays within the An Bord Pleanala planning and appeals process. Deputy Nolan said that the delays are locking some rural families and couples out of homeownership for protracted periods. She said this is happening even though they having received planning permission from their local authority to build a home. The major dysfunction that has engulfed ABP in the last number of months is now having a direct and extremely adverse impact on the housing situation for the very many people in rural Ireland who are desperate to get on with building their own homes, said Deputy Nolan. I have raised this matter time and time again, particularly in the context of the statutory duty that exists for ABP under Section 126 of the Planning and Development Act to ensure that every appeal is determined within 18 weeks beginning on the date of receipt of an appeal. This is not happening, and it has not been happening for some time. However, the situation has now been exacerbated with the ongoing crisis within APB. In many of the cases that I am dealing with the issues often appear relatively straightforward and often only involve planning permission being granted or sought for one house. These do not appear to be massively complex issues, such as those that might relate to more large scale developments. I am engaging with APB on behalf of my constituents and the people of rural Ireland to try and ascertain if there was any way in which the relatively straightforward cases may be prioritised, Deputy Nolan concluded. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh OBrien has welcomed the launch of a further bundle of projects under the social housing Public Private Partnership (PPP) Programme, Bundle 6. This new bundle is expected to deliver 160 new social homes across two sites - 80 homes in Rathaskar Road, Naas and 80 in Rickardstown, Newbridge. Todays launch builds on the successful social housing PPP programme being delivered by the National Development Finance Agency (NDFA), in conjunction with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and relevant local authorities. Minister OBrien said: This Government, through Housing for All, is committed to increasing the supply of social housing to an average of 10,000 social homes per annum between 2022 and 2030. There is a specific objective in Housing for All to increase the use of PPPs to deliver social housing, and 160 households in county Kildare will benefit from the latest social housing PPP bundle announced today. Work is ongoing to progress further phases under the programme and a call for suitable sites for future bundles of projects issued to all local authorities last November. Significant progress has been made to date under the programme including: Bundle 1 - 534 homes were delivered across six sites in Dublin, Kildare, Louth and Wicklow in 2020 and 2021. Bundle 3 - 486 new homes will be delivered across six sites in Dublin, Kildare, Sligo and Wicklow with planning completed on all sites. The tender process for this project has recently commenced. Bundles 4 and 5 - circa 1,600 new homes will be delivered across 18 sites in Dublin, Kildare, Louth and Wicklow and design development is due to commence shortly. Bundle 6, being announced today, is expected to deliver almost 600 new social homes across nine sites in Cork, Kildare, Monaghan, Sligo and Wicklow. Welcoming todays new phase of social housing, 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. A Kildare-based Senator has told the Leinster Leader that nearly 100 asylum seekers will be temporarily accommodated in Athy. Labour Party Senator Mark Wall said that 94 asylum seekers will be residing at The Abbey Hotel for seven weeks. In addition, the The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has confirmed that those that will be placed in accommodation will be mostly families, with some single women and children. According to a document outlining the Department's plans which were seen by the Leader, Hemstil Limited are the owners and will be operating on site. The document notes that owners have no previous experience, but will be providing the short-term emergency accommodation. It also notes that there will be a team of staff on duty at all times throughout the day, and there will be night porters to cover night shifts. In addition, there will be security on site 24 hours per day, and the building has a fire certificate in place. The Department also said in the document that most of the residents will be new arrivals. The residents will also be able to access health services through mainstream services: primary care, GP and emergency services. Any applicant residing in the accommodation is entitled to a medical card. An adult resident will receive an allowance of 38.80 per week while a parent is entitled to 29.80 to cover essentials for their child. Residents will also get three meals per day. The adults will be entitled to work in Ireland after six months. They may also may avail of English language classes through their local Education Training Board, and children will attend school during the day. National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company rolling out the new high speed fibre broadband network under the Governments National Broadband Plan (NBP) today announced that surveying works in Leitrim are well underway. In Leitrim, there are approximately 12,000 premises in the Intervention Area (IA), which includes homes, farms, commercial businesses, and schools. Under the National Broadband Plan, County Leitrim will see an investment of 46M in the new high speed fibre network. This will enable e-learning, remote monitoring of livestock or equipment, e-health initiatives, better energy efficiency in the home, and facilitate increased levels of remote working. National Broadband Ireland crews have made substantial progress in Leitrim, where 2,529 premises in the Manorhamilton deployment area have recently begun surveying work. These initial works pave the way for the next stage of deploying fibre on poles/ducts and includes the erection of poles, unblocking of ducts, and the insertion of sub duct into existing ducts, for the fibre to be installed. These vital survey works enable Fibre -to-the-Home" network designs to be completed for each of the 559,000 plus premises in the Intervention Area, as identified by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communication. NBI Chief Executive Peter Hendrick said: Momentum has been steadily building in the progression of the National Broadband Plan rollout, with homes across the country being connected to high-speed broadband. Our teams have been, and continue to do so, work on the rollout plan and substantial progress has been made from surveying, design, build to connection works. Survey and designs are an important part of mapping out how every home, farm and business will be connected, and they provide the blueprint for how the NBI fibre is laid. The BCPs are also a key milestone in delivering access to high-speed internet in the Intervention Area, and were delighted to see these being connected for access - internally and externally - right across Leitrim. It is a ghost that continues to haunt relations between Iran, the Western powers, China and Russia against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. The Iran nuclear deal is failing, but none of the negotiators are willing to acknowledge the formal failure of the negotiations that have been underway since Joe Biden returned to office in the hope of salvaging the compromise condemned by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, in 2018. The deal "is dead, but we will not announce it, it's a long story," said the American Democrat president in mid-December, according to an amateur video filmed during an impromptu exchange with Iranian opponents, who condemn any prospect of compromise against the backdrop of the repression of the uprising in the country. "It is not for me to issue death certificates," said Robert Malley, Mr. Biden'sf envoy for Iran, one of the linchpins of the Vienna Agreement or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed with Tehran under President Obama eight years ago. The European negotiators have no further illusions, merely repeating that the negotiations, which have been suspended, are in a "critical state." In reality, the talks nearly reached a conclusion in August 2022, before final Iranian demands that were interpreted by Western capitals as a sign of tension within the regime and the desire of its hardest wing to fight back. In exchange for Tehran's return to its initial commitments, the Biden administration was ready to lift most of the sanctions imposed by Mr. Trump when he unilaterally condemned the JCPOA nearly five years ago, except those concerning the Revolutionary Guard. Read more Iran begins construction of new nuclear power plant Production of enriched uranium The "maximum pressure" imposed then by the Republicans did not prevent Iran from accelerating its program to the point of being able to acquire a nuclear bomb in less than two years, according to the most pessimistic timescale. In November, the country began producing 60% enriched uranium at the underground Fordo nuclear power plant, as it had done as early as 2019 at the Natanz nuclear plant. And it continues to violate the transparency commitments on its activities made to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). With each day that passes, the hope of restoring the initial agreement fades a little more, so much so that the progress of the Iranian nuclear program is gradually rendering the deal null and void. However, both sides have been trying to keep up appearances by all means, as if to give the illusion that deal is still alive. There are several reasons for this slight of hand. The first is the desire not to break contact with the Iranian regime, despite its headlong rush away from democracy that goes well beyond the nuclear issue alone. The repression of the protests that started in September after the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini when she was in custody is just one sign of a hardening of a power that the West senses, deep down, is able to resist this unprecedented uprising. You have 46.3% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. A Prague court acquitted billionaire former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis in a European Union subsidy fraud case on Monday, January 9, only four days before he runs in a presidential election. Mr. Babis was charged for helping take his Stork Nest farm south of Prague out of his giant Agrofert food, chemicals and media holding to make it eligible for a $2-million EU subsidy for small companies. "The deed described in the indictment is not a crime," Judge Jan Sott said after delivering the verdict. Read more Pandora Papers: France opens investigation into former Czech PM Andrej Babis The 68-year-old Babis, who served as prime minister from 2017 to 2021, has always denied any wrongdoing, calling the trial "a political process" ahead of the presidential election starting on Friday. Alongside former high-ranking NATO general Petr Pavel and economist Danuse Nerudova, Mr. Babis is one of three odds-on favorites to reach a second-round run-off scheduled for the end of January. "NOT GUILTY! I'm very glad that we have an independent judiciary and that the court confirmed what I had been saying from the start," Mr. Babis said in a tweet. The Slovak-born populist, who is the fifth wealthiest Czech according to Forbes magazine, was charged alongside his former aide Jana Nagyova, who was also acquitted. Neither of the two appeared in court on Monday morning. Mr. Babis is chairman of the opposition ANO, a centrist populist movement that narrowly lost a general election in 2021 to a three-party center-right coalition led by the current premier, Petr Fiala. ANO still tops opinion polls, scoring around 30% support. Mr. Babis, who is also facing accusations that he served as a Communist secret police agent in the 1980s, currently sits as a lawmaker. He was charged by police in 2017 and indicted in March 2022 after Parliament had stripped him of his immunity. Le Monde with AFP Soldiers and police stand watch as supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro depart their encampment outside army headquarters in Brasilia on Monday, January 9. GUSTAVO MORENO / AP Brazilian authorities vowed Monday, January 9, to protect democracy and punish thousands of supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed and trashed the nation's highest seats of power in chaos with striking similarities to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. The protesters swarmed into Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday. Many have said they want the Brazilian army to restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power and oust the newly inaugurated leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes In Brazil, an 'unprecedented' attack on democracy Justice Minister Flavio Dino said the acts amounted to terrorism and coup-mongering and that police have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital. In a news conference late Sunday, Brazil's minister of institutional relations said the buildings would be inspected for evidence including fingerprints and images to hold people to account, and that the rioters apparently intended to spark similar uprest nationwide. "They will not succeed in destroying Brazilian democracy. We need to say that fully, with all firmness and conviction," Mr. Dino said. "We will not accept the path of criminality to carry out political fights in Brazil. A criminal is treated like a criminal." Read more Brasilia attack makes clear the threats to Brazilian democracy Rioters donning the green and yellow of the national flag on Sunday broke windows, toppled furniture, hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punctured a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting in five places, overturned the U-shaped table at which Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justice's office and vandalized an iconic statue outside the court. The monumental buildings' interiors were left in states of ruin. More than 1,200 detained So far, more than 1,200 people have been detained, the justice ministry's press office said Monday. But police were noticeably slow to react even after the arrival of more than 100 buses leading many to ponder whether authorities had either simply ignored numerous warnings, underestimated the protesters' strength, or been somehow complicit. Public prosecutors in the capital said local security forces had at very least been negligent. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor. Another justice blamed authorities for not swiftly cracking down on budding neofascism in Brazil. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Lula sworn in as reconciliatory president, rising from ashes of Brazilian politics After his October 30 electoral defeat, Mr. Bolsonaro, who has gone to Florida, has been stoking belief among his hardcore supporters that the electronic voting system was prone to fraud though he never presented any evidence. His lawmaker son Eduardo Bolsonaro held several meetings with former US President Donald Trump, Trump's longtime ally Steve Bannon and his senior campaign adviser, Jason Miller. Results from Brazil's election the closest in over three decades were quickly recognized by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of governments. And Mr. Bolsonaro surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view. He neither conceded defeat nor emphatically cried fraud, though he and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes that was swiftly dismissed. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Lula's inauguration: In Brasilia, Bolsonaro's die-hard supporters still refuse to admit defeat Brazilians have used electronic voting since 1996 that security experts consider less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil's system is, however, closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud. Still, Bolsonaro's supporters refused to accept the results. They blocked roads and have remained camped outside military buildings, urging the armed forces to intervene. Mr. Dino, the justice minister, referred to the encampments as incubators of terrorism. Protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, but isolated threats including a bomb found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilia's airport prompted security concerns. Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro break camp outside a military base in Rio de Janiero. BRUNA PRADO / AP In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula said there was "incompetence or bad faith" on the part of police, and he promised some would be punished. Federal District Governor Ibaneis Rocha confirmed on Twitter he had fired the capital city's head of public security, Anderson Torres. Local media reported that Mr. Torres is in Orlando for vacation, and that he denied having met with Bolsonaro there. Soon after, Brazil's Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Mr. Rocha removed from his position as governor for 90 days. He wrote in his decision that the day's events could only have transpired "with the consent, and even effective participation, of the competent public security and intelligence authorities," and called Mr. Rocha's actions "intentionally omissive." Le Monde President Joe Biden stands in front of the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on January 8, 2023. JIM WATSON / AFP It took two years for Joe Biden to travel to the border with Mexico. The US president finally corrected his reserved approach by visiting El Paso (Texas) on Sunday, January 8. It was a highly orchestrated visit, where images alone were meant to tell the story. The aim was to illustrate that the White House will now again prioritize immigration, a sensitive issue and traditional warhorse of Republican activism. Mr. Biden has been engaged in an intense series of immigration-related appearances that began on January 5. On that day, he presented emergency measures intended to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country and to counter accusations of inaction. The new measures will expand a scheme already adopted for Venezuelan nationals in October 2022 that has proven effective over the last three months. The White House has announced that, for a period of two years, up to 30,000 people from Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela will be able to come to the US each month and receive a work permit on the condition that they are sponsored by an eligible person and after examination of their personal file. Those who attempt to enter without documentation will be turned away. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes US and Latin America look to co-ordinate fight against illegal immigration In the opposite direction, Mexico has agreed to accept 30,000 people per month who are expelled from the US and now barred from seeking asylum there for five years. On the US side, border policing will be reinforced and a mobile application launched to force migrants transiting through Mexico to register and make an appointment before flocking to border crossing points. The White House hopes the measures will dry up the lucrative business of illegal smuggling networks. Congress deadlocked over immigration For a long time, Mr. Biden avoided the immigration issue, delegating the task to Vice-President Kamala Harris and the relevant overburdened federal departments. The issue proved to be one of the Democrats' liabilities in last year's midterm elections. The number of arrests exploded from 1.7 million in 2021 to 2.4 million in 2022. The northward march of immigrants can be explained by climatic, economic and political factors, with immigrants fleeing repressive regimes or decaying states. From the start of his tenure, the US president has faced an immigration deadlock in Congress. His administration's challenge is to reconcile firmness with humanity and border policing with the right to asylum. The executive seeks to avoid the cruel images of the Donald Trump era when some 5,000 children were separated from their parents while preserving his "Title 42" deportation system. You have 55.75% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. Celebrations of Jair Bolsonaro's victory in Brazil's presidential election, in Sao Paulo on October 28, 2018. MIGUEL SCHINCARIOL / AFP "Lula stole the election... Brazilians know it..." wrote Steve Bannon, clearly satisfied, on Gettr on Sunday, January 8, after he saw the images of the assault against the Parliament in Brasilia. As soon as the results of the Brazilian presidential election were announced, the former adviser and strategist to Donald Trump called on Jair Bolsonaro not to recognize them. In an article published on November 23, 2022, the Washington Post detailed the post-election consultations between the family of the defeated Brazilian leader and the former US president. Mr. Trump hosted Eduardo Bolsonaro, his third son and emissary, at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Eduardo knew the place well, having already visited it several times in recent years. He also met with Jason Miller, the former campaign spokesman for Mr. Trump, now head of ultraconservative social media platform Gettr. Over the years, Mr. Bannon has developed a passion for Brazil. He could sense an ecosystem there that was fragile and electric enough for a tropical version of Mr. Trump's movement to flourish. That is to say, a conservative and protectionist populism that disregards environmental considerations and democratic checks and balances. Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Lula's inauguration: In Brasilia, Bolsonaro's die-hard supporters still refuse to admit defeat For Trump supporters, the Lula-Bolsonaro confrontation was an opportunity this fall to export the methods used to contest the 2020 presidential election in the United States: lies about voting machines, accusations against the legal system and calls for supporters to take to the streets. Two years after the assault on the Capitol in Washington, Sunday's events in Brasilia offer a striking parallel, posing the question of the nature of this desecration of the seats of power: how much was spontaneous and how much was premeditated? The role of 'zero three' In August 2018, shortly before Jair Bolsonaro's election, his son Eduardo met with Mr. Bannon in New York, praising their joint fight against "cultural Marxism." Since then, relations between the Trump camp and the Bolsonaro family have intensified. Elected to the Parliament of his country in 2014, Eduardo has been the main player in this. In March 2019, it was he, not Minister Ernesto Araujo, who attended the first meeting between Mr. Trump and his father Jair in the Oval Office. Eduardo has been endorsed by Mr. Bannon as the official representative in South America of The Movement, Mr. Bannon's organization that aims to unite national-populists around the world. Known as "zero three" (because he is the third son of Jair Bolsonaro), Eduardo had ambitions in 2019 to become Brazil's ambassador to the United States, before giving this up under pressure from Congress, which cried nepotism. In the meantime, he developed personal ties with the Trump family, and in particular with Ivanka, the daughter of and an advisor to the American president. On January 5, 2021, on the eve of the storming of the Capitol, the media revealed that "zero three" was at the White House with his wife. The couple was received by Ivanka. They showed Ms. Trump their 3-month-old daughter, Georgia, named after the southern US state. Jair Bolsonaro refused to condemn the insurrection of January 6. "It is the lack of confidence" in the elections that "led to what is happening there," he said. And he made a threat: In Brazil, too, "fraud exists" and "the same thing could happen." Read more Article reserve a nos abonnes Lula sworn in as reconciliatory president, rising from ashes of Brazilian politics The US government on Sunday, January 9, offered "unwavering" support for Brazil's democracy as condemnation poured in from around the world against mobs that smashed their way into the halls of power in Brasilia. Argentine President Alberto Fernandez assailed the "coup attempt" by supporters of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro who stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. Fellow South American leaders in Chile, Colombia and Venezuela deplored the mob action, and French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted his support for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office as Brazil's leader a week ago. "The will of the Brazilian people and the democratic institutions must be respected!" Mr. Macron tweeted in French and Portuguese. A vontade do povo brasileiro e as instituicoes democraticas devem ser respeitadas! O Presidente @LulaOficial pode c https://t.co/6an4d7W2f9 EmmanuelMacron (@Emmanuel Macron) US President Joe Biden on Sunday called an assault on government buildings by a mob supporting defeated president Jair Bolsonaro "outrageous." The European Union's top foreign affairs official, Josep Borrell, tweeted that he was "appalled by the acts of violence and illegal occupation of Brasilia's government quarter by violent extremists today... "Brazilian democracy will prevail over violence and extremism," he added. The Twitter account of Democrats on the US Senate foreign relations committee noted that the Brasilia ransacking came nearly two years to the day after supporters of then-president Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, leaving five dead. "Trump's legacy continues to poison our hemisphere," the tweet said. Around the Western hemisphere, the reaction was particularly swift from leaders ideologically akin to Lula. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tweeted: "Lula is not alone, he has the support of the progressive forces of his country, of Mexico, of the American continent and of the world." Chilean President Gabriel Boric decried "this cowardly and vile attack on democracy" and said the Lula government has Chile's "complete backing." Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, a leftist authoritarian, condemned what he called the "neofascist groups" seeking to unseat Lula. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that "we condemn in the strongest terms the actions of the instigators of the riots and we fully support Brazil's President Lula da Silva." German Chancellor Olaf Scholz tweeted on Monday: "The violent attacks on democratic institutions are an assault on democracy which is intolerable. We stand closely by President @LulaOficial and Brazilians!" Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the country "firmly opposes the violent attack" on government buildings in the Brazilian capital. "We believe that under the leadership of President Lula, Brazil will maintain national stability and social harmony," Mr. Wang said on Monday, describing the South American giant as Beijing's "comprehensive strategic partner." Le Monde with AFP Ketakandriana Rafitoson is the director of the Madagascar branch of the NGO Transparency International. As freedom of expression declines in Madagascar, Ketakandriana Rafitoson stands out as a courageous member of a new generation of activists dedicated to fighting corruption. For the past four years, Ms. Rafitoson has served as the director of the local branch of the NGO Transparency International. With a background in law, Ms. Rafitoson also played a role in the creation of Wake Up Madagascar, a movement aimed at inspiring young people to become involved in the defense of human rights and democracy. What was your first encounter with France? It was language that first connected me to France during my childhood. My mother enrolled my brother and I at the l'Alliance Francaise library in Antananarivo, where we spent many Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. I have very fond memories of those times. I learned French there by reading classic literature, and that love of reading has stayed with me to this day. Did your parents talk about France? No, we spoke Malagasy at home and my parents never talked about France or the history of our two countries. I wasn't particularly interested in the past and I didn't yet identify with the nationalists that I later discovered through poetry and literature. There was this movement during the interwar period called Mitady ny very, which can be translated as "to seek what has disappeared," meaning the freedom and culture that were taken from us by colonization. I had never considered those issues before and I didn't have any critical views on France. This nationalist perspective has led you to focus on Madagascar's history since independence. I'm not saying that I agree with what France did during colonization. It was an absolute violation of our rights and sovereignty. But I don't think, like some people do, that if we're in a miserable state today, it's all France's fault. Our leaders have missed opportunities for progress since independence in building this nation. Philibert Tsiranana, known as the father of the nation, was the first to plunder the country and bring it to its current state of despair. He started a trend of poor governance and corruption, and the French have nothing to do with it. It's our own fault if we can't overcome the problems in our own political society. "Our goal was to promote a sense of nationalism that would liberate us from an internal enemy Malagasy people who seek to dominate the majority for their own selfish interests" In 2013, after the transition period (during which Andry Rajoelina led the country following a coup from 2009 to 2013), a group of friends and I founded Wake Up Madagascar. Our goal was to promote a sense of nationalism that would liberate us from an internal enemy Malagasy people who seek to dominate the majority for their own selfish interests. We were heavily influenced by American culture and hoped to see this sense of patriotism at home, working toward civil rights. How do you view the relationship between Madagascar and France today? It's natural that Madagascar has closer and more maintained relations with France due to their historical links. The presence of French companies in Madagascar is significant, and many Malagasy students travel to France for studies every year. These connections contribute to Madagascar's development and are strengthened by the shared language between the two countries. The former president Mr. Ravalomanana (2002-2009) tried to promote the use of English in Madagascar, but this initiative wasn't followed up. This is unfortunate because, as an island nation, a lack of proficiency in English can limit Madagascar's ability to integrate regionally. This cultural immobility can be detrimental to the country's progress and development. "France must stop protecting Malagasy criminals, some of whom have potentially ill-gotten gains, by harboring them" At the slightest political upheaval on the island, France is suspected of acting behind the scenes... In an interview during the Africa-France summit in Montpellier in October 2021, I stated that it would be beneficial for France to stop offering asylum to Malagasy criminals who may have obtained their wealth illegally. I reiterate this sentiment today: France must stop protecting these individuals. If France desires a genuine relationship with the Malagasy people, it must help to punish those who have robbed the country. This does not appear to be an impossible task. France should also consider not supporting certain projects, such as the Antananarivo cable car, unless they have been thoroughly discussed and approved by the population to ensure that they are actual priorities rather than just the frivolous desires of the leaders. Do you agree with Andry Rajoelina's prioritization of the restitution of the Eparses Islands as a key issue in relations with France? I question the connection that Madagascar has to these islands. They are unfamiliar territory to most Malagasy, and many don't even know where they are located. From a legal perspective, there is no doubt that the islands belong to Madagascar, as determined by the United Nations in a 1979 resolution. However, I wonder why there's a current push to reappropriate them. The restitution of the Eparses Islands is not a frequently discussed topic in Madagascar, but rather seems to be brought up at specific times, such as before elections. In my opinion, using this issue as a political argument has the potential to distract from true nationalism, which should focus on eradicating corruption, holding accountable those with malicious intent, and inspiring a sense of civic duty in the population. If France intends to use the Eparses Islands for its own benefit, it seems only fair that Madagascar should receive something in return. I am open to the possibility of a co-management solution and believe that it should be thoroughly discussed. However, Emmanuel Macron's statement "Ici, c'est la France" ("here, it's France") during his visit to the islands in October 2019 was inappropriate and unnecessary. It was a provocative action that only served to generate resentment toward France, as seen in the Sahel region. What do you think about the rise of anti-French sentiment in the Sahel? "The rejection of France is the rejection of a state apparatus perceived as an instrument of coercion" The circumstances in Madagascar and the Sahel countries are different. In the Sahel, the poverty and frustration of the population exist in a context where France maintains a military presence, which reinforces the sense of being dominated. In Madagascar, there is no such feeling of being invaded. For instance, I was shocked to see Mr. Macron attending Idriss Deby's funeral, which understandably angered local populations. France should know how to distance itself from these regimes in order to establish a healthier relationship. The rejection of France is the rejection of a state apparatus perceived as an instrument of coercion, not, in my opinion, a rejection of French culture, which is deeply rooted in Madagascar. If you had to make a wish for the future? I hope to see genuine cooperation for equitable development between Madagascar and France. While this may seem like an idealistic goal, I genuinely believe it is possible. For a start, France should stop funding cable car projects in Madagascar. Laurence Caramel Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version. IARNROD Eireann has awarded Irish builder and contractor John Sisk & Son the 65m contract for the first phase of works to reinstate the Limerick to Foynes rail line for freight services with works set to commence in early February. Subject to funding allocation for phase 2, it is anticipated that the route will open for freight services in 2025. The project for phase 1 of the works has been funded by the Department of Transport, and will focus on track and track bed works, vegetation clearance, fencing and works at bridges, level crossings and public road crossings. The 42km railway line between Limerick and Foynes originally opened in 1858 but closed to passenger traffic in 1963. Freight services continued until 2001. The lines reinstatement is a key element of Iarnrod Eireanns Rail Freight 2040 Strategy to dramatically increase the levels of freight on Irelands rail network. Iarnrod Eireann chief executive Jim Meade said there is real momentum behind the Foynes line reinstatement project. "With exchequer funding having been confirmed in November, we are delighted to be able to announce the contract award to Sisk just weeks later. In partnership, we look forward to bringing this critical, sustainable infrastructure to fruition, as we contribute to the decarbonisation goals for transport in Ireland," said Mr Meade. Paul Brown, CEO of John Sisk & Son, said: "We are delighted to be delivering more vital rail infrastructure as part of the ongoing investment by Iarnrod Eireann in the network, reconnecting the 42km stretch of railway between Limerick and Foynes which has been out of use since freight service stopped in 2001. "At Sisk we are active across our business in delivering sustainable infrastructure and this line, initially being brought back into service for freight, is part of Iarnrod Eireanns Rail Freight 2040 Strategy, and the recently launched strategic review of the Shannon Foynes Port Company Masterplan, Vision 2041. "It will bring back the connection between rail and ship services and promote sustainable transport by strengthening freight transport via rail and sea. We look forward to delivering this project in partnership with Iarnrod Eireann and our supply chain partners." Works being undertaken by John Sisk and Son as part of the 65 million contract for phase one of this project include: Vegetation clearance and removal of existing track. Replacement of track formation and installation of a new ballast bed to current Iarnrod Eireann standards. Rehabilitation and / or renewal of bridges and culverts. Installation of new rail and concrete sleepers along the entire route. Renewal of road infrastructure at public road level crossings. Renewal of accommodation level crossings. Renewal of lineside fencing. Installation of infrastructure to accommodate the next phase of the project. With vegetation clearance already underway, the major physical works will begin next month (February 2023) and will be complete by late 2024. Phase two of the project will include provision of a signalling system for the route, CCTV level crossings, train communications system and track connections and upgrades at Limerick and in Foynes Yard. Subject to funding allocation for phase 2, it is anticipated that the route will open for freight services in 2025. Almost 500 people were waiting for a bed in hospitals across the country on Monday morning, as hospital staff prepare for another week of overcrowding. Figures from the Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation (INMO) trolley watch show that 489 admitted patients were waiting for beds on Monday morning. Almost 400 of those patients were waiting in the emergency department, while 99 were in wards elsewhere in the hospital. The hospitals worst affected include University Hospital Limerick (UHL) with 48 patients waiting, Cork University Hospital with 38 and Letterkenny University Hospital with 37 patients. "It is soul destroying. We didn't sign up to go into crisis management. We want to be there for our patients." Sarah, an Emergency Department nurse describes how we are losing experienced nurses because of the conditions they have to work in. pic.twitter.com/r5L2nlW8UE Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (@INMO_IRL) January 8, 2023 More consultants and senior decision-makers were deployed in hospitals over the weekend to ensure a more consistent flow of discharges across Saturday and Sunday. More than 400 patients were discharged on Saturday, compared with 278 the previous Saturday, figures show. However, some 537 patients who were well enough to leave hospital were delayed. Last week, Ireland recorded its highest ever number of patients waiting for a hospital bed on a single day at 931. The number has decreased in the days since as the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE) moved to address the overcrowding issues. Senior staff were asked to attend work over the weekend to try to address patient safety concerns. The chief clinical officer of the HSE Dr Colm Henry said there has been some relief in the number of people waiting on a hospital bed since last Tuesday. He said however, that the current figure remains too high. It is clear that from the extraordinary efforts of our staff, who heeded our call to address the patients safety issue clearly associated with long stays in our emergency departments, turning up this weekend and working really hard after a difficult Christmas to try to clear those logjams in the hospitals and ensure a better flow of patients into and out of hospital, he told RTEs Morning Ireland programme. There was a whole of system response and we had more senior decision-makers in than we normally do. We brought in senior decision-makers but also the support network around them to ensure that when they make decisions in identifying the right patients who could go home, that the right diagnostics were there, the right managers were there and the right community services were there. We asked for extra effort from staff who are already exhausted so we could address clear issues for patient safety. These extra efforts from staff were not in response to criticism, they were in response to address the patient safety concerns for patients who had presented to emergency departments. He said that the HSE is working with the Private Hospitals Association (PHA) to secure additional beds. Of the 188 private beds secured by the HSE, 148 patients are already in those beds. Asked how many more beds are needed from private hospitals, Dr Henry said: We are seeking additional beds in case this surge in viruses, which has not yet peaked, continues to cause impact on our healthcare system. We are looking for as much as we can get. Each individual hospital has been given funding to link with our local private hospitals to maximise the number of beds. On Monday, UHL started a pilot project to help the pressure on its emergency department. The project will see doctors and paramedics at Ennis Hospital assessing patients to establish whether or not they need to go to the Limerick hospital. NEW DELHI : India and Sri Lanka plan bilateral talks at the highest level" for setting up a power transmission link between the two neighbours, two people aware of the developments said Public sector transmission major Power Grid Corporation of India has already prepared a preliminary report for the proposed project, they said. The talks took place against the backdrop of economic crisis in the island-nation last year, which saw crippling power shortages. The Indian government is continuing its efforts through its embassy in Sri Lanka. The ministry of power and energy of Sri Lanka is also in touch with the Indian High Commission. Now, both sides are of the view that talks will have to be held at the highest political level," said one of the two officials mentioned above. The second official said: The preliminary report is ready with Power Grid and it is ready to start work, given the wheeling charges are assured after power is supply. The PSU can start working on the detailed project reports and when the approval is received for the project." Queries sent to the union ministry of power, ministry of external affairs, Sri Lankan embassy in New Delhi and Power Grid remained unanswered till press time. The planned G2G talks are aimed at renewing the momentum for a project that has been delayed for several years now. Further, plans for a subsea cable, which was earlier considered, have now been dropped given the high cost this would incur. The interconnection between the national grids of both the countries would now be done through overhead powerlines. Sri Lanka has long-term plans for renewable source of energy; however, several instances of power outages have been witnessed in the past few years with a number of extended power cuts in 2022 due to unavailability of coal to operate thermal power plants. Around a fortnight back, the engineers union of the Ceylon Electricity Board warned of further power cuts of up to 10 hours a day in January if coal supplies do not arrive in time. The union also noted that hydro power projects would not be able to meet the requirements as it is a lean phase in terms of rainfall till March. The country has been making efforts to improve the energy infrastructure and meet the power requirements. The Sri Lankan government is also in talks with Russia for cooperation in nuclear energy. Infant fatalities have occurred in the Rocking Sleepers, after the infants rolled from their back to their stomach while unrestrained, or under other circumstances. US Consumer Product Safety Commission photos EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness and Minister of State Peter Burke have launched a stamp to mark 50 years since Ireland joined the European Communities, the precursor to the EU. An Posts first stamp of 2023 was unveiled by Mr Burke, who took over as Minister for European Affairs from Fianna Fail TD Thomas Byrne as part of the coalitions reshuffle in December. Ms McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Services, Financial Stability and Capital Markets Union, shook hands with her Fine Gael party colleague Mr Burke as he arrived for the launch at Government Buildings in Dublin. The stamp concept, by Irish designer Ger Garland, is based on the stars of the EU flag and the six fundamental values of the EU: human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights. Only nine of the 12 stars from the current EU flag are visible to symbolise the number of members of the EC in 1973. Mr Burke said he was delighted that An Post is marking 50 years of the EUs impact on Ireland. Stamps are a small but tangible part of everyday life and this stamp will serve to remind us all of the many ways the EU has impacted on our own everyday lives from economic growth, to environmental protection, to gender equality and equal pay legislation, to climate, energy, travel and peace, he said. The new stamp and a first day cover envelope is available online and at selected post offices including the GPO. An Post has also decorated a number of postboxes around Leinster House, Government Buildings, Iveagh House and Europe House to mark the anniversary. The Department of Foreign Affairs is leading a programme of events this year to mark when Ireland joined the EUs precursor in 1973. This followed a referendum held on May 10 1972 when 83% voted to join the European Communities. Despite Irelands closest neighbours voting to leave the EU in 2016, current polling shows that Irish support for EU membership remains at similarly high levels, with a Red C Research poll recording 79% of people agreeing that EU membership has a positive impact on their lives. In December, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed a joint sitting of the Houses of the Oireachtas in Dublin to mark Irelands 50 years in the European Union. I do not feel like I have travelled to the edge of our union because, while that may be true geographically, Ireland lies at the heart of Europe in every other way, Ms von der Leyen told TDs and senators. This is a country of proud Europeans. Today, all other Europeans look up to Ireland because you show Europes best face, innovative and inclusive, loyal to your history and traditions, open to the future and the world. Talented Longford duo K Muni & ND (Kofi Appiah and Nevlonne Dampare) are among six contenders bidding to represent Ireland at the 67th Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool in May. 'Down in the Rain' by K Muni & ND is described by the artists as a testament to their determination. The song chronicles a difficult period in their careers when their music wasn't getting the attention they believed it deserved. Through 'Down in the Rain', the artists encourage listeners to never give up on their aspirations no matter how tough the road may seem. It would mean the world to us to represent Ireland," they say. "We remember watching Eurovision as kids with our families, so to think we could have the people of Ireland, our people, tuned in to cheer us and our country on is incredible." K Muni & ND will perform on a special Late Late Show on Friday, February 3, where the winner will be chosen by a combination of National Jury, International Jury, and Public vote. Liverpool will host the 67th Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine, and the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 will take place in the Liverpool Arena next to the River Mersey on Saturday May 13, with Semi-Finals on Tuesday 9 and Thursday 11. The six songs bidding to represent Ireland were selected from hundreds of entries received by RTE following a callout for submissions last year. The six songs are; 1- Too Good for Your Love ; Performer: ADGY 2 - Midnight Summer Night ; Performer: CONNOLLY 3 - We are One ; Performer: Wild Youth 4- Wild ; Performer: Leila Jane 5 - Down in the Rain ; Performer: K Muni & ND (Kofi Appiah and Nevlonne Dampare) 6 - Hawaii ; Performer: Public Image Limited Michael Kealy, RTE Eurovision Head of Delegation, said: "I am really impressed by the quality and standard of the six acts we have in our Eurosong final this year. The Eurovision Song Contest is a global phenomenon, and the competition is getting harder every year, but whichever of our six finalists gets to represent Ireland in Liverpool in May I've no doubt they will represent us brilliantly, winning new fans all over the world." Concern has been expressed over the 'heavily littered main shopping street' as Longford has fallen twenty-two places, from 5th to 27th, in the IBAL Anti-litter League. The final litter survey of 2022 by business group Irish Business Against Litter shows Longford is clean, but its 27th spot represents a disappointing slide on its 5th position it held last summer. The An Taisce report for Longford stated: "A former IBAL winner, Longford has again slipped down the league, despite five top ranking sites. It was the presence of three seriously littered sites which brings down the overall position. "In the experience of IBAL, it is unusual to see such a heavily littered main shopping street. "The Recycle Bank and Library also presented very poorly. The latter wasnt just littered but the grounds were very poorly presented and maintained." In all, three quarters of Irelands cities and towns were deemed clean in 2022, compared to just over half in the previous year. Naas was again top of the rankings. Cleanliness levels nationwide improved by 6% in 2022, with Naas pipping Kilkenny and Maynooth in the rankings. For the third year in succession, Waterford was the cleanest city, ahead of Galway. Urban areas improved by 12%, yet they continue to occupy the lower positions in the IBAL rankings. The results reflect a pattern of improvement since the peak of the Covid pandemic, when litter levels soared, especially in cities, said IBALs Conor Horgan. In particular we are seeing local authorities concentrate their efforts on ridding areas of heavily littered sites. We have no reason to believe this improvement will not be sustained. Cleanliness is a virtuous circle: clean streets beget clean streets, inspiring a pride and consciousness of the environment among people. A strong case for Government schemes Plastic bottle and cans continue to be a major source of litter, second only to sweet wrappers and present in one in three of the 500-plus sites surveyed. IBAL believes the findings bolster the case for a deposit return scheme, which is due to be introduced this year, and which will see consumers pay a deposit which they can reclaim on returning their containers to a retailer or other collection point. Based on this data the scheme is sorely needed and stands to rid our streets of a significant amount of litter. The same applies to the proposed coffee cup levy, commented Conor Horgan. While there was a fall in the prevalence of coffee cups, they were still found in 25% of sites surveyed. The survey showed cigarette butts remain a persistent form of litter. "We welcome the announcement that cigarette manufacturers will now be contributing to the cost of clean-up, but we really need to see preventative measures such as widespread butt disposal facilities alongside innovative packaging which can store butts," said Conor Horgan. The Mayor of Naas Municipal District, Cllr Evie Sammon, will be presented at noon today with the inaugural Dr Tom Cavanagh Memorial Trophy, in honour of IBALs founder and Chairman, who passed away in September. 2022 marked the 20th anniversary of the IBAL Anti-Litter League. Pets & Animal, Crime By Chris Boyle Published: January 09 2023 The Pet Zone Provided Incomplete Medical Records for Pets to Hide Past Illnesses; Company to Pay up to $200,000 to Eligible Consumers for Medical Costs. New York Attorney General Letitia James today reached an agreement with Bell Pet Company, LLC (Bell Pet), which does business as The Pet Zone, and its owners for misleading consumers about the health of the pets they sold to New Yorkers. Todays agreement requires Bell Pet to pay a civil penalty and create a restitution fund of up to $200,000 to reimburse eligible consumers for medical costs. The Pet Zone, which has stores in Albany, Poughkeepsie, Watertown, and Queensbury, misled customers about the health of the pets they purchased by providing incomplete medical records. Deceiving families into buying sick puppies and kittens is not only cruel, its illegal, said Attorney General James. The Pet Zone turned a happy moment of bringing home a new pet into misery for pet owners when they discovered that their pet was sick and that they had to pay expensive medical bills to help them recover. This agreement will ensure that no one is deceived about the health of a pet they bring home. I encourage any individual who purchased a pet from The Pet Zone and was misled about their health to file a claim for reimbursement. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that The Pet Zone provided consumers with deceptive medical records that did not include a full list of medication provided to the pet to hide previous illnesses. The Pet Zone offered consumers an online tracking system called PetKey, which the defendants claimed included a full list of all the medication provided to the pet prior to purchase. The OAG found that on several occasions, PetKey failed to list medications, including antibiotics, provided to pets and once the pets were brought home, they became sick. Todays agreement requires The Pet Zone to create a restitution fund of up to $200,000 to reimburse eligible consumers who purchased pets in or after January 2014 and within 14 days of purchase received a certification from a vet that their pet was sick and should have been unfit for sale. Eligible consumers will be reimbursed for their veterinary costs related to the vets certification and treatment for the illness up to the total cost of the pet, including tax. The fund will be available to any qualifying consumers for 12 months. In addition, The Pet Zone must pay $2,500 in penalties to the state. As part of the settlement, within the next 30 days, the Pet Zone will be required to post information about submitting claims for anyone who believes they may be eligible to seek reimbursement. In the interim, if New Yorkers have questions about this settlement, they are encouraged to contact the OAG Watertown Regional office at (315) 523-6080. The agreement also requires The Pet Zone to ensure that every pet has been examined by a licensed vet and has received all the vaccinations as required by state and local law with accurate and complete records provided to consumers. Additionally, The Pet Zone is required to train its employees and visibly alert consumers to the requirements of the Pet Lemon Law. The Pet Zone must identify a corporate point of contact for all Pet Lemon Law claims. I applaud Attorney General Letitia James for her efforts to hold The Pet Zone accountable for misleading customers about the health records of the pets they were selling, said State Senator Neil Breslin. Bringing a pet home is supposed to be an exciting time for any person or family. Misleading consumers about the health of the pets they were purchasing is unconscionable, and I am glad that The Pet Zone is facing the consequences of their actions. I thank Attorney General Letitia James for again protecting New York consumers and ensuring customers who purchased or bought their pets at the Pet Zone and later discovered undisclosed medical conditions will have the opportunity to seek reimbursement, said Assemblymember Patricia Fahy. Just as New York acted to end the retail sale of pets, dogs, and rabbits this year in retail pet stores, we will continue to hold this industry accountable where necessary. Remember: adopt, dont shop. Instead of getting these defenseless pets the proper medical care that they needed, Bell Pet put profits ahead of morals by passing the buck to unknowing consumers. Not only does this type of greedy behavior endanger animals who may not get necessary medications, but it is also another unfair cost that many hardworking families simply cannot afford, said Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy. While Im happy we have the Pet Lemon Law on the books to protect dogs and cats, Im even happier that we have a fighter like Attorney General James to enforce these regulations and hold bad actors accountable. When our neighbors purchase a pet, they are hoping to bring love and joy to their family, yet these families were instead saddled with unexpected medical bills and the misplaced guilt associated with thinking they did something wrong to make the pet sick, said Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan. It is despicable that anyone would sell sick pets, especially when it is a pet store with multiple locations across our state. Thank you, Attorney General James, for holding these despicable organizations accountable, and helping our neighbors who were targeted by their malicious business practices. We thank the Attorney Generals Office for their efforts to protect the consumers of New York state, said Warren County Administrator John Taflan. Poughkeepsie families, and all New Yorkers, deserve to know that when they purchase a pet and bring a new companion animal into their lives, that new member of the family is healthy, said Town of Poughkeepsie Supervisor Jon Jay Baisley. Unexpected vet bills cause real harm to family finances, but they pale in comparison to the emotional toll having a sick pet takes on children and families. I thank Attorney General James for standing up for New York families and ensuring they can again have trust that the animals they buy are healthy and safe. This agreement builds on Attorney General James past efforts to protect New York consumers and companion animals. In December 2021, Attorney General James filed a lawsuit against pet store Shake A Paw for unlawfully selling numerous sick or injured puppies to unaware consumers at both of its Long Island locations. Attorney General James also successfully secured a court order protecting puppies at both Shake A Paw locations. This past December, New York state took action to further protect companion animals when Governor Hochul signed legislation seeking to end the puppy mill-to-pet store pipeline and stop abusive breeders. This case was handled by Assistant Attorney General Julia Toce of the Watertown Regional Office with investigative assistance from Supervising Investigator Chad Shelmidine of the Watertown Regional Office. The Watertown Regional Office is led by Assistant Attorney General in Charge Deanna R. Nelson and is a part of the Division of Regional Affairs, which is led by Deputy Attorney General for Regional Affairs Jill Faber. The Division of Regional Affairs is overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy. (Sharecast News) - London stocks were set for a firmer open on Monday following a positive session in Asia, with China reopening hopes expected to boost sentiment. The FTSE 100 was called to open 25 points higher at 7,724. CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "In the wake of Friday's US jobs report and the strong reaction to it, today's European open looks set to be a positive one, with Asia markets also getting a boost as China took further steps to reopen its economy, as it relaxed its zero-Covid policy further resuming travel with Hong Kong." In UK corporate news, Vodafone said it had entered into binding terms in relation to the sale of its Hungary unit to local IT company 4iG and state-owned Corvinus for 1.8bn. The deal, which won't include Vodafone's shared services business VOIS, is expected to create Hungary's second biggest mobile network operator. Proceeds from the sale are intended to be used for deleveraging, Vodafone said on Monday. Elsewhere, Airtel Africa said its Nigerian subsidiary had bought 4G & 5G spectrum from the Nigerian Communications Commission for $316.7m. The company said it had acquired 100 MHz of spectrum in the 3500MHz band and 2x5MHz of 2600MHz. (Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Monday and not separately reported by Alliance News: ---------- DeepVerge PLC - Dublin-based environmental and life science group - Reports that its unaudited revenue for 2022 was roughly GBP17.2 million, slightly below market expectations. Notes that this represents a "significant" year-on-year increase from GBP9.3 million. Explains that it moved progressively from small and medium ticket equipment sales to larger GBP1 million data and AI focused sales through partners. Notes that it moved its Labskin business deeper into data and AI with the creation of Skin Trust Club. ---------- Mobile Tornado Group PLC - Harrogate, England-based communications company - Says that its CEO Avi Tooba has stepped down. Notes that he will remain involved with the business in a "non-board capacity, and continue to advise the company." Says that the current Executive Chair Jeremy Fenn will assume the role of acting CEO with immediate effect. ---------- Westmount Energy Ltd - Jersey-headquartered investor in oil and gas industries - Plans to take part in the return of capital offering from Cataleya Energy Corp. It will reduce the number of outstanding common shares in CEC in issue by 16%. Says that prior to the return of capital transaction it held a total of 567,185 shares in CEC, representing roughly 5.3% of CEC shares. "We are very encouraged to see new investment into CEC reflecting confidence that a resumption of drilling on the Kaieteur Block will occur post the October 2023 elective nomination date. It is also heartening to see that this ROC transaction is being executed without tapping CEC's existing cash balances, thereby allowing CEC to remain very well financed via cash and multiple well carries for future drilling activity," Executive Chair Gerard Walsh comments. ---------- Frontier IP Group PLC - London-based intellectual property commercialisation company - Appoints David Gladding as chief executive officer. Says that he is experienced in the software industry will help drive both the commercial and technical development of the company's novel artificial intelligence-based metaheuristics algorithms. Further, he has more than 30 years' experience at senior levels in software and IT services companies. ---------- Alkemy Capital Investments PLC - London-based company focused on acquisitions in the mining and technology metals sectors - Notes that the Western Australian government's Industrial Lands Panel allocated an area of roughly 43.7 hectares within the Boodarie Strategic Industrial area to its subsidiary Tees Valley Lithium Ltd. "We are delighted to announce that TVL has secured an allocation of land at the new Boodarie Strategic Industrial Area, alongside other global leaders in the green industrial sector, to facilitate the development of the Port Hedland LSM refinery," Director Sam Quinn comments. ---------- Sondrel Holdings PLC - lobal semiconductor designer and supplier - Tapes out an application specific integrated circuits design for an unnamed provider of Edge AI Hardware Accelerator solutions. Confirms that it will proceed with the new product introduction and prototyping phases of the turnkey supply services being provided to the customer. "Passing this key milestone underpins Sondrel's position as a leading ASIC supplier for advanced designs. The successful tapeout of this ASIC project is a great achievement for Sondrel and our team, with our focused business strategy and our track record of innovation excellence again delivering outstanding results for our customers," CEO Graham Curren comments. ---------- Shield Therapeutics PLC - commercial stage pharmaceutical company - Notes that AOP Health International Management AG requested the conversion of a portion of the convertible shareholder loan facility between the company and AOP into 31.4 million shares. The conversion price is 6 pence per share. Says AOP will be allotted 31.4 million shares, representing 5.4% of the company's share capital immediately following the conversion. ---------- Nostrum Oil & Gas PLC - Amsterdam-headquartered oil and gas company with operations in Kazakhstan - Receives a licence from the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation for the proposed restructuring of senior notes. "The approval of our licence application is warmly welcomed by all of us at Nostrum and I am pleased that we are now able to continue to pursue the Restructuring and bring stability to our business. We also appreciate the continued support demonstrated by our stakeholders and we will provide further updates on the status of the Restructuring, and its implementation, in due course," CEO Arfan Khan comments. ---------- Venture Life Group PLC - Berkshire, England-based self-care product manufacturer and distributor - Secures a range of licence agreements for its internally developed mouth ulcer products with a long term and existing customer for "certain key EU and other markets." The total license fee to be received is EUR1.4 million, it says. Signs a further two new exclusive long-term agreements in Canada and Vietnam. Signs a long-term distribution agreement for its Pomi-T food supplement in Peru. "The mouth ulcer market is not a target for our own brands, and value is better achieved for us by licensing this to an existing long term partner, which will sell it under their own brand. This transaction demonstrates the skillset of our team at Biokosmes to innovate and develop and our ability to exploit these internal capabilities," CEO Jerry Randall comments. ---------- Touchstone Exploration Inc - Calgary, Canada-based upstream oil and gas company - Says that its indirectly owned Trinidadian subsidiary Primera Oil & Gas Ltd entered into an asset exchange agreement with Lease Operators Ltd. Under the agreement, it agrees to swap its 100% working interests in the Fyzabad, San Francique and Barrackpore producing blocks for the counterparty's working interest in the Rio Claro, Balata East and Balata Deep blocks for no cash consideration. "The proposed exchange of assets further high-grades our portfolio as we focus on the Herrera turbidite fairway directly offsetting our Ortoire block in close proximity to our Cascadura discovery. With the technical data that we have reviewed on the three licences, we have identified numerous drilling opportunities that can be incorporated into our infrastructure currently being constructed," CEO & President Paul Baay comments. ---------- Cobra Resources PLC - South Australia-focused gold, rare earth, and iron-oxide-copper-gold explorer - Reports a maiden mineral resource estimate of 20.9 million tonnes of rare earth oxides at its Wudinna project in South Australia. Plans to to advance the Wudinna project towards a feasibility evaluation. Says a drilling programme of 5,000 metres to 10,000 metres is scheduled to start in March. ---------- By Abby Amoakuh, Alliance News reporter Comments and questions to newsroom@alliancenews.com Copyright 2023 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. (Alliance News) - The UK government has promised to help businesses with their energy bills for another year, but significantly reduced the amount of support they will get. Ministers said that non-domestic customers which include businesses, charities and schools, among others would get up to GBP6.97 taken off their energy bills for every megawatt hour of gas they use. Electricity bills will also be discounted by up to GBP19.61 per MWh. It will deliver billions of pounds of support to companies over the 12 months from the start of April, however it is considerably less generous than the support they currently get. The current scheme is set to cost the government about GBP18 billion over just six months, compared with GBP5.5 billion over a whole year for the new plan. The plan was welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry, which said it would "provide respite for many firms". "It's unrealistic to think the scheme could stay affordable in its current form, but some firms will undoubtedly still find the going hard," said CBI director for decarbonisation policy Tom Thackray. "The Government has done much to protect businesses through the energy crisis. It must remain open, flexible and pragmatic in its approach to volatile wholesale energy markets as the year unfolds." The Government also announced that energy-intensive users, such as some factories that burn a lot of gas, will get extra support. Those businesses that are eligible will get a maximum discount of GBP40 per MWh of gas and GBP89.10 per MWh of electricity. It will apply to 70% of their energy use by volume. Gareth Stace, director general of UK Steel, welcomed the announcement, but said the extra support for his industry might still not be enough. "There will be concerns that the newly announced support falls short of that of competitor countries, including Germany," Stace said. "Today's reforms significantly narrow the help that Government will provide, with a maximum discount of GBP89/MWh, which stops delivering once those prices go beyond a ceiling of GBP274/MWh. "The Government is betting on a calm and stable 2023 energy market, in a climate of unstable global markets, with the scheme no longer protecting against extremely volatile prices." Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said: "Wholesale energy prices are falling and have now gone back to levels just before Putin's invasion of Ukraine. "But to provide reassurance against the risk of prices rising again we are launching the new energy bills discount scheme, giving businesses the certainty they need to plan ahead. "Even though prices are falling, I am concerned this is not being passed on to businesses, so I've written to Ofgem asking for an update on whether further action is needed to make sure the market is working for businesses." Although it was welcome, the original energy support package for businesses was always seen as a short-term measure. It was first announced in September under then prime minister Liz Truss. But while the Government promised to support households for two years, non-domestic customers were told their support would run out in just half a year. At the time then business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said there would be more support for companies after that six-month period, but only after a review to see which organisations truly needed the help. Rees-Mogg said at the time that the Government had to apply a "broad brush" to the problem because urgent action was needed. In the longer term officials would be able to figure out a more targeted and therefore cheaper plan. source: PA Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved. (Alliance News) - Businesses hit hard by the pandemic missed out on around GBP300 million of business rates relief, according to analysis of new UK government figures. The government has handed out only 80% of the cash available from its GBP1.5 billion Covid-19 Additional Relief Fund, which was designed to aid businesses such as commercial landlords which were not covered by other tax relief schemes, according to analysis by experts at Gerald Eve. The CARF was announced on March 25 2021 to help those not covered by the Treasury's Retail, Hospitality & Leisure Relief Fund and other packages. However, the onus was put on local authorities to allocate funding to businesses and the deadline to pay the relief was September 30 2022. Authorities handed the support funding to the likes of office occupiers, warehouses and manufacturers. The fund was introduced to replace rates appeals made by hundreds of thousands of businesses, which the government annulled retrospectively. New government filings also revealed that only 261,520 properties benefited from the government's RHL Relief Fund, despite promises that up to 400,000 would be able to use the scheme to claim a 50% business rates discount. Jerry Schurder, business rates policy lead at Gerald Eve, said: "From the pandemic to sky-high energy bills and an uncertain economic outlook, businesses have had a lot to contend with in recent months. "While the government positioned its Covid-19 Additional Relief Fund as a support package for business, the fact that it replaced the right to appeal rates during the pandemic already meant that companies were being short-changed. "Now, data showing that only 80% of the cash promised has been distributed adds insult to injury, with the Exchequer snaffling up the balance. "Our research in August revealed that local authorities had been slow to pay out support, with only 50% having made any payments with just two months to go until the deadline." At the recent autumn statement the chancellor extended the RHL support for a further year and improved the scheme by increasing the discount to 75%, but still with a GBP110,000 per business cap. Schurder said: "The principal reason why fewer than two-thirds of eligible businesses have been able to access the 50% RHL discount is that the Prime Minister, when chancellor, placed a cap of GBP110,000 on the amount that each business can receive, rather than per property. "This means that retailers and hospitality operators with multiple sites cannot benefit other than for their first few properties." source: PA Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Green Mountain Academy for Lifelong Learning will host another screening of "The Artist and The Astronaut" at Burr and Burton Academys Riley Center for the Arts on Jan. 21 at 3 p.m. The film is about an unlikely love story between civil rights activist and artist Pat Musick and the late Apollo astronaut Jerry Carr. Greg Sukiennik has worked at all three Vermont News & Media newspapers and was their managing editor from 2017-19. He previously worked for ESPN.com, for the AP in Boston, and at The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass. Chinese Film and Food Festival features never before seen films and crowd-favorite delicacies Megaworld Lifestyle Malls hosts the Chinese Film and Food Festival at selected Megaworld Cinemas on January 2023 in collaboration with the Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China. In time for the celebration of the Year of the Water Rabbit, the Embassy of the Peoples Republic of China gives a special treat that highlights the best movies and goodies that will attract film enthusiasts and foodies alike. Chinese Films will be screening for free at Eastwood Cinemas, Lucky Chinatown Cinemas, Newport Cinemas, and Uptown Cinemas, and the first 60 walk-ins get free popcorn. The Chinese Film and Food Festival was launched last Dec 11 at Venice Cineplex in Venice Grand Canal with the presence of the Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Mr. Huang Xilian, Mr. Wang Wenhui, and representatives from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. Chinese delicacies were also highlighted to show remarkable support to Chinese culture from the famous Hopia, Tikoy, Mooncake, Siopao, and many more in the list of homegrown brands. Among the movies to catch on are The Wandering on Earth, Huang Wenxiu, Uproar in Heaven, Pigsy Eats Watermelon, A Writers Odyssey, White Snake, Hi, Mom and B for Busy. To mark the annual celebration of the Chinese New Year, the movie schedules are as follows: Eastwood City - Jan 8-10 Lucky Chinatown - Jan 13-15 Newport Mall - Jan 20-22 Uptown Mall - Jan 23-25 The Chinese Film and Food Festival Roster of Films The Wandering Earth Directed by Frant Gwo Screening: Jan 15, 3:00PM at Lucky Chinatown Jan 22, 3:00 PM at Newport Mall As the sun is dying out, people all around the world build giant planet thrusters to move Earth out of its orbit and sail Earth to a new star system. Yet the 2500-year journey comes with unexpected dangers, and in order to save humanity, a group of young people in this age of a wandering Earth fight hard for the survival of humankind. Huang Wenxiu Directed by Miao Yue Screening: January 9, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Eastwood City Sunny and beautiful Zhuang girl Huang Wenxiu returns to her hometown after graduating from Beijing Normal University with a master's degree and devotes herself to the front line of poverty alleviation with enthusiasm. She brings new hope to the future development of the village and wins everyone`s love by helping the villagers to alleviate poverty and aspirations. One rainy night, Huang Wenxiu was unfortunately sacrificed in a flash flood on her way back to the village for disaster relief. She died at the age of 29. Her sunny figure, strong will and winning belief inspire everyone to move forward. Uproar in Heaven Directed by Wan Laiming Screening: January 15, 5:15 PM at Lucky Chinatown January 22, 5:15 PM at Newport Mall January 25, 3:00 PM at Uptown Mall Sun Wukong, the King of the Monkeys, sets off on his first adventure to gain a worthy weapon. This earns the attention of the Jade Emperor of Heaven. Pigsy Eats Watermelon Directed by Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan Screening: January 15, 5:15 PM at Lucky Chinatown January 22, 5:15 PM at Newport Mall January 25, 3:00 PM at Uptown Mall The main character was Zhu Bajie, the Chinese folklore character from the literature Journey to the West. Though the story was considered more of a spin-off. The character was used, since pigs were often associated with greed in the culture. A Writers Odyssey Directed by Lu Yang Screening: January 8, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Eastwood City January 13, 3:00 PM at Lucky Chinatown January 24, 3:00 PM at Uptown Mall Six years after the abduction of his daughter, a man is hired to kill the author of a fantasy novel, but the world of the novel seems to intersect with reality. White Snake Directed by Amp Wong and Zhao Ji Screening: January 10, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Eastwood City January 10, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Newport Mall The protagonist is a young adult white snake-demon Blanca/Bai Suzhen who loses her memories while being disguised as a lovely human woman and falls in love with a snake hunter. This strongly displeases her young sister, Verta/Xiaoqing, the green snake-demon. Hi, Mom Directed by Jia Ling Screening: January 14, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Lucky Chinatown January 24, 5:15 PM at Uptown Mall After her mother Li Huanying is fatally injured in a car accident in 2001, grief-stricken Jia Xiaoling finds herself transported back in time to the year 1981, where she becomes her mother's close friend. Jia Xiaoling feels that she has not been a good enough daughter in the present, so back in 1981, she does all she can to make Li Huanying happy, including setting her up with a factory manager's son, Shen Guanglin, in the hope of giving her mother a better husband, a better daughter, and a better life than she had the first time around. B for Busy Directed by Shao Yihui Screening: January 21, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Newport Mall January 23, 3:00 PM and 5:15 PM at Uptown Mall 50-year-old Shanghai's uncle Lao Bai has been divorced for many years and lives by teaching people to paint. He is lonely but he does not want to admit loneliness. He had an exotic past that he fell in love with at first sight many years ago, which he was willing to be alone all his life. Lao Wu is a good friend of Lao Bai. Lao Bai admired Lao Wu, but could only live in the real world of firewood, rice, oil, and salt. Lao Wu only loved one person in his life, and eventually wrote a dreamlike love myth. Watch out for more events and updates in light of the upcoming Chinese New Year Celebration and special activities made for all shoppers. For event updates, call 8911-5555 or follow Megaworld Lifestyle Malls on Facebook or Instagram @megaworldlifestylemalls. The advisers of the Royal House of England asked King Charles III to make a "war room" to prepare for the release of Prince Harry's memoirs, according to the site Page Six. Some excerpts from the book to be published by Prince Harry have raised controversy, in his writing he has talked about the war in Afghanistan, the death of Princess Diana, the problems with his brother William and cocaine use. In recent days, the British media have been vying to publish the most shocking excerpts from the 500-page book. Prince Harry's memoirs, due to be published on January 10, are already causing a scandal in the United Kingdom and are putting a stop to any hope of reconciliation between Windsor and Sussex. Prince Harry defends making public allegations against his family Charles' jokes about Harry's "real" father According to the New York Post's "Page Six," Harry says that one of the "best jokes" in his father King Charles III's "repertoire" was to say, "Who knows if I'm really the Prince of Wales? Who knows if I'm even your father?" "He laughed and laughed, although it was a particularly unfunny joke given the rumor that was circulating at the time, that my real father was one of Mom's former lovers: Major James Hewitt," he recounts. According to him, one of the causes of this rumor was that the latter was redheaded, another was "sadism". The violent altercation with William Preview clip of Prince Harry interview with ABC's 'Good Morning America' This is the first indiscretion in the book to have leaked: according to the Guardian, Harry accuses his brother William of having thrown him to the ground during an argument in 2019 about Meghan, whom Harry had married the year before. William "grabbed me by the collar, ripping off my necklace, and knocked me to the floor," Harry reportedly relates. "I landed on the dog's bowl, which broke under my back, the pieces cutting me," the prince would add. William would have then apologized to him. Can you collect unemployment if you quit your job due to stress in California? Can you collect unemployment if you quit your job due to stress in California? Each state in the USA has its own requirements for who is eligible for unemployment benefits, including what counts as 'good cause' to leave your job. Some states have a strict definition of what good cause is, solely covering absences due to employment-related causes. However, in California, workers who leave their jobs for good cause - whether it's personal or professional - may be entitled to benefits. Can you get unemployment benefits if you quit your job due to stress? Californians must be unemployed due to someone else's fault in order to be eligible for unemployment benefits. You most likely won't be qualified for unemployment if you left your work voluntarily without a valid reason. However, there are situations when the definition of voluntary behavior is ambiguous. For instance, in the event the employee was already going to lose their job, it is not regarded as a voluntary quit if the company gives them the option to leave rather than having them fired. In this case, they are not eligible for unemployment benefits. If your presence is necessary to care for a seriously ill family member, then you could receive unemployment benefits. The same could happen in the event you need to quit to more elsewhere with your spouse or in case you or your children have been subjected to domestic violence. However, it should be noted that stress is not considered as 'good cause' by the California state, which means that you may not be eligible for unemployment benefits in the event you quit for that reason. How do you challenge California 'good cause' unemployment claims? "[If you quit or get fired] we will schedule a phone interview to discuss your claim and circumstances," reads the California Employment Development Department official website. "If you quit, you must prove good cause for quitting. If you are fired, your employer must prove there was misconduct. Either party can disagree with the decision and file an appeal." Talking out problems through mental health hotlines could be a best way to get rid of mental health problems like depression and anxiety. The Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) announced that the country's first multicultural mental health phone line has been launched in the state, which will provide services in 30 different languages and benefit multiple communities. Transcultural Mental Health Line According to the state government, the service is staffed by registered bilingual mental health professionals, covering languages such as Arabic, Chinese and Greek, reports Xinhua news agency. The Army's pre-basic training courses for applicants who come up short on academic or body fat standards will expand this month as service leaders eye that effort as a potentially key tool to combating a crippling recruiting slump. Service leaders plan to add four additional companies following an initial pilot program that kicked off in August at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for new recruits who had up to 6% more body fat than the Army allows or scored between 21 and 30 on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB, test. Academic performance that low can prevent an applicant from enlisting or dramatically limit the jobs available to them. Two of the new companies will be at Fort Jackson, which will allow an additional 2,000 students per year to enter the academic program, and another two companies at Fort Benning, Georgia, though that base will offer only an academic camp for some 6,400 students per year. Read Next: More Than One-Third of Tricare Patients Have Limited or No Access to a Psychiatrist, Study Finds The program, known as the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, is designed to expand the pool of eligible Americans who can join the service by creating short camps that help applicants reach Army standards. The service came up short of its recruiting goal last year, bringing in 45,000 new active-duty troops -- well below its goal of 60,000. This year, the service is even more ambitious, seeking 65,000 new recruits. "The Future Soldier Prep Course is giving young Americans who want to serve the chance to do so, by helping them not only meet our standards, but in many cases rise above them," Gen. James McConville, the Army's top officer, told Military.com in a statement. "We started seeing positive results early on in the program, and I am happy to see it expand to additional installations so we can continue to attract and invest in our nation's best talent." Applicants in both tracks have 90 days to boost their scores or lose enough body fat to come into compliance with Army standards. In total, 3,206 students have attended one of those tracks so far, of which 2,965 have graduated and moved onto basic training. Service leadership described the pilot program for the camps as showing promise. In total, as a result of the expansion, the service can potentially move roughly 12,000 recruits through the prep courses and onto basic who otherwise would not have been able to serve. That number comes close to making the difference for how many soldiers the Army came short on recruiting in 2022. The service is heavily focused on the academic track created by the program, with test scores falling 9% on average since the pandemic, according to Army data. Meanwhile, test scores for many nationwide tests, such as the ACT, have also plummeted since the pandemic. Allowing recruits a chance to score higher on the ASVAB allows them to potentially qualify for higher enlistment bonuses, but more important for the Army -- fill in high-demand technical vacancies, including cyber warfare roles. The new course at Fort Benning is open to higher-performing ASVAB applicants -- those who score between 31 and 49 -- though those recruits will have only 30 days to retest for a higher score and potentially qualify for a different job than they enlisted for. If their scores don't see a boost, they'll ship onto basic training and fulfill their initial contract. On the pilot program's academic track, students have boosted their ASVAB scores by 17 points on average after tutoring, the Army said. On the fitness side, 87% of students graduate within the first three weeks, losing 1% of their body fat per week on average following physical fitness training and instruction on healthy eating habits. The troubled recruiting climate is an amalgamation of issues, including a relatively competitive and healthy civilian market. But recruiters interviewed by Military.com say the volume of interested applicants isn't the key concern, it's the quality. The service estimates that only about 23% of young Americans are even qualified for service, most of that issue stemming from an obesity crisis and falling academic performance, leading to poor ASVAB scores. Recruiters also point to a greater scrutiny during medical screenings for minor conditions or past injuries through Military Health System Genesis, a massive database that can see medical records. In the past, recruiters or applicants might have skirted around disclosure of those records to avoid hiccups in the recruiting process. "The model developed at Fort Jackson has been overwhelmingly successful at preparing and building quality recruits by tapping into their unrealized potential," Maj. Gen. Curtis Buzzard, Fort Benning commanding general, said in a statement. "We are excited to bring the Future Soldier Preparatory Course to Fort Benning and increase the opportunity to serve in our Army without sacrificing the quality needed across the force." -- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon. Related: Even More Young Americans Are Unfit to Serve, a New Study Finds. Here's Why. The U.S. Coast Guard is continuing to beef up its presence in the Pacific with an 11th vessel for the Hawaii-based District... TORONTO Canada has finalized an agreement with Lockheed Martin Corp and the United States government to purchase 88 F-35 fighter jets, government officials said Monday. The first four aircraft are anticipated to be delivered in 2026 with full operational capacity for the fleet expected between 2032 and 2034. The government has budgeted about $19 billion Canadian (US$15 billion) for the purchase in what is the largest investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force in more than 30 years. Each jet costs about US$85 million. The full life cycle of the program is expected to cost $70 billion (US$52 billion). Canada has a close defense relationship with the United States, which includes using fighter jets together to defend North American air space. The announcement comes as Trudeau is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico. The government said last year Lockheed Martins F-35 was deemed to be the top-ranked bidder for a new fighter jet to replace aging F-18s, deciding against Boeings Super Hornet. Meanwhile Canada purchased some Australian F-18s to help extend the life of the Canadian F-18 program until 2032. Before becoming prime minister, Trudeau had said Canada wouldnt buy the F-35. A former Conservative Canadian government had announced the purchase of the F-35 but Trudeau's Liberal government delayed that purchase and opened up the bidding to competition. As our world grows darker with Russias illegal and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, and Chinas increasingly assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific, this project has taken on heightened significance especially the importance of interoperability with our allies, Defense Minister Anita Anand. We need to ensure that especially in this changing global strategic environment we are that we are fulfilling our obligations to NORAD and to NATO. Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said it was inevitable that Canada would opt for the F-35, especially since many other western allies have bought the F-35. The Liberals opposed the purchase a few years ago when they were in opposition. They did so because the Conservative government favored it," Wiseman said. "Unlike Americans, Canadians generally oppose increased defense spending and the F-35 is expensive. The proposed purchase received public blowback when the Conservatives were in office and the Liberals wanted to capitalize on it, she said. Wiseman said Biden will welcome the investment F-35s are made in Fort Worth, Texas but the U.S. has been expecting it for some time so it wont be a surprise to Biden. Maintaining and operating the jets should involve 3,300 jobs and add $425 million annually to Canada's GDP, the Canadian government said. The Marine Corps is still facing shortages of military uniforms, including the commonly worn combat utility blouse, but the service says relief is on the way. The Corps says that its uniform supplier will be shipping more blouses soon. Posts on social media have claimed the Marine Corps Exchange at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, has had a notice about a shortage of MARPAT -- the term for the uniform's distinct pattern -- up for months. When asked about the reports, Marine Corps spokesman Maj. Jim Stenger confirmed in an email Monday that availability of some service uniform items has been curtailed due to supply chain issues. Read Next: The Old Air Force Tape Test Is Officially Dead. Long Live the New Tape Test. "In the case of the combat utility blouse, our vendor is currently shipping thousands more coats from its facility, which should alleviate some of the supply chain issues for that item," Stenger wrote. This is not the only uniform item that has been affected by problems with the supply chain. In December, Marine Corps Times reported that the branch was forced to push back the required wear date of the new female dress blue coat because of shortages. Stenger told Marine Corps Times last month that the running suit, the men's long and short-sleeved khaki shirt, and the all-weather coat were also suffering supply shortages. The Corps is not the only branch dealing with a lack of uniform items in its stores. In late September and early October, sailors faced shortages of the Navy's recently mandated black rank tabs in stores, leading to reports of scalping and a run on the small cloth loops. Both the Army and Air Force ran out of hot weather uniforms for women last summer after a contract dispute with one manufacturer brought production to a standstill. In 2021, the Air Force was forced to issue fewer uniforms to airmen graduating from basic training because of a lack of inventory. The Marine Corps rolled out the combat utility uniform -- easily recognizable by its two camouflage patterns that are derived from pixilated or fractal designs -- in 2002. Since then, it has been relatively popular with Marines for its low maintenance cost and overall comfort, in contrast to the dressier service uniform. -- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin. Related: Marine Corps Will Allow Women in the Ranks to Have Ponytails Retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Neal Williams has owned several vehicles in the last 25 years that were modified to accommodate his wheelchair and let him drive with hand controls. For his first vehicle, Williams, who is paralyzed as the result of a combat injury in Vietnam, used a one-time grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs and drove it more than 250,000 miles, until it fell apart. Williams purchased subsequent vehicles, but he had to pay for them out-of-pocket, shelling out $50,000 for his most recent van, because the VA program allowed for only one purchase across a veteran's lifetime. Read Next: The Old Air Force Tape Test Is Officially Dead. Long Live the New Tape Test. New legislation signed Thursday by President Joe Biden changed that requirement. Now, Williams, 73, and other disabled veterans who need modified vehicles to get around, will be eligible for an automobile grant from the VA every 10 years. Under the Advancing Uniform Transportation Opportunities for Veterans, or AUTO, Act, veterans who have not received a grant in the past 30 years will be eligible for another grant. Thereafter, veterans will be eligible every 10 years. "I've worn out several vehicles. This legislation allows veterans with mobility issues to be able to get their medical care and go about their normal daily routines that they otherwise wouldn't be able to on their own," Williams said in an interview with Military.com from his home in rural Maine. Before the legislation was approved, the VA was authorized to pay veterans multiple grants for special adaptive equipment but was limited to a single grant for a vehicle purchase. The VA's program covers a new or used vehicle for veterans with a service-connected disability who need transportation to go to medical appointments and treatment, vocational rehabilitation or certain types of therapy. In 2022, the grant amount was $22,356. With the average cost to replace a modified vehicle ranging from $20,000 to $80,000 for a new vehicle, and the average lifespan of a van or car at roughly 12 years, the economic impact of transportation needs is significant. "This bill will help veterans preserve the freedom and independence that adapted vehicles provide them, ensuring they are able to travel safely to and from work, medical appointments, and family obligations," Heather Ansley, associate executive director of government relations at Paralyzed Veterans of America, said in a press statement on Monday. The legislation was a bipartisan effort by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V. Williams worked with Collins to craft the bill. "We must continue to honor that commitment to our veterans by supporting their needs, including those of disabled veterans who require adaptive modification of their vehicles long after they are discharged or retire from active duty," Collins said in a press statement. "Our veterans have made tremendous sacrifices to protect our great nation, and it is our duty to take care of them when they return home," Manchin said in a press release Monday. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the total cost of the legislation to be $43 million from 2022 to 2032. The new legislation also includes a provision that allows the VA to pay for vehicle modifications as medical services, such as van lifts, raised doors or roofs, air conditioning or wheelchair tie-downs. The bill was sponsored in the House by Reps. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., and David Trone, D-Md. Williams said the legislation will be of tremendous benefit to younger veterans across their lifetimes and those who live in rural areas. "[Vets in rural areas] have to travel a lot farther for medical care at the VA. The miles really add up," Williams said. -- Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime. Related: Severely Disabled Veterans Will Soon Be Eligible for Bigger Adaptive Housing Grants Airmen and Guardians will no longer have to go through the dreaded abdominal tape test, but will have their waist and height measured to keep tabs on their physical health and physique under a new assessment, according to the Department of the Air Force. The Air Force and Space Force's new Body Composition Program, first reported by Military.com, will be implemented in April and use the waist-to-height ratio as a replacement for the old waist measurement portion of the physical assessment. "The goal of the new program is to empower Airmen to take charge of their health and fitness through lifestyle enhancement to optimize readiness," Lt. Gen. Caroline Miller, deputy chief of staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services, said in a statement. "Regardless of which risk category they fall in, everyone is encouraged to take advantage of the resources available to improve or maintain a healthy body composition." Read Next: Army Expanding Course for Overweight and Low-Scoring Recruits in Bid to Fill the Ranks The new program is designed to be less rigid than the former abdominal tape test while still setting a standard for body composition for the force. Unlike the old measurement, the new program is separate from a service member's annual physical fitness test and gives airmen and Guardians more time to meet the Department of the Air Force standards by creating new remediation mechanisms, including counseling. Officials hope service members will still keep tabs on their abdominal fat, which the Department of the Air Force says "contributes to increased health risks, such as cardiovascular diseases, stroke, diabetes, hypertension and musculoskeletal injuries negatively impacting physical readiness," under the new program. The Body Composition Assessment, the valuation part of the program, uses a tape measure to compare height to circumference measurements around the hips to determine overall body fat. An equation will use those numbers to create a waist-to-height ratio, or WHtR. A ratio lower than 0.55 is considered healthy and meeting the standard. "Airmen and Guardians will maintain a WHtR of < 0.55 to meet the BCP standards," the Department of the Air Force said in a release provided to Military.com. Airmen and Guardians will both complete their assessments annually around their birth month, according to the Department of the Air Force. Those who have a waist-to-height ratio higher than 0.55 "will receive education or a referral based on their risk category and other health concerns if indicated," according to the release. Airmen and Guardians who don't meet the standard will be enrolled into a "Body Composition Improvement Program" for 12 months and referred to their on-base medical treatment facility for an exam to determine whether they're at risk for any health issues. While the initial results may not lead to punishment, "failing to test on time, not scheduling or missing an appointment" may be met with "commander-driven administrative actions," the Department of the Air Force said. Airmen and Guardians who have high-risk results from the Body Composition Assessment and do not improve after their 12-month improvement program will be enrolled in a formal program that "may result in consideration for administrative action, including separation, for continued failures," the Department of the Air Force detailed. Stew Smith, a former Navy SEAL and fitness author certified as a strength and conditioning specialist who writes a column for Military.com, said in an interview last year that the simplicity of the new equation could help airmen focus on other areas of physical fitness. "The older height weight measurements were outdated," Smith said. "This is a better math equation than what they had previously, and it seems like this one may be more lenient." The Air Force's new program was set in motion by Department of Defense Instruction 1308.03, issued last year, which directed the services to create their own body composition programs. It also comes as all the services reevaluate their physical fitness standards as it becomes harder to recruit young Americans into the ranks. A Pentagon study, first reported by Military.com last year, shows that 77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs, or having mental and physical health problems. Editor's Note: After publication, an Air Force official contacted Military.com to say that the initial information released by the service contained an error in terms of timing for Space Force Guardian fitness assessments. They will be assessed in their birth month, consistent with the policy for airmen. This article has been updated accordingly. -- Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly. Related: Air Force Weighs Waist-Height Measurement to Replace Tape Test Cambodia starts to upgrade national road in SE province with funds from China Xinhua) 14:46, January 09, 2023 KAMPONG CHAM, Cambodia, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia on Monday broke ground for the expansion and upgrading of National Road 7 here with funds from China in order to cope with rising traffic flows and cargo transport. The 45.48-km road, stretching from the Skun Market roundabout to the Kizuna Bridge roundabout in Kampong Cham town, will be upgraded and expanded from two to four lanes. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian presided over the groundbreaking ceremony, which was attended by thousands of local people. Hun Sen said the road is an important economic artery as it is interconnected with other key roads in its neighboring provinces and is also part of the ASEAN Highway 11. "The expansion and upgrading of the road are crucial to reduce traffic jams, facilitate travel and transportation of agricultural and agro-industrial products, and promote the development of socioeconomic activities in Kampong Cham and its neighboring provinces," he said. Hun Sen said the project was another fruit of close cooperation between Cambodia and China in 2023, which is the Cambodia-China Friendship Year and the year marking the 65th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the two countries. "I would like to thank China for having provided a great amount of aid to Cambodia for the development of roads, bridges, irrigation system, and electricity, among others, which have greatly contributed to the country's development," he said. Ambassador Wang said the project was another important achievement of China-Cambodia pragmatic cooperation in the new year. "Over the years, China has helped Cambodia build power stations, roads, bridges, and hospitals, among others," he said. "These achievements are the fruits of China-Cambodia friendship and have provided a lot of benefits to the people of Cambodia." According to the Cambodian Ministry of Public Works and Transport, the road is being developed by China Road and Bridge Corporation under a loan from China. The project is expected to take 40 months to complete. Eng Sokhon, a 38-year-old soft drink seller along National Road 7, said the project will not only reduce traffic jams, but also facilitate the transport of goods from farms to markets. "Currently, it's difficult to travel when we are in a hurry because the road is very narrow," she told Xinhua. "I feel happy because when the road is widened, it will be easy to travel to and fro, and we will be able to transport rice, vegetables, fish, and meat from farms to markets easily," she added. Sorn Sitha, a 39-year-old resident along National Road 7, said he has seen a lot of China-aided projects in Cambodia, such as roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals, among others, saying that those projects have greatly contributed to Cambodia's socioeconomic development and poverty reduction. "I hope that when this road is already built, it will be easy to travel and transport agricultural products from farms to markets," he told Xinhua. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Veterans are not immune from the ongoing affordable housing crisis. With VA home loan benefits, they can largely avoid the hurdle of large down payments, mortgage insurance requirements and other barriers to entry in the housing market, but they can't buy a house that doesn't exist. If they can find an available single-family home, veterans can only purchase a home in their price range, just like anyone else. This means veterans need stable employment, a steady income and a home they can afford with that employment. That's where Rehab Warriors comes in. Its mission is training veterans in property development, home construction and affordable housing rehabilitation, using a standardized training program. It's the only workforce development model, accredited by the Department of Labor, designed to address veteran employment, affordable housing and community revitalization. Andy Williams says the Marine Corps taught him to always leave a place better than he found it. (Rehab Warriors) For many Americans, purchasing a home for the first time can be very difficult. There's currently a nationwide shortage of single-family homes in the price ranges of lower-income earners. Skyrocketing rents mean renters are increasingly unable to save up for the down payments required for home ownership. When people are unable to buy their own homes, it means they stay in the rental market, squeezing the amount of affordable rental units available and increasing demand and driving the price of rentals higher. Yet, American neighborhoods are filled with old, distressed houses and undeveloped spaces. Andy Williams, a Marine Corps veteran and former co-host of HGTV's "Flip or Flop Fort Worth," founded Rehab Warriors amid the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2020, when more than 30,000 veterans were counted by the VA as homeless, veteran unemployment sat at 6.3% (and higher, when adjusted for age group) and the price of entry-level housing was increasing by 11.5%. Williams, who grew up in a suburb of Waco, Texas, saw an opportunity to train veterans in need in a sustainable career while taking on the affordable housing crisis. He began Rehab Warriors as a school to teach veterans about real estate while impressing upon them the importance of using the local economy and workforce to develop local areas. "When I did the show, we were flipping houses here and there. But we were really trying to rebuild a neighborhood. And that's when I realized that my efforts of doing one house at a time, or two houses at a time, was never going to address the problem," Williams told Fort Worth Report in 2022. "I'd seen the developers that really just were looking for yield [annual income from the investment], and the way they transform these neighborhoods with no real compassion for the community, it struck a chord with me." "Flip or Flop Fort Worth," hosted by veterans Andy and Ashley Williams, lasted just one season on HGTV, but the lesson Andy Williams learned may be forever. (HGTV) With Rehab Warriors' specific, certified training, Williams envisions veterans becoming a force multiplier in the effort to rehabilitate underserved communities with a focus on developing those communities, not just their pocketbooks. By the end of 2022, the effort has led to active development projects worth more than $400 million in the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone. The idea is spreading. Rehab Warriors is now teaming with Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School to create a new course focused on revitalizing disadvantaged communities. "Partnering with The Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business School to develop curriculum on the goal of Rehab Warriors is an amazing opportunity to equip more people with the tools to revitalize their communities," Williams said in a statement. "Redeveloping underserved communities is a vital aspect to restoring the pathway to homeownership for millions of Americans." The new course will be a capstone for the university's master's program in real estate and infrastructure, bringing the power of an American institution to identify the problems in U.S. communities and develop solutions to those problems. Rehab Warriors will continue its veteran training regimen, with its focus on meaningful post-military education, civic leadership and community development. "Underserved communities are economically viable today as America maintains its housing deficit. These communities should be rebuilt with purpose and capitalized using incentives like CRA [Community Reinvestment Act] funds, HUD dollars and opportunity zone tax advantages that lead to pathways of economic mobility for the underserved, but we must start with the veteran," Williams told Yahoo Finance. "Nonprofits are challenged with the level of competition that capitalism brings as Wall Street continues to aggregate old housing stock and simultaneously build new housing stock for rent at scale." To learn more about Rehab Warriors or apply to the training program, visit the Rehab Warriors website. For more information about the Johns Hopkins University master of science in real estate and infrastructure, visit the Carey Business School online. -- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook. Want to Know More About Veteran Jobs? Be sure to get the latest news about post-military careers as well as critical info about veteran jobs and all the benefits of service. Subscribe to Military.com and receive customized updates delivered straight to your inbox. How to use the mindat.org media viewer Click/touch this help panel to close it. Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image) Controls - all media types Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device. Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen. < and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys. < and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys. > in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys. ? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key. Other keyboard shortcuts: 1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons Scalebar If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular. Controls - Video Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key. Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation) Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys. The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types. The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control. Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways: - without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method - with stereoscope - with anaglyph glasses. - on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system) For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them. Controls - photo comparison mode If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu. Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder. Summary of all keyboard shortcuts Wendy Asiamah Addo, known widely as Wendy Shay has reacted to her critics. She intimated that no matter the gravity of the hate she receives in the industry, she will not be distracted from achieving her goals. Being arguably the most trolled artist in Ghana, Miss Asiamah, responded to claims of her being ugly, saying she is more physically endowed than the wives and girlfriends of her critics. Im more beautiful than their wives and girlfriends. People wey dey look like insult dey insult me. If you are about to give up in life, raise your hands and say this after me, with God on my side, if Wendy Shay fit do am, me too I go fit do am, she said. Use my story as an inspiration. Since I came into the industry, people say Wendy Shay doesnt know how to sing, she has no talent, she is not beautiful (she paused to showcase her God-given body and curvy buttocks to shame haters)." In her closing remarks at the recently concluded Shay Concert, held on Saturday, January 7, the leader of the Shay Gang urged the youth to read about her struggles in the music industry and how she has overcome them to inspire themselves. The Ruff Town Records signee indicated that anybody can go far since she has overcome all odds to remain relevant in the musical space. According to the queen of Bloomplay streams in Ghana, the third edition of her "Shay Concert," which was accompanied by a free medical screening on the day of the event at the West Hills Mall in Weija, Accra, was done to compensate her fansthe reason it was a free show. I did this show because you supported me making me number on Boomplay. Forget the social media hate. You be the real fans (referring to the attendees). We organized this show within four days but I know haters will say its a free show[thats why more people attended]. If it is because it is free, then do some and lets see if you will get even a single soul to attend, she jabbed her critics. The "Survivor" hitmaker was not alone at the concert as colleagues Medikal, Fameye, Kelvynboy, Mr. Drew, Lasmid, AK Songtress, Eno Barony, and others graced the occasion. Wendy Shay received more than 30.9 million streams between Mondays, November 1, 2021, and October 31, 2022, according to Boomplay's Artist Recap 2022, followed closely by Gyakie and Diana Hamilton, who came in second and third, respectively. Ghanaian dancehall act, Shatta Wale has explained why he couldnt honour an invitation from Jupitar and Wendy Shay to perform at their just-ended concerts. The "Gringo" crooner said he was tired and wasnt well after performing at almost every show during the holiday period. In a tweet on Sunday, January 8, the Shatta Movement (SM) boss disclosed that he is currently on medication prescribed by his doctor due to how exhausted he has recently been. Sorry I couldnt pull up for my girl Wendy Shay and boy Jupitar. Chale I perform too much this December and the ting make I weak ruff ..Me too ano like eating. But my Doctor gi mi some cure Ade on am .. kudos to dem all Chale .. 2 solid shows in 1nite, Shattas post reads. The reigning queen of Bloomplay streams in Ghana had her third edition of the "Shay Concert" attended by many fans at the West Hills Mall in Weija, Accra on Saturday, January 7. The "Survivor" hitmaker had colleagues Medikal, Fameye, Kelvynboy, Mr. Drew, Lasmid, AK Songtress, Eno Barony, and others gracing her concert. On his part, Reggae-dancehall gem Jupitar in his neighbourhood at Korle Gono, a suburb in Accra, served fans with his "Loud in Korle Gonno, Homecoming concert which went down at Dr. Bannerman park on Saturday, January 7. Popular Nollywood filmmaker Zubby Michael has opined on why he is still single despite being famous and rich. The 37-year-old actor indirectly described marriage as full of drama. The self-acclaimed richest Nollywood actor says he hates the drama that comes with marriage, which is why he is yet to tie the knot. Zubby made his revelation in a caption to a 12-second video shared on his TikTok page. Azubuike Michael Egwu, professionally known as Zubby Michael, is one of the most successful Nigerian film actors and movie producers. He is best known for his mind-boggling roles in Three Windows, Royal Storm, and Professional Lady. His first appearance was in the movie titled Missing Rib, but he became a household moniker in the Nollywood industry after starting in "The Three Widows," where he played the lead role. Sarkodie, Ghanaian rapper 09.01.2023 LISTEN Multiple award-winning Ghanaian rapper Michael Owusu Addo is in the news for the wrong reason. The rapper has described his haters and social media critics as "animals" for not seeing and acknowledging his worth in the industry. In a tweet that has since garnered mixed reactions, the Ghanaian musical landlord wrote, "Nobody doing it like moi forgetti "na omo aa omo tan me no omoy3 mmoa," to wit, those who hate me are animals. This follows a video of himself and his team, together with his security team and security guards of the Black Star Line Festival, in a hot exchange at the entrance of the event on Friday, January 7. The video was recorded at a point where the most decorated African rapper was being prevented from entering the Black Star Line Festival event spearheaded by Chicago-based Ghanaian rappers, Vic Mensa and Chance the Rapper. Sarkodie was later allowed entry and was among the artistes such as T-Pain, Jeremih and others who lighted the concert. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on the party faithful to close their ranks and forge ahead in unity to wrestle power from NPP in 2024 election. According to him the country should not have been in the mess it is now and that Ghanaians believe the NDC is the best placed party to salvage the economy and bring relief to the people. We see our responsibility not only towards NDC but there is a national assignment that we have to undertake in our view where we are now should not be the place of Ghana. Ghanaians know that the NDC is the best placed party to effect those changes. Mr Aseidu Nketia made the comment when he led members of the new National Executives of the party to join the Moslem Community for prayers at the National Mosque at Kanda. The new executives were at the mosque to join the Islamic prayers to thank Almighty Allah for helping the NDC to have a successful congress. Some of the national executives present at the thanksgiving prayers include Mr Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Augustus Nana Kwesi Andrew, Ashanti Regional Chairman, Mr Godwin Ako Gunn, Second Deputy National Communication Officer, and Mr Kofi Attoh, former First Vice Chairman, among others. Mr Aseidu Nketia explained that the various elections undertaken by the party from the branch, regional and to the national levels were not to sideline anybody but to select people with different expertise to work for the collective good of the party. He said the NDC embarked on the re-organisation exercise in-line with the party's constitution to revamp the party structures. He said the restructuring exercise began with the branch level elections through to the national executives who would then supervise the party's parliamentary and flagbearer elections. He said when the party embarked on the massive re-organisation exercise there were many, who thought that the restructuring was over ambitious because the other parties have finished with their internal elections. Before we embarked on the exercise we prayed and sought the face of Allah, and also prayed at the various churches. Our prayer was answered such that the party was able to hold its national executive elections as well as select over 40,000 branch officers throughout the country, he added. Mr Aseidu Nketia also explained that the party was able to go through the massive exercise without any major accidents or conflicts, adding that all the activities, conferences and the national congress proceeded smoothly as desired. At the end of such as successful exercise the first place that we have to go is to thank the Almighty God for showering his blessings on us to be able to undertake this exercise successfully, he added. Mr Fifi Kwetey, on his part, thanked the Muslim community and Imams for allowing the new national executives of the NDC to join them to express their gratitude to Allah for his blessings that overshadowed the period before, during and after the congress. We do appreciate that the altar of peace is our creator Allah and for that purpose we need to express our gratitude for everything that had happened, he added. Mr Fifi Kwetey also called for unity among the rank and file of the party, adding that harmony was key going into the 2024 polls. GNA Benin voted for a new parliament on Sunday with opposition candidates authorised to stand in the legislative elections for the first time under President Patrice Talon after four years of absence. Sunday's vote will be a key test for the West African nation, where Talon's supporters say he has ushered in political and economic development, but critics argue that his mandate has eroded democracy. The streets of Cotonou, the economic capital, were calm and all markets and shops were closed, AFP reporters said. Polling stations opened at 7:00 am (0600 GMT) and will close at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT), according to the Autonomous National Electoral Commission. The last legislative elections in 2019 were marked by deadly violence, record abstention and a total shutdown of the internet -- rare events in Benin, once praised as a bastion of democracy in the region. Map of Benin. By (AFP) The opposition was unable to participate in the 2019 elections due to a tightening of the voting rules. Only two movements allied to the president were authorised to compete, bringing about a parliament entirely won by Talon's supporters. This time, seven political parties -- including three claiming to be in opposition -- were allowed to participate. After voting in the morning in the capital Abomey, Defense Minister Fortunet Alain Nouatin called on the population to come out "massively" to vote. Parties winning more than 10 percent of the vote will distribute the 109 parliament seats, according to the proportional system. The results are expected within the next week. "We are confident because we are from the presidential movement. Everything is fine," said Hamdan Moussa, 22, local representative of the Republican Bloc (BR), a pro-government party. Early turnout But turnout -- historically low in 2019 -- appeared slow on Sunday morning at polling stations visited by AFP in Cotonou and other areas. Seven parties, including the pro-government Republican Bloc (BR), are taking part in Sunday's parliamentary election.. By Yanick Folly (AFP) "People no longer have too much hope, they are afraid of some trickery," said Bawa Alimiyao, 40, in front of a primary school in Cotonou, where he voted for an opposition party. "This government disappointed me, we had hope. We are waiting for change and we need deputies representative of the people." A wealthy businessman, Talon was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2021. The majority of Talon's main opponents are either in prison or in exile. Reckya Madougou was sentenced to 20 years in prison for "terrorism", while Joel Aivo -- an academic -- was given 10 years in prison for "conspiracy against the authority of state" in December 2021. Both were tried by a special court dealing with terrorism and economic crimes, known as the CRIET. Critics say the court, created by Talon's government in 2016, has been used to crack down on his opponents. Turnout appeared slow on Sunday morning at polling stations visited by AFP in Cotonou and other areasa. By Yanick Folly (AFP) Around 6.6 million voters were eligible to elect deputies on Sunday, including at least 24 women -- at least one per constituency -- according to a new electoral code. Beyond the opposition's drive to reclaim seats in parliament, Sunday's election will impact the future of some of the other institutions in the small country, which sits between Nigeria and Togo on the Gulf of Guinea. The mandate of the Constitutional Court ends this year and, three years before the 2026 presidential ballot, the court's composition is crucial as it oversees decisions on elections. Four judges are appointed by lawmakers while the other three are chosen by the president. Cletus Apul Avoka 09.01.2023 LISTEN The Member of Parliament for the Zebilla constituency in the Upper East Region, Cletus Apul Avoka has announced his exit from Parliament in 2024. The 71-year-old lawmaker has promised to bow out for another occupy the seat on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after 24years in Parliament. Cletus Apul Avoka said this at a Youth wing meet and greet dinner organised by the Zebilla constituency NDC youth organizer, John Akutam and his deputy youth, Asaki Airforce 1. I have contested all the 8 elections in this Parliament and by the end of 2024, I would have done 24 years in parliament and I think some young men and women have become of age in the constituency. I have grown enough in the constituency and I am confident that if I step down and a younger fellow takes over, the fellow will be guided and the fellow will do well. Others believe I have paid my dues to the constituency so it is time to step aside when I am very strong. While others believe I should stay because of my experience to parliament. My constituents are happy stepping down in a high image even though some of them are not happy, Addressing the gathering in Zebilla, Hon Avoka urged the party youth not to engage in politics of insults that may create disunity within the party. According to him, peace and unity among party members can only guarantee a resounding victory for the NDC in 2024 general elections. He urges the party members to rally together behind anyone who wins primaries to lead the party. Cletus Apul Avoka was the majority leader in the Ghana parliament. After the 2012 General Elections, he was replaced by Benjamin Kunbuor for the 6th Parliament of the 4th Republic as Majority Leader. He was the Minister of Interior in the National Democratic Congress government of John Atta Mills in Ghana until January 2010. His first ministerial position was as Minister for Lands and Forestry in the government of Jerry Rawlings. He was formerly the Member of Parliament for Bawku West constituency in the Upper East Region of Ghana from 1993 to 2005. In the 2008 parliamentary election, he re-entered parliament as the second MP for the Zebilla constituency. The Parthenon Marbles could soon be returned from the British Museum to Greece as part of a "cultural exchange" being negotiated with Athens, according to reports. The ancient sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, were taken from the Parthenon temple at the Acropolis in Athens in the early 19th century by Thomas Bruce, the earl of Elgin and British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Secret talks have reportedly been taking place for a year between the chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The deal is effectively a loan agreement, since British law prevents the British Museum permanently giving away items in its collection except in very limited circumstances. But the landmark compromise could see the 2,500-year-old antiquities returned "sooner rather than later", the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Wednesday, quoting unnamed sources. It would likely involve some objects being sent by London on a long-term loan basis, with Athens reciprocating by lending other ancient Greek treasures. Any loan deal, however, is not expected to end the long-running dispute over the 17 sculptures and part of a frieze. The Daily Telegraph said that Greece intends to keep up pressure to secure full legal ownership of the sculptures. Greece maintains the marbles were stolen and has long campaigned for their return, while the UK insists that they were acquired legally. Their return remains a highly sensitive subject. The British Museum's vast collection includes many items now considered by other countries as loot taken by builders of the British Empire, and the government is wary of setting a precedent. Notably, the British Museum has so far declined to return its collection of Benin Bronzes, which were seized by British forces from what is now Nigeria at the end of the 19th century, despite several other institutions in the UK, France and Germany deciding to hand the artefacts over. A spokesperson for the museum said on Wednesday: "We've said publicly we're actively seeking a new Parthenon partnership with our friends in Greece and, as we enter a new year, constructive discussions are ongoing." Read also: (with wires) The Daughters of Charity (DC) of Saint Vincent de Paul Society of Ghana, in collaboration with the inhabitants of Logre community, has organized a health screening exercise for over 200 children, as part of the Mathias Day celebration at Logre, a suburb of the Nabdam District of the Upper East Region. The health screening was handled by the clinic, run by the Daughters Charity, under the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), with the support of other health professionals residents in the community. It was to ensure that the children are healthy as they celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ preceding Mathias day, as observed in the Catholic Liturgy on the 28 of December, every year. The day talks about when King Herod ordered the massacre of the innocents, Matthew 2:16 in search of the infant messiah to destroy. It also coincided with the 60th Anniversary of the Daughters of Charity, working as missionaries in West Africa. Speaking to ModernGhana News at Logre in the Nabdam District of the Upper East Region, the Superior General of Daughters of Charity, a midwife and the administrator of the Cline Rev, sister Rosaline Ebok said Daughters of Charity International prefer working in the rural settings because of the humanitarian nature of their work and to Evangelize. She added that evangelizing is not only preaching the word of God, but the ministry of Jesus Christ centered on three things; healing, teaching, and education. She indicated that the healing ministry is where DC belongs to. Where the Church go they go with it. They teach, educate, empower people and lift them up. The Regional Manager of the Catholic Education Unite of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga Dioceses Rev Sister Bernadine Pemi (DC) said the children were brought from different backgrounds irrespective of their faith. They have a mechanized borehole with two standpipes that supply water to the communities with water, toilet facilities, and a cinerator. Rev. Sister Jacinta Okafor stated that the Daughters of Charity (DC) international works very much in remote areas because the vulnerable needs more care and love. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged the private sector to stay focused as the government works to reverse the current negative economic situation facing the country. Speaking at the 20th anniversary thanksgiving service of the First Sky Group in Accra, President Akufo-Addo said the desire to build a strong and healthy economy to stand the global economic and social pressure of the time remained the government's fixed resolution. I do recognise that things have not been as we expected as far as the nation's economy is concerned, but I can assure you that my government is still committed to working hard to turn around the fortunes of the nation. I am of the strongest conviction that we will turn the corner, there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel and Ghanaians will surely experience better days again, the President said. The Thanksgiving service, which was on the theme: The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad, attracted ministers of state, Parliamentarians, clergy, Judiciary, the Vice president of Liberia Dr Jewel Howard Taylor, traditional leaders and management, staff partners and other stakeholders of the company to show gratitude to God for His protection throughout the 20 years of the existence of the company. President Akufo-Addo, whose speech was read on his behalf by Mr Kwasi Amoako-Atta, the Minister of Roads and Highways, said the government's quest was to create a very good and sustainable enabling environment for private sector actors to spur economic development. Touching on the National Cathedral, President Akufo-Addo said he was satisafied with the progress so far and urged the Ghanaian Christian community, both here and the diaspora, all churches, faith-based organizations, companies and well-meaning Ghanaians to passionately support funding efforts to ensure completion of the National Cathedral project despite the numerous criticisms. My commitment to see this pledge become a reality is unwavering and I believe with the help of the Almighty God and your support, we can do it. The example of First Sky Group as a Christian business is worth emulating, as it is on record as one of the first companies to publicly support this vision and mission with an amount of Two Million Ghana Cedis. The Founder and Executive Chairman of First Sky Group, Mr Eric Seddy Kutortse, in a welcome address said despite the global economic, social and political developments with direct and indirect impact on the Ghanaian economy, the power of God as the underlying factor and driving force had sustained and preserved the company throughout the year. We did not lay off any worker or did any worker experience any pay cut, but rather improved welfare of workers and also increase in our staff strength by 410 bringing it to 5,120 total number of workers, both permanent and casual in the entire group, he said. He said God had been faithful to the Group, leading to the building of other subsidiaries including First Sky Commodities Limited, a Licensed Cocoa Buying company operating in all the cocoa growing areas of Ghana, and Volta Serene Hotel, a 4 Star Luxury hotel., Mr Kutortse announced that a joint working committee from the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the First Sky Group had been formed and expressed the hope that by the end of the year the kidney transplant centre would be fully operational to cater for patients not only in Ghana but the entire west Africa sub region. So far, an amount of GH26million has been spent on free dialysis for over 300 patients over the years in the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. We will also continue with our church building project across the country. So far, 71 churches have been completed and 3 more earmarked for this year 2023, he added. GNA University of Ghana (UG), has suspended some students for holding series of meetings at the Junior Common Room (JCR) of the Commonwealth hall contrary to the schools statutes. The suspensions follow a complaint lodged against the affected former JCR executives of the Commonwealth hall who will be out of the university for the next three academic years. In a notice issued by the University of Ghana on January 8, 2023, it said the meetings organised on August 18 -19, 2022, sought to tarnish the offices of the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro Vice-Chancellor as well as the whole university. On 18th and 19th August 2022, some former Junior Common Room (JCR) Executives of the Commonwealth Hall organised or allowed the organisation of meetings of the Junior Common Room (JCR) of Commonwealth Hall. These meetings provided a platform for the delivery and publication of false, reckless and defamatory statements against Senior officers which brought the offices of the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro Vice-Chancellor as and the university as a whole into disrepute. The notice further added, following a complaint lodged against the affected students, the Disciplinary Board for Junior Members conducted a hearing and established a case of misconduct contrary to the University of Ghana statutes 2011 [as amended] and the University of Ghana regulations for Junior Members 2017, against the former JCR executives of Commonwealth hall, the UGs notice said. UG advised students to acquaint themselves with the universitys rules to avoid such utterances. Read below the notice issued by the Unversity of Ghana: ---citinewsroom Archbishop Charles Agyinasare noted that: Its obvious the greatest enemy of Ghana is corruption. Looking at the way political parties fund their activities and campaigns, our view is that we are not going to fight corruption anytime soon, the founder of Perez Chapel International said on Sunday, 8 January 2023 when the national leadership of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) worshipped at the Perez Dome to thank God for how far He has brought the party. Archbishop Agyinasare observed: Those political business people who fund politicians end up hijacking the wealth of the nation. Politicians, help us fight this, he pleaded, noting: Our nation is sinking too fast and we cant continue in this direction. Sunday 2nd Service with Archbishop Charles Agyinasare || 08. 01.2023 Sunday 2nd Service with Archbishop Charles Agyinasare || 08. 01.2023 Message title: Speak Lord;Introduction Posted by Archbishop Charles Agyinasare on Sunday, January 8, 2023 Those who gain political power must not use it as a means to amass wealth for yourselves and your loved ones, he admonished, urging: You must exorcise the perception that Ghanaian politicians go into office to steal from the public purse and do not do anything for free. Read below Archbishop Charles Agyinasares full speech: I want to welcome the NDC for choosing to have its thanksgiving service in the Perez Dome. Being one of the two major political parties in this country, they could have chosen to have the service in a lot of places. I want to congratulate them for their contribution to our democracy in this fourth republic. Another feather in your cap, is your partys support for the sexuality bill in parliament. With one of its spokespersons being my own son and an elder in the person of Hon Elder Sam Nartey George. Matthew 12:25 KJV And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: A. On Internal Contests and Unity It is said that in Politics there are 3 sets of people you meet along the path 1. Those who openly and passionately support you 2. Those who are openly and passionately against you 3. Those who may mean well but neither defend nor attack you. They may even avoid being associated with you Unless you have come to the end of your political journey, politicians must learn to cultivate the second group rather than antagonise them. That is the only way to reduce resistance into the future and build a bigger support base. Internal elections may be tough and rough with uncharitable attacks and sometimes targeted lies, but the victor must be magnanimous and reach out because if internal unity is compromised, then the purpose of victory becomes empty and unproductive. As elected leaders, you have a responsibility to embrace all, irrespective of their disposition towards your election. The mantle of leadership requires you to reach out and close ranks even with your competitors. B. As Public Institutions Political parties are public institutions and the public, rightly, has an interest in what happens internally. Our public conduct and statements reflect the kind of government you are in waiting or would be when entrusted with power. While the church cannot prescribe to you what to say or what not to say, it is always important to appreciate the Ghanaian culture of decorum and circumspection and being cautious of the unintended effects and meanings of your public pronouncements. Also, the public is concerned with the financial inducements and how money has replaced conscience in politics. Its obvious the greatest enemy of this nation is corruption. But looking at the way political parties fund their activities and campaigns our view is that we are not going to fight corruption anytime soon. Those political business people who fund politicians end up hijacking the wealth of the nation. politicians help us fight this. Our nation is sinking too fast and we cant continue in this direction. Those who gain political power must not use it as a means to amass wealth for yourselves and your loved ones. You must exorcise the perception that Ghanaian politicians go into office to steal from the public purse and do not do anything for free. C. As Agents of Development Political parties must make sure they implement sound social and economic policies to improve upon the living conditions of citizens. Currently, our economy is facing many challenges, for reasons best known to all. Ghanaians would like to see a paradigm shift which can impact the economy and lives. Whether we like it or not, it's one political party or another that would lead to achieve this. It is, therefore, very imperative for parties seeking to be in government to also espouse sound policy alternatives on national issues that will give hope to the people. It must not be criticism for criticism's sake but constructive criticism that leads to our collective benefit as a nation. Ghanaians would be looking forward to a healthy balance between patronage and meritocracy as the challenges of economic management get tougher. This would also require a useful blend between the old and the young to give hope and assurance that we appreciate the magnitude of public expectations. D. Maintaining National Peace and Unity Without peace and tranquillity; countries struggle to develop, and citizens become despondent. Political parties play major roles in maintaining the peace or otherwise of countries including Ghana. As we move into major campaign activities towards the 2024 elections, all parties must endeavour to maintain the peace of the country. No matter the circumstances we find ourselves, we can elect our leaders through the ballot and not the bullet. I use this opportunity to reiterate my call to our security forces when I spoke at their annual thanksgiving service to remain faithful to their Oath of protecting our Nation from all aggressors and not becoming the aggressors. The NDC as the Party that ushered the 4th Republican dispensation has a duty to ensure your conduct protects this democracy which turned 30 years yesterday. E. The Electoral Commission Electoral Commission should do all in their power to defuse the tension using the IPAC. Its only they that can do so. The IPAC in the past has been a good forum that has helped. It shouldnt be destroyed. EC should work to bring its stakeholders together for the peace and good of the nation and not divide them. The dealings of the EC should be so transparent that winners would be acknowledged by all and losers would be seen to have lost. F. Research-Based Decisions (& Promises) Political parties must steer more towards research-based decisions and choices if they want to carry the people along. Lets be mindful that decisions based on narrow group interest often causes gross disaffection and internal apathy. As we get closer to the next elections we dont need fanciful, unrealistic & ill-researched promises just aimed at winning power. G. Congratulations I congratulate all elected executives of the party present here and outside and wish you a successful tenure. His Grace Archbishop Charles Agyinasare Source: ClassFMonline.com Thirty-nine people were killed and more than 100 others injured when two buses crashed in a head-on collision overnight on an arterial road in Senegal's central Kaffrine region, President Macky Sall told reporters Sunday. Images of the incident showed the completely mangled front end of a white bus, with blood-flecked seats, personal items and a shoe strewn around the tree-lined crash site. Road accidents are common in Senegal, largely because of driver error, poor roads and decrepit vehicles, say experts, but the latest disaster has caused one of the heaviest losses of life from a single incident in recent years. Speaking to reporters, Sall corrected an earlier government statement that had put the death toll at 40, citing a miscount at the morgue. He made the comments after visiting the crash site, on the No. 1 national highway just outside of the village of Sikilo, and speaking with some of the injured at the regional hospital in the nearby town of Kaffrine. President Macky Sall announced three days of national mourning following the deadly accident. By Cheikh Dieng (AFP) "We note with great pain and sadness the death of 39 people in this traffic accident near Kaffrine", Sall said. "We have lost many young people in this accident and tomorrow the Prime Minister will convene an interministerial council that will involve the world of transport -- transporters, drivers, insurers, security services -- to look at the measures to be taken", he added. The government has announced three days of national mourning beginning Monday, with flags to be flown at half-mast throughout the country. Kaffrine mayor Abdoulaye Saydou Sow, who is also the Minister of Urbanism, said in a statement that the accident occurred between 2:00 and 3:00 am (GMT and local) Sunday and was caused by a burst tyre. He said the Kaffrine morgue was "saturated" and that bodies were being sent to another morgue in Kaolack, a city 40 miles (65 km) away. Public prosecutor, Cheikh Dieng, had previously said in a statement that early investigations suggested a public passenger bus suffered a burst tyre and swerved off course. It then crashed "head-on with another bus coming in the opposite direction", he said. 'Tragic' Sow said he and several other ministers had visited the injured in Kaffrine and Kaolack on Sunday. The delegation included the Minister of Land Transport, Mansour Faye, Health Minister Marie Kermesse Ngom, and Minister of Territorial Equity and National Solidarity, Samba Ndiobene Ka, he said. The president of the National Assembly, Amadou Mame Diop, said in a statement that he "and all the Members of Parliament share the grief of the entire Senegalese people" and commended "the rapid response of the emergency services". President Macky Sall is set to visit the site of the accident. By Cheikh Dieng (AFP) Opposition politician Ousmane Sonko announced on Twitter that he would postpone a scheduled fundraising program in light of the accident. "We bow before the memory of the deceased, offer our very sincere condolences to their grieving loved ones and to all Senegalese and pray for the merciful rest of their souls as well as a speedy recovery for the injured", he said. France's Minister of Foreign Affairs on Sunday conveyed her condolences to her Senegalese counterpart, the French ministry said in a statement. In October 2020, at least 16 people were killed and 15 more injured when a bus collided with a refrigerated lorry in western Senegal. Local media said at the time that the truck was hauling fish to Dakar. Archbishop Charles Agyin-Asare, Founder of the Perez Chapel International, has advised the new national executive members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to be circumspect in their pronouncements in public. He also reminded them to appreciate the Ghanaian culture of decorum and circumspection and be conscious of the unintended effect emanating from their public pronouncements. In opposition, you are government in waiting so, your public conduct and statements will reflect the kind of government you will be when you are entrusted with power. Archbishop Agyin-Asare gave the advice at a thanksgiving service for the new National Executive members and Greater Accra Executive of the NDC at the Perez Chapel International at Dzorwulu in Accra. Mr Johnson Aseidu Nketia, National Chairman of the NDC, led the delegation to join the Christian community to thank God for helping the Party to have a successful congress late last year. Mr Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, General Secretary of the Party, Madam Shirley Ayittey, Second Vice Chairman, Mr Godwin Ako Gunn, Second Deputy National Communication Officer, Mr Emmanuel Nii Ashie Moore, Greater Accra Regional Chairman, and some NDC Members of Parliament (MPs) were at the service. The Archbishop expressed worry about the increasing monetisation of politics in the country, noting that corruption had become the bane of the country and cautioned people, who gained political power against using it as means to amass wealth for themselves and their families. He said political parties as agents of development must implement sound social and economic policies to improve on the living conditions of the people. The Archbishop said it was imperative that political parties seeking to be in government espoused sound policy alternative on national issues that would give hope to the people and not only criticise the government. Mr Aseidu Nketia thanked the Archbishop for the advice and said for over a year, the NDC had elected executives from the branches, regional to the national level. He said before they embarked on the restructuring exercise, they sought the face of God and prayed that God should take them through those elections and believed that the Party was stronger now than before. We are here because the Lord has taken us through all these processes and we did not suffer any significant accident that caused any life or injuries So, at the end of the exercise, we did not have any option than to go back and thanked the Lord for what he has done for us, he said. Mr Johnson Aseidu Nketia, National Chairman of the NDC speaking at the thanksgiving service for the new National Executives of the NDC at the Perez Chapel Mr Nketia said the Party was yet to start the next phase of the election exercise, which involved the election of candidates for 276 constituencies and the flagbearer for the 2024 election. We know if we thank the Lord, He will shower us with more blessings to see us through the next phase of the exercise, so we found it compelling to come and thank the Lord for how far he has brought the NDC, he stated. GNA Archbishop Charles Agyinasare, leader and founder of the Perez Chapel International located in Dome, Accra has advised politicians to choose peace over war. The famed Man of God hosted the newly elected leadership of the opposition NDC on Sunday, January 8, for a Thanksgiving service after the partys successful congress. The revered preacher then took the opportunity to appeal to them to remain peaceful with their political rivals in their quest for power. Without peace and tranquillity; countries struggle to develop, and citizens become despondent. Political parties play major roles in maintaining the peace or otherwise of countries including Ghana. As we move into major campaign activities towards the 2024 elections, all parties must endeavour to maintain the peace of the country, he noted. The Archbishop then charged the political parties in Ghana to thread cautiously as the country head towards another election year so that the struggling economy of the country doesnt get hindered by civil wars. No matter the circumstances we find ourselves, we can elect our leaders through the ballot and not the bullet. I use this opportunity to reiterate my call to our security forces when I spoke at their annual thanksgiving service to remain faithful to their Oath of protecting our Nation from all aggressors and not becoming the aggressors, he appealed. He further noted, The NDC as the Party that ushered the 4th Republican dispensation has a duty to ensure your conduct protects this democracy which turned 30 years yesterday (Saturday, January 7). Watch his speech below; Lawyer Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo, a staunch member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has reacted to the resignation of the Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen. The opposition party's polling station chairman said the upcoming NPP flagbearership primaries is a golden opportunity for Alan Kyerematen to realise his long-held dreams of becoming the NPP flagbearer and possibly Ghana's President. Lawyer Samoa Addo revealed on Accra-based Asaase Radio's news analysis show, "The Forum," on Saturday (7 January), that the three-time NPP flagbearership contender will be forced into political retirement by nature if he loses the upcoming primaries. Alan is one of the few people who has to make a decision based on pragmatism. He has a golden opportunity, he said. He added and in life, you need to be careful with the people that surround you and the advice that they give you. He is finished if he (Alan Kyeremateng) loses the slot," according to the NDC stalwart. Mr. Kyerematen resigned from the Ministry on 5th January 2023 after meeting President Akufo-Addo. Though not confirmed by himself, many Ghanaians, particularly political enthusiasts, say his decision is to get ample time to prepare for the flagbearer contest in the party. However, Nii Kpakpo in his submission was sceptical about Alans victory, noting, Alan Kyerematen should have realised by now that if he couldnt win it when President Kufuor was in power, what makes him believe that he can win it now that President Nana Addo is in power and he has a vice president who is supporting him? Meanwhile, Alan Kyeremateng will be facing stiff opposition from Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, Mr. Kwabena Agyei Agyapongthe partys former General Secretary, Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong and others. French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are due to visit the construction site of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris this Monday. Japan's PM Fumio Kishida is set to begin a tour of Europe and North America on Monday in Paris to meet his counterparts from other G7 countries, of which Japan took over the presidency this year. Emmanuel Macron and his host will visit Notre-Dame before a working dinner at the Elysee Palace focusing on the challenges of the G7 presidency and the "exceptional partnership" between the two countries. According to the Elysee, "As a symbol of this common will to rebuild in the face of adversity, this visit will allow the exceptional French know-how in the field of heritage to be presented." This is the first time Emmanuel Macron has invited a foreign leader to the site. The reconstruction work on Notre-Dame is being actively pursued with the aim of reopening the cathedral to the public in 2024. 'Partnership in the Indo-Pacific region' Macron will also express France's "full support for the Japanese presidency" of the G7 and his "attachment to the G7's action in support of Ukraine" in the face of Russian aggression. The two leaders will reportedly review bilateral cooperation in energy, defence, emerging technologies and culture. They will also discuss their "partnership in the Indo-Pacific region" where France with seven territories intends to strengthen its ambitions and strategic cooperation. After Paris, Kishida will travel to Rome on 10 January, London on 11 January and the Canadian capital Ottawa on 12 January, before meeting US President Joe Biden in Washington on 13 January. The next G7 summit is scheduled for May in Hiroshima, western Japan. In December 2018, a bill was laid before the Parliament of Ghana to amend the Public Holiday Act, 2001 (Act 601) to provide for three different holidays. These new holidays are on January 7, Constitution Day; August 4, as Founder's Day and September 21 as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Day. The bill was subsequently passed by Parliament and assented to by the President. The Constitution Day marks the adoption of the Constitution of the Fourth Republic of Ghana on January 7, 1993, and has been declared as a holiday under section 2 of the Public Holiday Act, 2001 (Act 601). The Day, apart from acknowledging Ghana's longest-serving Constitution, also ensures that the tenets of democracy, liberty, democratic governance, rule of law, accountability, constitutionalism are upheld. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in a televised address on the eve of Ghanas 30th Anniversary of the Fourth Republic on January 6, 2023, chronicled some successes the nation had chalked in her democratic journey. The President was of the belief that for the country to prolong her democratic journey, it was imperative to enhance transparency and accountability in the governance structures to fight corruption and the dissipation of public funds. Also, the Electoral Commission, an independent body overseeing election in Ghana, should work to ensure that all stakeholders in the electoral process-the citizens, civil society organisations and political parties- did not have lingering questions about the legitimacy of an election. The President said his government had undertaken, arguably, the boldest initiatives since independence to reform and strengthen the capacity of governance institutions to tackle corruption in the public sector, including the financial empowerment of the anti-corruption bodies. The President cited, for instance, the passage of the Right to Information Act and the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute acts of corruption. We must do everything within our means to safeguard our democracy. We have advanced a great deal in realising this vision, and I am confident that, with a spirit of fairness, hard work, integrity and reconciliation, the best days of Mother Ghana lie ahead of us, the President assured. The President underscored the need to create the platform for the evolution of a new Ghanaian civilisation, which would give true meaning to the foundational values of freedom and justice on which the nations democracy was birthed. The National Commission for Civic Education, NCCE, at a forum to mark the Day, reiterated calls for reforms in the 1992 Constitution to promote participatory democracy and consolidate political gains made so far. According to the Chairperson, Madam Kathleen Addy, the Commission and other organizations had undertaken a number of activities to discuss weaknesses and suggest areas for amendments to the 1992 Constitution. She said though corruption-related activities, political monetisation and violent extremism had been a threat to the country's democracy, the significant gains made could not be overlooked. Madam Addy said unemployment and activities of illegal mining galamsey were also other emerging factors hindering the country's democracy and that everything must be done to save the situation. If we carry on with illegal mining as we are doing now, we will very soon not be far from the wars fought in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the nineties, so Galamsey will eventually lead to breakdown of law and order in the country.., she said, calling for it to be stopped now. Madam Addy said having uninterrupted Constitutional rule for 30 years was a milestone that must be celebrated, recalling the chequered political history with the overthrow of three previous Republican Constitutions, truncated by military interventions. GNA The Member of Parliament (MP) for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has reacted to the viral video of American rapper Meek Mill allegedly shot at the seat of government, the Jubilee House. During his visit to Ghana in December, the popular US musician paid a visit to the Presidency where he held talks with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. He is reported to have shot a music video with 'curse words' during the visit which has now gone viral in the last 24 hours. Reacting to the viral video, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has fumed at government officials who allowed Meek Mill to shoot the video which contain explicit words at the Presidency. In a short statement on his social media, he called for the immediate dismissal of all persons responsible for allowing the shooting of the video. All those responsible for this despicable desecration of the Jubilee House by Meek Mill must be fired immediately, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said in a post on Twitter. The North Tongu MP added, How do those explicit lyrics from the presidents lectern project Ghana positively? Is Ghanas seat of government no longer a high-security installation? 09.01.2023 LISTEN The Ashanti Regional Health Directorate has appealed to health facilities in the region to encourage regular hand washing to prevent the spread of diseases in the region. The Regional Health Promotions Officer, Mr Felix Frimpong, made the appeal on the Kumasi-based OTEC 102.9 FM's health show, "Apomuden Ahotoso", on Sunday, January 8, 2023. "The importance of regular hand washing had been brought to the fore more strongly following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and other communicable diseases across the globe. "Washing your hands properly removes dirt, viruses and bacteria to stop them from spreading to other people and objects, which can spread illnesses such as food poisoning, flu or diarrhoea. It can help stop people picking up infections and spreading them to others," he told the host Mrs Kate Appiah Boateng popularly known as Radio Nurse. He noted that hand washing had proved to be one of the most effective ways of dealing with disease outbreaks, adding that it has the potential of preventing over 65 per cent of diseases. Mr Frimpong has therefore encouraged all and sundry to make washing their hands with soap under running a regular habit, given the significant part it plays in disease prevention. Though he described this time as the golden opportunity for Alan Kyerematen to lead the NPP, lawyer Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo, a staunch member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), says it will be a difficult task. Reacting to the resignation of Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen, the private legal practitioner says the three-time flagbearer contender had a better chance to succeed former President John Agyekum Kufour. Lawyer Samoa Addo argued on Accra-based Asase Radio's news analysis show, "The Forum," on Saturday (7 January), that Mr. Kyerematengs dream may be shattered by Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, who has the support of President Akufo-Addo. Alan Kyerematen should have realised by now that if he couldnt win it when President Kufuor was in power, what makes him believe that he can win it now that President Nana Addo is in power and he has a vice president who is supporting him? he quizzes. He continued, One of the biggest problems politicians face is the hypocrites around them the people who support them because of money. The presidential slot is for those who fight for it. And when it comes to politics, you must be street-smart. If you listen to some of the key personalities who have declared their support for Vice President Bawumia, one of the proposals they have put forward is that an Alan-Bawumia ticket is the best ticket for the NPP going forward. To him, Its fantastic because it will prevent a lot of headaches for the party. Mr. Kyerematen resigned from the Ministry on 5th January 2023 after meeting President Akufo-Addo. Though not confirmed by himself, many Ghanaians, particularly political enthusiasts, say his decision is to get ample time to prepare for the flagbearer contest in the party. However, Nii Kpakpo in his submission was sceptical about Alans victory, noting, Alan Kyerematen should have realised by now that if he couldnt win it when President Kufuor was in power, what makes him believe that he can win it now that President Nana Addo is in power and he has a vice president who is supporting him? Meanwhile, Alan Kyeremateng will be facing stiff opposition from Vice President Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, Mr. Kwabena Agyei Agyapongthe partys former General Secretary, Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong and others. 09.01.2023 LISTEN Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon, Prof. Ransford Gyampo has reacted to President Akufo-Addos decision to make Ken Ofori-Atta caretaker Minister of the Ministry of Trade and Industry. The President of the Republic, on Friday, January 6, added another job to the work of the embattled Minister of Finance whose job is hanging in a balance. In an official press release from the Communications Directorate of Jubilee House, it said the President has named the Finance Minister as caretaker Minister at the Ministry of Trade and Industry after accepting a resignation letter from Alan Kyerematen. The President has asked the Minister for Finance, Mr. Ken Ofori-Atta, to act as caretaker Minister at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, until a substantive appointment is made, part of the press release signed by Eugene Arhin who is Director of Communications at the Jubilee House said In a post on social media to react to the new job for Ken Ofori-Atta, Prof. Gyampo says it is a clear case of poor judgment by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. Mr. President, respectfully, asking KOA, the man the public, your party supporters, MPs, and CSOs are asking that you reshuffle or sack, to also act as Caretaker Minister for Trade and Industry even for one day, is a little indiscretion on your part, Prof. Ransford Gyampo shared on Facebook. Former Minister of Energy, Mr. Boakye Agyarko has expressed unhappiness about the lack of a definite date for the Congress of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). In his statement, he bemoans how whether to have or not to have a so-called early congress has become a quadrennial source of needless tension inside our Party. According to him, it is important that all internal wrangling ceases and the party comes together to move forward in peace and harmony. Mr. Boakye Agyarko who is a flagbearer hopeful insists that aspirants should not hope to benefit by damaging opponents either openly or secretly. In his view, such conduct will only harm the party ahead of the 2024 general elections. I should like to admonish all aspirants to remember that they are colleagues inside the same Party, having identical political interests. None of them can hope to reap any benefit by damaging his opponent either openly or secretly. Such conduct only harms the Party by sowing the seeds of factionalism. You should seek support by impressing on your supporters your own virtues and merits and what you have to offer, not by running down your competitors, Boakye Agyarko shared. The former Energy Minister added, I expect that after this conference a code of conduct will be drawn up for all aspiring candidates. I expect and fervently hope that we shall soon see the emergence of a new style of campaigning by our presidential aspirants. Read the full statement by Boakye Agyarko below: The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has once again mounted its merry-go-round. To have or not to have a so-called early congress has become a quadrennial source of needless tension inside our Party. Our first taste of this bitter and needless squabble was inflicted upon ourselves in 1995. The Party constitution clearly stipulates that, the Flag-bearer is to be selected twenty-four (24) clear months, when in opposition, before the date of the Presidential election. This means that the Congress for the selection of the presidential candidate had to be held at the latest before the end of December 1994. However, there arose within the Party strong dissenting voices to delay the choice of the Partys Flag-bearer for the 1996 presidential election. As was to be expected, a much larger section of the Party was totally against such a move. They felt it was unbecoming of us to toy with the provision of our constitution for the sake of personal, and often times, unbridled ambitions. This is how Mr. B.J da Rocha, then National Chairman addressed the emerging threat in his keynote address to the 4th Annual National Delegates Conference at the Great Hall, University of Ghana, Legon on Saturday, 26th August 1995. ELECTION OF PARTYS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE The selection of the Partys candidate for the 1996 presidential election has been the subject of much speculation and, regrettably, has given rise to a great deal of bad feeling within the Party. The Party has to elect its candidates for the election. Every member of the Party of good standing has the right to offer himself or herself. Must contest for the candidacy generate animosity and controversy? Can we not have a contest without damaging each other and the Party? In due course a candidate will be elected. Whoever is elected cannot make himself President of Ghana by his individual effort alone. All of us in the party will have to work hard to win for him the votes which will secure him victory and the Party. It is for the reason that we must do everything to prevent the contest for nomination from degenerating into a bitter and destructive fight among the aspirants. Already there has developed a heated controversy over the date of electing our candidate. This matter was thoroughly debated by the National Council, after taking all necessary factors into considerations, decided to recommend to this conference that the election of our presidential candidate should take place in March, 1996. It is a recommendation which I urge this conference to endorse. If we think in terms of the Partys best interest and not the personal convenience of aspirants then I do not see any reason why there should be any further squabbles over the date of election of our candidates. By March, 1996 we would have had behind us the demanding task of getting our people to register. We should have laid down the framework for our election campaign and mobilize the necessary man power and material resources to take off. Remember that our election campaign must take off from the day our candidate is elected. There is the further consideration that we shall have had time to have done everything possible in the way of securing the co-operation of the other opposition parties if possible. Already a committee has been mandated by the National Council to pursue this matter vigorously. I have no doubt that between March and November, 1996 we have ample time to conduct an election campaign which should reach its peak at just the right time. I should like to admonish all aspirants to remember that they are colleagues inside the same Party, having identical political interests. None of them can hope to reap any benefit by damaging his opponent either openly or secretly. Such conduct only harms the Party by sowing the seeds of factionalism. You should seek support by impressing on your supporters your own virtues and merits and what you have to offer, not by running down your competitors. I expect that after this conference a code of conduct will be drawn up for all aspiring candidates. I expect and fervently hope that we shall soon see the emergence of a new style of campaigning by our presidential aspirants. The National Council, the second highest decision-making body, a meeting on Friday, 23rd December 2022, without a hitherto agenda and goes ahead to undertake the age-old gymnastics of when to hold the various primaries to select candidates Right after the meeting, and even before an official communique could be issued, a private media outlet, an al-Ahram of some sort, publishes a program with specific dates and timelines for the upcoming primaries not speculatively, but in a matter-of-fact fashion. This publication has since been exposed as a total fabrication. The Party has since issued a statement to the effect that no such decisions were taken as reported. Why such a brazen audacity to deceive? One may only surmise that it amounts to nothing more than a nefarious attempt either to impose a narrow will on a silent majority or in a usual style, mafia some people to their detriment and an undeserved advantage of others. So here we are in 2022, and like the Bourbons, we learnt nothing so we forgot nothing, and are therefore back to this unwholesome, circular argument, largely driven by inordinate and unbridled narrow ambitions. The main argument seems now have been reduced to the imagination that we will need sufficient time to heal wounds, smoothen ruffled feature and assuage wounded sentiments. The sensible question for me is, why inflict wounds and ruffle in the hope of healing and assuaging? And what do we regard as sufficient time? There are still petty peeves hanging and dividing us since 2008 with top ups from 2012. What makes us think that wounds which have been deliberately and consciously infected can heal or heal this fast so as to become the basis of a reproachment? To add insult to injury, we have not adopted the criminal language of La Mafia into our internal lexicon in describing the shameful and underhanded methods by which we gleefully ride roughshod over ourselves for petty gain, but to the detriment of the collective interest and brand. We are the Party that forced the argument of holding national elections on specific dates, and rightly so. It was done to eliminate the manipulative and surprise elements out of calling national elections at the behest of the Electoral Commissioner, which did not and should not have such a mandate. And we, who gained this noble achievement cannot gain same for our own party? I hear in my minds ears, the argument of granting ourselves some flexibility in the language of our partys constitution. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter and our disposition has already been to misuse the discretion to the detriment of those we perceive to be our internal opponents. It is better to be put into constitutional structures and only relax them by special resolutions as and when the matter becomes self-evident, and not vice versa. For those who have made it their game to mafia opponents, both at the parliamentary and presidential primaries, they ought to think hard and pin their eyes to the lessons of history and our own track record- a record that firmly resists ossified dictatorship and impisitionists. Our elders say, s wo tietia obi de so hwehw wo de a, wo renhunu, to wit, if you trample on what belongs to others in search of what may legitimately be yours, you will never find it. It is also said that, those who destroy others to succeed will surely meet destruction at the gate of their own success. There has been widespread international condemnation of riots in Brazil which saw supporters of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro overrun Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court on Sunday. French President Emmanuel Macron has called for respect for the country's institutions and assured Brazilian leader Lula of "France's unwavering support." Brazilian security forces have retaken control of public buildings in the capital Brasilia, a day after supporters of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the seat of power in riots that have sparked international criticism. In scenes reminiscent of the 6 January 2021 invasion of the US Capitol building by supporters of Donald Trump, backers of Bolsonaro broke through police cordons and overran administrative buildings in Brasilia, smashing windows and doors and ransacking offices. Security forces used tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon to drive the rioters back and retake control. Recently inaugurated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the veteran leftist who narrowly won Brazil's divisive October elections, condemned the invasions as a "fascist" attack. Defeated far-right former president Bolsonaro meanwhile condemned "pillaging and invasions of public buildings" in a tweet. But Bolsonaro rejected Lula's claim that he had incited the attacks, and defended the right to "peaceful protests." Federal District police said at least 300 people had been arrested in connection with the unrest. In a news conference late Sunday, Brazil's minister of institutional relations said the buildings would be inspected for evidence including fingerprints and images to hold people to account, and that the rioters apparently intended to spark similar such actions nationwide. Justice Minister Flavio Dino said the acts amounted to terrorism and coup-mongering and that authorities have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital. International condemnation There was swift international condemnation of the behaviour of the protesters. The United Nations said it "vehemently condemns" the attacks. US President Joe Biden slammed the scenes as "outrageous," European Council President Charles Michel tweeted his "absolute condemnation," and French President Emmanuel Macron called for respect for Brazil's institutions and sent Lula "France's unwavering support." Italy's far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also condemned the riots, while China said it "firmly opposes the violent attack." Pope Francis condemned a "weakening of democracy" in the Americas, citing the storming of government buildings in Brazil, in his yearly New Year's address to ambassadors. The Kremlin said Monday it backs Brazil's newly inaugurated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva while condemning riots by supporters of the country's ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Chilean President Gabriel Boric denounced a "cowardly and vile attack on democracy" and Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador described the Brasilia violence as a "reprehensible coup attempt." 09.01.2023 LISTEN A prophetess of God based in Accra, Prophetess Ruth Natie has handed over a mechanized borehole to the people of Frafra Number one (1) in the Canteen Electoral Area, a suburb of the West Gonja Municipal in the Savannah Region. The water system, which she fully funded through her foundation, Ruth Natie Foundation was conceived through divine revelation to support the age-long plight of the people in accessing portable drinking water. Under a project titled,"Christ the Living Water Project," madam Ruth Natie through her noble foundation has assisted several deprived communities with portable drinking water at moments when all hopes seem lost in such communities. Through divine direction, prophetess Ruth Natie always relies on the power of God to locate sites for the drilling of boreholes without any technical survey and most often, she has never visited such communities before. The prophetess of God believes water comes from God and admonished residents during the commissioning to be good stewards of the facility. She used the occasion to perform several miracles and offer special prayers for people with various spiritual challenges. The Assemblyman for the Canteen Electoral Area, Ananpansah Bartholomew Abraham commended Prophetess Ruth Natie for the kind gesture. With a heart full of joy, the Assemblyman said not only was the gesture timely, but a simple proof that God truly exist and works through people to bless his people. He said the people of Canteen Electoral Area will forever be grateful to prophetess Ruth Natie and her foundation for the intervention which the young leader described as a blessing. But like Oliver Twist, the Assemblyman used the opportunity to appeal to the prophetess to come to the aid of the people of Frafra Number four (4) in the Canteen Electoral Area whom all efforts have proven futile in getting them portable drinking water. There was total joy in the community as residents continued to pray for long life and prosperity for the prophetess of God in the service of humanity. Mr Abdul Malik Jeleel, Deputy National Communications Director, Convention People's Party (CPP), has lauded Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first President, as the pacesetter of Ghana's sustained democracy. In an interview with the Ghana News Agency to mark Constitution Day, which was commemorated on December 7 2023, he said the foundation of Ghana's constitutional rule started when the CPP Government adopted the first constitution in 1957. The adoption of the first Constitution, Mr Jeleel said, had a positive impact and accounted for the success of the 4th Republican Constitutional rule. As we celebrate the Constitution Day, credit ought to be given to Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah for the foundation he laid, making Ghana as the beacon of hope of Africa's democracy building in the 21st century. The recent coup d'etats in Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, etc and Ghanaians, especially our Armed Forces and other security agencies should applaud themselves and use the day to uphold our constitutional rule despite challenges in governance, he said. Since 2019, every December 7 is observed as Constitution Day, a public holiday set aside to mark the coming into effect of the 1992 Constitution and the birth of the Fourth Republic. Mr Jeleel urged the media and the civil society to play their key roles as democratic actors for a strengthened rule of law as well as effective governance for accelerated development and growth. While condemning some chaotic conducts of the Majority and Minority caucuses in Parliament which he said had stained the country's democratic credentials, he urged Members of Parliament to work together in the interest of the people. Mr Jeleel said although heated debates were part of the culture of the House, such situations should be managed in a manner that did not lead into fisticuffs. The application of the 1957 Constitution also had heated debates; for example, in December 1957, the CPP-dominated Parliament passed the Avoidance of Discrimination Act (ADA) and the Preventive Detention Act (PDA). The CPP adopted uncompromising attitude and strategy of using its majority in parliament to get their Bill passed without using an open-floor fight in the chamber of Parliament, he noted. Mr Jeleel rallied the citizenry to be responsible citizens and contribute their quota in their respective disciplines to strengthen and sustain the country's constitutional rule. GNA Acquired land was used mostly for raising livestock rather than growing fruit, vegetables or field crops. - Source: Peter Titmuss/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images 09.01.2023 LISTEN When the African National Congress came to power in South Africa in 1994, an expressed priority was land reform . This was to address the fact that black farmers had been excluded from the agricultural economy for most of the 20th century. The aim of land reform was to provide agricultural land to disadvantaged people, raising their productivity, income and employment. A plethora of policy initiatives were launched. The target was to distribute 30% of agricultural land to black farmers. In 2006 the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) was adopted. This replaced the land redistribution programmes implemented between 1996 and 2006. The acquisition programme involved the government buying farmland previously owned by white farmers and redistributing it to black farmers. But, overall, it's become clear that the new approach to redistributing farmland has been mostly ineffective. Failure can be attributed to limited implementation, poor institutional capacity and corruption. A research report first released in 2019 shed fresh light on how the most recent strategy has unfolded. Compiled by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) for the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, it provided a sober look at what happens when government bureaucrats get involved in land reform and farming decisions. The main findings were that the performance on most farms bought under the acquisition scheme had been disappointing. More than half the current beneficiaries were not reporting any substantial production. The same percentage were evaluated as having a low capacity to achieve commercial status. We argue that the data collected and interviews with stakeholders clearly indicate the reasons for failure. They include poor beneficiary selection, inadequate support and infrastructure, and rampant crime. Post settlement support was found to be inadequate, and stakeholders appointed to support the new farmers were poorly monitored and not working in an integrated manner. Agricultural infrastructure, both off farm and on farm, needed attention. Based on our decades of experience in studying land policy, we believe that there is scope for the successful integration of farms acquired under the scheme into profitable value chains. But for this to happen, existing constraints need to be addressed. The plan The land acquisition programme was approved in principle in July 2003. It was officially implemented in 2006. Between 2003 and August 2022, the state acquired 2.9 million hectares of farmland previously owned by white farmers through the Pro-active Land Acquisition Strategy. Around R12 billion (US$706 million) has been spent on the acquisition of these farms over the last 16 years. This land is made up of 2,921 farms and is under 30-year leases to beneficiaries. The state also owns an additional 3,172 farms. It is unclear when and how these were acquired. Our best guess is that they were bought in the earlier iterations of the land redistribution programme. The strategy was a noble attempt at land reform. It had some clear objectives: acquire land of high agricultural potential integrate black farmers into the commercial agricultural sector improve beneficiary selection improve land use planning ensure optimal productive land use. To establish the commercial potential and status of the farms, the Department of Rural Development and Land asked the Agricultural Research Council to conduct an analysis of all the land purchased under the scheme. Its remit was to: determine the agricultural potential of the land establish the performance of the new farmers define criteria for beneficiary selection define criteria for contracting support agencies establish interventions to help the scheme achieve its objectives. The findings Most farms acquired under the initiative had high potential. It's therefore possible to dismiss the myth that the land acquired for land reform was of poor quality. The assessment showed that land acquired through the programme was generally of good or fair quality, and 98% of farms had fair to good natural resources. Most farms (59%) were large enough in size and had a natural resource base sufficient to support viable enterprises. Some (7%) were doing well, despite limitations, indicating that it is possible for the programme to achieve its objectives. The report noted that roughly 60% of all the farms had the potential to achieve commercial levels of production. Another 23% had the potential to reach significant (medium scale) levels of production. Roughly 10% of the land had the capacity to support only livelihood level production. According to the data, all the farms under review collectively employed 12,129 part-time and 7,045 full-time workers. Each farm on average employed six full-time and four part-time workers. Based on the potential of these farms, a total of 60,050 workers should be employed, suggesting that the growth and employment targets of the programme have been missed by a mile. The report also looked at whether the farms were operational and in commercial production. It found that performance on most was disappointing. More than half the current beneficiaries were not reporting any substantial production, and more than half the beneficiaries were evaluated as having a low capacity to achieve commercial status. The report also addressed signs of degradation. Nearly half (47%) of the farms that had been acquired were found to have some degree of degradation, while 13% were seriously or severely degraded. This was based on an evaluation of the land through satellite imagery and the data collected for the farm, compared to the potential based on land capability maps. Of concern was the high number of commercially viable farms (42%) and medium-scale farms (53%) that showed signs of degradation such as erosion and overgrazing. The question of whether farmers were engaged in optimal farm enterprise mix was also addressed. It appears that most tended to avoid high value commodities (fruit, vegetables and field crops) in favour of livestock. This could be attributed to lack of skills, water constraints, insufficient suitable infrastructure and moveable assets, or limited access to capital. Of concern is the significant number (350) of farms that produced no commodities. What next The analysis showed that access to capital was one of the most critical resource limitations. To access capital from a commercial bank, the land bank or any private financial services outlet, farmers require collateral. Where farmers have title deed, this is facilitated. Lease agreements are not deemed collateral. This points to the need to transfer the farm title deeds to farmers who have proven their capability. This would enable them to access finance via the Land Bank under its newly launched blended finance programme . Farms with better infrastructure housing, fencing, water reticulation, fixed assets and equipment performed better. This illustrates the importance of infrastructural investment. For land reform success in the future, the importance of selecting beneficiaries based on the criteria of entrepreneurial aptitude, resilience and technical skills will also be vital. The criteria described in the Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy stated that beneficiaries should be evaluated. But this appears not to have happened in practice. The latest resolution on land reform passed by the ANC argues for legislative instruments to manage the state acquisition of land. The failures set out above suggest that the state will always be a poor player in redistributing land as it will always hold onto it. The point of identifying mistakes in policy is, surely, not to repeat them. Aart-Jan Verschoor was part of the Agricultural Research Council team that conducted a study and wrote a report commissioned by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform on the South African government's land acquisition programme . Colleta Gandidzanwa was part of the Agricultural Research Council team that conducted a study and wrote a report commissioned by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform on the South African government's land acquisition programme . Johann Kirsten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. By Johann Kirsten, Director of the Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch University And Aart-Jan Verschoor, Senior Manager - Agrimetrics, Agricultural Research Council And Colleta Gandidzanwa, Researcher, University of Pretoria Private Legal Practitioner, Martin Kpebu is leading a group of 200 individual investors seeking an audience with the government over the inclusion of individual bondholders in the debt exchange programme. According to the group, there should be no haircuts on their investments in the midst of the economic crisis. In his assessment of President Akufo-Addos government, Lawyer Martin Kpebu is of the view that the President has done Ghanaians a lot of harm in the six years he has been in power. President Akufo-Addo has done us [Ghanaians] a lot of harm, when he was borrowing we kept telling him to stop, the Private Legal Practitioner said in an interview with Joy FM. Speaking on the call for a new constitution, Lawyer Martin Kpebu argued that he does not believe President Akufo-Addo is interested because he would not want his power to be reduced. This President is not willing to do anything that will reduce his power, he said while adding, The saying 'a good name is better than riches' is gone, our values have been thrown away. On his part, the Dean of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) Law School, Prof. Kofi Abotsi shared the view that having an entirely new constitution is not possible. He believes that the motivation for constitutional change appears to have dwindled. Dozens of Iranians gathered on Sunday outside the French embassy in Tehran, protesting against the publication of cartoons of the Islamic republic's supreme leader by French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. Most of the demonstrators were religious seminary students. They gathered in front of the embassy in the centre of Tehran and set fire to French flags, according to the French press agency AFP. Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday published caricatures of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The weekly publication has supported protests in Iran, sparked by the 16 September death of Mahsa Amini, following her arrest for allegedly violating the country's dress code. Iran has warned France over the "insulting and indecent" cartoons, which appeared in a special edition to mark the anniversary of the 2015 attack on the magazine's Paris offices in which 17 people died. "France, be ashamed!", the crowd chanted. Waving Iranian flags, protestors held pictures of Khamenei and signs reading "I will sacrifice my life for the leader", and "Shame on Charlie Hebdo". "I came to support my revolution, my leader", 17-year-old seminary student Karim Heydarpour said. 'Arrogance' A senior cleric, Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani, was quoted by Iran's Mehr News Agency as saying that France "has continuously insulted the holy beliefs of the nations and Muslim sanctities" and that "such moves will make the nations more awake and more determined to confront their arrogance." Similar pro-government rallies were held in Iran's holy city of Qom, 128 kilometres south of Tehran, the state broadcaster reported. Iranian authorities brand the months-long protests in the country as "riots" and accuse foreign countries and opposition groups of stoking the unrest. On Sunday evening, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi condemned the publication of the cartoons, state news agency IRNA reported. "Resorting to insult and offence under the pretext of freedom is a clear evidence of the absurdity of the logic of those who insult, and their disappointment at the non-fruition of the conspiracy of chaos and insecurity in the country," Raisi said. Closure Earlier in the day, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said freedom of speech should not be used as a pretext for "insulting" religion. France "has no right to justify insulting the sanctities of other countries and nations and followers of divine religions under the pretext of freedom of speech." Paris should observe the "fundamental principles of international relations, namely mutual respect (and) non-interference in the internal affairs of others", he said. On Thursday, Iran said it was closing the Tehran-based French Institute for Research in Iran as a first step in response to the cartoons, after summoning Paris ambassador to protest the publication. Located in the centre of Tehran, the institute had been closed for many years, but was reopened under the 2013-2021 presidency of moderate president Hassan Rouhani as a sign of warming bilateral relations. (With agencies) The Ahafo Regional Minister, George Boakye has imposed a curfew on Bomaa in the Tano North Municipal. This was done in collaboration with the members of the Regional Security Council and in consultation with the Interior Minister and the National Security Minister. The decision of the Ahafo REGSEC follows violent clashes that claimed one life and caused injuries to five others on Sunday, January 8, 2023. The curfew shall be in force from 5 pm to 7 am daily, pending periodic assessments and reviews. a statement from the Minister said. One person was reportedly shot dead at Bomaa following a chieftaincy dispute in the community. The shooting occurred as a result of contention between two families in the town over who succeeds the late chief of the town. Several others also got injured in the incident and were sent to some nearby health facilities for treatment. By Citi Newsroom Stellantis offers US$30 million for battery materials manufacturer Element 25 in a 45Kt offtake deal, a world-first upstream investment by a top-tier automaker to a listed manganese company. ASX-listed battery materials manufacturing Element 25 [ASX:E25] has agreed to provide European car giant Stellantis with battery-grade manganese sulphate in an offtake deal. The news sent the E25 share price hurtling well over 15% by early Monday afternoon. A share was worth $1.11 cents at the time of writing. After a decrease of more than 30% throughout 2022, the first week of 2023 has started strong for Element, the minerals miner already having climbed 26% in its first week of the year. Source: TradingView Stellantis and Element 25 join forces Battery materials manufacturer Element 25 will be providing Stellantis (maker of Fiat, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Chrysler, and Jeep) with battery-grade manganese sulphate in an offtake deal that will support Stellantiss EV goals. The target is to supply the carmaker with up to 10,000 tonnes a year of high-purity manganese sulphate (HPMSM) across a minimum five-year period, with opportunities to extend time and volume. In return, Stellantis will partly fund developments of E25s HPMSM processing facility in two tranches, an investment of US$30 million. The offtake deal has been drawn up as a binding agreement, which is said to combine take or pay offtake commitments for 45Kt of HPMSM from Elements facility. As is usually the way, the term sheet will depend on technical due diligence, as well as a feasibility study. Element 25s Managing Director, Justin Brown, commented: Stellantis support for Element 25s high purity battery-grade manganese sulphate project is a fantastic endorsement by one of the worlds largest automakers and supports our plans to become a globally significant long-term supplier of battery materials to meet growing global demand. We are fully aligned with Stellantis decarbonisation and electrification goals, which represent some of the most ambitious in the industry and E25 have a pathway to reach agreed net zero carbon emission goals under this deal. Outlook for E25 Element has been pursuing combined offtake/financing solutions with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and cathode manufacturers to provide substantial project funding. The company was working towards finalising project offtake and financing strategies towards the end of 2022, with its pilot scale test program, flowsheet parameters, and engineering designs also concluding. While E25s flowsheet was created to provide for future-proofing against tightening specifications on ever-evolving battery technologies, todays news is the first tangible sign of offtake interest in the car manufacturing sphere. This is an important step in the delivery of our first production module which will combine Element 25s innovative processing flowsheet and the high quality, ethically sourced manganese concentrate from our 100%-owned Butcherbird Project in Western Australia to deliver sustainable, ethically sourced battery grade manganese to the electric vehicle industry, said Mr Brown. Is this the first glimpse into a new era for Element? We will have to see what transpires over the rest of 2023, as it is very early days. The incoming Aussie commodity boom Our resources expert and trained geologist, James Cooper, thinks the Australian resources sector is set to enter a new commodities boom brought on by the Age of Scarcity. Similar patterns that occurred 20 years ago are happening again. James is convinced the gears are in motion for another multiyear boom in commodities. A boom where Australia (and ASX stocks) stands to benefit The next big mining boom is predicted to happen in the next few years. You can access a recent report by James on exactly that topic, AND access an exclusive video on his personalised attack plan, right here. If that isnt enough to sate your curiosity, we can also share with you a recent interview with James and Greg at Ausbiz at the end of last year. Regards, Mahlia Stewart, For Money Morning Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - Senegalese President Macky Sall on Sunday declared three days of national mourning following a tragic road accident in which 40 passengers died Since 2018, Michigan Tech alumni Ashley Kern and Erin Thompson have helped colleges around the country increase enrollment, sharpen budgets and improve student retention with predictive analytics company SightLine. Now theyre making the college decision easier for high school students and their parents with a site called College Shopper. While Michigan Technological University continues to offer an outstanding value to an increasing number of students every year, the same cannot be said of many other colleges and universities. For over a decade, demographics have pointed to fewer students graduating from high school nationwide, which has translated into falling enrollment at most institutes of higher education. The pandemic added fuel to the flame. Now, with student debt burdens making headlines and traditional college rankings like those of the U.S. News & World Report falling out of favor, how are students and parents supposed to evaluate a colleges value? Enter Michigan Tech alumni Ashley Kern 15 17 (B.S., mathematical sciences; M.S., data science) and Erin Thompson 02 (B.S., clinical laboratory science). While pursuing what would become the first masters degree in data science ever awarded by Michigan Tech, Kern founded SightLine, a predictive analytics company focused on higher education. Thompson joined the team in 2019 the same year she completed a graduate certificate in postsecondary education at Tech. Together, they have been working with colleges and universities across the country, using artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to help schools optimize everything from financial aid forecasting to recruitment and retention. Using problem-solving skills they honed at Tech, their goal from the get-go was to improve student outcomes increasing graduation and job placement rates, as well as starting salary statistics for graduates. Now, they hope to reach prospective students and their parents more directly and help them choose the school thats best for them a huge life decision Kern thinks should be made based on fit and value, not college rankings. Parents and students are more price-sensitive than ever, she says. Many are reconsidering the value of higher education altogether. The numbers still show that, for most people, a college education is the best investment a young person can make in their future. But thats not true for every degree program, and huge value discrepancies exist from one school to the next. Much like weve been helping colleges and universities use statistics to find the right students, we now want to help parents and students evaluate their options and find the right school. To do that, SightLine has recently launched the College Shopper, a site that features a collection of free resources to help families decipher and compare opaque higher ed metrics like median net price and real out-of-pocket cost of attendance. They also offer personalized reports comparing up to 25 schools that parents and students are considering, helping them see where students are graduating with solid job prospects. For families seeking additional support in understanding the increasingly complex college market including those who might not even know where to begin the College Shopper team also offers one-on-one consultations. Say theres a parent of a high schooler trying to help their kid figure out where they should go to college, says Kern. They can go on the College Shopper site, submit a list of schools, and within 24 hours well send back a report that compares real value metrics between those schools. How much is four years of college actually going to cost at those different schools? Do most students really graduate in four years or should the expected price be calculated for five or six years? How much money are you likely to earn when you graduate? If you need to take out loans, how long would it take you to pay them back versus if you had just started working after high school? We look at all that and more. Essentially, we offer different ways of evaluating their return on investment. There are rankings and other websites full of numbers you can look at to evaluate a school, of course, but how does a person determine what is meaningful in that data? How should you compare schools and make a decision based on value? Answering those questions is much harder than just gathering information. At the College Shopper, were trying to simplify the decision process and make it easier on students and parents. Ashley Kern 15 17 founder and CEO of SightLine Part of the reason SightLine decided to launch the College Shopper was the companys record of success in consulting with prospective students. Kern says theyve helped students find and choose schools that were either not on their radar or low on their list; those students went on to save upward of $100,000 in tuition, room and board. In other cases, the team helped steer students toward degree programs they did not even know existed, setting them on career paths with higher starting salaries or stronger demand in the labor market. Thompson, a native of the Upper Peninsula who has worked with and for a number of colleges and universities in her career, says the same things that brought her to SightLine originally are driving the push to connect directly with students and parents. When I first started consulting for SightLine, I had just started a stable corporate job, but I left that job and jumped on board with Ashley because I believed in what we were doing. I loved that we were helping students gain access to education. I think thats so important. Im a first-generation student myself. I saw the strides we were making with retention rates and first-gen population and enrollment rates, and it was just really important for me. I believe that if you want to better yourself, you should be able to. Erin Thompson 02 COO and student retention specialist at SightLine When she looks at the numbers, Kern, like many, sees seismic shifts ahead in higher education. Like the housing market and the labor market, the education market is changing, she says. College costs more than it used to, and students and parents are expecting to get more back from the money they spend on college, as they should. I want to help universities navigate these changes, and I want to help students make better, more informed decisions about their educational journey. I really want SightLine to be the bridge between students and universities. We believe that the question students and parents need to be asking is not, Am I good enough to get into this college? But rather, Which of these schools is the best opportunity for me? Ashley Kern '15 '17 founder and CEO of SightLine Ultimately, Kern aims for SightLine to spearhead the effort to increase transparency in the greater education marketplace for the benefit of both students and universities alike. And while she understands why someone might be skeptical of her ability to serve both schools and students simultaneously, her conviction has yet to waver; if anything, its only gotten stronger the deeper she dives into the data. Ashley just always wants to do whats right, Thompson says. Shes driven by a really strong moral responsibility to help others, and shes such a genuine, amazing person. Shes really confident in her abilities and what she sees in the data, and she wants to move forward to make an impact. Shes grown SightLine into something really spectacular. Were on the verge of some really big things here. Its an opinion shared by those whove been following SightLines development since its inception, including Patrick Visser, chief commercial officer of Houghton-based business accelerator MTEC SmartZone. Through his Transformative Technologies program, Visser served as an entrepreneurial mentor for Kern in the early days of SightLine. Youve got to be willing to work hard to build a successful start-up business, says Visser. Ashley has always shown that dedication and passion. Shes been successful working with universities, and now shes expanding into new frontiers within education. I feel that with her work ethic and intelligence, shes going to be able to develop solutions that will help high school students and their parents better find the right higher ed institution for their education. Ed Bailey, a Stanford-educated SightLine advisor who has held leadership positions at Google, LinkedIn and Cisco, agrees with Visser. College Shopper is the lynchpin to a new era of educational empowerment and focus, he says. Students and families will get access to new information and make even more effective and life-changing investment decisions. Institutions will have new ways to build incoming classes that will unlock new strategies for schools to make a name for themselves in a complicated and crowded education marketplace. Companies will have new ways to participate in creating and selecting their workforce of the future in a flexible and adaptable way. College Shopper is what we have all been waiting for, and I am excited for my children, clients and educators to get involved. John Lehman, Michigan Techs vice president of university relations and enrollment, has known Kern since she was a high school senior being recruited to be part of one of Techs first classes of Leading Scholars. When she recently shared her ideas about the College Shopper with him, Lehman agreed that Kern is on the leading edge of a coming sea change in higher education. "Empowering people with more and better information, and helping them use that information to make good decisions, will not only make a difference for students and parents, it will also benefit universities like Michigan Tech schools that create real opportunities for their students in tangible, meaningful, measurable ways. It will help students find us and will help us find Huskies: the difference-makers of the world like Ashley and Erin. Ashley has always embodied that problem-solving ethos that so many Tech students have. That sense of, like, Well, this needs to happen, so were just going to do it. John Lehman vice president of university relations and enrollment at Michigan Tech While the College Shopper is just the next element in a much larger vision for SightLine, it also represents a completed circle for Kern and Thompson, leaders who both cut their teeth at Tech and are now using what they learned to help others get the most out of their own education. At SightLine, were constantly asking the questions, says Kern. How do we help students figure out their educational path earlier? How do we match them to successful outcomes? And so much of this approach comes directly from our experience as students at Michigan Tech. Tech has always talked about value, and theyve always backed it up, Kern continues. Tech has some of the best job placement rates in the country. The ROI of Tech is amazing, and it has a great alumni network. My dad consults for a lot of different engineering companies, and literally every single company, if they get an applicant with any sort of relation to Michigan Tech, they all say, Oh, they went to Tech? Im hiring them. Anywhere in the country. You cant really deny Techs outcomes. But its not like that at every university, or in every degree program. With the College Shopper, we want to help families sort through all the numbers and set them up for success as early as possible. Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigans flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure. Plaque and decals for winners are now available to be claimed Drop by the Marianas Variety office at Alahaihai Ave., Garapan to pick up. For more information, call our Sales Representatives at (670) 234-9272. Yves here. This talk reviews how one leg of the multi-fronted right wind backlash of the 1970s and 1980s targeted Allendes 1972 call for a new international economic order. Specifically, Allende was early to recognize the treat multinational corporations posed to the welfare of ordinary citizens. Not surprisingly, this corporate campaign proved to be effective. Money and persistence work wonders. By Lynn Fries. Originally published at GPE Newsdocs LYNN FRIES: Hello and welcome. Im Lynn Fries producer of Global Political Economy or GPEnewsdocs with guest Harris Gleckman. A recent symposium marking the 50th anniversary of Salvador Allendes speech at the UNGA in 1972 delved into the topic of Corporate Power: Then and Now. In this segment, I invite our guest to expand on an argument he made at that symposium. Notably, that to build a stronger democratic multilateral system accountable to the public interest and committed to a sustainable planet we not only need to think about the narrative of where we want to go but we have to think about the institutional ways of making that happen. I should note our guest speaks from first hand experience of the ways in which corporate power undermined institutions set up in response to Allendes appeal. And how into the present, corporate power has shaped or as some would say misshaped the international economic order where among other inequalities, transnational corporations but not citizens are protected under hard law at the international level. Joining us from Massachusetts, Harris Gleckman is Senior Fellow at the Center for Governance and Sustainability, UMass-Boston. Hes Director of Benchmark Environmental Consulting and Board Member of the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability. And the author of Multistakeholder Governance and Democracy: A Global Challenge. Among other distinctions and of particular relevance to todays conversation, from the early 80s until it was shut down in 1992, Harris Gleckman was a staff member at the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations. He served as chief of the UNCTC environment unit (1988-1992) and in this capacity prepared the benchmark survey and recommendations on sustainable development management for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. I am delighted to welcome Harris Gleckman. Over to you. Harris. HARRIS GLECKMAN: Thank you and thank you very much, Lynn for inviting me to join your series. The panel reflecting on Allendes crucial role in initiating global conversations about the power of multinationals was a wonderful marker in history. I want to pick up on your invitation to say what we really would like to see as a narrative for governing the international market and the institutions for doing that. I think that that at a minimum, we have a good model in theory which is what happens in the industrialized countries. And there are essentially five parts. The first part is the state is intended to be the buffer between consumers and the industry; to be a buffer between the workers and the owners of industry. And the state has this intermediary role and an institutional role in balancing those sets of powers. It sets up an administrative system to review mergers, to review technology issues, to review disclosure. It has an administrative structure. It also has a series of organizations that explicitly say: here is what a product safety standard should look like. Here is what a medical device for testing efficiency should look like. Here is how workers should be protected in their workplace. It has a separate set of institutions to make all those activities happen. It has a tax system which says this is the way in which the corporate world, in principle anyway, ought to be providing resources to meet, amongst other things, these needs. And it has a court system. When we move into the international space, we need all of those functions. And we need some additional ones because we have jurisdictional and political boundaries between countries. So those boundaries pushed by the corporate sector issue: Theyve demanded free movement of money going into the country, free movement of money going out, profits. Theyve demanded free movement of their technologies going in. But we do not have free movement of people. And we do not have clarity about how to deal with liability and responsibility and obligations across borders. All of that needs to be part of a package. The best of the national practices and a whole other collection of institutional and conceptual features to regulate a global market. But thats not where we are. And there are a lot of reasons why were not there. And amongst those that Allende flagged in his keynote address to the UNCTAD Session Three meeting in Santiago that initiated global attention to the need to figure out how to manage the international market. Let me explain to you why were not where we ought to be. Out of Allendes statement, a message of which he repeated in the General Assembly [the United Nations General Assembly], the Economic and Social Council brought together a group of eminent persons to say: President Allende, are you really right? Is it really necessary to do this? And those eminent persons a mixture of academics, labor, people from the corporate world, people from the legal profession came with a resounding yes; we do need to do this. And they reported that to the Economic and Social Council who created two bodies. One, a standing body of governments to continue b the political aspects of this, the Commission on Transnational Corporations. And a staff called, as you referred to it, the Center on Transnational Corporations (most commonly used initials, UNCTC). The Commission at its Second Session said to the staff, were giving you three major assignments. First is to address the normative legal basis for how to deal with transnationals in the international market. And please help us develop a Code of Conduct [on Transnational Corporations]. Second, they said: part of the reason President Allendes appeal for assistance occurs in many, many countries of the developing world is because they need technical and legal and financial assistance in negotiating with multinationals and in writing their own laws. So the Center was asked to provide day in and day out technical assistance to developing countries on matters relating to transnational corporations. And the third thing they asked of us was to do research and build a data base about the nature of transnational corporations. Because while certain elements were well known, many more had to be researched. What was the response to this from the corporate world? Part of it was supporting the Center on Transnational Corporations. Part, however, went to the OECD. And the OECD produced a competing set of standards which they called guidelines. So that introduced us to the first major tension about how we did not get to what needed to be an international arrangement for dealing with the international market. The OECD explicitly said its guidelines. Its voluntary: We will set some benchmarks, but its up to each company, each country, its going to be voluntary. This was the beginning of undermining an effort to build a constructive global system for managing an international market. The narrative and the wording in negotiations around the Code of Conduct remained a tension point. Because when there are references to good accounting, to consumer protection, the concern of those in the corporate world was that these ideas might permeate at the national level in developing countries into law. And that, that in their view was a bad idea. And so every section of the discussion of the Code of Conduct which might have been binding became a battle over the power of the narrative being moved into a legally binding system at least at the national level. Lynn, you were referring to in terms of developing the criteria for sustainable development as a contribution to the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development. This was an explicit request from the Economic and Social Council. And the Center convened many discussions with many advisors and produced this set of criteria for sustainable development management. The pressure on that; sorry, I need to back up and say every idea that was in the criteria had a footnote which said some company in the world was actually doing that activity at that level of environmental and sustainable behavior. That wasnt good enough. As an example of the kind of pressure, the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris went to the Swedish government who had helped fund the work we were doing on the criteria and accounting standards. And the Chief negotiating delegate for the Swedish government in this process which was a very active country, was explicitly told, dont incorporate this into the material. And even more was told: dont talk to the Center on Transnational Corporations. I can be honest with you, they basically did that. But as you understand, there was a conversation because I learned of that pressure brought through the International Chamber of Commerce through the Swedish government that constrained its contribution to the 1992 Rio Conference. In 1992, something else happened. The Center on Transnational Corporations itself was shut down. Thats also a reflection of the political power of just trying to develop some guidance, some assistance to countries; some research was seen as too much of a challenge to parts of the corporate sector. But thats only a part of the story. Another part as I was indicating is that the idea of law and regulatory practices normally done at the national level in developed countries was moved into the area of volunteerism. Whatever standards there were, they had to be voluntary. Another way in which this battle took place was over what for many it would be a mundane issue which is accounting standards. Part of accounting standards, so far as countries are concerned and so far as people are concerned, is the taxes that can be appropriately charged to international business. That turned accounting standards into a political fight. The Center on Transnationals hosted an international standards of accounting and reporting body to give developing country accounting professionals and leaders a chance to meet and to recommend the standards they wanted. But the predominant role of setting the standards for the accounting profession worldwide is a voluntary set run through corporate organizations. Let me just indicate how different these standards could be. Our colleague at the Center on Transnationals used to work in Asia for Exxon. And he would be asked by Exxon headquarters, did we make enough? How much did we make this year? And his answer, which he repeated, says tell me, I have three different accounting standards I can use to answer your question. The US standard, the standard in the country, the internal Exxon standard, and he could have said, a fourth, the ISAR standard [International Standards of Accounting and Report]. Tell me which one you want, and then I can answer you the question, how much profits, which relates to the ability of the countries to do taxing. Another area which is missing from what is the national practice is to set product safety standards for workers, for consumers. And here the UN was asked to produce a consolidated list of the rules and regulations about risks from chemicals and medical products. A book early edition looked like this. As you can see, it was a substantial amount of work. This is a compendium of decisions made by independent countries so that it could be shared with other countries, both from a scientific point of view and an administrative point of view. Well, you wont be surprised this also got shut down. That means that the process which would be the equivalent at the national level of environmental protection agencies, occupational health and safety agencies that doesnt have even a starting point in the way in which the corporate sector has that from happening, constrained the international level. Another area is in the area of courts. In the developed world, you have a largely independent court system. You have administrative of courts. All designed to have the leverage to arbitrate facts and the power to order the implementation of decisions. At the international level, there are no real courts of that nature. But what the corporate world has done is come up with a counter proposal, a counter structure, of the investor dispute settlement arbitration hearings [ISDS]. One of the key differences between that in a court is that the investor dispute settlement arena has an unusual criterion. The corporation has a platform to sue governments who enact health and safety environmental zoning rules, which might disrupt the profitability of the enterprise. Again, the power of the corporate world on the, on the international level has blocked even the analogous institutions that operate regularly in the developed world. Two other areas where that is occurring; one is in governance. In many developed countries, corporations, citizen groups, worker groups are encouraged to share their perspectives, to lobby the state, to say what the rules should be. At the international level, when Allende spoke and many years of the Center on Transnationals and the Commission on Transnationals life, the companies worked with their governments and the governments expressed certain views. Again, playing this moderating role but heavily influenced by corporate lobbying. Subsequently, that wasnt seen as adequate enough and corporations wanted to become at the table in setting rules and standards. And one of the ways in which they did this is create another form of institution called a multistakeholder body. These multistakeholder bodies exist in the area of setting product standards: The Marine Stewardship Council, the Forest Stewardship Council. In effect, these are the analogs to the national bodies. But now the firms involved are on the governance of these bodies. The firms or their spokesperson organizations wanted to be in the policy debate through multistakeholder forums. And this is now a direction which is, for the last 15 years now, a push from the World Economic Forum. And unfortunately, to be candid with you, one which the current Secretary General [the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres] has largely agreed to. And has a partnership agreement with the World Economic Forum to open the door more for these multistakeholder bodies which brings the corporation into the governance process. The current Secretary General has proposed as part of going forward after the 75 years of the United Nations: Our Common Agenda is his report. That report says that six other multistakeholder bodies should be created to deal with global policy issues. And its also telling that the Secretary General made no recommendations for governments to negotiate new international agreements. So another way in which the pressure from the corporate world has influenced the governance of the market is that the firms now are seeking and have got a seat at the table for a number of the standard setting practices and policy making in global governance. And I want to share one other which is quite central to this discussion. And its quite central to the discussion in the climate discussions and in the sustainability discussions. The sustainable development goals are negotiated between governments. But those governments who have the capacity and the money for doing it didnt put up the money, are not putting up the money. Because theyre leaving the door open for corporate philanthropies and individual firms to decide how to fund the future needs. And so corporate philanthropy power is very serious. We just had a very dramatic example of that political leverage through funding in the institution set up to deal with COVID to fund the vaccine access for many developing countries called COVAX. COVAX did not meet its goals. COVAX was a multistakeholder body. But, two weeks ago, one of the funders of COVAX, its called GAVI, the Global Alliance on Vaccine Initiative, said: Its not working. Were going to stop funding it. GAVI is supported largely and centrally by the Gates Foundation. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is saying very clearly, COVID is still a problem in the developing world and other parts of the world, and we need money. But the corporate funders have said thats enough. Unfortunately, also by the current Secretary Generals advice, many countries who might have previously given their donations to the World Health Assembly to do vaccines for COVID, instead, were encouraged to give their money to COVAX. And now COVAX is collapsing. Now I mention [all] that as the six different ways in which what ought to be the system for governing multinationals and transnationals has been undermined in the last 30 years. So where can we pick up some of Allendes enthusiasm and the enthusiasm and commitment of many other people around the world going forward? Let me offer five possible routes for maintaining and pushing forth further on this. First is the need to keep transnationals [transnational corporations] out of the governing process of international affairs. At the level of products, this is actually being done in the case of tobacco and infant formula. Where the treaties explicitly say that firms in that industry cannot be in the room, cannot participate, cannot contribute. Because the space is for governments to figure out how to make decisions. But thats not whats happening in climate. In climate, the corporations were all over the recent Conference of Parties in Egypt (COP 27). They struck an agreement with the Egyptian government, Coca-Cola, to fund part of the cost of the COP. They held sales exhibitions; oil and gas companies could put up tents to show how good they are. A new wall has to be built to reassert the space for governments to meet without the corporate world interfering in setting what should be the rules for the global market. A second area is some work under the United Nations Human Rights Council where theyre negotiating a binding treaty dealing with the issue of cross border liabilities. This is one of the areas where on the international market, theres an enormous hole. And this gap prevents those who may cause problems from having a court room where those who have been harmed can make their case and that settlements can be enforced. So, theres an effort for a binding treaty for the Human Rights Council. And that work is an area which would be very helpful for many people to be aware of and to join that activity in Geneva. A third area is to keep raising the attention the way multistakeholder bodies provide a frame, an institutional space for the corporations to enter public decision making. These are presented as if we now got everybody in the room. But everybody in the room has been ones which the f unders or the powerful actors have selected. And governments are treated as if they are equal to academics or to the corporate world or civil society. This forum does not have a base in any concept of democracy. And thats an area, you know, Lynn that Ive been writing on for a while. Another direction, a fourth, is to begin envisioning what would the next commission on transnational corporations, the next Center on Transnational Corporations, what would they look like? In terms of the narrative, their assignment, their institutional relations, planning how to build the next foothold. To begin to construct the kind of ways in which we ought to be able t o govern the international market. And my last suggestion is the toughest one, as we need to figure out what is, what we really would like to scale up democracy at a global level. And how does this fit well with regulating dominant forces in the market? And this is a tough question right now; our basic principle is enshrined in the one country one vote. It doesnt take a lot of quick of study to realize that there are a lot of small countries in the world population wise, and there are a number of very large countries in the world population wise. But at most democracies are based on individuals. And we havent got that kind of system at the international level. Do we want it? Thats one of the questions about envisioning what one would want out of a whole global governance system. A key part of that would be how to make sure that the right balance is maintained between the international firms and workers who are employed directly or indirectly by them; between international firms and the products and services that they provide; and between international firms and the natural resources that they are using. Those features of a global oversight of a market are essential. Thank you, Lynn. FRIES: With those thoughts, we are going to leave it here for now. Thank you, Harris. And from Geneva, Switzerland thank you for joining us in this segment of GPEnewsdocs with Harris Gleckman. Harris Gleckman is Senior Fellow at the Center for Governance and Sustainability, UMass-Boston and Director of Benchmark Environmental Consulting. He is Board Member of the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability. Gleckman was a staff member of the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations and head of the NY office of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. He is the author of Multistakeholder Governance and Democracy: A Global Challenge. Ooh, things are getting to be fun! Nothing like watching geopolitical jousting out in the open. Here, we have the US (and NATO) attempting to push around Turkiye, a country that holds far too many cards to meekly accept Western dictates. The immediate contratemps that has just heated up is Turkiyes threat to block Swedens bid to join NATO, which any NATO member can bar. Turkiye demanded that Sweden stop supporting what Turkiye deems to be Kurdish terrorists and made specific requests, including extraditions. It seemed highly unlikely that Sweden would be willing to accede to all of Turkiyes demands, and Sweden just said so: Conventional wisdom is that Turkiye will eventually knuckle under and will waive Finland and Sweden in. It would be too monstrously embarrassing and would worsen rifts in the bloc otherwise. But Turkiye will need some sort of bribe to go along. And is has to be visible for the sake of Erdogan depicting that he go something in return for his partial climbdown on his Kurdish terrorist position. But what might that sweetener be? If you were to read only, say, the likes of the Economist, youd have the strong impression that Turkiye was a vassal state that doesnt know its place. For those of you new to this plot line, NATO offered super duper expedited membership to Sweden and Finland. NATO acted as if the two Nordic states would be voted in quickly. Turkiye almost as quickly said it would refuse to accept their application, but backed right before an end-of-June NATO meeting. From the Guardian: After a period of intensive negotiations, Jens Stoltenberg, Natos secretary general, said on Tuesday evening: I am pleased to announce that we now have an agreement that paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join Nato. Turkey, Finland and Sweden have signed a memorandum that addresses Turkeys concerns, including around arms exports and the fight against terrorism, he added. [Swedish Prime Minister Magdelena] Andersson said she had shown the Turkish leader changes in Swedens terrorism legislation set to come into force next month. And of course, we will continue our fight against terrorism and as Nato members also do so with closer cooperation with Turkey, the Swedish premier said. NATO and EU leaders acted as if everything was settled. But voting on accepting the application and voting to approve membership are two different matters. Turkiye and Hungary have not yet approved the Sweden/Finland ascension (Hungarys is allegedly because its Parliament hasnt gotten to it yet, but some commentators contend pro-Russian officials are throwing sand in the gears). Erdogan held back Turkiyes approval for Sweden because he wanted to see performance on Swedens commitments. One of Edogans asks that Sweden agreed to, which at the time struck me as something Sweden either would or could not deliver on, was the extradition of specific individuals. From EUObserver: Turkey has demanded Sweden extradite 33 Kurdish separatists and people linked to FETO Ankaras name for followers of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim leader, whom Erdogan blames for organising a failed coup in 2016. Sweden has so far extradited two. In fact, Sweden had signaled that it was unlikely to comply much if at all with the extradition part of the deal. Again from EUObserver: The Swedish government must comply with Swedish and international law in extradition matters, which is also made clear in the trilateral agreement, Sweden said, referring to a three-way accord on Nato enlargement with Finland and Turkey. The agreement to secure Turkiyes vote for Sweden blew up over the attempt to extradite a publisher who is part of Fethullah Gulen and Erdogan sees as an important figure in the coup attempt against him. From Associated Press: Swedens top court on Monday rejected an extradition request for a man wanted by Turkey, saying the Scandinavian country does not criminalize the act he is accused of committing. In a statement, the Swedish Supreme Court said there were obstacles to extradition because it is a matter of so-called political crimes, i.e. crimes that are directed against the state and that are political in nature. The court in Stockholm said there was a risk of persecution based on the persons political views if he were returned to Turkey. The court did not name the man who was the subject of Turkeys request. Swedish news agency TT identified him as Bulent Kenes and said the Turkish government wants him in connection with a 2016 coup attempt. Erdogan has made clear that Kenes was a priority. Again from Associated Press: Erdogan singled Kenes out last month during a joint news conference with the Swedish prime minister in Ankara. There is one member of the (Gulen) terrorist organization in Sweden, whose name I will give: Bulent Kenes, Erdogan said. For example, the deportation of this terrorist to Turkey is of great importance to us, and we of course want Sweden to act with more sensitivity (on the issue). And in a development that doesnt seem to have gotten much notice in the press, Erdogan raised his demands after the Kenes ruling. From the Stockholm Center for Freedom, four days after the Supreme Court ruling: Turkish authorities have expanded the list of people, the majority of them political dissidents, whose extradition is demanded from Sweden, increasing the number from 33 to 42, Turkish Minute reported, citing Radio Sweden. Sweden and Finland broke with decades of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO in response to Russias February invasion of Ukraine. Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members yet to ratify the Nordic neighbors applications. Turkey has accused Finland and Sweden, in particular, of providing a safe haven for outlawed Kurdish groups it deems terrorists as well as some political dissidents and has refrained from ratifying their NATO bids despite an agreement in Madrid in June. According to Radio Sweden, the Turkish governments list of people whose extradition is demanded from Sweden includes 16 alleged members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), 12 people with alleged links to the faith-based Gulen movement and seven people from leftist groups in addition to seven people who are accused of such crimes as smuggling. Oddly, the article does not point out that the PKK is a recognized terrorist organization; the US put PKK on its list the same day it added Hezbollah and Shining Path. One would assume extraditing them plus the accused smugglers would be viable.1 However, Sweden said it is done with catering to Turkiye to get its NATO vote. From the Financial Times: Sweden has said Turkey is demanding concessions that Stockholm cannot give to approve its application to join Nato as the prime minister insisted the country had done all it could to meet Ankaras concerns. Ulf Kristersson, the new centre-right leader, on Sunday threw down the gauntlet to Turkey in the clearest indication yet from Stockholm that it could do no more to help persuade Turkey to drop its opposition to Sweden and neighbouring Finland joining the western military alliance. Turkey confirms that we have done what we said we would do. But they also say that they want things that we cant and wont give them. So the decision is now with Turkey, Kristersson told a Swedish defence conference. Sweden is rubbing salt in Turkiyes wound by misrepresenting what its Foreign Minister said. From Reuters in Turkey calls for more action from Sweden on extradition for NATO backing, three days after the Supreme Court ruling that blocked Kenes extradition: [Foreign Minister Mevlut] Cavusoglu said Turkey appreciated Swedens steps so far. However, there is no concrete development regarding the extradition of terrorism-related criminals and the freezing of their assets, he said. If Sweden wants to be a NATO ally, we have to see concrete cooperation. The negotiations are carried out in a positive atmosphere, but the denial of extradition of Kenes has intoxicated this atmosphere, Cavusoglu said at the press meet. In other words, Turkiye clearly reminded Sweden that it had not delivered on its commitments. Turkiye reminded Sweden that it needed to follow through to get Turkiyes NATO vote. But Sweden is now trying to present Turkiye as somehow having come around to Swedens position. Where is the counter-offer? At a minimum, it sure looks like 23 people were good candidates for extradition. Using a high-profile single case as a basis for dropping the entire matter looks like bad faith. After all, 2/3 of the attempts so far had succeeded. This is a very long winded introduction to a key point, that Turkiye has tons of leverage and therefore has and will continue to play the Collective West off against the rest of the world. The only way that stops would be if NATO manages to do an own goal on the order of the anti-Russia economic sanctions and gets Turkiye to hike out of NATO. Theres no process for removing a NATO member2 Turkiye very very much likes the advantage it gets against Russia by being in NATO, so it is extremely unlikely that Turkiye would depart of its own accord. So Turkiye in NATO looks increasingly like those old pre-nup marriages, where both parties really would like to be done with each other but cant afford to get divorced.3 Turkiyes assets include: The Dardanelles Second biggest NATO army, and the biggest in the European theater: Incirlik Air Base. This is the airbase the US uses for Middle Eastern operations. And reflecting Turkiyes position, its not run on normal US-as-occupier airbase lines. From MilitaryBases.com: The base is in Turkey, which means that it is operated by both the US and the Turkish governments, unlike other co-bases. Most other military installations are operated by the US government, but under the regulation of the hosting government. Incirlik has held (as of 2016) and may still hold as many as 50 hydrogen warheads. Things started to go very pear shaped with the US after the 2016 coup attempt. Aljazeera gives a very good overview. Erdogan is very unhappy that the US has refused to extradite Fethullah Gulen. While Turkiye apparently has not come up with strong enough evidence of Gulens personal involvement, its not hard to see that a Muslim cleric in the normally not very Muslim-friendly US having a very lavish compound would generate suspicion back home. This is far from a complete list of dust-ups since then: Calls in 2016 for Turkiye to be expelled from NATO due to its ouster of Gulen allies (mind you, the purge had started in 2013 but intensified greatly after the coup attempt) Turkiye ordering Russian S-400 air-defense systems, now twice, leading the US to cancel F-35 sales to Turkiye.4 That might seem like a gift except Turkiye is listed as a funder of the program, which at a minimum means having invested in factories to make some parts. Note that Turkiye signed the deal in 2017. The US cut Turkiye out of the F-35 program the month after Turkiye accepted the first delivery, in 2019. The Trump Administration imposed additional sanctions on Turkiye in December 2020. The afore-alluded-to 2019 fury when Turkiye launched Operation Spring, against Kurdish (as in American-backed) forces in Syria. Erdogan poured gas on the fire by threatening to stop barring Syrian refugees from entering Europe if he wasnt allowed to have his way. Turkiye making some of the right noises about Russias conflict in Ukraine but still maintaining and even expanding relations with Russia. Ankara has been explicit: Ukraine and Russia are neighbors and it intends to stay on good terms with both. Turkiye did supply Ukraine with much-touted Bayrakter drones.that wound up big time underperforming. And as well flesh out a bit more below, the Collective West regards Turkiye as not doing its part to support the war against Russia. However, Turkiye entered into a big economic deal with Russia. The West has tried to block some elements, such as Turkiye banks accepting the Mir card. Turkiye and Russia expect to have work-arounds in place by summer 2023. The West also cant be happy at the prospect of Syria and Turkiye teaming up, with Russia helping to broker the deal, to go against terrorists which will include pretty much all of the US cats paws. On the Turkiye side, I suspect but cant prove that one of the reasons for its tart opposition to the Sweden/Finland membership offers was that it was not consulted in advance. Today, Conor Gallagher provides an important, long-form treatment of a development that Turkiye regards in and of itself as a huge betrayal: the US working with Greece to place missiles on Aegean islands that by treaty were pledged to stay unarmed. The US rationale is that Turkiye has not been an aggressive enough NATO operative, for instance, in its refusal to let warships enter the Black Sea, and more generally, declining to operate as a US/NATO hub in the war, so it is using Greece to get at Moscow. But Turkiye has repeatedly complained that it is also in Greek crosshairs, and Conor and other analysts believe the US moves are meant to punish pressure Turkiye. Erdogan has reacted in his typical very impolitic manner, leading to further harrumphing that his words prove hes not a fit member of civilized society. From the Express in mid-December: Speaking during a town hall meeting with youths in the northern Turkish city of Samsun on Saturday, Erdogan said Turkey had begun making its own short-range ballistic missiles called Tayfun, which, he said, was frightening the Greeks. (The Greeks) say It can hit Athens, said Erdogan, whose comments were aired late Sunday. He added: Of course it will. If you dont stay calm, if you try to buy things from the United States and other places (to arm) the islands, a country like Turkey has to do something. Lets return to the headline issue: will this Turkiye threat over Sweden just prove to be a show of bluster, as most of the press has been treating it (as well as NATO itself, which has been inviting Sweden and Finland to meetings and extending other privileges normally afforded only to members)? In light of all of the above, that may not be such a safe bet. Turkiye, interestingly like India, has been trying to navigated a geopolitically independent, self-interested course. But India is not a key member of a US dominated security alliance. It is hard to calibrate Turkiye messaging compared to its intent. If Turkiye regards the arming of Greece as a serious security threat, which seems likely, it is logical to assume that Turkiye will continue to withhold its approval of Sweden and Finland until the US winds that program back at least to a degree. Its a clear leverage point on a matter to which the West has hopelessly committed itself.5 However, the US has likely convinced itself that using Greece to mount a joint threat against Russia and Turkiye is strategically necessary. And since it is becoming hard to paper over that the Ukraine war is not going well (witness, for instance the recent Washington Post op-ed by Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates, Time is not on Ukraines side), the US is likely to engage in displacement: since it isnt getting what it wants in Ukraine, it is going to make damned sure it gets what it wants elsewhere. That means NATO expansion among other things. The odds appear high that the US would regard Turkiye as intransigent and at a time when it feels it cant afford even an optical setback, as in further delay in getting the Nordic nations in NATO. But instead of giving Turkiye a sweetener, the US and NATO have been big on sticks. So I would expect things to get worse before they get better on this front. And they may not get better. _____ 1 Remember, at the 50,000 foot level, someone who is to be extradited does not have to have been found guilty but is instead typically being sought to be brought to trial. One of the typical provisions in extradition treaties is the crime for which they are being charged in the home country is also a crime in the country that is being petitioned to extradite the accused. As an aside, Erdogan escalating when his earlier deal was blocked is Mafia-like. From the movie version of The Godfather: Michael: Well, when Johnny was first starting out, he was signed to a personal services contract with this big-band leader. And as his career got better and better, he wanted to get out of it. But the band leader wouldnt let him. Now, Johnny is my fathers godson. So my father went to see this bandleader and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, my father went back, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, he had a signed release for a certified check of $1,000. Kay Adams: How did he do that? Michael: My father made him an offer he couldnt refuse. Kay Adams: What was that? Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract. 2 There is no provision in the NATO governing agreements for expelling a member state. Theoretically, NATO could try invoking Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, as described long from in a 2019 Just Security article. The posturing about NATO values is painful to read, particularly in light of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage and the Minsk accord duplicity. Remember also that Erdogan believes that the US played a role in the 2016 coup attempt. 3 In the interest of reader convenience, that same Just Security article in 2019 describes how Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and various Congressional hawks fulminated about expelling Turkiye from NATO and other punishments for planning to attack Kurdish forces in Syria. 4 The excuse, that the S-400 system might spy on the F-35s and send info back to Mother Russia, sounds nonsensical. The security risk would seem to by HUMINT, not SIGINT, like Russian techs sent to help wit the S-400 getting a bit too much in the way of a look or even gossip from Turkiye personnel. 5 I am not sure who played whom. Sweden no doubt thinks it was oh so clever to get weasel wording in its deal with Turkiye. But Erdogan has dealt enough with extradition that he should have recognized the risk of that carveout. Did he go with the agreement assuming he could play it his way either way, that Sweden would either comply well enough to call it a win, or if not, he could demand new concessions? (Natural News) Hundreds of thousands of Californians are without power as a so-called bomb cyclone storm batters the West Coast, leaving several dead and a trail of wreckage across the region. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a Flood Watch in many areas of the state, which lasted until 4 p.m. on Thursday. A High Wind Warning was also issued as trees fell and businesses collapsed throughout the Bay Area, which was hit exceptionally hard by the storm. More wind and rain are forecast for Northern California over the weekend and into next week, which will add insult to injury on top of already catastrophic conditions in some of the worst hit areas, (Related: Does this mean California is no longer in a drought?) Cities and towns located alongside rivers and streams face the worst flooding as water levels rise. Strong waves in coastal areas also threaten homes and businesses as well as piers, some of which were damaged during the worst of the storm. Strong waves are crashing on West Cliff Dr., and West Cliff Dr. will be closed from Pelton to Almar, announced city officials in Santa Cruz, where the local wharf was evacuated. These intense waves are pushing large rocks onto the road as well. Please be careful near any bodies of water as we still have high wind advisories, and there could be dangerous conditions. Piers in Capitola and Seacliff were reportedly damaged by the wind and waves, and some coastal communities in the Carmel area had to be evacuated because of extreme threat to life or property. Official says bomb cyclone could be most challenging and impactful series of storms in five years A child reportedly died after a large redwood tree toppled over and fell onto a home. In another similar instance, a large tree fell on a sedan in San Francisco, the passengers of which were rescued without critical injury. Also in San Francisco, the overhang at a local Valero gas station crashed down from heavy winds, knocking over gas pumps and creating a hazard. At their peak, wind speeds in some areas reached 130mph, which is Hurricane-level force. Out at sea, sensors captured massive 45-foot waves tumbling during the height of the storm. Local beaches saw the effects of this as large waves crashed on the sand and eroded the normal topography. Big Sur, a popular coastal destination, expects to see upwards of five inches of rain through Sunday while Los Angeles, which is generally dry, could see as much as three inches of rain, according to The Weather Channel. We anticipate that this may be one of the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years, announced Nancy Ward, the new director of the California Governors Office of Emergency Services. After recently being hit by numerous large wildfires, Santa Barbara County ordered evacuations for areas near the burned-out spots as these tend to flood and unleash large debris flows. Hundreds of people, estimated Susan Klein-Rothschild, a spokesperson for the countys emergency operations center, were included in that evacuation order, including some residents of Montecito where Oprah Winfrey, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle all live. What were talking about here is a lot of water coming off the top of the hills, coming down into the creeks and streams and as it comes down, it gains momentum and thats what the initial danger is, Montecito Fire Department Chief Kevin Taylor said. Numerous towns in Santa Cruz County also had to be evacuated due to similar wildfire burnout issues as well as fast-moving water threats along the San Lorenzo River. More related news can be found at Disaster.news. Sources for this article include: DailyMail.co.uk CBSNews.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) Recognizing that there is little, if any, actual science to back the religion known as climate change, the Washington State Department of Health (WSDH) has developed new curriculum guidelines for students that urge teachers to focus more on emotions as opposed to rational thinking. Part of a five-part Climate Change & Pregnancy curriculum, the WSDHs new climate modules focus on indoctrinating students as to the intersections of biological, societal and environmental issues. As teachers and students consider the impacts of climate change, we should be mindful of the emotional dimensions of the human experience, the curriculum explains. For too long, science and science education have prioritized my rational thinking. As we delve more deeply into the impacts of climate change using the data [from the Washington Tracking Network] and the practices of the Next Generation Science Standards, we must learn to pay attention to our own emotions and those of other people. In other words, critical thinking based on facts is a hindrance to global warming fanatics and their radical agenda. One way to help overcome this is to set critical thinking aside and focus more on feelings concerning the climate. Emotions signal alignment or discord between cultural values and technical assertions, the document goes on to state, adding that ignoring them suggests a level of arrogance that can weaken important relationships for getting things done. (Related: In order to achieve climate justice, Reuters says the world requires much more depopulation.) Climate change is a blind faith-based religion that has nothing to do with actual science It is clear from the WSDHs new climate curriculum that the climate cult is starting to pivot away from the idea that their dogmas have anything whatsoever to do with verifiable science. Todd Myers, environmental director of the free-market-oriented Washington Policy Center, said this newfound disregard for rational thinking in students science curriculum will only end up being disadvantageous to students and society. This is an understatement, though. In truth, climate change is a religion that relies almost entirely on blind faith since it is not a settled matter. There are many scientists out there who have presented sound scientific evidence that global warming is not actually real but they are typically ignored. Because of this conflict, the global warming cult is developing a new emotions-based system of belief that encourages turning off ones own brain and sensibilities while embracing fairy tales as fact. Saying that we have overemphasized rational thinking in what is supposed to be a scientific curriculum is not only foolish, it is harmful to people and the environment, Myers added in a statement. Ultimately, attacking rational thinking is just a way to justify policies that are irrational and unscientific. When the science doesnt support a policy, advocates can simply claim that we shouldnt be bound by rationality and should go with our feelings. It is a recipe for policy based on tantrums rather than data. In truth, this new approach to climate believism is centered around demagoguery, which by definition is used by malevolent actors to gain power and popularity by arousing emotions, passions and prejudices of the people. Teaching the climate religion in schools is akin to teaching the Bible or the Quran, which leftists oppose because they believe in separation of church and state. How, then, can they justify teaching climate fairy tales as truth in the very same setting? If you dont get your kids out of the indoctrination public school system or make a loud and firm stand against the agenda, you dont get to complain, one commenter wrote about the matter. The latest news about the spread of climate insanity can be found at Climate.news. Sources for this article include: TheNewAmerican.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) In just a few short days January 11, to be exact at least 15 million Americans will begin to lose their health coverage. The reason for this is that the shield of continuous coverage offered by Medicaid and the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP) will end in conjunction with the end of the covid public health emergency, which has been in effect for nearly three years now. The Biden regime announced plans to end the public health emergency by January 11, though analysts say that date could be extended another 60 days because of a White House promise to issue a two-month notice before it becomes official. Either way, we are just weeks or even days away from millions of Americans losing their health coverage. Once the state of emergency expires, regular income requirements and restrictions will apply, reported The Epoch Times. This will disqualify millions whove benefited from congressional legislation passed in 2020 preventing disenrollment for the duration of the COVID pandemic. Even with an extension, its only delaying the inevitable, according to industry insiders. An avalanche of newly uninsured Americans will still tumble into the national health care system. (Related: Remember when the World Health Organization [WHO] tried to declare another global health emergency over monkeypox?) Will America face a serious mental health crisis once public health emergency coverage expires? Once the public health emergency coverage comes to an end, at least 15 million Americans, including young children, will be immediately unenrolled, according to an analysis from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning Evaluation. Within that group, 8.2 million will no longer be eligible for Medicaid, reports explain. Another 5.3 million children also wont qualify for CHIP. Not even one-third of those slated for ejection from coverage will qualify for tax credits or other programs, the result being that at least 10 million Americans who were covered for the past three years will no longer be covered the moment it all expires. The result, according to analysts, will be increased costs for doctor visits and especially those in the emergency room. It is also expected that mental health will massively decline for millions of people, creating a mental health crisis. We talk about this at work a lot, said Amanda Jones, a senior health professional who has worked with U.S. government-run health care programs for nearly 15 years, to The Epoch Times. From the human perspective, its not just CHIP and Medicaid, its also disability plans. Thats what were most worried about, disability and seniors. It turns out that the vast majority of Americans 93 percent, in fact do not believe that the benefits of medical insurance outweigh the exorbitant costs. As a result, the vast majority of those who lose coverage will likely remain without coverage. A 2022 study found that 112 million U.S. adults cannot afford medical insurance at the current rates. Those who were taking advantage of public health emergency coverage the past three years are in for a shock once that coverage expires. With a lapse in coverage, getting people back into their routine with their medical doctors is complicated, Jones added. Higher administrative costs in health care will get passed onto other customers. There will also be a lot more emergency room visits. In 2021, Medicaid enrollment soared to record levels, topping 80 million people. Much of this was due to covid-related employment loss, which for many is still true today. If you think the mental health crisis is bad now with the increase in suicide, just wait until the underserved lose their healthcare, added Dr. Kimberly Parker about what is coming. The latest news about the ongoing fallout from the covid scamdemic can be found at Collapse.news. Sources for this article include: TheEpochTimes.com NaturalNews.com (Natural News) The Japanese government has mobilized researchers to conduct a probe on the deaths caused by the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines. NewsPunchs Baxter Dmitry reported that authorities in the East Asian country have instructed Japanese experts to investigate the mechanisms by which the experimental mRNA shots could be causing deaths and severe adverse reactions. As of writing, two researchers have come forward to share their findings. Masataka Nagao of Hiroshima Universitys School of Medicine highlighted how the bodies of vaccinated persons he autopsied with the help of police officers were abnormally warm. He said: The first concern was that the body temperatures of the corpses were very high. According to Nagao, the bodies he autopsied had temperatures between 33 and 34 C (91 to 93 F). Other bodies he examined had temperatures above normal, with one example measuring more than 40 C (104 F). Based on this, Nagao concluded that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine causes immune system abnormalities that prompt inflammation throughout the body causing the high temperatures. Meanwhile, dermatology expert Shigetoshi Sano of Kochi Universitys School of Medicine recounted finding SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins at the site of skin lesions on vaccinated patients. The spike protein derived from the vaccine was found in the skin, he told reporters. Spike proteins are locally suppressing the immune system. As a result, the spike proteins facilitate in reactivation of the herpes virus. Aside from this, Sano remarked that the spike proteins also prompt inflammation that can lead to blood clots. Even worse, spike proteins can also locally induce inflammation, he continued. I dont know if I should say this, but it has been found that vaccinated people are more likely to get [COVID-19] than unvaccinated people. Sometimes, things that are not good are introduced into the human body. Vaccination may cause our overall immune system to fail to fight against such bad things. Tokyo blasted for refusing to stop COVID-19 vaccination program The investigations conducted by Nagao and Sano followed a strong rebuke by Kyoto University professor emeritus Dr. Masanori Fukushima against the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) for refusing to stop the countrys COVID-19 vaccination program. People are already doing research all over the world, he told authorities during a January 2023 conference. You have vaccinated so many people. And yet only 10 percent of the members of the MHLW who are leading members of the vaccine campaign have been vaccinated. Is this a joke? Back in November of last year, Fukushima expressed opposition to the COVID-19 vaccines during a conference convened by concerned citizen Kazuhisa Ukawa. Vaccine damage is now a global problem, the professor emeritus said. All those who have fallen ill after being vaccinated should not delay informing their medical institution. Dont be slow. Fukushima continued: Given the wide range of adverse events, billions of lives could ultimately be in danger. Some of the serious reactions he mentioned were cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease and susceptibility to infection. (Related: Japanese expert warns: COVID-19 injections endanger BILLIONS of lives.) Due to vaccination, natural immunity has been suppressed. This is what happened. I dont think it will subside at all; it will spread more and more, he said. Most people already have post-vaccination infections. The people who have the disease right now are not the ones who havent been vaccinated, but the ones who have been vaccinated. He then directed his words at MHLW: You spend trillions of yen importing [COVID-19 vaccines] and inciting the population [to get vaccinated]. In professional magazines, the misunderstanding has come to light and now it is understood how dangerous [these vaccines are]. Watch Dr. Masanori Fukushima warn against the dangers COVID-19 vaccine below. This video is from the In Search Of Truth channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Dr. Ryan Cole explains how the COVID vaccines compromise the immune system. Dr. Ryan Cole: Spike protein in COVID shots can cause serious damage to arteries. COVID-19 vaccines are causing blood clots, confims veteran embalmer Richard Hirschman. SHEDDING CONFIRMED: mRNA-generated covid spike proteins found in skin lesions MONTHS after vaccination. Sources include: NewsPunch.com SHTFPlan.com Brighteon.com 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 (Natural News) A recent study from Environment and Climate Change Canada, the countrys environment department, showed that polar bears are thriving debunking claims of climate alarmists that they will soon become extinct due to climate change. The study published in Blacklocks Report stated: Science and Inuit Quajimajatuquangit (traditional knowledge) are now observing higher numbers of polar bears and the management goals are more focused on maintaining or reducing numbers in communities and sensitive areas, i.e. bird colonies. It mentioned that the bear population in the areas of Labrador, northern Manitoba and Quebec has reached 16,000. It also confirmed repeated assertions by Inuit groups that polar bear populations were healthy and growing. It is rare to see a skinny bear, the Nunavik Marine Region Wildlife Board indicated in a 2019 affidavit submitted to Canadas federal court in support of hunting quotas. Nunavik residents have observed an increase in the polar bear population, and a particularly notable increase since the 1980s. Inuits have not noticed a significant decline in the health of the polar bears. Ontario-based journalist Kennedy Hall tackled the issue in a Jan. 4 op-ed for LifeSiteNews. Science and the native people of the Canadian arctic are now grappling with an overpopulation of polar bears, and now are focused on reducing numbers, he wrote. Are we allowed to kill an endangered species? Report debunks fearmongering tactics of climate alarmists that use polar bears Hall referenced a 2017 article by the Guardian titled Soul-crushing video of starving polar bear exposes climate crisis, experts say. The said piece included footage recorded by Canadian photographer Paul Nicklen, which showed a bear struggling to walk as it searches for food. According to the piece, the bear probably died within hours of being captured on video. Former Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna reacted to the video by retweeting a photo of an emaciated polar bear. She served in the position from 2015 to 2019. This is what climate change looks like, McKenna tweeted. Climate change is real as are its impacts. Time to stand up for our polar bears and our planet. Five years later in 2022, Nicklen spoke out about the viral video he captured. He told CNN in an interview that the report did nothing to support the narrative that surrounded it. In fact, his 2022 remarked contradicted them with Nicklen himself admitting that he cannot say that climate change killed the sickly bear he recorded. (Related: National Geographic finally comes clean: Super viral video of polar bear starving from climate change was totally fake news.) False claims of declining bear populations date from the Academy Award-winning 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore, Blacklocks Report stated. The former U.S. vice president said bears were drowning in melting sea ice. They are finding polar bears that have actually drowned swimming long distances, up to 60 miles, to find the ice, Gore said. Hall ultimately remarked: It turns out that that lonesome starving polar bear was no evidence of a trend of growing starvation or extinction of polar bears. And it also turns out that polar bear populations in Canada are growing at a rate so high that they are becoming a nuisance. ClimateAlarmism.news has more stories about the climate change narrative. Watch this video that explains how abundant Arctic ice is a cause of concern for polar bears. This video is from the Contrarian channel on Brighteon.com. More related stories: Canadian zoologist: Polar bear population is flourishing. New research shows polar bears are fat and healthy despite modest ice loss in the Arctic. Climate alarmists drop the polar bear as their mascot since polar bears are thriving, with record population numbers. The polar bear narrative of the climate cultists is about to implode: Polar bears are OVERPOPULATED. Fact checkers defend activist scientists because they agree with them not because they are right. Sources include: LifeSiteNews.com Blacklocks.ca TheGuardian.com Brighteon.com (Natural News) According to billionaire eugenicist Bill Gates, animals that humans eat have inadequate genetics. And the only way to fix those genetics is to vaccinate said animals with new mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines. Watch below as Gates explains his desires for the animal kingdom: Bill Gates wants to vaccinate animals to give them better genetics ? pic.twitter.com/2lBKXzpm8P Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) January 3, 2023 Unless all animals, including food animals, are jabbed with Big Pharmas latest poisons, the food supply will remain dirty, in Gates view. Only he and his globalist minions can sanitize it with new chemicals and DNA modification techniques which they are also trying to do to humans. The Gates Foundation is partnered with DFID on a great number of things, and among those are work we do together on livestock, Gates stated, referring to the United Kingdom-based Department for International Development. Helping animals survive, either by having vaccines or better genetics, helping them be more productive its making a big difference. (Related: Bill Gates lives to vaccinate.) Covid-jabbed animal foods to hit the market this year, compliments of Bill Gates As he usually does, Gates started all this by experimenting on the third world. Since Gates views poor people as having less value than himself, they get to be the guinea pigs for all of his newfangled endeavors to change the entire world into his own image. I was down in Ethiopia seeing how chickens are out there laying more eggs, getting more nutrition, and even some small savings into the household, Gates bragged. The question remains, though: are those eggs actually safe? Or do they contain the very same mRNA modifications that occur in humans after getting injected for covid? It turns out that the plan is to administer covid jabs to domestic livestock in the coming year, compliments of Gates and his cronies. What will these injections do to the food that is produced and sold to the masses? We will soon be eating DNA altered, sickened animals from the same mRNA jabs contributing to the Died Suddenly pandemic, warned a Twitter account called DJ Freedom Rocket. What could possibly go wrong Another account responded to this that, apparently, we already are eating fully vaccinated animal products, not to mention all the genetically modified (GMO) plant products that have been on the market and in the food supply for decades. Are you aware of reports that Pharma now is looking to inject mRNA into foods? this same account asked. Into fruits and veggies? Into animal feed? Into fake vaccines for farm animals. Malthusians intend to poison our food supply. All of this has been many years in the making. Thirteen years ago, Gates met with other globalists like Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey, to conjure up a coordinated response to the problem of population growth, which all of these figures see as a threat to the human race meaning themselves and their ill-gotten wealth and lavish lifestyles, which were built on the backs of the very people they are now attempting to exterminate. In the view of the worlds billionaires, religious and political obstacles remain that might get in the way of their mass experimentation, explains Jacob Bruns, writing for Headline USA. In the comments, someone added that people like Gates are clearly insane and no longer have any shame whatsoever about openly broadcasting their true intentions for the planet right in plain sight. Theyre like cartoon villains at this point, wrote another. Except that theyre real. More of the latest news about Bill Gates and his globalist death cult can be found at Genocide.news. Sources for this article include: HeadlineUSA.com NaturalNews.com Zombie viruses frozen in woolly mammoth remains and other prehistoric animals are feared by other scientists to leak from a Russian lab. The looming threat, comparatively coming from a scene in an apocalyptic movie, involves the potential viral outbreak never encountered by humans and animals in modern times. The discovery emerged last year and is still drawing concern until early January. Zombie Virus Outbreak In 2022, details about the potential re-awakening of zombie viruses from Siberia emerged between late November and early December. With this, Russian scientists are unearthing the bodies of long-dead mammals in an attempt to revive zombie viruses or stone age viruses, according to multiple reports, including from the Daily Mail UK. Some of these animal carcasses involve woolly mammoths from Siberia, Russia, which died approximately 10,000 years ago. However, a scientific team reportedly revealed they have already re-awakened a Siberian zombie virus that was frozen under a lake bed for almost 50,000 years. According to The Washington Post, the findings about the viruses were a result of a collective discovery by a team of European researchers from France, Germany, and Russia, who have found a total of 13 previously unknown or never-before-seen pathogens that had been trapped in the frozen ground of Russia's Siberian region. The scientists estimated that one of these viruses had been stranded under a lake for more than 48,500 years, where they highlight a potential new danger amid a warming planet. This prompted the researchers to call the frozen pathogens as "zombie" viruses. Also Read: Earth Now Closer to Climate Disaster With Signs Including Zombie Virus to Polar Bears Eating Garbage Russian Lab The Russian lab is reportedly called "Vector," which aims to understand how viruses evolve by studying such diseases conducted by the Russian Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology, according to the UK's Express Newspapers, which also said scientists are alarmed over Russia's "risky attempt" to awaken the viruses that killed the mammoths. The said UK media also reported the project is being overseen at a former bioweapons lab in Russia's Novosibirsk region, but Vector hosts 59 maximum security biolabs worldwide. Professor Jean-Michel Claverie from the National Centre of Scientific Research at the University of Aix-Marseille also told The Times newspaper expressing his alarm, highlighting that the Russian lab's research is "very, very risky." Claverie emphasizes that our immune systems have never encountered these types of viruses since time memorial, wherein some of these pathogens could be around 200,000 or even 400,000 years old. This means immune cells may have no clue on how counter these ancient viruses should a human or animal gets infected. WHO Inspection In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) reportedly conducted an inspection of the said Vector facility and found no significant concern even if the establishment had incidences in the past, according to Express UK. In addition to the mammoths, the scientists at the Novosibirsk Vector facility are also analyzing the remains of wooly rhinoceroses and other Ice Age animals to revive the said prehistoric viruses, also called as paleoviruses, The Times added. Related Article: FACT CHECK: Scientists Revived 50,000-Year-Old 'Zombie Virus' Under Frozen Lake in Russia, Sparks Public Fears of Another Pandemic Experts describe the "light pillars" phenomenon that lit up the night sky in Graceville, Minnesota. As seen on social media, the display put on an amazing show early on Thursday morning. Carol Bauer recorded the peaceful scene and shared images and videos of the magnificent performance on Twitter. Light Pillars When light from the surface of the Earth reflects off the six-sided ice crystals suspended in the frozen clouds above, light pillars are formed. Michael Kavulich from the National Center for Atmospheric Research said that it resembles a dinner plate, and in extremely calm conditions, they will align themselves horizontally, where they can essentially serve as mirrors. Each ice crystal will reflect a different color of light, producing an eye-catching display above. Kavulich said that these horizontal ice or mirror crystals are the reason why light pillars appear at night because they reflect the ground-level lights. Sun Pillars However, light pillars don't just happen at night; numerous reports of sun pillars have also been made. The same process that produces ice pillars also produces sun pillars. When the sun shines through a layer of ice crystals that are flat and suspended in the clouds, they can appear at sunrise or sunset. Kavulich explained that, for instance, between the observer and the sun, there are thousands of tiny mirrors, each one facing horizontally and standing at a different height. Each of these tiny mirrors reflects just a tiny bit of the sun's light, which comes together to form a horizontal column called a pillar. Kavulich said lower altitudes have calmer conditions that are essential for aligning the crystals. The Atmospheric Optics states that since artificial light rays are not parallel to one another, plate crystals with slight tilts can still reflect the light downward, allowing artificial light pillars to grow taller than natural ones. For the pillar to form, the crystals must be approximately halfway between the observer and the light source. According to the Optics website, if it's a cold night and ice crystals are all around the observer, even nearby lights, like streetlights, can emit pillars, FOX Weather reports. Read also: Bright Green Comet From the Stone Age Will Light Up the Sky Once Again This January Predicting Light Pillars According to AccuWeather Meteorologist David Samuhel, when the temperature is below zero [F] and the ice crystals are the right size. They are small enough to stay suspended in the air. In most cases, it is -10 to -20 degrees or colder outside. Samuhel claimed that the pillars form in the presence of high pressure but no storm. Samuhel said that the pillars and storms have nothing in common. The pillar formation would be disturbed by wind and precipitation from a storm system. The majority of pillars come from man-made sources, like street lights and other types of ground lighting. They vary from auroras in many ways, but auroras are more well-known because they are much more widespread. Since auroras happen thousands of miles up in the atmosphere, they can be seen over a much wider area. Samuhel emphasized that Light pillars can be found in the lowest parts of the atmosphere, close to the surface. Samuhel is aware that light pillars are invisible to radars. He continued by saying that it is likely possible to predict when light pillars will be visible by predicting cold and calm weather. However, predicting the formation of ice crystals is more challenging, AccuWeather reports. Related article: Astronomical Events January 2023: Watch Out For Dancing Planets, Full Wolf Moon, and More! A nine-year-old girl in Namibia was saved from the jaws of a crocodile by her brave brother, who wrestled the beast until it let her go. The crocodile attacked the siblings as they were fetching water for their village of Ntara in Namibia's Kavango West region. Wrestling with a Crocodile Nine-year-old Regimiya Haikera was grabbed by the reptile, which bit into her inner thigh as well as the left side of her ribs, according to the local news outlet New Era. Her brother, Johannes Ndara, who is 19 years old, leaped into action immediately. Ndara informed New Era that his sister had been following him as they traveled downstream to fill their buckets; he had only heard her screams before turning around to find her being devoured by a crocodile. The crocodile's jaws were then grabbed by Ndara as he dove under the water to fight it off and free his sister. Ndara was left feeling helpless after that, so he just held her in his arms as they sobbed by the edge of the river. Haikera was taken to the Bunya Health Center before being flown as quickly as possible to the Rundu Intermediate Hospital. According to reports, her condition is now stable. Crocodiles in Namibia The biggest species of crocodiles in Africa, Nile crocodiles are almost exclusively found in Namibia. Nile crocodiles can grow to be 14 feet long, with some outliers being found to be over 20 feet long, and they are to blame for hundreds of annual human deaths. There are thought to be 11,000 crocodiles in Namibia alone. Crocodile attacks are all too common in areas where the reptiles are found; according to some estimates, the animals claim the lives of about 1,000 people annually. Read also: 15-Foot Crocodile Turns Into Cranky Dental Patient When Muscle Relaxer Wears Off - Australia Avoiding or Handling Attacks Approximately 200 people may perish each year in the jaws of a Nile crocodile. Richard Aingura, the Directorate of Parks and Wildlife Management chief warden, said that people should keep company when near rivers because visibility is reduced as the water level rises, making it difficult to spot crocodiles. This is what aided the child who was attacked; her older brother saved her, New Era reported. Aingura claimed that they had dispatched a staff member to locate the crocodile to capture it and relocate it away from areas populated by people. Aingura further stated that the team always tries to move or even get rid of crocodiles that have had incidents with humans to reduce the chances of it doing so again. They are also guided by the policy and use all available means to limit any further peril that might be caused by wild animals to humans. Once the crocodile gets a taste of human blood and there are no other sources of food, it will likely continue preying on humans. Other precautions to take to prevent becoming a victim of a crocodile attack include never swimming or going near water in locations where crocodiles are known to exist, especially at night, and refraining from cooking or doing dishes near the water, Newsweek reported. Related article: Nowhere In Sight: After Killing 300 People in Africa, Is Gustave the Man-Eating Crocodile Dead? The latest weather forecast warned that heavy snow and freezing weather conditions would return to the United Kingdom in the second half of January, with subzero temperatures expected to unfold. Last year, forecasts noted that cold weather alerts occurred in portions of England. The freezing weather and freezing conditions resulted in significant travel disruptions, accidents, and delivery delays. Last year, Nature World News also reported that many businesses in the United Kingdom were affected by the freezing weather, with reported low sales and revenue despite Christmas Day. Furthermore, the last year's weather raised concerns over the soaring costs of heating systems. Many families could not afford the expensive cost of heat. Heavy snow and freezing weather According to the Mirror U.K. news report, widespread heavy snow and frigid temperatures could unfold next week. The weather report explained that the weather last year was milder. Recently, The Guardian also reported that the U.K. and other portions of European countries said the warmest January this year. Global heating would raise concerns over the warming weather during the New Year. According to the Daily Mirror U.K.'s report, about 15 inches of flurries are expected to unload in the second half of January, with temperatures colder than usual. The forecast said that portions of Scotland could expect flurries or snow after this week. In Northern England, the forecast added that freezing temperatures could reach -13C and -17C. Due to potential colder weather and freezing temperatures, residents should avoid prolonged exposure to colder temperatures. Hypothermia and frostbite could bring you to dangerous situations. Meanwhile, motorists should check the weather before traveling. Weather conditions, especially the snow, could be challenging on untreated pavements or roads. As a result, road delays could be expected. Also Read: Spain Sets 2022 as Hottest Year on Record; Unseasonably Warm Weather Felt on 2023 New Year U.K. Forecast this Week Meanwhile, the Met Office explained that the weather forecast this week (January 9 to January 13) could expect sunshine and rain. The weather conditions could anticipate both windy and wet weather this week. According to the Met Office's forecast, the weather on Monday could expect some rain, with possible thunder and hail, in portions of the south and east. Western and Central portions of the country could expect frost and windy conditions. On Tuesday, the forecast said that the weather would become cloudy with rain. Snow could also unload in the Scottish mountains in the morning. It is best to bring an umbrella or raincoat protection due to possible rain that could unfold on Tuesday. North parts of the country could expect mild weather conditions. From Wednesday to Friday, the weather conditions would have scattered rain showers in portions of the country, especially in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Weather preparations With forecasted weather conditions in the second half of January, it is important to prepare for possible heavy snow and subzero temperatures. Checking your home heating system equipment and pipe systems would be recommended. Meanwhile, preparing your layered winter clothes is essential as the weather could become colder. Related Article: [UK Weather] Unsettled Rain and Localized Flooding to Unload This Week; Portions of Scotland Under Yellow Warning For more similar stories, don't forget to follow Nature News. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. The pandemic has changed how we work, probably forever. Most employees with jobs that can be done effectively from home have no intention of returning full time to the office. They find that their work-life balance is much more balanced without the long commutes and constant interruptions that accompany office work. According to a McKinsey/Ipsos survey, 58 percent of American workers had the opportunity to work from home at least one day a week in 2022, while 38 percent were not generally required to be in the office at all. When people were given the chance to work flexibly, 87 percent took it, according to McKinsey. And Gallup projects that about 75% of remote-capable workers will be hybrid or fully remote over the long term. While the work-from-home (WFH) trend is popular with employees, it stresses other parts of the enterprise, particularly IT teams, who have to adjust networking and security architectures to accommodate ever-more-mobile workforces, increasing investments in cloud computing, and the disappearing corporate perimeter. Policies are the foundation for engineering firm Prior to the pandemic, Geosyntec Consultants, a global engineering services firm, had a WAN strategy that connected more than 90 offices from Sweden to Australia over an SD-WAN service from Cato Networks. What Geosyntec did not have, however, was robust support for remote workers. As with most pre-pandemic businesses, workers were expected, with a few exceptions, to work in the office. Typically, Geosyntecs IT team supported 100 or fewer remote employees on any given day, who connected to corporate assets over VPN hardware. When the pandemic shut down offices around the globe, the majority of Geosyntecs combined staff of more 2,000 engineers, scientists, and related technical and project support personnel shifted to working from home. Prior to the pandemic, we had been considering changing our remote work policies, mainly to attract talent. The pandemic forced our hand, and we had to adjust in more ways than anyone could have predicted, says Edo Nakdimon, senior IT manager at Geosyntec. Predictably, performance bottlenecks emerged that could be traced back to the legacy VPN, pre-existing firewall configurations, and gateway hardware. But before Geosyntecs IT team could start breaking through those networking bottlenecks, the entire organization had to step back to establish WFH policies and procedures. Many of the reasons our organization was hesitant about work from home were HR ones. What happens if an employee is on a business phone call and has an accident at home? Nakdimon said. The emergency nature of the pandemic steamrolled over those concerns at first, but eventually the organization needed to come up with permanent rules. To work from home, we have some basic computing requirements, such as reliable broadband, but we also require things like ergonomic chairs and desks. We dont want people working from laptops at the kitchen table, he said. For concerns like ergonomics, WFH policies are simply an extension of office policies, and Geosyntec will provide workers with the furniture they need. But the organization also had to create new policies for things like virtual meeting etiquette and data retention procedures. Other policies that IT will be responsible for establishing, maintaining, and enforcing include installing and updating client-side security tools, establishing WFH data privacy protections, and improving private networking capabilities, such as through VPNs and other remote access tools. Organizations pursuing digital transformation initiatives should also consider developing policies for such things as how they will vet vendors that provide mission-critical services, how to ensure they retain data ownership, and what they will do if a critical vendor goes bankrupt or gets acquired. Scalability and security concerns lead to SASE For Geosyntec, the scalability of existing technologies was another major challenge. Fortunately, they had already started to centralize security and networking through cloud services. My fear had been that with 1,600 employees at home, many endpoints would be exposed to threats, Nakdimon said. His fears were not unfounded. The shift to WFH creates new cybersecurity threats, as bad actors adjust to these new realities, seeing new targets. But because we had already centralized our WAN, we were able to quickly turn on new services to do things like pushing firewall capabilities to endpoints, he said. Since Geosyntec had already started shifting from hardware to cloud services, the organization didnt need to totally overhaul its infrastructure, but rather accelerate digital transformation plans that were already in motion. Nakdimon and his team installed more gateways, and they turned back to Cato Networks to add new services, transitioning from legacy, hardware-based VPNs and firewalls to Catos cloud-delivered alternatives. Geosyntec also added Catos SASE service to deliver secure networking services for its WFH staff. Secure access service edge (SASE) is a network architecture that combines SD-WAN networking with a range of security services. SASE enables businesses to address a number of WFH challenges, authenticating users at the edge and enforcing policies once employees enter the corporate network. Most SASE vendors offer a range of security services that help protect an attack surface that has grown much larger in WFH environments These include zero-trust network access (ZTNA), Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) services. University responds to flood of help-desk requests When the pandemic hit, higher education saw its entire business forced to move online. While remote and online education has been evolving slowly for decades, the pandemic sparked a stampede, with students, staff, and educators all migrating online at once. The University of Rhode Island (URI) adjusted by rapidly shifting from in-classroom learning to online courses. However, many of the universitys approximately 17,000 students were still living in campus dorms when the pandemic hit, which meant that the universitys IT team now had to manage thousands of Wi-Fi access points across four campuses as critical infrastructure. Predictably, the unexpected shift to online learning was accompanied with a spike in student complaints about frequent Wi-Fi disconnections and application performance issues, which spiked when students were attending online classes and taking exams. The volume of help-desk requests quickly swamped the IT team, prompting them to seek outside help. The URI IT team evaluated a number of options, before eventually deploying the network monitoring solution from NetBeez. After installing NetBeez Wi-Fi sensors throughout the campus, the IT team learned that many problems were triggered because student devices tended to hop through different channels and access points, which caused both dropped sessions and performance issues. With NetBeez we gained the ability to determine the root cause and solve intermittent Wi-Fi problems in under an hour. Without NetBeez it would have taken a very long time to even discover the issue after receiving a student complaint, said Christopher Pepper, a network engineer at URI. Be ready to address vendor management, tool sprawl Migrating from hardware-centric, on-premises systems to cloud-based services helps organizations scale in order to handle a remote workforce, but IT execs should beware that this type of shift often moves problems around, rather than eliminating them altogether, or creates new ones. For instance, IT teams that trade on-premises gear for SaaS no longer need to manage and maintain those tools, but they now must manage a collection of service providers. Some of those service providers may not even be under the control of enterprise IT, but rather the employees providers, as is the case with home broadband. Yet, if employees are unproductive because their ISP is non-responsive, employers may decide to step in to help. Another problem related to managing multiple vendors is sprawl. Tool sprawl occurs when organizations adopt multiple tools that tackle related, but not completely overlapping, issues, and the pandemic created the type of emergency conditions that are ripe for out-of-control tool sprawl. Tool sprawl then forces IT to manage a series of disconnected dashboards, which makes troubleshooting difficult. Its hard to support a large, remote workforce without centralizing as many networking and security functions as you can, said Nakdimon. Of course, you still need redundancy, but to have the control, speed, and management capabilities you need to make it all work, ideally, you need to be able to view everything through a single pane of glass. For large enterprises, unifying everything may not be possible, and it may not even be desirable since most large enterprises will have legacy constraints. The enterprise may also prioritize best-in-breed products over unified ones. Moreover, the single-pane-of-glass Holy Grail of unified services is often more aspiration than reality. Most SASE vendors, for instance, provide a few core services of their own and then add services from partners around that core, which means that integration is rarely seamless. For smaller organizations with few IT resources, however, all-in-one services may well be the only ones those teams can manage, especially during times of rapid change. Overarching principles For IT execs shifting from Covid-19 panic mode to a long-term enterprise architecture that includes both in-office and remote workers, and both cloud-based applications and centralized resources, there are several key factors to keep in mind. Setting broad policies for remote workers is the first step. Those policies should encompass reliable broadband, ergonomics, security, data retention, and should reflect the corporate culture in terms of virtual meeting procedures and etiquette. The goal for IT teams should be to enable WFH employees to quickly get to the data and apps they need to do their jobs, but also to make sure that security requirements are not compromised, and that management platforms can scale across the entire enterprise infrastructure. Cuba starts Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations with art exhibition Xinhua) 16:34, January 09, 2023 HAVANA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- A retrospective exhibition of a Cuban visual artist of Chinese descent opened here on Saturday ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations in the Caribbean nation. Under the title "The son of a migrant: the road," the exhibit of Alfredo Chong, 74, features 20 paper mache sculptures and nearly a dozen paintings that pay tribute to the contribution of Chinese migrants to Cuba. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chong displayed most of his artworks on his home's terrace, surrounded by orchids, ornamental plants and fruit trees in the Havana district of Arroyo Naranjo. "We inherited strength and determination from Chinese migrants," the self-taught artist told Xinhua. "The friendship between the Chinese and Cuban people is unbreakable." Among Chong's artworks exhibited at the House of Chinese Arts and Traditions are "Terracota warrior holding an arrow," "Footprint," "Poetry of a migrant" and "Faraway nostalgy." "These artworks captivate the public through different and interesting techniques," said exhibition curator Teresa Toranzo. "It will help enhance the cultural and historical links between China and Cuba." Teresa Li, director of the House of Chinese Arts and Traditions, said the exhibition, which runs through March 20, is embedded with the spirit of the Spring Festival. "We are very happy with the opening of the Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations on the island," she added. "This is just the beginning." (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, faulted the measure for including the automatic raises, calling it bad policy Sunday. He added: If I took a poll of my current district ... and said, How many folks in my district got a 20 percent pay raise in six months? there wouldnt be a single hand. And thats all I gotta say about this. Mary Schenk reports from Wednesday's detention hearing: FBI agents went to the girls home on Nov. 10 to interview her and she admitted being in a chat room app in which another user asked for volunteers to call in shooting threats to schools in Urbana. That user even supplied an audio recording telling willing callers what to say. The birth of a child is a major life transition, and it can be a stressful time for new parents. Family and relationship education programs are available to help individuals and couples deal with these challenges. But do such programs work as intended? A new study from the University of Illinois evaluated Family Expectations, a federally-funded parenting and couple enrichment program for expectant parents. The researchers found significant improvements in participants' mental health, couple functioning, and parenting skills after completing the program. In the last 20 years or so, there's been significant federal funding towards couple and relationship education. We wanted to learn if such programs are effective, in order to ensure we are making good use of the time and resources that are being devoted to them." Allen Barton, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at U of I and lead author on the paper Family Expectations is a program for new and expectant parents based in Oklahoma City, funded through the Administration for Children and Families under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Program participants meet once a week for 12 weeks, starting in their second or third trimester of pregnancy. "Family Expectations has had a large reach in terms of number of couples participating, but it is also important to evaluate impact, or change, in program participants," Barton says. "It is a holistic, multifaceted program that includes content about birth, caring for a newborn, parenting together, stress management, and how to strengthen the couple relationship-all important areas for families to navigate during this time." The study included 339 couples who were enrolled in Family Expectations between 2017 and 2019. Most were first-time parents, while 29% already had another child. The researchers conducted surveys with respondents before they started the program, at its conclusion, and 12 months later. "We found positive effects across the board," Barton states. "Participants at the end of the program report lower psychological distress, better mental health, and improved couple functioning. For parenting outcomes, we see improvement particularly for those who were already parents. They had lower levels of harsh parenting, as well as higher levels of co-parenting satisfaction, or sense of working together as a team." After a year, changes appearing immediately after the program were associated with continued benefits, including lower psychological distress, better couple functioning, and improved parenting skills in individuals. "These are people who are going through a major transition. If you can make changes in how they approach this time so they are less anxious and nervous, that's going to have long-term benefits for their mental health, as well as for the couple relationship, as our results show." The researchers cannot conclude with certainty that the program directly caused the improvements, as no data were collected from a control group at the end of the program for comparison. But Barton points out the birth of a child is generally a difficult time where people rarely get better in these areas on their own. "Typically, life is more stressful with the birth of a new baby. But we're seeing that individuals who went through this program are actually reporting less psychological distress. Given that, it's unlikely these are just natural changes happening during this time period. Our findings suggest the program is successful in helping individuals and families," he says. The research comprised an ethnically diverse sample, including 55% white, 28% Black/African American, 12% Native American, 3% Asian, and 1% other. Twenty percent identified as Hispanic/Latino/a. Most were low-income couples, with a median combined income under $15,000. Less than half (39%) of couples were married but 91% were cohabitating. The researchers found few differences in results for married versus unmarried couples, though married couples seemed to benefit slightly more from the program in areas where differences were observed. Barton says this may be because these couples have already made a public commitment to the relationship; therefore, devoting attention to strengthening the relationship is consistent with the commitment and desire. He notes these types of education programs must continue to adapt as family patterns evolve. "We know that stable, healthy families matter for adults, for kids, and for communities. But there's an increasing amount of complexity in families today. Family scholars and practitioners need to think about the fluidity in relationship formation," he says. "How can we take this complexity into account and create programming that will be effective for individuals across the spectrum of relationship statuses and types?" The Department of Human Development and Family Studies is in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. The paper, "Changes in couple, parenting, and individual functioning following family expectations program participation," is published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy [https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12613]. Authors include Allen Barton, Qiujie Gong, Scott Stanley, and Galena Rhoades Funding for this research was provided by the Office of Family Assistance within the Administration for Children and Families, U. S. Department of Health & Human Services. In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University assessed the impact of the duration between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and vaccination on immunity against infection. As the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections continues, long-term immunity against COVID-19 has become more critical. Global public health concerns have been exacerbated by the continuous emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants with higher transmissibility and infectivity than preceding variants. Extensive investigation is needed to understand various aspects of SARS-CoV-2 immunity, such as the temporal profile, especially between infection and repeated vaccination. Study: The time between vaccination and infection impacts immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants. Image Credit: Ja_inter / Shutterstock *Important notice: medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information. About the study In the present study, researchers assessed the effect of combined COVID-19 infection and vaccination or hybrid immunity and its associated timing on the quantity and quality of antibodies elicited. The team recruited ten individuals from December 2020 to March 2021 who tested COVID-19 positive via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) before being vaccinated. Blood samples were collected prior to and after a two-dose BNT162b2 vaccination. Additionally, 20 gender- and age-matched individuals with no self-reported history of previous COVID-19 infection were recruited, and their blood samples were collected before and after vaccination. Furthermore, serum-neutralizing titers were estimated and compared for these two cohorts via a live virus focus reduction neutralization test (FRNT). An additional cohort was recruited comprising 23 vaccinated individuals who did and did not exhibit hybrid immunity because of prior COVID-19 infection along with 23 subjects with vaccine breakthrough infections. Serological samples were obtained less than 60 days after either vaccination or breakthrough infection confirmed by PCR. Additionally, the team estimated spike-specific antibody levels for this cohort via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The hybrid immune group included subjects diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection almost 40 to 404 days after vaccination and subjects vaccinated 35 to 283 days after COVID-19 diagnosis. The team characterized the association between neutralizing titers and antibody levels using age, gender, exposure interval, and the time that passed between the last exposure and sample collection. The cohort was further subdivided into 100-day exposure interval bins. Results The study results found that serum-neutralizing titers rose for the previously infected as well as the naive cohorts before and after COVID-19 vaccination. The titers were also notably higher among individuals with a history of prior infection compared to those vaccinated against all strains, such as the original SARS-CoV-2 (WA1) and variants like Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants of concern (VOCs). This indicated that hybrid immunity resulting from both natural infection and vaccination might lead to elevated neutralizing serum antibody titers. ELISA performed on the larger cohort showed that total antigen-specific antibody proportions elevated by 3.6-fold due to hybrid immunity than after only vaccination. Class-specific ELISA revealed that this phenomenon was due to the 3.7-fold increase in immunoglobulin (Ig)-G levels and a 3.2-fold increase in IgA levels. IgM levels displayed no such variation between the two groups. Total antibody levels also increased with hybrid immunity against the SARS-CoV-2 spike (s) protein by 3.1-fold. The team also noted that neutralizing antibody titers against SARS-CoV-2 and all the variants tested increased in the group having hybrid immunity compared to the cohort that was only vaccinated. The neutralizing titers increased by 8.4-fold, 12.5-fold, 22.7-fold, 9.6-fold, 19-fold, and 13.3-fold against WA1, Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omicron BA.1, and Omicron BA.2, respectively. The highest increase was noted against Beta and Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 subvariants. In the hybrid immune group, neutralizing antibody titers and antibody levels were notably associated with exposure interval. The most significant correlations were observed for SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific antibody levels and neutralization of WA1, Alpha, Delta, Beta, and Omicron BA.1 and BA.2. Additionally, the extent of elevation noted by the team varied between different variants. By day 400, the neutralizing titers rose by 5.3-fold against WA1, 4.8-fold against Alpha, 11.5-fold against Beta, 11.2-fold against Delta, 17.6-fold against Omicron BA.1, and 14.3-fold against Omicron BA.2. Between the 35 to 100 and 300 to 404-day exposure interval cohorts, the neutralizing titers increased against WA1 by 4.2-fold, Alpha by 4.1-fold, Beta by 9.6-fold, Delta by 7.1-fold, Omicron BA.1 by 12.5-fold, and Omicron BA.2 by 10.7-fold. Conclusion The study findings showed that individuals having hybrid immunity exhibited robust SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody responses against all variants, including the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 sublineage. The team also found remarkably enhanced neutralizing titers when the vaccination-infections time intervals were longer at up to 400 days. These findings suggested that anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses undergo continual maturation after the primary exposure to the virus via either infection or vaccination for a minimum of 400 days since the last exposure to the antigen. The researchers believe these findings may extend to COVID-19 booster vaccine doses, which could elicit higher protection against infection when administered after longer intervals. *Important notice: medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information. Researchers have long suspected a link between bed occupancy and mortality in hospitals. Now, a study by the University of Basel has provided the missing data, revealing that smaller hospitals reach their capacity limit much earlier. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, if not before, we've got used to seeing figures relating to bed occupancy in Swiss hospitals in media reports. You might think that as long as there are free beds, there's no problem. Now, a University of Basel study led by Professor Michael Simon has shown that, in some cases, the mortality rate in hospitals rises significantly before full capacity is reached. For the study, the researchers analyzed data from over 1.1 million inpatient cases at 102 Swiss hospitals in order to investigate the relationship between bed occupancy and the 14-day mortality rate in hospitals. In other words, the cases were observed until the 14-day mark unless they were discharged earlier. The relationship between bed occupancy and mortality is a complex one. In addition to the occupancy of beds, it is important to consider other factors such as patient transfers in the individual hospitals, the average severity of the cases admitted to the hospital on the respective day, and the patients' individual risk of dying. Further variables include comorbidities and the age and gender of patients. Account was also taken of the difference between weekdays and weekends and the type of hospital. Significantly lower threshold at small hospitals The threshold of capacity utilization above which the mortality risk increases is different in each hospital. If a patient is exposed to the bed occupancy above this value, the risk of death increases by around 2% per day. In the event of two or three additional days with excessive capacity utilization, there is a 3.2% or 4.9% increase, respectively, in the probability of 14-day mortality at the hospital. The threshold for the individual facilities ranged between 42.1% and 95.9% bed occupancy. These considerable differences have a decisive impact on the threshold: the higher the average bed occupancy at a hospital, the higher the threshold. In the case of small hospitals, the average occupancy is around 60%, while this figure rises to 90% at large hospitals. With a lower average occupancy, larger variations can occur - and these variations in bed occupancy result in a lower threshold for increased mortality. Accordingly, this threshold is also reached more quickly. The reasons for rising mortality in the event of higher occupancy include the fact that certain treatments can no longer be performed or are delayed. Moreover, the number of physicians and nursing staff remains relatively stable despite these wide variations. Concentration is key According to Simon, the problem can be addressed by reducing the variations in occupancy and ensuring that the hospitals are adequately staffed. Above all, he believes the solution lies at the political level: "It's difficult to operate lots of small units efficiently. Pooling hospitals or ensuring closer collaboration between them leads to less variation and therefore less risk." Less than four in 100 men who apply to be sperm donors reach the end of the process and have samples frozen and released for treatments, according to a new study. A European team of researchers led by the University of Sheffield, worked with the worlds largest sperm banks, Cryos International, to map the outcome of over 11,700 men who applied to be sperm donors. The findings, published in the journal Human Reproduction, show that over half of the men (54.91 per cent) who applied to be donors at Cryos in Denmark and the US withdrew from the program before having samples released for use. Nearly a fifth of applicants (17.41 per cent) were rejected because of a health issue or because they were a carrier for a genetic disease or had an infectious disease which could not be treated. The data also showed just over one in 10 of the applicants (11.71 per cent) failed a screening questionnaire about their lifestyle and another one in 10 (11.20 per cent) were rejected because their sperm quality was not good enough. Lead author of the study, Professor Allan Pacey, Professor of Andrology and Head of the Department of Oncology and Metabolism at the University of Sheffield, said: To our knowledge this is the largest study of sperm donor applicants outside China and given that the UK relies so heavily on imported sperm from the USA and Denmark it is important for us to understand the recruitment processes there and reassure ourselves that they are safe as well as see if there is anything we can do to improve them. Recent figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority have shown that more than half of the new sperm donors registered in the UK were from imported sperm, mostly from sperm banks like Cryos in the US and Denmark. Since 2006 it has been illegal in the UK to use sperm from donors who are unwilling to be identified to any people born from their donations. Therefore, in the new study, Professor Pacey and the team looked at how many of the donors at Cryos agreed to be identifiable compared to those that did not. They found that more than four in 10 donor candidates (41.27 per cent) initially agreed to be identifiable, and it was more common for applicants in Denmark to agree to waive their anonymity than applicants in the USA. Interestingly, the team found that as the screening and donation process continued (men donate regularly for many months) more of the donors who initially wanted to be anonymous, agreed to become identifiable. Professor Pacey added: The study with Cryos highlights how hard it is to become a sperm donor. Its not like blood donation where once its done you can have a cup of tea and go home. Sperm donation is a regular commitment with lots of screening and regular testing as well as life-long implications for the donor if any children are born from their sample. Whats particularly fascinating is that more donors, who initially wanted to remain anonymous, were willing to be identifiable as the screening and donation process continued. This is particularly good news for patients in the UK undergoing fertility treatment, as it is a legal requirement for sperm donors to be identifiable to any children born from their donations. We are very grateful to Professor Pacey and the team for their in depth analysis of sperm donors which has already been very valuable in helping Cryos look at its recruitment process and try to make them more efficient. If we can recruit donors more easily then this will help keep costs down for patients in the UK and elsewhere who often buy donor sperm with their own money because its not funded by the NHS. Dr Anne-Bine Skytte, Medical Director, Cryos International To be accepted as a sperm donor in the UK, men must be aged between 18 and 45 years old and be fit and healthy with good sperm quality. Donors undergo a range of screening tests for genetic conditions and infectious diseases as well as an analysis of their family medical history. UK guidelines for sperm donor recruitment are published by the British Fertility Society and the recruitment and use of sperm donors in infertility treatments regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Fewer cases of melanoma were observed among regular users of vitamin D supplements than among non-users, a new study finds. People taking vitamin D supplements regularly also had a considerably lower risk of skin cancer, according to estimates by experienced dermatologists. The study, conducted in collaboration between the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital and published in Melanoma Research, included nearly 500 people with an increased risk of skin cancer. Vitamin D plays a key role in the normal function of the human body, and it may also play a role in many diseases. The link between vitamin D and skin cancers has been studied abundantly in the past, but these studies have mainly focused on serum levels of calcidiol, which is a metabolite of vitamin D, and its association with skin cancers. Findings from these studies have been inconclusive and even contradictory at times, as serum calcidiol levels have been associated with both a slightly higher and with a slightly lower risk of different skin cancers. This may, in part, be explained by the fact that serum calcidiol analyses do not provide information on the metabolism of vitamin D in the human skin, which can express enzymes that generate biologically active vitamin D metabolites or inactivate them. The new study, conducted under the North Savo Skin Cancer Programme, took a different approach: 498 adult patients estimated to have an increased risk of a skin cancer, such as basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma or melanoma, were recruited at the dermatological outpatient clinic of Kuopio University Hospital. Experienced dermatologists at the University of Eastern Finland carefully analysed the patients' background information and medical history and examined their skin. The dermatologists also classified the patients into different skin cancer risk classes, namely low risk, moderate risk and high risk. Based on their use of oral vitamin D supplements, the patients were divided into three groups: non-users, occasional users and regular users. Serum calcidiol levels were analysed in half of the patients and found to correspond to their self-reported use of vitamin D. A key finding of the study is that there were considerably fewer cases of melanoma among regular users of vitamin D than among non-users, and that the skin cancer risk classification of regular users was considerably better than non-users'. Logistic regression analysis showed that the risk for melanoma among regular users was considerably reduced, more than halved, compared to non-users. The findings suggest that even occasional users of vitamin D may have a lower risk for melanoma than non-users. However, there was no statistically significant association between the use of vitamin D and the severity of photoaging, facial photoaging, actinic keratoses, nevus count, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Serum calcidiol levels were not significantly associated with these skin changes, either. Since the research design was cross-sectional, the researchers were unable to demonstrate a causal relationship. Other relatively recent studies, too, have provided evidence of the benefits of vitamin D in melanoma, such as of the association of vitamin D with a less aggressive melanoma. These earlier studies back our new findings from the North Savo region here in Finland. However, the question about the optimal dose of oral vitamin D in order to for it to have beneficial effects remains to be answered. Until we know more, national intake recommendations should be followed." Ilkka Harvima, Professor of Dermatology and Allergology, University of Eastern Finland Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital have previously reported (BMC Cancer 2021) that the melanoma mortality rate in North Savo is relatively high in relation to its incidence. "For this reason, too, it is worth paying attention to sufficient intake of vitamin D in the population in this region," Harvima concludes. As a growing number of older adults are experimenting with cannabis to help alleviate chronic symptoms, a new University of California San Diego School of Medicine study has identified a sharp increase in cannabis-related emergency department visits among the elderly. The study, published Jan. 9, 2023 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, identified a 1,808% relative increase in the rate of cannabis-related trips to the emergency department among California adults ages 65 and older from 2005 to 2019. Researchers used a trend analysis of data from the Department of Healthcare Access and Information and found that cannabis-related emergency department visits went from a total of 366 in 2005 to 12,167 in 2019. The significant increase is particularly troublesome to geriatricians, given that older adults are at a higher risk for adverse health effects associated with psychoactive substances, including cannabis. "Many patients assume they aren't going to have adverse side effects from cannabis because they often don't view it as seriously as they would a prescription drug," said Benjamin Han, MD, MPH, the study's first author and a geriatrician in the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology, and Palliative Care in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "I do see a lot of older adults who are overly confident, saying they know how to handle it -; yet as they have gotten older, their bodies are more sensitive, and the concentrations are very different from what they may have tried when they were younger." The use of cannabis by older adults has increased sharply over the past two decades in the United States with the legalization for medical and recreational purposes in many states. California legalized medical marijuana in 1996 and recreational cannabis in 2016. While there is limited evidence that cannabis may be helpful for specific conditions, older adults are increasingly using the plant-based drug to treat a wide range of symptoms and using it socially -; while their perceived risk of regular use is decreasing. The study highlights that cannabis use among older adults can lead to unintended consequences that require emergency care for a variety of reasons. Cannabis can slow reaction time and impair attention, which may lead to injuries and falls; increase the risk for psychosis, delirium and paranoia; exacerbate cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases and interact with other prescription medications. We know from work in alcohol that older adults are more likely to make a change in substance use if they see that it is linked to an undesirable medical symptom or outcome -; so linking cannabis use similarly could help with behavioral change." Alison Moore, MD, MPH, co-author of the study and chief of the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology, and Palliative Care in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine "We truly have much to learn about cannabis, given all the new forms of it and combinations of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), and this will inform our understanding of risks and possible benefits, too." The study highlights that education and discussions with older adults about cannabis use should be included in routine medical care. Yet, according to Moore, current substance uses screening questionnaires typically lump cannabis/marijuana with non-legal drugs, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, which can lead to patients being hesitant to answer. "Instead, asking a question like, 'Have you used cannabis -; also known as marijuana -; for any reason in the last 12 months?' would encourage older adults to answer more frankly," Moore said. "Providers can then ask how frequently cannabis is used, for what purpose -; such as medically for pain, sleep, or anxiety or recreationally to relax -; in what form (smoked, eaten, applied topically) and if they know how much THC and CBD it contains. Once the provider has this type of information, they can then educate the patient about potential risks of use." "Although cannabis may be helpful for some chronic symptoms, it is important to weigh that potential benefit with the risk, including ending up in an emergency department," Han said. Interestingly, the study found while emergency department visits increased sharply between 2013 and 2017, they leveled off in 2017 after the implementation of Proposition 64. The availability of recreational cannabis does not appear to correlate with a higher rate of cannabis-related emergency department visits among older adults. Co-authors of the study include Jesse Brennan, Mirella Orozco and Edward Castillo, all with UC San Diego. In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers conducted a seroprevalence study in the general population of Norway. They evaluated immunity against multiple subvariants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant of concern (VOC), including XBB and BQ.1.1 mutants. *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. Background Before the surfacing of Omicron in November 2021, SARS-CoV-2 infections among Norwegians remained relatively low due to high vaccination rates. Almost 90% of above 18-year-olds and over 65-year-olds had received a minimum of two and three doses of vaccines, respectively, by September 2022. Omicron and its subvariants drove three new waves of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) starting in November 2021. Consequently, most Norwegians acquired immunity against SARS-CoV-2. An assessment of the susceptibility of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants to prior infection and vaccine-induced immunity could help predict strains with the highest potential to become predominant. About the study In the present study, researchers evaluated neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) against recently emerged Omicron isolates BA.2/BA.5, BF.7, BA.2.75/BA.2.75.2, BR.1 and highly transmissible recombinant mutants, BQ.1.1, and XBB. They collected sera from two cohorts, the first comprising recipients of three doses of a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine and the second having individuals with breakthrough infections (BTIs) from BA.5, BA.2, or BA.1 Omicron subvariants three to four weeks after vaccination or BTI. Additionally, they evaluated nAbs against three Omicron subvariants, BQ.1.1, XBB, and BA.5, in serum samples of a cohort of 32 individuals collected in October 2022. Their mean age was 42.6 years, and 78% were females. The team cultured and passaged the viral isolates with immune-evading mutations in VeroE6 cells twice. Using the second passaged viral isolate helped the researchers ensure the variant genotype. Study findings Sera from mRNA-vaccinated people combated Omicron subvariants BA.2 and BA.5; however, its neutralizing activity reduced substantially slightly against BA.2.75.2, BF.7, and BR.1. Likewise, neutralizing levels had markedly reduced against BQ.1.1 and XBB, the newer Omicron recombinant mutants. Compared to the vaccinated-only cohort, sera from individuals with BTIs with the Omicron subvariants, BA.1, BA.2, or BA.5 had higher neutralizing activity against all tested newly emerged Omicron variants. Though individuals with BA.1/BA.2 BTIs showed good neutralizing activity against BA.2.75, BA.2.75.2, and BR.1, BF.7 Omicron subvariants; XBB and BQ.1.1 mutants remained highly resistant even to their sera. Likewise, sera from 20 of 30 individuals in the other cohort had markedly low nAbs against BQ.1.1, especially XBB. Of 32, only individuals had neutralizing titers >64 against BQ.1.1, and XBB appeared more resistant to elicited antibody responses. Thus, only four of 32 individuals had neutralizing antibody titers >64 against XBB. Studies have established that neutralizing antibodies protect against SARS-CoV-2. However, neutralizing titers that confer adequate protection differ with the type of assay used for assessment. Gilbert et al., using a pseudotype assay, found a 91% reduced risk of contracting COVID-19 (only symptomatic) with neutralizing titers of 100 during a follow-up time window of 100 days. However, Dimeglio et al., using a live virus assay, found a 94% reduced risk of both symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases with a neutralizing titer ranging between 64 to 128 during prolonged 275 days follow-up time. Conclusions To summarize, individuals with BA.5 than BA.1/BA.2 BTIs in Norway had higher neutralizing titers against XBB and BQ.1.1, most likely because of the smaller time interval since the previous infection. Since December 2022, BQ.1 and its derivative BQ.1.1 lineage have become predominant in Norway. Thus, per the current study findings, individuals with recent BA.5 BTIs might likely remain protected against these variants. However, since immunity against XBB, Omicron BA.2-derived recombinant mutant has become lower, this variant and its derivatives might lead to new waves of COVID-19 in the coming winter season in Norway. *Important notice: bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information. The human brain creates visual categories as a fundamental aspect of cognition. Infancy is a crucial period of life for such representations to be built up, but these are as yet unknown. A recent study shows how visual categories are represented in human infant brains using electroencephalography (EEG) and how these correspond to adult brain representations. Introduction Visual objects need to be recognized easily and instantaneously and assigned to the right category. This ability comes via the infant's exploration of the environment. Earlier, researchers have shown how looking times and attention markers in infants confirm the categorization and processing of such objects, contributing to cognitive learning before a baby completes a year of life. This process has been examined in adults using human and non-human primates, including their changes over time, the cortical regions they inhabit, and their relationship with neural oscillations. There is a need to extend this to infants, using direct methods that can be generalized to a broader set of visual categories. The current study, published in Current Biology, set out to do this. Here, the scientists performed multivariate analysis on a multivariate classification framework and compared infant and adult EEG quantitative data and deep learning models. What did the study show? The study included 40 infants shown 128 images of real-world objects in four categories - toys, bodies, houses, and faces. The images were shown for two seconds each, at a speed of 2.7-2.9 seconds between images. The same images were shown to 20 adults to facilitate direct comparison. The infants showed increasing classification from 100 msec onwards but became significant at ~250 ms. Peak classification occurred at ~416 ms, following which it slowly fell. This was observed across categories of objects, living or non-living. With adults, the curve was first seen at 70 msec, peaked at 154 msec, and thus showed acceleration compared to infants. This could be due to the longer latent periods required even at early cortical processing in infancy, causing a delay in the P100 component peak. In addition, the mean ERP peak showed a delay of up to 242 msec. This suggests that the observed peak latency differences with which category representations emerge reflect a mixture of processing delays at early and late processing stages." Using a multivariate approach helps map visual category representations to behavior. The findings showed rapid increases and decrease in the classification curves over a few hundred milliseconds. This seems to be due to common neural pathways resulting in a quick series of processing steps that cause rapidly changing representations early on, followed by more sustained representations later on. However, as with adults, the representations were classified most accurately along the diagonal timelines. In contrast, feedforward and feedback information was incompletely processed in the immature brains of infants. Of course, this could also be traceable to the divergences in experimental task design or the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, this was less likely because of the focus on peaks. Infants and adults share visual category representations, showing similarities at two time point combinations; in infants, this is at 160540 msec, vs. 1001,000 msec. The peak latency in infants was 200 msec, vs. 120 msec in adults. This was observed with alternative processing and data aggregation options, independent of most categories except toys. Yet, the infant's brains shared large-scale dynamics over time, leading to the similar encoding of visual categories. Such representations included features of low to intermediate complexity, amounting to a subset of adult representations that are discriminated by features of all levels of complexity. Both less and more complex features are encoded in the high-level ventral visual cortex, with the category being discriminated against using different degrees of these features. Spatial frequencies are better correlated with categories in adults than infants, showing that the former relies more on such frequencies. Moreover, the differences in representation in adults vs. children were observed despite similar EEG power spectra profiles or categories. Adults showed a broadband spectrum of neural oscillations during these representations, compared to the theta band being the distinctive infant signature for visual category representation. Infants and adults share these representations only in the alpha/beta band. The theta rhythm is associated with neural networks for learning or memory in infants, helping form visual category representations. These are quickly processed in mature semantic networks in adults, explaining the alpha/beta band rhythms. They suggest that the frequency shifts upwards slowly as the infant's brain develops, with the magnitude of the shift being in accordance with myelination. Other explanations have also been suggested, all of which indicate that the power in any given frequency is an indicator of oscillations in that frequency. What are the implications? "In sum, the emerging picture is one of not yet fully developed dynamics of adult-like visual category representations in infants." That is, infants developed representations later after exposure, at slower speeds, and did not have some aspects of feedforward and recurrent processing. This could be due to incomplete myelin development and poor synaptic connections formed in the infant's brain compared to the adult brain. The approach used in this study extends previous EEG-based research into the development of visual processing in the brain due to direct representation with high temporal resolution. It also allows almost any visual category to be studied while providing for quantitative comparisons of infant and adult visual category representations. The scientists predict that as the infant grows, such representations will probably speed up and emerge earlier due to better feedforward and feedback loops being formed at key stages. This can be easily tested using the same approach in other age groups. Such data could help understand infant cognitive capacities and development in the years to come. This data could also mean that artificial intelligence researchers will meet limits as they develop deep learning modes since they must follow this developmental course to achieve a biologically realistic model. These results show how fast and efficient visual categorization skills are achieved as humans grow, besides revealing changes over time in the lines of transmission of cortical information. Further research based on these powerful EEG techniques could throw more light on these areas. Digital technology is becoming increasingly important in modern healthcare. As society becomes faced with an abundance of new healthcare challenges, such as a rise in the number of chronic diseases and an ever-aging population, public health will undoubtedly benefit from the expanding role of digital technology. Image Credit: Shutterstock.com/Pop Tika The World Health Organization (WHO) determines digital health to be the field of knowledge and practice associated with the development and use of digital technologies to improve health.1 The term has broad implications and incorporates an extensive range of digital technologies: from software solutions that facilitate better management of patient data and offer easy access to both patient support services and new diagnostic tools and drug delivery devices. In this article, Sensirion will explore some of the big questions surrounding digital health, including why digital health is needed in modern society and how digital health is implemented and organized. Finally, the article will focus on some of the sensing technologies that drive the implementation of digital health. Modern health challenges: A driver for digital health? Today, global healthcare providers are faced with an increase in the incidence of noncommunicable diseases, including cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). While this is linked to the reduction of deaths from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, noncommunicable diseases pose catastrophic health consequences and socioeconomic effects. According to the WHO, noncommunicable diseases are a significant challenge that must be addressed.4 As the global population continues to age, the occurrence of such diseases is increasing. By 2050, the WHO has estimated that the proportion of the worlds population over 60 is likely to double as birth rates decline in conjunction with access to improved healthcare in many regions. This aging population requires global health, activity, and medication monitoring. Hospital stays are expensive and pose an increased risk of infection; therefore, drug delivery in a safer setting, such as the home, and perhaps remote monitoring, is believed to reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes.5 However, some of the diseases mentioned above are on the rise due to environmental conditions such as ultrafine particles caused by urban traffic, industrial processes, pollution, and increasing wildfires worldwide. These issues are worsening environmental conditions for those suffering from asthma and COPD and are even becoming associated with diseases such as cancer and dementia. Digital health takes up a central role in modern society, allowing healthcare systems to advance and meet these challenges: from digitizing patient records to online appointment booking and continuous glucose monitors. Many of these provisions such as video call appointments were accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the space of just a few months, necessity pushed through years worth of advancement and reforms.6 The current infrastructure of digital health is now being defined and consolidated by healthcare providers, governments, and industrial partners. How is digital health organized and implemented? Digital health is a wide-ranging, all-encompassing term for the roll-out of digital technology in the healthcare industry. Organization of healthcare services (for instance, digital real-time patient data management, medical act management and billing tools) is one of the main ways in which digital health is currently being implemented. However, digital health encompasses much more than this. Emerging applications of digital health include advanced medical devices (including drug injection devices) that perform new monitoring and diagnostic functions.7 These medical devices are positioned within close proximity to the patient, typically as wearable devices (such as an insulin pump) or hand-held devices (such as smart inhalers). Moreover, new well-being devices such as smart watches, sleep monitors, and breath analyzers offer an increased amount of health-relevant information. At the patient level, digital health allows health-relevant information to be connected and shared directly to connected drug delivery devices, well-being devices, homecare devices and patient support services. Image Credit: Sensirion AG In time, these devices, services and apps have the capacity to share patient information with relevant service providers, where it can be analyzed and stored. Sharing this information with healthcare providers facilitates efficient diagnoses, treatments and disease management procedures, which in turn can be assessed and relayed to patient management systems and shared with insurers and relevant healthcare organizations. Image Credit: Sensirion AG The expanding availability of health-relevant patient data can play a key role in drug development, facilitating the development of personalized therapy or drugs on a large and practical scale. Moving further along the healthcare value chain, interconnected medical devices make monitoring healthcare and managing therapies easier for both caregivers and patients. Clinical studies and research have outlined the potential of digital health technologies to limit non-adherence.8 Non-adherence to asthma treatment is a significant problem that can result in exacerbation, hospitalization, and increased costs. However, patients that have access to state-of-the-art smart inhalers can track the quality of their inhalation, access instant feedback on the drug delivery efficiency and even on the development or changes of the disease. There are still significant improvements to be made in terms of how patients interact with such devices, which would lead to better outcomes and lower healthcare costs. Given the high value for the patient, pharma and technology companies are beginning to form key partnerships around the world, resulting in the development of a range of new drug delivery devices.9 GSK, for instance, recently entered a partnership with Propeller Health to design a digital inhaler; while AstraZeneca partnered with Adherium to develop an adherence monitor to support AstraZenecas Turbuhaler medication.10,11 Digital health implementation is also being supported by governments. New legislation such as DiGA in Germany and Article 51 in France lays the groundwork for digital health by facilitating new care pathways, such as doctors prescription of digital health apps.12,13 Moreover, the definition of remote patient monitoring in the USA, with additional Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes since 2022, is being extended, thus further advancing the application of connected devices.14 These devices are capable of monitoring non-physiological information to assist with the assessment of patient adherence to a prescribed therapy: for instance, by establishing whether patients are keeping up with their care regimen and how the therapy is working. This means that the likelihood of potential failures of patient adherence can be predicted, and the industry can thus be prepared to make the necessary adjustments. The successful implementation of advanced digital health technologies such as drug delivery systems or smart inhalers is contingent not only on software solutions but also on the advancement of new measurement and feedback solutions. Such solutions are most effective if they are able to interact with the patient by collecting data, analyzing it, and delivering feedback to the patient and the healthcare provider - the appropriate sensor technology offers a strong value proposition by gathering usage, safety, and diagnostic data. Sensing solutions: What are the benefits for the patient? How a patient interacts with a wearable device ultimately comes down to the sensor that is in use. However, choosing the right sensor solution can be a major challenge from a design perspective, as it must meet the expectations of the intended function and integrate seamlessly into the patients user experience. As Sensirion moves deeper into the digital healthcare industry, it has developed various sensing technologies. Air flow sensing Smart inhaler add-ons are medical devices that offer standard inhalers extra functionality by gathering data relative to inhaler usage. This information can be easily transmitted to a smartphone application and give patients and caregivers feedback on inhaler usage. This information may relate to how well the patient adheres to the prescribed therapy as well as details on how the inhaler is being operated, such as exhaled volume, inhaled volume, and a comprehensive inhalation flow profile, including inhaled flow rate over time such as the timing of inhaler actuation. This feedback means that the caregiver is able to identify patients that are falling short of adherence to the therapy or who require urgent additional training on correct inhaler usage. The significance of the problem is outlined in a number of studies. A study on in-vitro lung deposition, for instance, reported that patients are prone to making at least one mistake when using an inhaler as often as 7090% of the time, meaning only 740% of the drug is actually delivered to the lung.16 The feedback the patients receive regarding using the inhaler correctly can also be motivational and affirmative. It can also ease the concerns of parents regarding their children using an inhaler, as it will confirm the correct use and dose being administered to the lungs. This is a powerful tool as physiological inhaler usage data can be recorded every time the inhaler is used without interfering with the patients user experience. In turn, this has been shown to improve patient control and usage of the inhaler. Recent studies have demonstrated that the collected data relating to peak-inspiratory flow or inhaled volume already supply an information base to evaluate the course of the disease and prevent hospitalization.17 Obtaining accurate physiological data on each inhaler-breath taken will help reveal many more insights and improve inhaler-based therapies in the future. Air flow sensors are a key component in smart inhalers. Sensirions SDP3x line of differential pressure sensors is optimized for air flow sensing in smart inhaler-based applications enabling sensitive and precision measurement of air flow rate while offering additional benefits in various healthcare applications: Facilitates breath-triggered drug release by delivering fast response time and high sensitivity for even the smallest flows. Instant feedback on the inhalation procedure due to direct and rapid measurements. Meaningful feedback and a boost in patient confidence and usage of the inhaler by precision inhalation-to-inhalation and breath-profile comparison facilitated by high accuracy and time resolution. Monitor the course of the disease over time, and predict and prevent exacerbations by measuring and monitoring lung function parameters from the recorded breath profile. Seamless user experience as the small size of the sensor and the low power consumption of a coin cell are compatible with small form factors. Robust and durable to withstand various environmental conditions and endure user errors thanks to the two-port design and operation of a coin cell beyond one year. Drug flow sensing Wearable automated subcutaneous injection devices, such as large-volume injectors (LVI) also known as on-body delivery systems, patch pumps, or wearable drug-delivery devices have been superseding traditional intravenous infusion.15 These devices allow patients to automatically receive precision-controlled drug dosages continuously and with minimal disruption to their everyday lives. LVI systems facilitate the application of red biotechnology approaches, which make use of biological materials, including proteins and large molecules, to effectively treat disease targets with fewer side effects when compared to existing pharmaceuticals. Generally, these therapeutics are costly, viscous, highly-concentrated formulations, typically requiring lyophilization (freeze-dried) and reconstitution before administration. This means that they cannot usually be administered orally; instead, they necessitate subcutaneous or parenteral (IV) administration in high volumes of up to 50 ml. LVIs offer a simple, dynamic platform for the administration of these advanced therapeutics. Moreover, LVIs will be pivotal in delivering precision medicine for preventative, predictive, personalized and participatory patient care. With prices and reimbursement levels predicated on evidence-based criteria, such therapies will be dependent on proof of patient compliance LVIs offer a simple and measurable approach to making sure patients adhere to their treatment schedule, thus optimizing the efficacy of personalized therapies. Controlling and closely monitoring flow rate for failures is vital when administering automatic drug delivery systems. Sensirions LD20 liquid flow platform of single-use flow rate sensors provides a unique solution for LVIs: Accurate measurement of the flow with the LD20 technology platform allows for a reliable assessment of the drug remaining inside the cartridge and can become crucial as prices and reimbursement levels are rolled out based on evidence-based criteria such as proof of correct drug delivery and patient compliance. Precise measurement of the delivered drug is key when the dosage is vital to the patient, such as with specific painkillers or chemotherapy drugs. It is also preferable with expensive, viscous, or highly concentrated formulations, including some oncologic treatments. Detecting failure mechanisms such as open flow and occlusion is another key application feature. In fact, as wearable LVIs sit close to the patients body, occlusion may occur for various reasons, such as tissue growth or clotting of the cannula outlet. In some instances, an open flow condition may occur if the patient mistakes the assembly of the parts of the LVI or the reconstitution of the drug. The ability to remotely detect such failures aids and enhances the journey and optimizes the benefits of the therapy while saving costs by facilitating remote drug administration. Due to the LD20 technology platforms modularity, the flow range, size and interfaces can be adjusted for extremely compact integration into the LVI. This is a key feature when it comes to addressing the versatility of the drug delivery systems contingent on the drug type, concentration, and viscosity while ensuring the system remains as compact as possible so that the wearable device does not impede on the physical and social comfort of the patient. Sensor compatibility with various drugs is crucial, facilitating the use of a single device platform for various drugs and for the reconstitution of lyophilized drugs. This feature is facilitated by Sensirions in-house sensor calibration for one or more drugs, taking various viscosities and properties into account. Breath analysis Breath analysis delivers a non-invasive insight into the human body, facilitating rapid, pain-free, and low-cost diagnostics. Presently, it primarily covers gases such as CO 2 , O 2 , acetone, and NO, as well as other gases that are being studied by medical research teams around the world. Sensirions STC31 platform enables the measurement of CO 2 concentration under complex conditions, such as when measuring human breath. Compared to optical-type sensors, which are applied in capnography applications and typically in the lower 4-digit price range, the STC31 platform facilitates access to new applications with its low-cost technology structure. Applications in both medical and consumer sectors offer added value to the user by delivering measurement-based insight into their own body metabolism or fitness. Easy solution for a compact integration of the STC31 into portable medical devices with the compact form factor. This enables discrete and portable products that can be used in a variety of environments, such as at home, outdoors, or in the gym. Enhanced user experience thanks to the extremely robust and reliable sensing solution - there are no sensitive optics or moving parts involved. New applications and use cases in compact and discrete portable devices that only require small batteries and enable extended run times without the need for charging. No complex assembly or alignment during manufacturing helps to save on the cost and form factor side. The 21st century has seen the emergence of completely new healthcare challenges: this includes increased numbers of chronic diseases, such as asthma, cancer, COPD, and diabetes in an aging population; and extensive changes to both environment and lifestyle that intensify the occurrence, consequences, and overall cost of such diseases. Digital health infrastructure is being pushed towards addressing the healthcare challenges. Automating the sharing of patient data, making access to sites of care easier and simplifying the payment flow further empowers patients to monitor their own health from their homes. Moreover, patients are also able to access their drugs and have them administered without needing a healthcare provider to be present while also delivering feedback on drug delivery and the progress of the disease. Such functions are facilitated by portable, wearable and interactive devices that utilize advanced sensors to monitor the patient. Sensirion is actively involved in the advancement of the sensor ecosystem that is geared towards addressing these needs: measuring patient air flow, drug flow and patient breath gases. As this journey is still in its early stage, Sensiron is working on expanding the technologies and sensors that can be offered in digital healthcare environments. To discover more about Sensiron products, get in touch with the team today. References and further reading Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 | World Health Organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/344249/9789240020924-eng.pdf. Covid-19 Created an Elective Surgery Backlog. How Can Hospitals Get Back on Track? https://hbr.org/2020/08/covid-19-created-an-elective-surgery-backlog-how-can-hospitals-get-back-on-track. Ham, C. The challenges facing the NHS in England in 2021. BMJ 371, m4973 (2020). Noncommunicable diseases. https://www.who.int/health-topics/noncommunicable-diseases. Ageing and health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ageing-and-health. PricewaterhouseCoopers. Global Top Health Industry Issues 2021. PwC https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/healthcare/top-health-industry-issues.html. Dossier: Medizin der Zukunft. https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/dossier-zum-download-dossier-medizin-der-zukunft/24958036.html. Alsumidai, M. Non-Adherence: A Direct Influence on Clinical Trial Duration and Cost. Applied Clinical Trials (2017). Exciting Partnerships Forming Between Big Pharma and Tech. Pharmacy Times https://www.pharmacytimes.com/view/exciting-partnerships-forming-between-big-pharma-and-tech. Ricci, M. GSK and Propeller prepare to launch digital inhaler -. https://pharmaphorum.com/news/gsk-propeller-health-expand-rd-partnership/ (2017). Adherium. Adherium - Adherium Releases Next Generation Adherence Monitor, SmartTurbo Model 4, for AstraZenecas Turbuhaler. Adherium https://www.adherium.com/news/adherium-releases-next-generation-adherence-monitor-smartturbo-model-4-for-astrazeneca-s-turbuhaler/. Why Germanys DiGa is the future of Digital Health. Why Germanys DiGa is the future of Digital Health https://vertrical.com/. Townsend, A., de Trogoff, H., Szwarcensztein, K., & participants of Giens XXXIV Round Table Health and economy. Experimentation to favor innovation: Promoting the success of Article 51 transformation projects. Therapie 74, 5157 (2019). Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM) Codes | CareSimple. https://caresimple.com/remote-therapeutic-monitoring-rtm-codes/ (2022). Liquid flow sensors for drug delivery. https://sensirion.com/products/product-insights/specialist-articles/subcutaneous-drug-delivery/. Biswas R, Hanania NA, Sabharwal A, Factors Determining In Vitro Lung Deposition of Albuterol Aerosol Delivered by Ventolin Metered-Dose Inhaler. J Aerosol Med Pulm Drug Deliv, 2017, Vol 30(4), pp 256266. Levy ML, et al., Presented at ERS 2020. Abstract in ERJ 2020;56:1361 About Sensirion AG Medical devices must meet the highest standards in terms of quality and reliability. Doctors, nurses, and patients benefit daily from applications in the field of medical technology that are getting smarter by the day. The use of proven Sensirion sensor solutions contributes to this and offers the possibility of making applications safer, more reliable and more convenient. Our many years of experience in the field of medical technology make us the preferred experts for leading medical-technology companies. Home Care Devices (Ventilation) Critical Care Devices (Ventilation) Anesthesia Point-of-Care Diagnostic Drug Delivery / Infusion Catheters Smart Inhalers Metabolic measurements Digital Health Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments. 'Serious issue, don't make it political': SC on plea against forced religious conversions IANS New Delhi More 'Serious issue, don't make it political': SC on plea against forced religious conversions The Supreme Court on Monday sought assistance of Attorney General R. Venkataramani on a plea seeking direction to the Central government and state governments to take action against forced religious conversions. The Supreme Court on Monday sought assistance of Attorney General R. Venkataramani on a plea seeking direction to the Central government and state governments to take action against forced religious conversions. A bench, headed by Justice M.R. Shah, observed that religious conversion is a serious and important issue and it should not be given a political colour. The bench, also comprising Justice C.T. Ravikumar, sought the AG's assistance on a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay against religious conversions by force, allurement etc. Justice Shah told the AG: "We want your assistance also, as Attorney General for India... it is a conversion matter, religious conversion by force, allurement or some other things, these are allegations... we are not opining anything, whether it has actually happened or not, we are just considering". "What should be done in such a case?... there is a difference between right to freedom, right to religion, and right to convert anything by allurement, if that is happening, then what will happen, what should be done... What further corrective measures can be taken... we want assistance from AG," he added. Senior advocate P. Wilson, representing the Tamil Nadu government, submitted that the petition is politically motivated and argued that there was no question of such conversions in the state. At this, the bench said: "You may have different reasons to be agitated like this. Don't convert court proceedings into other things. We are concerned with the entire country... If it is happening in your state, it is bad. If not, then it is good. "Do not make it political." The court was hearing a petition filed by Upadhyay seeking direction to the Centre and states to take tough steps to control fraudulent religious conversions. The top court scheduled the matter for further hearing on February 7. The top court also renamed the cause title as "re: issue of religious conversion" as lawyers object to the PIL filed by Upadhyay in his own name. On December 5, the Supreme Court had said the issue of forced religious conversion is a "very serious issue" and emphasised that charity is welcome, but the purpose of charity must not be conversion. The top court allowed the Centre to file a detailed counter after obtaining necessary response from various state governments in connection with anti-conversion laws and other relevant information. The Gujarat government, in its written response, said, "It is humbly submitted that that the Act of 2003 (Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003) is a validly constituted legislation and more particularly the provision of section 5 of the Act of 2003, which is holding the field since last 18 years and thus, a valid provision of law so as to achieve the objective of the Act of 2003 and to maintain the public order within the state of Gujarat by protecting the cherished rights of vulnerable sections of the society including women and economically and socially backward classes." The state government said the Gujarat High Court "stayed the operation of Section 5 of the Act of 2003, which is in fact an enabling provision for a person to get converted from one religion to another religion on his own volition". It said the high court failed to appreciate that by staying the operation of section 5 of the Act of 2003, the whole purpose of the Act effectively stands frustrated. It further added that Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2021 was passed to strengthen the 2003 law. Upadhyay moved the apex court against fraudulent religious conversion and religious conversion by intimidation, threatening, deceivingly luring through gifts and monetary benefits, as it offends Articles 14, 21, and 25. For Latest Updates Please- Join us on Follow us on MORE... MORE... MORE... 172.31.16.186 Mr Yau (second right) visits Hung Yen Industrial Park in Hanoi and meets government officials. Mr Yau (right) pays a courtesy call on Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo. Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Algernon Yau (right) meets Vietnam Chamber of Commerce & Industry members in Hanoi. Secretary for Commerce & Economic Development Algernon Yau today met senior government officials and business leaders in Hanoi, Vietnam, to promote Hong Kongs business advantages and opportunities. He updated them on Hong Kongs latest trade and economic development and explored collaboration opportunities in various areas. During his first official visit to Vietnam, Mr Yau met with Deputy Minister of Industry & Trade Tran Quoc Khanh to discuss various trade and economic issues. At the meeting, Mr Yau underlined the close trade and economic relations between Hong Kong and Vietnam, adding that Hong Kong is keen to take its economic integration with Vietnam to the next level by joining the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. He also thanked Vietnam for its continued support for Hong Kongs admission to the partnership. In his meeting with Vietnam Chamber of Commerce & Industry members, Mr Yau highlighted a number of measures announced in the Chief Executives 2022 Policy Address to attract enterprises and investments more proactively and aggressively. He appealed to Vietnamese enterprises to leverage Hong Kongs unique advantages to explore the tremendous opportunities available in the Mainland. A Hong Kong business delegation comprising a number of Hong Kong chambers of commerce also attended the meeting. Mr Yau also paid a courtesy call on Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Xiong Bo in the afternoon to update him on Hong Kongs latest economic situation. On January 8, Mr Yau visited Hung Yen Industrial Park and met government officials to learn about the latest development of local enterprises and investment opportunities. He also visited the ULIS-Jonathan KS Choi Cultural Centre in Vietnam National University in Hanoi. AMES, Iowa Jan. 9, 2023 The Iowa Mississippi River Parkway Commission (MRPC) will meet Friday, Jan. 20, at the Nahant Marsh Education Center, 4220 Wapello Avenue, in Davenport. Interested parties may attend in-person or join the meeting by using the Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/96072390350. To join the meeting by conference call, dial 312-626-6799 and use Meeting ID: 960 7239 0350# and passcode: #. The link and phone line will be active shortly before the meeting and discontinued immediately after the meeting ends. Iowa Mississippi River Parkway Commission Agenda 10 a.m. Roll call Welcome and introductions 10:15 a.m. *Approval of Oct. 17,2022 and Nov. 4, 2022, meeting minutes *Treasurer report and approval 10:30 a.m. Budget *Discuss and approve expenditures *Discuss budget and approval of items -National Scenic Byways Foundation -Travel Iowa fall camping ad -Radio ads 11:30 a.m. National Committee appointments and state MRPC Committee reports -Marketing Committee -Transportation -Environment -Recreation and Agriculture -Heritage and Culture Noon Adjourn for lunch 12:30 p.m. Chair report 1 p.m. Comments from interpretive centers Ex officio member and other reports 1:30 p.m. Linking with other states -Discussion 2:30 p.m. Reports and updates -Zebulon Pike project -Railroad merger -Wolf pipeline 4 p.m. Future meeting schedule Adjourn * Action Items Contact: Emily Whaley, Iowa Department of Transportation, at 515-239-1629 emily.whaley@iowadot.us. Iowa DOT ensures nondiscrimination and equal employment in all programs and activities in accordance with Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other nondiscrimination statutes. If you need more information or special assistance for persons with disabilities or limited English proficiency, contact the Civil Rights Bureau by email at civil.rights@iowadot.us. # The MRPC is a multistate organization that works collectively to preserve, promote, and enhance the scenic, historic, and recreational resources of the Mississippi River; to foster the economic growth of the corridor; and to develop the national, scenic, and historic parkway known as the Great River Road. As part of the MRPC, the Iowa MRPC focuses on the same mission objectives in relation to Iowa's portions of the National Scenic Byway, the Iowa Great River Road, and the Mississippi River Valley. The governor appoints members to the Iowa MRPC from each of the 10 counties that border the Mississippi River. These include Allamakee, Clayton, Dubuque, Jackson, Clinton, Scott, Muscatine, Louisa, Des Moines, and Lee counties. The Iowa MRPC also includes ex officio members from the Iowa Department of Transportation, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, and Iowa Economic Development Authoritys Iowa Tourism Office. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Mostly cloudy with snow flurries and snow showers, especially overnight. Low -1F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 50%.. Tonight Mostly cloudy with snow flurries and snow showers, especially overnight. Low -1F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of snow 50%. Amit Shah to hold crucial meet with BJP leaders from J&K IANS New Delhi More Amit Shah to hold crucial meet with BJP leaders from J&K Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold a crucial meeting with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Jammu and Kashmir unit at his residence here at 9 p.m. on Monday, sources said. Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold a crucial meeting with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Jammu and Kashmir unit at his residence here at 9 p.m. on Monday, sources said. According to the sources, numerous issues are likely to be discussed during the meeting including security, politics and other issues. BJP leaders like party's J-K President Ravinder Raina, Jammu in charge Kavinder Gupta, and Jammu and Kashmir in charge Tarun Chugh will be present at the meeting. The meeting comes in the wake of the recent terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly the Rajouri incident in which 7 civilians were killed. Six civilians, including two children, were killed and many more injured in two terror attacks in Upper Dangri village in Rajouri district on Sunday evening and Monday morning. One injured subsequently succumbed. For Latest Updates Please- Join us on Follow us on MORE... MORE... MORE... 172.31.16.186 TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa has directed the newly appointed Ambassador to Egypt, Fawzia bint Abdullah Zainal, to strengthen bilateral relations, and to take care of Bahrainis affairs in Egypt, and work to meet their needs abroad. This came as HM the King, in the presence of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, received Ambassador Zainal, on appointing her as the Head of Bahrains Diplomatic Mission to Egypt with the title of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. Ambassador Zainal was honoured to take the legal oath before His Majesty the King. HM the King congratulated the Ambassador, praising her efficiency in assuming this national responsibility. His Majesty expressed his wishes for her success in performing her new diplomatic mission. HM King Hamad entrusted her with conveying his greetings to Egypt President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, and his wishes to the country and its people for continued progress and prosperity. Ambassador Zainal thanked His Majesty and expressed her pride in obtaining royal trust, affirming that HMs directives will support her to develop Bahraini-Egyptian relations. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Reported by Zahra Ayaz Many activities and projects to enhance female involvement in technology are focused on attracting women to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-related qualifications. As a result, Bahrain boosted success in closing the gender gap. Women comprise 42% of those who enrolled in STEM degrees in the most recent academic year, greatly above the rates in developed nations like the US. According to the World Banks Human Capital Index, the Kingdom is in the top five countries globally for women outperforming men in learning outcomes and drawn more towards technical and vocational education. Strong performance in secondary school means girls are more willing to consider continuing their studies in STEM subjects at a degree level. Nonetheless, it requires collective efforts from the government and the education sector to capitalise on that willingness by encouraging more girls to enroll in STEM courses. The figures which show that the proportion of women studying STEM degrees is higher than the proportion working in Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The Kingdom is still trying to get better at translating the pipeline of STEM graduates into the labour force. Earlier, The Daily Tribune reported that many women see the male-dominated nature of the tech field as a barrier, especially in GGC which results in some STEM graduates choosing an alternative career path while others do not enter the labour market at all. Initiatives in the Kingdom include the women in FinTech, network, a joint initiative of government and industry, and Standard Chartered Banks Women in Tech program, which encourages early-stage startups with training, a demo day, and incubation for winners at Bahrain FinTech Bay. However, the report says that women still face obstacles as they comprise only 21% of workers who earn more than BD1,500 per month. Shaikh Nayla Ali Al Khalifa, Director of Communications and Knowledge Management at the Bahrain Center for Strategic, International and Energy Studies, said in a statement: I believe women have great vision. With a proven track record of competency and work ethics, empowering and supporting them can contribute capital in the Kingdom and Gulf in general. Women have come a long way in our area, and they continue to advance on many fronts and achieve in many fields. Today, we are proud of the accomplishments of Bahraini talent, particularly Bahraini women who have proven that they can contribute and flourish in a variety of fields. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Report by Ashen Tharaka Minimum wage is the lowest amount that a worker may be paid for his or her work. Most countries have a nationwide minimum wage that all workers must receive. Only Bahraini citizens are subject to the BD300 rate set for public sector employees in the Kingdom. The minimum salary was last revised on January 1, 2015. A considerable section of expatriates earn a low income and at the same time face high living costs since the pandemic while private sector profits surge. Low-wage workers are now even more at risk due to increased living expenses. Hence Bahrain does not have a minimum wage for expatriates, there is no mandatory minimum rate of pay for workers. Pay rates must be agreed upon directly with the employer through collective bargaining or other means of negotiating a fair living wage. Under these circumstances, with the increase in the cost of living, people often working as labourers and small-scale businessmen are also facing the basic problem of living on a minimum income. Salim Thoduvel, a businessman from Manama Souq, who spoke to The Daily Tribune, said that even in a small shop, they now had to pay a minimum wage of BD225 to employees, with the remaining BD100 going toward room rent, water, electricity and food. According to Bahrains Social Insurance Organisation, 71% of expatriates working in Bahrains private sector today earn less than BD200 a month. This year is not favourable for the world economy, according to forecasts made by leading economists. However according to reports the economy of Bahrain, which derives most of its income from oil, is strong. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com The National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) officially welcomed its new Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Usman Ahmed, following an initial transition period led by former Chief Executive Officer, Jean-Christophe Durand. Both executives were present at the Banks End of Year event, held in December, where Ahmed officially addressed the staff members. During the event, Farouk Yousuf Almoayyed, Chairman of NBB, thanked Durand for his years of service to NBB, while also receiving the new GCEO as the Bank transitions into a new executive management period. Commenting on the occasion, Almoayyed said: We are pleased to welcome Usman Ahmed as the new Group Chief Executive Officer. His years of diverse global expertise will act as a catalyst to the Groups future development and advancements. We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to Jean-Christophe Durand, for his significant contributions to NBB over the past 6 years, which have set the Bank on a trajectory of excellence and further positioned us as the national bank of choice in the Kingdom. We are confident that the organisation will witness a thriving future under Usman, and wish him all the best in his new position. TDT | Manama The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com Bahrains elite athlete Birhanu Balew raced to an impressive second-place finish in the 10-kilometre mens race at the 66th Campaccio-International Cross Country meeting in San Giorgio su Legnano in Italy. Balew was in contention for much of the event, engaged in a heated duel with Rodrigue Kwizera of Burundi, with whom he was making his debut in the race. The pair led a group of eight over two laps, and then on the decisive go-around, Balew and Kwizera made an exciting final sprint to the finish. Agencies | Washington The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com President Joe Biden inspected a busy port of entry along the US-Mexico border on Sunday on his first trip to the region after two years in office, a visit shadowed by the fraught politics of immigration as Republicans try to blame him for the record numbers of migrants crossing into the country. At his first stop, the president observed as border officers in El Paso demonstrated how they search vehicles for drugs, money and other contraband. In a sign of the deep tensions over immigration, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, handed Biden a letter upon his arrival in the state that said the chaos at the border was a direct result of the president's failure to enforce federal laws. Just feet from Mexican soil, Biden asked how quickly border officers needed to find migrants smuggled in a vehicle before the people run out of oxygen. He asked about seizures of fentanyl, an opioid that can be 50 times as powerful as the same amount of heroin. As he toured the facility, a large sign that said, Bienvenido a Mexico, or welcome to Mexico, hung over the Bridge of the Americas. Immigration for years has been a serious point of conflict, exposing both the dysfunction of the US system as well as the turmoil within migrants' home countries that has pushed many to flee. Administration officials have tried to counter Republican criticism by saying Congress should work with them to increase border security funding and overhaul immigration policy. Biden was spending just a few hours in the city, which is currently the biggest corridor for illegal crossings, in large part due to Nicaraguans fleeing repression, crime and poverty in their country. They are among migrants from four countries who are now subject to quick expulsion under new rules enactedby the Biden administration in the past week that drew strong criticism from immigration advocates. The president also was to visit the El Paso County Migrant Services Center and meet with nonprofits and religious groups that support migrants arriving to the US. It was not clear whether he would talk to any migrants. Biden's announcement on border security and his visit to the border are aimed in part at quelling the political noise and blunting the impact of upcoming investigations into immigration promised by House Republicans. But any enduring solution will require action by the sharply divided Congress, where multiple efforts to enact sweeping changes have failed in recent years. From El Paso, Biden was to continue south to Mexico City, where he and the leaders ofMexico and Canada will gather on Monday and Tuesday for a North American leaders summit. Immigration is among the items on the agenda. In El Paso, where migrants congregate at bus stops and in parks before traveling on, border patrol agents have stepped up security before Biden's visit. I think theyre trying to send a message that theyre going to more consistently check peoples documented status, and if you have not been processed they are going to pick you up, said Ruben Garcia of the Annunciation House aid group in El Paso. Migrants and asylum-seekers fleeing violence and persecution have increasingly found that protections in the United States are available primarily to those with money or the savvy to find someone to vouch for them financially. Venezuelan migrant Jose Castillo, who said he travelled without family members for five months from his home on Margarita Island to arrive in El Paso on December 29, said he hoped Biden will take us into consideration as the human beings we are". He was among a group of about 30 migrants who gathered for prayers Sunday morning outside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church where many of the newcomers have been camping. We have suffered a lot since entering the jungle of the Darien Gap and passing through Mexico. It has all been a battle, battle, battle, said Castillo. I know that we are here illegally, but please give us a chance. The numbers of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Bidens first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended September 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take hard-line measures that would resemble those of former President Donald Trump's administration. The policy changes announced this past week are Biden's biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks. The US will also turn away migrants who do not seek asylum first in a country they travelled through en route to the US. Migrants are being asked to complete a form on a phone app so that they they can go to a port of entry at a pre-scheduled date and time. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One that the administration is trying to incentivize a safe and orderly way and cut out the smuggling organizations, saying the policies are not a ban at all" but an attempt to protect migrants from the trauma that smuggling can create. The changes were welcomed by some, particularly leaders in cities where migrants have been massing. But Biden was excoriated by immigrant advocate groups, which accused him of taking measures modeled after those of the former president. Administration officials disputed that characterisation. For all of his international travel over his 50 years in public service, Biden has not spent much time at the US-Mexico border. The only visit that the White House could point to was Biden's drive by the border while he was campaigning for president in 2008. He sent Vice President Kamala Harris toEl Paso in 2021, but she was criticised for largely bypassing the action, because El Paso wasn't the centre of crossings that it is now. President Barack Obama made a 2011 trip to El Paso, where he toured border operations and the Paso Del Norte international bridge, but he was later criticised for not going back as tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors crossed into the US from Mexico. Trump, who made hardening immigration a signature issue, travelled to the border several times. During one visit, he crammed into a small border station to inspect cash and drugs confiscated by agents. During a trip to McAllen, Texas, then the centre of a growing crisis, he made one of his most-often repeated claims, that Mexico would pay to build a border wall. American taxpayers ended up footing the bill after Mexican leaders flatly rejected the idea. Agencies | London The Daily Tribune www.newsofbahrain.com A mobile air-launched rocket system to be used in Britain's first domestic satellite launch could sow the seeds for a globally dispersed rapid-response capability to put extra eyes in space in times of war, executives and analysts said. Virgin Orbit, part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, plans to launch nine satellites from a LauncherOne rocket attached under the wing of a modified Boeing 747, to be flown from a new spaceport in Cornwall on Monday. Barring delays, it will be the first time a satellite has departed from western European soil. For now the focus is on commercial payloads from companies such as Space Forge, which is developing in-orbit manufacturing. But the launch is also seen by many as a blueprint for quicker launches of limited satellite capacity for tactical military purposes, in what planners call "Responsive Launch". "Ukraine woke up the world in a lot of ways," Virgin Orbit Chief Executive Dan Hart told a news conference in southwest England on Sunday. "Clearly there is a hope of a pan-European, as well as a US collaboration ... and that we have responsiveness so that if something happens in the world, we can get assets there right away," he told the pre-launch briefing, monitored online. Virgin Orbit said last year Britain's Royal Air Force was doing exercises to demonstrate the value of "Responsive Launch". Britain had a brief foray into space launch activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when its Black Arrow rocket was cancelled after just one successful mission. The rocket's four launches took place in Australia in an era when commercial satellites barely existed. Now, constellations of miniaturised satellites are heading an explosion of commercial activity in low Earth orbit. 'FLEXIBLE AND AGILE' Lobbing small satellites into low orbit at short notice would do little more than fill temporary gaps in coverage from large spy satellites, but experts say the technology has some dual civil and military potential and could spread costs. "It gives you greater resilience or redundancy or duality of systems, whether that's for position, navigation and timing or quicker access ... as we've seen in Ukraine," Ian Annett, deputy chief executive of the UK Space Agency, told Sunday's briefing. "It's a natural transition that helps us develop security capabilities, but also, for government, keeps costs down whilst providing commercial opportunities as well." Elon Musk's SpaceX activated its Starlink constellation over Ukraine after Russia's invasion last February. Its communication links have been used by civilians and by Ukraine's military. Luxembourg said in October it had signed a letter of intent with Virgin Orbit to develop a "rapid and flexible response to different threats", for NATO and other allies. Its defence ministry has called for "new, more flexible and agile satellite launch procedures and techniques from Europe". Britain's own 2022-25 space roadmap calls for dual-use capabilities in Earth Observation and Space Domain Awareness. Virgin Orbit is also talking to Japan and Australia. Questions remain, however, over how quickly the mobile launch concept could work its way into actual budgets, which are dwarfed by US spending on space. "Everyone is playing up military space as the next big thing," said UK-based defence analyst Francis Tusa. "But ministries of defence have eyes larger than their stomachs." The system's liquid propellant and final rocket assembly also require some local infrastructure, and Europe's crowded airspace has thrown up significant regulatory obstacles. "At the moment, it's a bit bigger on the commercial side, but we see the defence and national security side growing so I think in this steady state, it'll probably end up being 50/50," Hart told Reuters. , Jan 09 ( Nikkei ) - The U.S. is finalizing plans to extend its security umbrella for Japan into space, seeking to protect satellites crucial in military surveillance and operations, Nikkei has learned. The expanded protection would be covered by Article 5 of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, which obligates Washington to defend Japan if territory under its administrative control is attacked. Japan's satellites would be deemed as under such control. The two allies, with an eye on China and Russia, aim to bolster deterrence by underscoring their commitment to responding against an enemy attack with force. Japan and the U.S. aim to include the provision in the joint statement from their "two-plus-two" security talks between defense and diplomatic chiefs set for Wednesday in Washington. Plans call for the statement from the summit two days later between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House to include the arrangement as well. Cyberspace was added to the U.S. defense commitment in 2019, expanding from land, air or maritime attacks. ...continue reading Critics say that Japan's comics often feature young teenage girls engaged in inappropriate acts, with exaggerated body parts but facial features that look like those of kids. As many countries are banning or restricting those manga, there's more and more criticism and concerns toward Japan's anime and manga industry about it. ...continue reading North Korean missile prompts brief evacuation order in Japan Al Jazeera - Apr 13 The Japanese government has reassured citizens on its second largest island, Hokkaido, that a missile from North Korea is no longer likely to land on or around its territory, lifting a previously issued evacuation order. The Japanese government has reassured citizens on its second largest island, Hokkaido, that a missile from North Korea is no longer likely to land on or around its territory, lifting a previously issued evacuation order. Japan likely to approve first casino NHK - Apr 13 Japan's government may soon sign off on a proposal to build the country's first resort to feature a casino. Japan's government may soon sign off on a proposal to build the country's first resort to feature a casino. The Incredible engineering behind Japanese castles Simple History Live - Apr 13 Japanese castles are some of the greatest marvels of medieval Japanese engineering. Being products of a unique defense phylosophy, lack of certain materials, Japanese mythology and thousands of man hours gave them a unique and beautiful look. Japanese castles are some of the greatest marvels of medieval Japanese engineering. Being products of a unique defense phylosophy, lack of certain materials, Japanese mythology and thousands of man hours gave them a unique and beautiful look. 'Stage is set': Japan startup eyes moon landing late April azertag.az - Apr 13 A commercial space startup in Japan on Wednesday said its Hakuto-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander is expected to touch surface of the moon late April, making it the first private company in the world to reach the celestial body, according to Anadolu Agency. A commercial space startup in Japan on Wednesday said its Hakuto-R Mission 1 Lunar Lander is expected to touch surface of the moon late April, making it the first private company in the world to reach the celestial body, according to Anadolu Agency. Japan's population declines for 12th straight year NHK - Apr 13 Japan's population has shrunk for the 12th year in a row. But, Tokyo's population has increased for the first time in two years. Japan's population has shrunk for the 12th year in a row. But, Tokyo's population has increased for the first time in two years. Living in the secret world of sumo in Japan (rare footage) Yes Theory - Apr 13 We've spent more than seven years and have traveled to Japan on multiple occasions and each time attempted to gain close-up access to an ancient practice very secretive to the outside world. We've spent more than seven years and have traveled to Japan on multiple occasions and each time attempted to gain close-up access to an ancient practice very secretive to the outside world. Green groups target Japan's mega banks on climate action Business Mirror - Apr 12 INVESTOR activist group Market Forces and other environmental nonprofits filed shareholder proposals with several Japanese megabanks and utilities, seeking to require them to disclose more specific plans on how they will work to meet climate targets set by the Paris Agreement. INVESTOR activist group Market Forces and other environmental nonprofits filed shareholder proposals with several Japanese megabanks and utilities, seeking to require them to disclose more specific plans on how they will work to meet climate targets set by the Paris Agreement. "Reading the Air" in Japan: Why it matters Japanese Comedian Meshida - Apr 12 To live in Japanese society having the ability to read the room is more important than anything else. To live in Japanese society having the ability to read the room is more important than anything else. Yellow sand likely to reach Japan on Wednesday, weather officials say NHK - Apr 12 Japan's weather officials expect yellow sand to reach the country on Wednesday. Japan's weather officials expect yellow sand to reach the country on Wednesday. Annual Tokyo fireworks festival to be held for 1st time in 4 years Kyodo - Apr 12 A major annual firework festival in Tokyo will be held this summer for the first time in four years after the display was repeatedly canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event's organizer said Tuesday. A major annual firework festival in Tokyo will be held this summer for the first time in four years after the display was repeatedly canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions, the event's organizer said Tuesday. Panel to suggest ending Japan's controversial 'trainee' scheme breitbart.com - Apr 11 A Japanese government panel is set to recommend the closure of a controversial vocational training scheme for young people from developing countries, an immigration official said Tuesday. A Japanese government panel is set to recommend the closure of a controversial vocational training scheme for young people from developing countries, an immigration official said Tuesday. Japans house price increases moderating globalpropertyguide.com - Apr 11 The average price of existing condominiums in Tokyo rose by 4.8% (inflation-adjusted) in 2022 from a year earlier, a sharp slowdown from a year-on-year increase of 10.65% in the prior year. The average price of existing condominiums in Tokyo rose by 4.8% (inflation-adjusted) in 2022 from a year earlier, a sharp slowdown from a year-on-year increase of 10.65% in the prior year. As summer heat looms, Japan urged to curb impact, emissions Japan Today - Apr 11 Temperatures are rising in Japan and summer is coming fast. Cherry blossoms bloomed sooner than ever before, chiffon-pink thats traditionally heralded spring for the nation popping up just two weeks into March. Temperatures are rising in Japan and summer is coming fast. Cherry blossoms bloomed sooner than ever before, chiffon-pink thats traditionally heralded spring for the nation popping up just two weeks into March. Man goes on rampage with tent peg in Osaka supermarket, injuring 4 NOJ / YTV NEWS - Apr 10 A 56-year-old man has been arrested for attempted murder after attacking customers and a store clerk with a tent peg at a supermarket in Osaka. A 56-year-old man has been arrested for attempted murder after attacking customers and a store clerk with a tent peg at a supermarket in Osaka. 11-yr-old Japan dancer takes top prize in youth ballet competition Kyodo - Apr 10 An 11-year-old male Japanese ballet dancer won the top prize Sunday for his age group at a major international ballet competition for young dancers seeking to become professionals. An 11-year-old male Japanese ballet dancer won the top prize Sunday for his age group at a major international ballet competition for young dancers seeking to become professionals. Let it be recorded that Murshed lived and he lived life well and he lived it fully. And all of those whose lives he touched are richer for it. by Anwar A. Khan Chief Justice SM Murshed was born on 11 January 1911. January 11, 2023 would be his 112th Birthday. He was a Bengali jurist and legal scholar who served as the Chief Justice of High Court in the-then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from 1964 to 1967. We justify our privileged status as legal professionals only as we do justice for all our citizens, young and old, male or female, rich or poor, and without regard to ethnic or racial origin or to religious belief and Chief Justice Murshed strongly believed in this dictum. File photo of Justice S. M. Murshed, President, Dacca Club shares a light moment with Zakir Husain Governor of East Pakistan, at the Dacca Club Gymkhana Races while Mrs. Lyla Murshed looks on. [Photo credit: Bakhtiar Khalid/Doc Kazi/flickr.com] He contributed immensely to our judiciary during his time. His demise 44 years back at 68 is indeed a great loss to the judicial fraternity specifically and the nation as a whole. He was a towering Bengali and that his many accomplishments and contributions to the country were well documented, in particular when he was the Chief Justice and afterwards in life time. He had written a number of landmark judgments.His judgments, which reflected his judicial independence accompanied by legal clarity and intellectual analysis, constitute a major contribution to our countrys jurisprudence and justice system. Sharing the same thoughts by his votaries, former Chief Justice SM Murshed was known for his dedication and sharp legal mind and also was highly respected by those who had served under him.Although he was a strict man, everyone admired and respected him A man of principle, honest and holier-than-thou. Though he was a tough boss, he was a very good man and had a kind heart. Those who knew him also described Justice Murshed as a man of principle, honest, of the highest integrity. He would be all ears and heart to discuss legal issues. Many say with conviction that he was incorruptible, the most honest man in his entire life.He trained many to have moral courage and dignity. He was an argus-eyedman, but he was a giant in law and justice. He was an exceptional gentleman, and a judge, then the Chief Justice of high integrity and good temperament during his days on the bench. His judgments are usually couched in very simple language, succinctly to the issues at hand, and often used as authoritative references by judges and lawyers. He was a man of unfailing courtesy he was also a kind, humble and elegant man elegant in his style, in his thinking and in his writing. He brought to the bench a broad and deep knowledge of the law. As a lawyer, and then as a judge and finally as the Chief Justice, he worked selflessly for a just outcome.The law was only one of many facets to his Honours life. He believed that the important point to keep in mind is that this judicial branch is not the servant of lawyers, or judges, of clerks, of non-judicial employees, but of the people. Without a functioning judicial branch there can be no constitutional democracy. Without a judicial branch there is no liberty, no peace, no order, no guarantee of fairness. Without an independent judiciary even those citizens who never go to court will be at risk in their lives, their liberty and their property. The loss of a functioning judicial branch is a loss that our society cannot survive. Considering the magnitude of the challenges the judge faced when he became chief, his administrative accomplishments were extraordinary. With the help of many, he preserved the judiciarys independence, strengthened its authority, and helped it adapt to the changing demands of justice. Today, we remember not only Chief Justice SM Murshedas an enlightened and effective administrator, but also as an exemplary jurist, who created a body of law that will continue to affect the lives of our citizenry, and influence the courts in other jurisdictions, well into the future. The chief introduced a distinct approach to judging. He recognized that courts were being asked to decide matters of fundamental importance to the human condition, that in the 60sthese matters were coming to the courts with increasing frequency because of the inability of other social and political institutions to resolve certain difficult and troubling issues. In addressing these issues, he was not satisfied to employ a mechanical application of legal doctrine. Rather, he sought new ideas, new perspectives, and in so doing, he relied on the best ideas in the history of human thought, spirit and imagination. His opinions were often peppered with references to great thinkers throughout history. His opinions ring with energy, history, humour, real knowledge of real institutions, penetrating analysis, synthesizing will, an imagination balanced on the point at which what is becomes what can be. They have vision, and they have design. They teach, explain and persuade. Sometimes they sing. His opinions are scholarly, but they are grounded in experience. They perpetuate ideals, but work in the practical world. They are generous without yielding in principle and tough without failing in mercy. They value the past at the moment they change it, and change outworn laws at justices command. Mursheds commitment to individual freedom is reflected in the trend he often led to find greater protections of individual freedom.His concern for human dignity is best illustrated by his opinions in cases involving. He clearly interpreted that the constitutional right to privacy . . . is an expression of the sanctity of individual free choice and self-determination as fundamental constituents of life. The value of life as so perceived is lessened not by a decision to refuse treatment, but by the failure to allow a competent human being the right of choice. He strongly believed in protecting the incompetent person within its power, the state must recognize the dignity and worth of such a person and afford to that person the same panoply of rights and choices it recognizes in competent persons. He recognized the essential uniqueness of each human being when he concluded that the primary test is subjective in nature that is, the goal is to determine with as much accuracy as possible the wants and needs of the individual involved. Significantly, in making this determination, he vehemently disapproved of an analysis that would equate the value of life with an individuals quality of life. In reaching this conclusion, he made a visionary observation about decision-making in a democracy that it is the diversity of opinion among individuals, some of whose concepts may well have been influenced by their group affiliations, which is envisioned when we refer to diffused impartiality. No human being is wholly free of the interests and preferences which are the product of his cultural, family, and community experience. Nowhere is the dynamic commingling of the ideas and biases of such individuals more essential than inside the jury room. By values, by vision, by strength of character, Justice Murshedwas the right person to lead this court through one of its most trying times and to so well prepare it for the challenging future that is now upon us. He loved this court, and this country. He exhorted the legal profession to do justice for all our citizens, young and old, male or female, rich or poor, and without regard to ethnic or racial origin or to religious belief. And what he urged on others, he achieved himself. In this, he lived the imperative to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our Creator. May it please the court. To summarize the life of any person is a difficult task, and one which each of us must undertake from our own perspective. But in the case ofMurshed, the task is compounded by his extraordinary nature, for he was one of the most exceptional people that our people have ever known. Winston Churchill once said, what we get is how we make a living, but what we give is how we make a life. If that be the measure, then SM Murshedslife was rich beyond description. As an extraordinary law school acclaimed scholar, internationally known barrister, and brilliant jurist, he gave everything he had to every undertaking, obligation, commitment, and relationship. There was nothing halfway or equivocal about him. And his measure as a caring, sensitive, thoroughly delightful human being was equally compelling. Totally devoted to his family and his extended family of countless friends, he had a passion for people that was unsurpassed. He was frequently an anchor to the wind for those of people less strong. It is not surprising that many great jurists were once great trial lawyers, and so it was withMurshed. He quickly established, by his great ability, his trial experience, and his scholarly pursuits, a reputation as an outstanding jurist areputation as one of the countrys leading authorities on the laws of evidence. He was a visionary who sought constant improvement in the judicial system and the ability to anticipate the needs of the future. He was a man who was personally aggrieved by the injustices of this world and the plight of societies afflicted. He was a man of enormous talent who gave all of his heart, body, and soul to the judicial system of this country and his beloved High Court, which he led with such pride and great ability. He was a man of principle and self-discipline. And when his friends hear words such as integrity, loyalty, honesty, decency, compassion, dedication, and justice, they know that these are not just pious platitudes that are sometimes over used, but rather these were intimate friends, his constant companions, the guide posts by which he lived throughout his entire life. From my perspective of my father who was a lucent lawyer during the British Regime in the Indian Sub-continent, Chief JusticeMurshed has my greatest admiration and respect for being everything that a noble profession would like to offer to the world. As our revered person as he is, he had my love for being everything that a great person can be. Let it be recorded that Murshed lived and he lived life well and he lived it fully. And all of those whose lives he touched are the richer for it. This confidante of the mighty and defender of the weak, this courageous judicial fighter and warm compassionate friend, this highly public person and highly private family man, made a great mark upon our times. Although he was of a quiet and gentle nature, he was fearless in defense of what he believed to be right. He not only stood toe-to-toe with certain members of the Legislature in order to preserve an independent judiciary, but also fought to preserve his own reputation in the face of unsupported rumours and innuendo when he could have quietly remained aloof and pursued a very successful and remunerative career. He even stood up to the generals of the Pakistani junta at the risk of his personal safety and in his country. He was, in short, a man for all seasons, quiet yet determined, open to persuasive argument but unwavering in defense of what he believed. We miss him terribly and cant believe that hes gone. But his voice and his image remain with us. When troubled, we ask, What would Justice Murshed do? And when we ask that, we become larger, wiser, fiercer, more generous, and we set our eyes on the task ahead. Thank you, Chief Justice SM Murshed, for being a ray of sunshine even on our darkest days. Anwar A. Khan is an independent political analyst based in Dhaka, Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs TORONTO, Jan. 9, 2023 /CNW/ - American Express Canada has won five of eight categories in Reward Canada's fifteenth annual Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards ranking in Canada. The company has also taken 1st place in Rewards Canada's seventh annual Top Cash Back Credit Cards ranking. "We're thrilled for our Cards to once again be recognized by Rewards Canada as best-in-class across the majority of categories", said Joe Ryan, VP, Proprietary Products and Rewards, American Express Canada. "We're committed to providing Cardmembers an outstanding suite of products which offer excellent travel rewards and competitive cash back, alongside exceptional benefits and customer service, and this win solidifies it." For the sixth year in a row, the American Express Cobalt Card takes 1st place for Top Overall Travel Rewards Card, due to its value and flexibility to a wide range of Canadian travellers. The SimplyCash Preferred Card from American Express, also takes 1st place for Top Cash Back Credit Card, having undergone a recent refresh in 2022 which included enhanced value propositions which support Cardmembers' everyday spending and offering cash back accelerators in key spend categories of gas and grocery. Also of note, the American Express Business Edge Card ranked 1st place in a new category this year, Top Small Business Travel Rewards Card. American Express Canada continues to make improvements to the flexibility and value of rewards, staying competitive in offerings to its Cardmembers. Through the Membership Rewards program, Cardmembers can use a variety of redemption options including Use Points for Purchases to redeem points for travel and other eligible purchases charged to their Card, Fixed Points Travel Program which enables Cardmembers flexibility to book flights using their points at the same fixed points amount every day of the year which covers up to a maximum base ticket, with no blackout dates, and the ability to redeem and discover dozens of top-brand gift cards and merchandise. The following American Express Cards were ranked as the 1st place Card in their category: Top Overall Travel Rewards Credit Card: American Express Cobalt Card American Express Cobalt Card Top No Free Travel Rewards Credit Card: American Express Green Card American Express Green Card Top Hybrid Credit Card: American Express Cobalt Card American Express Cobalt Card Top Ultra Premium Credit Card: The Platinum Card from American Express The Platinum Card from American Express Top Small Business Travel Rewards Credit Card: American Express Business Edge Card American Express Business Edge Card Top Cash Back Credit Card: SimplyCash Preferred Card from American Express American Express Canada also boasts an extensive list of additional award placings across multiple reward categories: 2 nd place Top Hybrid Credit Card: American Express Gold Rewards Card American Express Gold Rewards Card 2 nd place Top Small Business Credit Card: Business Platinum Card from American Express Business Platinum Card from American Express 3 rd place Top Overall Travel Rewards Card: American Express Gold Rewards Card American Express Gold Rewards Card 3 rd place Top Airline Credit Card: American Express Aeroplan Card American Express Aeroplan Card 3 rd place Top Ultra Premium Credit Card: American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card American Express Aeroplan Reserve Card 5 th place Top Overall Travel Rewards Card: Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card 5 th place Top Hybrid Credit Card: The Platinum Card from American Express The Platinum Card from American Express 5th place Top Small Business Credit Card: American Express Aeroplan Business Reserve Card For more information on the Rewards Canada Top Travel Rewards Credit Cards rankings for 2023, please visit: www.rewardscanada.ca/TopTravelCreditCard/ and https://www.rewardscanada.ca/topcashback/ ABOUT AMERICAN EXPRESS IN CANADA American Express is a globally integrated payments company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. American Express was established in Canada in 1853 and offers a variety of consumer and business products. Learn more at americanexpress.ca and connect with us on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , Twitter , and Youtube . SOURCE American Express Canada For further information: Becky Brescacin, American Express Canada, [email protected] PORT HAWKESBURY, NS, Jan. 9, 2023 /CNW/ - Today, Mike Kelloway, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and Member of Parliament for Cape BretonCanso, the Honourable Allan MacMaster, Deputy Premier of Nova Scotia, and Amber Carrigan, Executive Director of the Strait Area Transit Co-operative, announced joint funding of $499,812 for the purchase of three new vehicles for the Co-operative. Funding will support the purchase of three new accessible vehicles to expand Strait Area Transit Co-operative's fixed and pre-booked door-to-door and wheelchair accessible service for all residents. The vehicles will be used primarily for the most vulnerable populations in Inverness and Richmond Counties. They will help improve their access to social events, educational and employment opportunities and day-to-day activities, such as going to medical appointments. They will provide users with independence and a sense of freedom which will improve their quality of life. These transit options will help residents get around their communities and access programs and services more comfortably, conveniently, and affordably. This investment will make the region more inclusive and accessible for people with limited mobility and financial resources. By investing in infrastructure, the Government of Canada is growing our country's economy, increasing the resiliency of our communities, and improving the lives of Canadians. Quotes "Public transit options should be available to all Canadians, no matter where they live. The Government of Canada's support for Strait Area Transit Co-operative's new, door-to-door and wheelchair accessible buses will help improve the quality of life for residents in the Quad Counties and support social inclusion. Thanks to this project and others like it across the country, we are helping residents in rural and remote communities gain mobility options, access jobs and essential services, and reduce their need to own a private vehicle." Mike Kelloway, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and Member of Parliament for Cape BretonCanso, on behalf of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities "People need transportation to get to work, schedule appointments, and visit family and friends. This investment will help operators deliver this essential service and in doing so, make our communities stronger.." The Honourable Allan MacMaster, Deputy Premier of Nova Scotia, on behalf of the Honourable Kim Masland, Minister of Public Works and Member of the Legislative Assembly for Queens "Without funding streams like the Rural Transportation Solutions Fund or the Accessible Transportation Assistance Program, Strait Area Transit would not be able to continue providing all inclusive, safe, reliable, accessible, environmentally friendly, and professionally delivered transit services to the residents of the Strait Area. Rural transportation is an essential service to all. With the purchase of three Ford Transit's, it gives Strait Area Transit the ability to have a further reach to our local communities." Amber Carrigan, Executive Director of the Strait Area Transit Co-operative Quick Facts The Government of Canada is investing $399,849 in this project and the Government of Nova Scotia is providing $99,963 . is investing in this project and the Government of is providing . The Government of Canada's funding comes from the Rural Transit Solutions Fund. funding comes from the Rural Transit Solutions Fund. The new Rural Transit Solutions Fund, which is part of the Permanent Public Transit Fund, will provide $250 million over 5 years to help Canadians living in rural and remote areas get around their communities more easily. It supports the development of rural transit solutions, including new transit service models that could be replicated or scaled up. over 5 years to help Canadians living in rural and remote areas get around their communities more easily. It supports the development of rural transit solutions, including new transit service models that could be replicated or scaled up. One in five Canadians live in rural communities. Rural communities in Canada account for nearly 30% of the nation's gross domestic product. account for nearly 30% of the nation's gross domestic product. In February 2021 , the Prime Minister announced nearly $15 billion in available funding for new public transit infrastructure projects over the next eight years, with a permanent $3 billion annually to begin in 2026-27. , the Prime Minister announced nearly in available funding for new public transit infrastructure projects over the next eight years, with a permanent annually to begin in 2026-27. The Rural Transit Solutions Fund complements Canada's strengthened climate plan: A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy. The plan commits the federal government to provide permanent federal funding for public transit in support of making clean and affordable transportation available in every community. strengthened climate plan: A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy. The plan commits the federal government to provide permanent federal funding for public transit in support of making clean and affordable transportation available in every community. Infrastructure Canada helps address complex challenges that Canadians face every dayranging from the rapid growth of our cities to climate change and environmental threats to our water and land. helps address complex challenges that Canadians face every dayranging from the rapid growth of our cities to climate change and environmental threats to our water and land. The funding announced today builds on the Government of Canada's work through the Atlantic Growth Strategy to create well-paying middle-class jobs, strengthen local economies, and build inclusive communities. Associated links Federal infrastructure investments in Nova Scotia https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/plan/prog-proj-ns-eng.htmlh Investing in Canada Plan Project Map http://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/gmap-gcarte/index-eng.html Rural Transit Solutions Fund https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/rural-trans-rural/index-eng.html Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn Web: Infrastructure Canada SOURCE Infrastructure Canada For further information: (media only), please contact: Jean-Sebastien Comeau, Press Secretary and Senior Communications Advisor, Office of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, [email protected], 343-574-8116; Deborah Bayer, Communications Advisor, Province of Nova Scotia, [email protected], 902-225-4982; Amber Carrigan, Executive Director, Strait Area Transit Co-operative, 902-625-1475, [email protected]; Media Relations: Infrastructure Canada, 613-960-9251, Toll free: 1-877-250-7154, Email: [email protected] VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 9, 2023 /CNW/ - Freeport Resources Inc. (the "Company") announces that it will offer up to 60,000,000 units (each, a "Unit") by way of a non-brokered private placement, at a price of $0.05 per Unit, for gross proceeds of up to $3,000,000. Each "Unit" will consist of one common share, and one-half-of-one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each "Warrant" is exercisable to acquire an additional common share of the Company, at a price of $0.10, for a period of eighteen months. The proceeds of the placement will be used for general working capital purposes. In connection with completion of the placement, the Company may pay finders' fees to eligible parties that assisted in introducing subscribers to the Company. All securities to be issued in connection with the placement will be subject to a four-month-and-one-day statutory hold period in accordance with applicable securities laws. Completion of the placement remains subject to approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. About Freeport Resources Inc. Freeport Resources Inc. is a copper-centric resource company based in Vancouver, BC. It is focused on the development of its Yandera copper project located in Papua New Guinea. About Yandera Freeport's principal asset is its 100% owned, Yandera copper project located in PNG. The Project was previously held by the Sentient Private Equity Fund, a US$2.7 billion specialist mining PE fund. Sentient spent approximately USD $200+ million in engineering and feasibility studies but was forced to sell when the portfolio had to be liquidated. The project is held under a 2-year renewable exploration license which has expired but was renewed eight consecutive times previously. The elections in Papua New Guinea in the summer of 2022 resulted in several new appointments in the Mining Ministry. The bottlenecks that have existed for the past two years, primarily as a result of the pandemic and other political concerns are opening up and, as per recent discussions with the Government, the Company is hopeful that the license will be renewed in the first half of 2023. Recent advances in new copper catalyst technologies have opened an entirely new, low-cost processing route which could potentially be applied to Yandera and other large yet lower grade sulphide copper deposits. These technologies, which allow for the treatment of lower grade sulphide ores as oxides via a standard SX/EW circuit, are currently employed and being tested at various copper projects in both North and South America by Jetti Resources and Rio Tinto's Nuton Venture. The technology is a potential game-changer for lower-grade copper sulphide deposits. The Company is currently evaluating these technologies to determine if they are applicable to the Yandera project. If they prove to be viable, this could greatly enhance the feasibility of Yandera by significantly reducing the CAPEX and OPEX required to transition the project to production. Please refer to the links below: Jetti Resources www.jettiresources.com Rio Tinto's Nuton Venture https://im-mining.com/2022/10/14/rio-tintos-nuton-ready-to-leverage-its-leaching-rd-legacy Please visit www.freeportresources.com or contact the email address below for more information. Dr. Nathan Chutas, Ph.D., CPG, Senior Vice-President of Operations for the Company, is a qualified person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101. Dr. Chutas has reviewed and approved the technical content in this news release. On behalf of the Board, Freeport Resources Inc. Gord Friesen, Chief Executive Officer (236) 334-1660 or [email protected] Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When or if used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to completion of the Consolidation, and other factors or information. Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations. SOURCE Freeport Resources Inc. For further information: Gord Friesen, Chief Executive Officer, (236) 334-1660 or [email protected] These funds will allow the Centre francophone de Toronto to move forward on its project to add community space TORONTO, Jan. 9, 2023 Improving access to French-language services in official language minority communities is essential in ensuring an inclusive and diverse Francophone community. The Government of Canada is proud to support institutions with this mandate so that Francophones can receive services in their language. Today, the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, announced nearly $100,000 in funding for the Centre francophone de Toronto to carry out a feasibility study. The study will allow the centre to analyse the need for additional community space to meet the growing demand for services. The Government of Canada's investment in this study will allow the centre to accomplish great things, including: Consult key partners and stakeholders for the establishment of a community space for Francophones in Toronto ; ; Identify the needs of the Francophone community; Determine if the construction of a hub with additional community space will solve the access issues; Determine possible options for the development of a community space in Toronto ; ; Identify potential sources of revenue for the project. This study, funded through the Government of Canada's Community Spaces Fund, is one of the first steps in establishing a new Francophone hub in the Greater Toronto Area. This project will make it possible to promote dialogue, gatherings and support services in French. This initiative will help ensure the vitality of the Franco-Ontarian community for decades to come. Quotes "During my tour of Southwestern Ontario, I had the chance to visit the Centre francophone de Toronto and witness the remarkable work they are accomplishing. I've met passionate people who are committed to providing a range of social and community health services that improve the well-being of Francophones in the Greater Toronto Area. Today's funding will allow the centre to properly assess the growing needs of Francophones and continue to meet them." The Honnourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Minister of Official Languages and Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency "The federal investment will improve day-to-day life in our community by allowing us to analyse the need to add inclusive gathering places open to the Francophone community in the Greater Toronto Area in all its diversity. This funding will respond to the growing demand for services and is the first step to the culmination of a major project that is dear to us and especially to our community." Aliou Sene, President, Centre francophone du Grand Toronto Quick Facts Le Centre francophone de Toronto is a non-profit organization providing social programs and services, health services as well as housing and legal services, primarily to Francophones in the Greater Toronto Area. Budget 2021 included $80 million over two years (20212022 and 20222023) to support the construction, renovation and development of educational and community spaces serving official language minority communities. This funding is in addition to the $67.2 million over five years in the Action Plan for Official Languages 20182023 for construction projects related to educational and cultural infrastructure in official language minority communities. Some of these investments are part of the Community Spaces Fund. The Community Spaces Fund provides non-profit organizations in minority language communities with the space they need to offer social and cultural activities and services in their language. These gathering places encourage dialogue and support development at the individual and community level. Creating these spaces strengthens the capacity of these organizations and supports community revitalization. On March 1, 2022, the Government of Canada introduced an enhanced bill promoting the substantive equality of Canada's official languages to adapt the Official Languages Act to a changing society. Among other objectives, the bill aims to address the decline of French in Canada, clarify and strengthen the section of the Official Languages Act dealing with the promotion of official languages and support official language minority communities. In the February 19, 2021 document, English and French: Towards a Substantive Equality of Official Languages in Canada, Minister Joly outlined the Government of Canada's intentions to modernize and strengthen the Official Languages Act and its related instruments. The document revealed broad changes and new measures to achieve language equity in Canada. Associated Links Centre francophone de Toronto Community Spaces Fund Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages Official Language Reform Document: "English and French: Towards a substantive equality of official languages in Canada" Budget 2021 Action Plan for Official Languages 20182023: Investing in Our Future 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] OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 9, 2023 /CNW/ - Today, the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, announced that the selection process is underway for the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority (WDBA). The Government of Canada is seeking applications from qualified, diverse, and talented individuals to fill the position through an open, transparent, and merit-based selection process. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply prior to January 30, 2023. The Government is committed to open and transparent processes for selecting Governor in Council appointees, to help strengthen trust in Canada's democracy and ensure the integrity of its public institutions. This process encourages applications from individuals with leadership experience at the senior executive level in a private or public sector organization; working with a board of directors; building and maintaining strong teams; managing and delivering major infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships, including those related to transportation; and engaging collaboratively with public, private and international partners. The Notice of Appointment Opportunity is published and applications for this opportunity can be submitted through the Government of Canada's Governor in Council appointments website. Quotes "This merit-based selection process will find the right candidate to lead the team at WDBA and ensure the timely and cost-effective delivery of the Gordie Howe International Bridge project, which will deliver major economic benefits for Canadian workers and businesses." The Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities Quick facts The Gordie Howe International Bridge project between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan is being delivered through a public-private partnership by WDBA, a not-for-profit Canadian Crown corporation. WDBA is responsible for overseeing and managing the construction and operation of the new crossing. WDBA works closely with the International Authority, which includes members from Michigan and Canada in support of the Crossing Agreement. and is being delivered through a public-private partnership by WDBA, a not-for-profit Canadian Crown corporation. WDBA is responsible for overseeing and managing the construction and operation of the new crossing. WDBA works closely with the International Authority, which includes members from and in support of the Crossing Agreement. WDBA is led by the CEO and governed by a Board of Directors responsible for overseeing the business activities of WDBA, engagement with key stakeholders, as well as management and delivery of the project. The Board of Directors, led by Chair Tim Murphy , is composed of up to nine members. , is composed of up to nine members. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is a $5.7 billion generational mega project comprising multiple components, including what will be the longest cable stay bridge in North America ; the largest Canadian Port of Entry along the Canada - United States border; a United States Port of Entry one of the largest in North America ; the Michigan Interstate 75 Interchange; and approach bridges on both sides of the border. Once constructed, the bridge will provide an uninterrupted, highway-to-highway transportation route from Montreal to Mexico with direct connections between Ontario's Highway 401 and Michigan's Interstate 75. Associated links Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Web: Infrastructure Canada SOURCE Infrastructure Canada For further information: (media only), please contact: Jean-Sebastien Comeau, Press Secretary and Senior Communications Advisor, Office of the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, [email protected], 343-574-8116; Media Relations: Infrastructure Canada, 613-960-9251, Toll free: 1-877-250-7154, Email: [email protected] Expected to Spur Development of Autonomous Driving Technology in Preparation for the SDV(Software Defined Vehicle) Era LAS VEGAS and SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 6, 2023 /CNW/ -- On January 6th, HL Klemove, which specializes in autonomous driving solutions for HL Group, signed an MOU with Sonatus, a company specializing in vehicular communication & data, at the 2023 CES in Las Vegas. The two companies have agreed to collaborate on the development of next-generation automotive architecture technology, in preparation for the upcoming "Software Defined Vehicle (SDV)" era, where mobility will be software-centered. Pal-joo Yoon, Hyung-jin Kang (CEO and CTO of HL Klemove, respectively), Jeffrey Chou and John Heinlein (CEO and CMO of Sonatus, respectively), attended the signing ceremony. From left to right: Sung-guk Kim Director of Sale Center, HL Klemove, Hyung-jin Kang CTO, HL Klemove, Pal-joo Yoon CEO, HL Klemove, Jeffrey Chou CEO, SONATUS, John Heinlein CMO, SONATUS, Chris Yang Korea Country Manager, SONATUS Most vehicles are equipped with 'distributed control architectures', where dozens of electronic controllers function individually to provide mobility solutions. In this form of architecture, application of new software is much restricted due to each controller's hardware-related constraints and other complex interrelations. To address this problem, diverse attempts are being made to integrate multiple electronic controllers on the next-generation automotive architecture. This phenomenon can be observed in DCU(Domain Control Unit), which integrates controllers of different functions, as well as in Z-ECU(Zonal Electronic Control Unit) which integrate controllers of different zones regardless of Functions and Zones. Building upon the successful commercialization of DCU for autonomous driving, HL Klemove, in collaboration with Sonatus, plans to accelerate the development of next-generation automotive architecture technologies, including Z-ECU. A vast amount of data is required to operate mobility solutions. Given that, stable data communication in a vehicle is an essential requirement for controller integrationthe biggest reason for HL Klemove's partnership with Sonatus. Sonatus not only possesses a high-quality communication platform, but it also succeeded in commercialization of vehicle communication controls, such as *CCU(Central Communication Unit). The two companies plan to focus on developing next-generation integrated control platforms; a prerequisite for realizing future vehicles such as SDV(Software-Defined Vehicles). HL Klemove's CEO, Pal-joo Yoon said at the CES site that day, "The CCU we introduced at CES was the first output of our collaboration with Sonatus," adding, "By building the next-generation automotive architecture, we will ensure thorough preparation is made when facing the new automotive paradigm; the SDV." Sonatus, located in Silicon Valley is a mobility software developer founded in 2018, with a vision to helping vehicles become "Data Centers on Wheels." Global automakers are paying close attention to its network-based communication and data solution technologies. About HL Klemove HL Klemove is a leading global autonomous driving solution provider with over 2,100 patents and a proven track record. The company started anew through the merger of two companies, ADAS business unit that has spun off from HL Mando (KS 204320), the global automotive parts company, and Mando-Hella Electronics, a leader in the automotive electronic parts technology. HL Klemove offers end-to-end solution for L2+/L3 autonomous driving and plans to launch next generation autonomous driving products such as high-resolution camera and integrated domain control unit until 2025. The company serves over fifty (50) customers who are major OEMs and EV & autonomous driving vehicle start-ups, worldwide. HL Klemove currently has 3 manufacturing footprints in Songdo (Korea), Suzhou (China) and Chennai (India). The newly established corporation in Mexico will be supporting its customers in North America. In addition to the manufacturing footprints, the company is operating R&D centers globally in places such as Pangyo (Korea), Bengaluru (India), Suzhou (China) and Silicon Valley (US). HL Klemove promises safe and comfortable driving through its advanced sensors and SW algorithm, on the strength of strong electronic product capabilities. For more information, visit [www.hlklemove.com] SOURCE HL Klemove For further information: Bon soo Koo, [email protected], 82-10-9283-3484 A tough contest for influence can be envisaged in Bangladesh Sri Lanka and Maldives. by Rahul K Bhonsle 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit which is seen as the gentlest animal in the Chinese Zodiac. This comes after the Year of the Tiger fast and furious. But the Rabbit is good at adapting and can move rapidly cutting through multiple furrows of uncertainty. A Rabbit can also protect itself and indicates strong confidence and strength with resoluteness towards goals despite the obstacles. Applied to the India China dyad despite operating on different zodiac systems 2023 denotes to be a year of continued competition cum confrontation. The confrontation of the military kind is easy to guess which may occur on the Northern borders as the Yangtze clash on December 09 indicates. Competition could be in many spheres geographic and topical. In 2022, China was engaged in internal political consolidation for President and General Secretary Xi Jinping. Now that the same is out of the way after the 20th Congress has established primacy of the Xi regime so to say, the pathway to regional and global domination will be resumed rapidly and at a faster pace than before. From the Indian perspective Chinese presence in South Asia New Delhis regional sphere of influence Neighbourhood First assumes significance for that would be an area of contestation not just competition. Most importantly several countries in South Asia will face parliamentary or presidential elections In 2023. [Illustration: Special arrangement] Yet China seems to have started at an advantage in the beginning of the New Year 2023 with a communist left party led coalition assuming power in Nepal, Pakistan continuing to be the favourable ally, regionally and umpteen opportunities in other states through political, diplomatic and economic influence. Most importantly several countries in South Asia will face parliamentary or presidential elections. From the military regime ruled Myanmar to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives polls are to be held this year which may provide Beijing an opportunity to swing the tide in its favour using tools fair and foul. With success in Nepal under the belt the Chinese could perceive a higher level of confidence and advantage. That the Chinese political, diplomatic and development machinery is nimble is evident with a few projects declared for Nepal days after the CPN Maoist Centre Leader Prachanda or Pushpa Kamal Dahal was sworn in as the Prime Minister. The aim is to give a fillip to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects which have been lying fallow for some time. An attempt could also be made to open up trade and transit including energy routes to the North with China through Tibet despite the harsh terrain and logistics challenges faced. Afghanistan may be a challenge for China given despite almost 16 months of defacto authority of the Taliban in power in Kabul there has been a breakthrough in only one mining and energy project with Chinas CAPEIC (Xinjiang Central Asia Oil and Gas Company) in the Amu Darya Basin in the North on January 05. The highly ambitious extension of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and linking with the Belt and Road Initiative will remain poor for now. Extra regional influence is also expected to grow as the first container ship of Chinese goods landed in the joint India Iran Chabahar port on December 31. The port is operated by India Ports Global and has seen greater maritime traffic than neighouring Gwadar in Pakistan which despite being a CPEC project has not seen many ships unloading. Apart from lack of hinterland, there are law and order and terror challenges in this zone whereas Chabahar is secure. How an increase in Chinese traffic at the port will be handled by India in conjunction with Iran remains to be seen? To sum up China may have a comprehensive advantage over India in Pakistan, while the influence in countries as Afghanistan, Nepal and Myanmar may be overwhelmingly wider. On the other hand a tough contest for influence can be envisaged in Bangladesh Sri Lanka and Maldives. Having understood the Chinese game to some extent India may be better prepared to meet these challenges, yet there are hurdles that can be envisaged apart from constraint of resources in comparative terms to the focus on managing the Chinese military expansion on the Northern borders as well as the maritime sphere. This may tie down the Indian leadership which will also be working towards general elections in the country which will be held in the first half of 2024. Indeed, Beijings calculations may have factored in this important event and how it would shape the same is a subject for another day. Yet there could be one critical uncertainty internally for China the spread of COVID 19 while numbers are unclear for now the impact is likely to wear down the Party as well as the State authorities in Beijing. Brigadier (Retired) Rahul K Bhonsle, MSc, MPhil, MBA is an Indian army military veteran with 30 years active field experience in counter militancy and terrorism operations. He is presently Director of Sasia Security-Risks.com, a South Asian security risk and knowledge management consultancy which specializes in future scenarios, military capacity building and conflict trends in South Asia. OTTAWA, ON, Jan. 9, 2023 /CNW Telbec/ - International youth contribute valuable and diverse skills to Canada's economy when they come from abroad to gain meaningful work and life experiences here. Similarly, Canadian youth benefit from working and travelling abroad and coming home with an international perspective. Today, the Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced that the International Experience Canada (IEC) season is now open to international youth who have expressed interest in gaining work and travel experience in Canada. Those who are already in the IEC pool will begin receiving invitations to apply for their work permit. This year, Canada will be extending this opportunity to nearly 90,000 international youth, as announced on December 1, 2022. This expansion will help Canadian employers find the workers they need to fill labour shortages across the country. Canada has a long-standing history of supporting Canadian and international youth to travel and work abroad. IEC helps youth explore new cultures, languages and societies, all while developing life skills and improving their job prospects for the future. Quotes: "Our government supports international youth to work and travel in Canada, effectively helping employers find the workers they need. By giving youth the opportunity to gain international travel and work experience, we are strengthening our economy and creating a win-win solution for everyone involved." The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship "IEC is now open for nearly 90,000 international youth looking to gain valuable work and life experiences in Canada. This program brings a diverse range of skills and perspectives to our workforce, while also helping to address labour shortages in Canada's tourism industry. At the same time, it provides Canadian youth with the opportunity to gain valuable work and life experiences abroad and to return home with an international perspective. IEC is a fantastic opportunity for both Canada's tourism industry and the personal and professional development of young leaders at home and abroad." The Honourable Randy Boissonnault, Minister of Tourism of Canada "IEC is an excellent resource for youth from Canada and 36 countries around the world to gain unforgettable work and life experiences. IEC helps young people not only develop new skills and explore different cultures, but also return home with an international perspective. IEC is a unique and exciting program, and we encourage all eligible youth to take advantage of it." The Honourable Marci Ien, Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Youth of Canada "Many sectors and regions in Canada are facing labour shortages. This is why supporting more international youth to visit and work in Canada will help Canadian businesses. The International Experience Canada program will support Canadian employers by offering international youth the opportunity to experience Canada while gaining valuable work experience." The Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion of Canada Quick facts: IEC is a reciprocal program that allows Canadian and international youth to work and travel in each other's countries. On December 19, 2022 , the IEC pools opened to allow international youth to create an online profile. , the IEC pools opened to allow international youth to create an online profile. While Canadian youth can apply for the program year-round, international candidates can only apply at certain times of the year, typically December until fall. Canada has youth mobility arrangements with 36 countries and foreign territories through the IEC program that allow youth from Canada's partner countries to work and travel in Canada for up to 2 years. The age of participants ranges from 18 to 35, depending on their country. has youth mobility arrangements with 36 countries and foreign territories through the IEC program that allow youth from partner countries to work and travel in for up to 2 years. The age of participants ranges from 18 to 35, depending on their country. The program has 3 participation categories: Working Holiday participants receive an open work permit that allows them to work anywhere in the host country to support their travels. International Co-op (Internship) participants receive an employer-specific work permit that allows students to gain targeted experience in their field of study. Young Professionals participants receive an employer-specific work permit to gain targeted, professional work experience that is within their field of study or career path. Associated links: Follow IEC: SOURCE Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada For further information: Contacts for media only: Bahoz Dara Aziz, Press Secretary, Minister's Office, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, [email protected]; Media Relations, Communications Branch, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 613-952-1650, [email protected] LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8, 2023 /CNW/ -- Digital manufacturer Snapmaker recently attended CES 2023, which is the world's most influential technology event, taking place from Jan. 5 to 8 in Las Vegas, NV. More than that, Snapmaker has been named a CES 2023 Innovation Awards Honoree for Snapmaker Artisan. Visitors experiencing Snapmaker Artisan The CES Innovation Awards program, owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), is an annual competition honouring outstanding design and engineering in 28 consumer technology product categories. This year, among a high number of over 2100 submissions, Snapmaker Artisan stands out in differentiation with the idea of upgraded modular design, and its high quality and performance. Snapmaker Artisan is the latest generation of Snapmaker's 3-in-1 3D printer, which is equipped with 300C dual extrusion 3D printing module, 10W high power laser module, 200W CNC cutting module, 400 x 400 x 400 giant work area and innovative quick-swap design. The upgraded functions allow Artisan to push the limits of what a modular fabrication tool can do. Additionally, Snapmaker brought J1 to the show as well. The Snapmaker J1 High Speed IDEX 3D Printer boasts two extruders with an ultra-fast printing speed of up to 350 mm/s. Due to its elaborate hardware design and outstanding printing performance, it successfully attracted the attention of thousands of on-site visitors. New products aside, it's notable that well-loved 3D printing content creator Joel Telling (3D Printing Nerd) joined the show and came to Snapmaker booth to share and discuss his thoughts on Artisan and J1. "We're proud to be honoured once again with the CES Innovation Award", said Josh Littlehua, Key Account Manager. "Snapmaker is always committed to creating premium-quality and user-friendly desktop fabrication machines. Both Artisan and J1 are products integrating high-class hardware, user-friendly workflow and high standard print quality requirements to ensure user experience. It is a pleasure to communicate in person with our users, partners, and Snapmaker enthusiasts and receive positive feedback from them! Hope to see you all next year!" About Snapmaker Founded in 2016, Snapmaker is a tech company that develops, manufactures, and sells desktop 3-in-1 3D printers that integrate 3D printing, laser engraving & cutting, and CNC carving. Our flagship product, Snapmaker 2.0 3-in-1 3D printer, made a record in 2019 as the most crowdfunded 3D printer on Kickstarter and won the IF Design Award 2022. SOURCE Snapmaker For further information: Sharon Chen, +86-18565661430 LAS VEGAS, Jan. 7, 2023 /CNW/ -- On January 5th, Yadea, the world's leading electric two-wheeler brand, made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, unveiling a range of new products and technologies in its 2023 product launch. As well as being the debut appearance for Yadea at CES, the product launch at the world's biggest tech event saw the US debut of the all-new high-speed straddle electric motorcycle series Yadea Keeness VFD and the high-speed pedal electric motorcycle Yadea E150. CES 2023 saw the US debut of the all-new high-speed straddle electric motorcycle series Yadea Keeness VFD The Keeness VFD model is equipped with a 10KW mid-mounted high-performance motor and features a maximum speed of 100km/h, and an acceleration from 0-50km/h in just 4 seconds. The battery utilizes automotive-grade ternary lithium technology and is equipped with an intelligent energy recovery electronic control system, which enhances power and extends the battery life of high-speed electric motorcycles. Also on show, the Yadea E150, a high-performance electric scooter that boasts a peak power of 5KW, a peak torque of 160Nm, and a top speed of 80km/h. Showcased throughout the exhibition, the Yadea E150 also features Yadea's innovative super-fast charging technology, meaning the motorcycle can be charged up to 80% full power in just 20 minutes. Yadea also introduced its series of ebike models equipped with high-performance motors featuring a five-year warranty. The company has been in the ebike market for six years and has developed mature smart sensor motor technology, offering a smooth and powerful gear-shifting experience for riders. The Yadea Innovator, one of the models released at CES, is the company's first AI-powered electric folding bike and won the 2022 American Outstanding Industrial Design (IDEA) Award. The Trooper 01 model features a dual motor drive and rear hub motor technology with a peak power of 1000W and 750W, while the Camper model, set to be released in March, will also be equipped with the same motor. Yadea is focused on establishing a complete ecosystem for electric vehicles and providing a range of products and services for American consumers as part of the company's strategic layout for the US market. Data shows strong growth in the electric bike market in the US, with e-bike sales seeing an increase of over 300% in the first quarter of 2022 and 4.8 million units projected to be sold by 2025. Yadea is well-positioned to take advantage of this growth, with a strong global presence and a mature product development resulting from significant investment in research and development. In the US, the company plans to distribute high-quality products through various channels, including retail stores, online sales, and exhibitions. It also plans to open flagship stores in San Francisco and Los Angeles and 100 Integrated brand dealer stores in the first half of 2023. In addition, Yadea will enter large-scale stores across the US, launch an online ebike independent website, and offer professional maintenance outlets and door-to-door services for after-sales support. In addition to product launches, CES attendees had the opportunity to experience and interact with Yadea's products and technologies through various on-site activities. These interactive experiences were well received by attendees, who were impressed with the high level of innovation and functionality in Yadea's products. The product launch also received media coverage in the US, with several journalists and technology reporters conducting on site interviews. Yadea is accelerating its globalization strategy with milestones in R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and branding. The brand is dedicated to providing innovative and high-quality electric vehicle products and technologies that enhance people's daily lives, aligning with its brand mission of "Electrify Your Life." Yadea's participation in the exhibition served as a strong opportunity for the brand, positioning it as a leader in the electric vehicle industry and reinforcing its dedication to globalization and green solutions. About Yadea Yadea is a global leader in developing and manufacturing electric two-wheel vehicles, including electric motorcycles, electric mopeds, electric bicycles and electric kick scooters. To date, Yadea has sold products to 60 million users in over 100 countries and regions and has a network of 40,000+ retailers worldwide. With a mission to help people "Electrify Your Life", Yadea continues to invest in R&D, production and global expansion to build a shared and sustainable future for mankind. For more information, visit: Official Website: https://www.yadea.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Yadea.Official Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/YADEA.GLOBAL/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/YadeaGlobal SOURCE Yadea For further information: YADEA media team, Tel: 0510-88100267, Email: [email protected] The Labour Party, LP Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi has held a town hall meeting at Effurun, Uvwie Local Government Area as part of his campaign for the 2023 elections. Fielding questions at the town hall meeting and presidential rally, Obi told his supporters not to vote for tribe or religion but to vote for him enmass during the election. He said, No tribe buys bread cheaper. No religion buys bread cheaper. According to Obi, his supporters should vote for commitment and capacity. Obi who was hosted by Deacon Chris Iyovwaye, a popular industrialist promised to be responsible when elected into office as the next president of Nigeria. While assuring the people that a new Nigeria is possible, Obi said, We are not going to give excuses. I am not going to remind you of where youre coming from or to blame people where they failed. A member of Obi-Datti PCC, Aisha Yesufu urged the people to obtain their personal voter cards and PVCs to enable them vote for the labour party and its presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi. The human right activist, however, warned that the people will hold him to account should he mess up after being elected into office as president. Mr. President to be, you say we for South-South, we nor dey fear anybody. You see as I dey here so, I dey house and if I never tell you before, make I tell you now. If you enter there, you do anyhow, you go see anyhow. The National Chairman of the Labour Party, LP, Dr.(Barr ) Julius Abure in a remark said the Nigerian economy is not working. He said, insecurity is ravaging the Country. The Country is deteriorating. Dr. Abure who appreciated the party faithful for their support in changing and rescuing the nation also enjoined them to obtain their Personal Voter Cards, PVCs to bring about the much-needed change in the Country. Earlier in a welcome address, the Chief Host of the town hall meeting, Deacon Chris Iyovwaye welcomed the LP Presidential Candidate and his entourage to the State. Iyovwaye said, We are a people that are looking up to a great change for Nigeria. We are waiting for this great change and we are convinced that its resident in the life of our principal, Mr. Peter Obi. We are seeing the things that he has been saying and campaigning for from place to place. We are also seeing the kind of things that he has displayed across Nigeria. The fact of the matter, every time you hear from consumption to production, you know that youre already talking about him. We are looking at the man that wants to take us from potential to reality. We are looking at a man that wants to do things differently. We are looking at a man that has what it takes to change Nigeria. While noting that Nigeria is blessed with a lot of mineral resources and other things, Deacon Iyovwaye said what Nigeria is not blessed with is leadership. He, however, expressed the belief that Obis leadership will provide will change the country for good. The Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi has dismissed the recent comments by his opponent in the forthcoming presidential election, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, mocking him as Mr Stingy. Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, made the remark on Sunday during The Peoples Townhall, organised by Channels Television and its partners. Recall that Tinubu had in a campaign speech over the last week alleged that Obi watched his people suffer and saved the States funds rather than save the people. However, Obi dismissed the remarks, saying that no one could fault him for refusing to steal public funds. Ive challenged everyone to say, Go and see whether there is anywhere a kobo of Anambra State money is missing. Saving has now become an issue. When people have stolen all the money and impoverished the country, you are now questioning a man who left the money without anybody telling me to leave it and go, Obi said. Obi added that when he became governor in 2006, the global benchmark for measuring development was the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, which he started implementing in 2008, but that his State was number one in education, health, and had the best road network when it had stopped in 2015. The management of AIT, a Nigerian television station, says Raymond Dokpesi, founder of Daar Communications, has been released after his delay at Heathrow airport in London. According to media reports, Dokpesi was delayed on Sunday by Immigration after a trip from Frankfurt on a Lufthansa airlines flight that arrived in the UK. Dokpesi arrived via Frankfurt from Abuja on a Lufthansa airlines flight and was invited off the plane before other passengers were disembarked, the management of the television station said in a statement on Monday. Dokpesi was delayed at the airport for some hours before his passport was stamped and he was cleared by British Immigration officials for entry into the country. The statement added that the Peoples Democratic Chieftain (PDP) made the London trip following the invitation of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the party by the British government to share perspectives on issues around the next months presidential election in the country. His visit to the United Kingdom is not unconnected to the invitation of the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar by the British government to share perspectives on issues around the 2023 presidential elections. The media founder is the Deputy Director-General, Technical & Systems of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council. Chief Dokpesi wishes to thank all for their outpour of love, prayers and support following the news of the incident and to reassure that he is hale and hearty. The statement, however, did not give much details on the incident which led to his delay. The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has promised to build a broad-based framework to tackle the perennial security challenges facing the nation if elected Nigerias president in next months election. Obi, who stated this on Sunday at the Peoples Town Hall 2023 organized by Channels Television, said if elected, security personnel would be well motivated to perform their duties optimally as expected. He said, for our men and women in the security, we will ensure they are motivated and supported and properly insured and make sure they are confident their families are protected in case something happens to them. All procurement in the Military and other sectors must be transparent. It must be measurable and visible. The days of doing things hidden are gone. We need to involve every community in Nigeria in security where each community secures their community and shares information with other communities. We have to be alive for the constitution to be amended, not wait for all of us to be dead before doing something. I will use my powers as the President and Commander-in-Chief to secure Nigeria as quickly as possible, he pledged. Obi who promised to exhaust all carrots before bringing the sticks, recounted a personal experience when he visited an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Benue state. I visited an IDP camp in Benue state. I listened to their issues and told them that if Im the president of Nigeria, I will take your issues personally because as long as you are in IDP camp, Nigeria and Nigerians are in IDP camp. In his opening remark, Obis running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, expressed the readiness of the former Anambra State governor to tackle critical areas that would unlock Nigerias potential. We will address unprecedented, aggravated corruption. We deserve the votes of Nigerians because this is turning out to be an election based on character backed by records, competence, and capacity. Northern Nigeria is paying a massive price today because they have been voting based on ethnic and religious lines for a long time We are going to stop the killings and start the healing; stop the stealing and start the keeping; stop the slide of our currency and start the climb of our society, he said. On what informed his decision to join the presidential race, the former Anambra state governor said the desire to see a new Nigeria where citizens would be proud of their country motivated him to seek the peoples support. I decided to be part of this race because we want to start turning Nigeria around for Nigerians. We want to build a nation where everyone will be respected, he said, stressing that any leader who wants Nigeria to succeed must take away his personal interest and that of his friends and groups. That is the only way Nigeria can achieve and we are ready to do that, he assured. Meanwhile, the LP presidential candidate blamed unnamed government officials for the countrys failure to meet crude oil sale quota at the international market. Nigeria is not able to reach the foreign quota of oil sales in the international market because the people in government are enabling the oil theft going on in Nigeria. And to tackle the perennial power outage, Obi promised to revive the sector within the first four years in power. Within four years in office, we will be able to distribute 20,000 megawatts of electricity to Nigerians, or even more, he said, stressing that education will be invested in given its relationship with development. Education is an investment because the more your people are educated, the more you will see development. Health, Education, and pulling people out of poverty will take top priority in my government, he added. A yet-to-be-identified male adult has been killed in a clash between Yoruba Nation agitators and the police in the Ojota area of Lagos State on Monday. The spokesperson for the police in Lagos, Benjamin Hundeyin, confirmed the death of the unidentified person. Commuters ran to safety in the heat of the pandemonium, which broke out on Monday morning. Some agitators reportedly came out to demand Yoruba Nation, among others, and the police came out to curtail them, leading to a clash. Shortly after they took to the streets, the men of the Lagos State Police Command came out in procession with a detachment of personnel from the Rapid Response Squad, State Taskforce and conventional divisional officers. Security operatives arrived at the scene and shot teargas to disperse the crowd. A police van was reportedly burnt in the ensuing outrage. The presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has said that the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party put together caused Nigerians suffering today. Kwankwaso stated this during his visit to Asaba as part of his campaign tour in the South-South to canvass for votes ahead of the February 2023 general polls. He boasted that neither the ruling APC nor the PDP can defeat the NNPP in the forthcoming polls. He said, Im happy for the reception given to me in Asaba, the people have accepted me because I have all it takes to deliver this country from the bondage of APC and PDP. PDP and APC put together are what we are suffering today. These two parties have failed Nigerians. Let me tell you, PDP is bad, and APC is very bad. I was one of the founding fathers of PDP, they failed and we joined hands to form APC, again APC failed. Thats why we moved to NNPP to save this country. Poor leadership, lack of capacity, and integrity mostly characterised PDP and APC. They are only interested in themselves and their family. On the endorsement of the LP candidate by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Kwankwaso said the endorsement of the candidate is inconsequential because he had been endorsed by the masses. You cant sit anywhere and start endorsing somebody. The presidency is not based on ethnicity, he added. Two gunrunners have been killed in Zamfara State by the police tactical operatives. The police also intercepted four AK-47, 200 rounds of live ammunition, charms, three live shells, four rocket RPGs, 3 explosive shells and 151 rounds of live ammunition. SP Mohammed Shehu, the State Public Relations Officer, in a statement, explained that the movement of the suspects inside a Toyota Corolla Vehicle containing the arms and ammunition from Taraba State en-route terrorists camp in Zamfara State was achieved following a tip-off. According to him, The suspects were fatally injured while others escaped and ran into a bush with possible gunshot wounds. He further explained that the injured suspects were later confirmed dead by a doctor at Yariman Bakura Specialist Hospital Gusau, where they were taken for treatment. South Korea is upgrading its 59 F-15K Slam Eagle'' fighter-bombers. This upgrade is expensive, costing $2.73 billion ($45 million per aircraft) and will not be completed until 2034. South Korea has noted the success other nations have had upgrading their local versions of the F-15E model which the U.S. created in the late 1980s as a two-seat fighter bomber. Most F-15Es are over 35 years old while export customers are still receiving new aircraft. The South Korean F-15K's are all 10-15 years old. This justifies the extensive and expensive upgrades. These consist of many upgraded electronic systems, including a late-model AESA radar. There is also an updated cockpit with new flight and fire control software as well improved electronic countermeasures and passive sensors. The F-15K can carry 13 tons of weapons, including highly accurate SLAM-ER cruise missiles and guided penetrating bombs to go after North Korea bunkers. South Korea is also buying more aerial tankers to keep the F-15Ks in the air longer while waiting for targets to be found. South Korea also has 167 F-16C fighters that are being upgraded to F-16V models. South Korea has 50 F-35 stealth fighters in service with more on the way. A growing number of South Korean warplanes are designed and built in South Korea. Currently this includes 60 FA-50 jet trainers equipped as light bombers. A new jet fighter, the KF-21 is on the way, also called Borame (Fighting Hawk ''), the fighter made its first flight on July 19th and expects to enter service by 2026. Developing the KF-21 cost at least $8 billion. The South Korean air force wants to buy 120 of them. The first 40 will be Block 1 while the other 80 will be Block 2. The block 1 KF-21 is a twin-engine 24.5-ton air superiority fighter. The F414 engines are American models built in South Korea. and are the same ones used by U.S. Navy F-18E and the South Korean TA/FA jet trainer. The block 2 KF-21 is designed as a fighter-bomber, with sensors and electronics similar to those used in the F-35 so that the pilot can handle flying the aircraft as hitting ground targets with guided bombs and missiles. F-15K fighter-bombers will be replaced by the block 2 KF-21s in the 2040s. South Korea also uses 19 prop-driven basic trainers equipped as light bombers. South Korea is rapidly retiring older F-4 and F-5 aircraft. South Korea has already developed world-class armored vehicles, warships and support aircraft, including helicopters and become a major arms exporter. Neighboring countries, like Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Australia are also developing manufacturing capabilities for combat vehicles, ships and aircraft. Japan was the first country in the region to develop the capability to build modern weapons but, until recently, the Japanese post-World War II constitution banned export of weapons. That was recently changed and now Japan can build for export. Japan has to catch-up with South Korea, which always produced these new weapons with the intention of competing in export markets. The fragile peace in the Ijesa axis of Osun State was shattered, Wednesday, when thugs attacked the Tinubu/Shettima campaign office in Ilesa and also injured Obisesan Olasunkanmi, the Chief of Staff to Timothy Owoeye, the Speaker of the Osun State House of Assembly. Speaking with Daily Post, Obisesan alleged that he was attacked by Dele Felix, the PDP Ward 8, Ifofin chairman on Sunday after his meeting with Babatunde Festus Komolafe, the member of the Osun State House of Assembly for Atakunmosa West. In his words, Immediately Komolafe left, six PDP thugs led by Dele Felix, the ward 8, Ifofin, Ilesa East Chairman attacked us with bottles of beer and ended up injuring Tola Omukanju and myself. We were taken to Wesley Guild Hospital for treatment, where I was stitched up in 5 different places. I got in touch with the DPO, Ijamo Division, Ilesa who released his men to give us protection Taiwo, Kehinde and Sunday Amure, Ajewole fisayo, Amure Dare and others were among the thugs that attacked us. The Tinubu/Shettima campaign office, which also doubled as the office of Oluremi Omowaiye, a former Commissioner for Works in the Adegboyega Oyetola administration, was riddled with bullet holes and many of the glass windows were shattered as a result of gunshots fired. However, the Osun PDP, Director of Media, Olabamiji Oladele described the allegations of assassination attempt on Omowaiye as cheap. While calling on the Osun State Police Command to thoroughly investigate what really transpired, he urged the police to devise a means of punishing anybody who is in the habit of crying hoax when there is none. In his words, PDP does not have anything to do with violence. As a party, our focus is to win the general elections in February and March. We are more focused on our campaigns, talking and strategizing with our people in Osun. Omowaiyes attempt to curry unnecessary sympathy from the members of the public is a realization of the dwindling fortunes of his party and his person. They should stop attaching unnecessary importance to themselves. When we were in the opposition we had capable hands who won elections for the PDP, so we dont need to now attack an unknown COS to the Speaker. Such allegations are too cheap. We want the security agencies in the State to go all out and conduct a thorough investigation in order to forestall any breakdown of law and order. The police should also devise a means of punishing anybody who is in the habit of crying hoax when there is none. Reacting, the Osun APC in a statement signed by Tajudeen Lawal, the acting State chairman condemned the dual attacks on the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Office and the Speakers CoS In Ilesa. He also called on the Nigeria Police and other security agencies in the State to investigate the attack. Lawal said, I continue to wonder when I read the offensive diatribe of the Osun State PDP caretaker chairman shortly after the report of the attacks of our members if blood is actually flowing in his veins. Must politics be taken to the level of wilful attacks on the opposition without any just course other than the fact that the sharing of different political ideals? The embedded kernel of the Adekunles hogwash was simply the perpetual jittery of the PDP handlers each time they heard Oyetolas name. Meanwhile, the Osun State Police Command has stated that it is investigating the matter. In an interview with newsmen, Yemisi Opalola, the spokesperson of the Command confirmed the incident. She explained that the incident was reported to the police in the State and that the command had commenced investigation to unravel what really transpired. Accord Party (AP) presidential candidate, Prof. Christopher Imumolen said he would adopt the principle of all-inclusiveness in selecting his cabinet if he becomes Nigerias president. He said task of rebuilding the country, battered by years of poor leadership and corruption, needed the inputs of all citizens including presidential flagbearers, Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi. Imumolen noted that to build an economically sound country where every Nigerian would be proud of, he would solicit the help of the best brains in different fields to conbtribute their quota. The task of rebuilding our country is an onerous one. It is not going to be a one-man show. Every one who has the idea, capacity to add value to governance, no matter their background or party affiliations, shall be called upon to do so, he said on Sunday. For his adeptness and aptitude as a businessman of no mean standing, I will appoint Peter Obi as my minister of trade and commerce, while Asiwaju Bola Tinubu will serve as an adviser, most probably on the political front for obvious reasons. You will agree with me that these men will most be suitable in the roles I have earlier mentioned because of their track records in both their private and public lives. The move is meant to demonstrate that we are all partners in progress in our desire to see our country regain its lost glory, as well as deliver to its millions of citizens the true dividends of democracy. The move is also meant to send the message that appointments will only be given to those who merit it in the kind of reformist government we are planning to run. The concept of square pegs in square holes shall be the guiding principles of our government under the umbrella of Accord, he party that preaches oneness and togetherness, Imumolen added. Six-day (Tuesday through Sunday) print subscribers of the Watertown Daily Times are eligible for full access to NNY360, the NNY360 mobile app, and the Watertown Daily Times e-edition, all at no additional cost. If you have an existing six-day print subscription to the Watertown Daily Times, please make sure your email address on file matches your NNY360 account email. You can sign up or manage your print subscription using the options below. Students pass through SUNY Potsdams Academic Quad during the first day of classes on Aug. 29, 2022. SUNY Potsdam photo Recording CLIFFS/WALLS made Lindsey Baker physically sick. Last year, the New Orleans guitarist and vocalist and her Guts Club bandmates, drummer Ronna Sandoval and guitarist Alex Dimeff, got together with producer Nick Pope to record the latest Guts Club album in one, long take. Baker, Dimeff and Sandoval threw themselves physically and emotionally against the towering wall of sound theyd built while writing CLIFFS/WALLS and left nothing behind. The trio of musicians were sore for a few days after, and Baker caught a bad sinus infection. CLIFFS/WALLS is the fourth Guts Club album that Baker has recorded, but shed never had a physical reaction like that. The writing and recording of the intense, crushing record was cathartic, Baker says, especially after the last three years of pandemic challenges, mental health struggles and an oppressive political climate. Ive never felt so good just playing music, Baker says. Ive never felt the confidence I feel now I feel like it makes sense now. Guts Club will release CLIFFS/WALLS on Friday, Jan. 13, with a show at Siberia that also includes psychedelic doom band Mars and post-doom group Fauns. Doors are at 9 p.m. and cover is $10. CLIFFS/WALLS is a significant although, maybe not completely out-of-the-blue new sound for Guts Club, Bakers main songwriting project since 2015. That same year, Baker, who was born in Pennsylvania and based in Philadelphia for some time and then Brooklyn, moved to New Orleans with her wife, writer Kelly McClure. Baker leaned into violent, gloomy country and blues on her first three Guts Club records, The Arm Wrestling Tournament, Shit Bug and Trench Foot, and a dark intensity always bubbled under the surface of the twang. On the new post-metal record, Guts Club casts a droning, overflowing wall of sound using two guitars plugged into bass amps and pounding drums using a kit with a second floor tom instead of a snare. Baker says the three queer musicians in the band half-jokingly call it gay doom. Each of the five tracks is at least nine minutes and coaxes the listener deeper into its textured folds. Delivered in sparse yells, Bakers lyrics reflect on loss, grief and love. The song The Gun Collector was written for Bakers wife, who unexpectedly lost her mother and then father soon after several years ago. The title song is about the ways people build impenetrable defenses during traumatic times. On past Guts Club recordings I was singing about hanging people and putting them in the trunk, and I still sort of am, but it makes more sense now with the styles, Baker says. There isnt this disjointed contrast from this [country twang]. Now it all connects. After the release of Trench Foot, Baker says, she found herself playing louder and heavier and steadily moving away from the insular and straight-, white- and male-dominated country scene. She plugged her guitar into a bass amp, started working with more effects pedals and things got louder. And then the pandemic struck. I say its because I was upset or having a hard time, but I cant really pinpoint why or how that happened, Baker says, but I would just go into my space and add pedals and rearrange songs, and they would just progressively get heavier. As more music venues started reopening in summer 2021, Baker, who books at Uptown club Gasa Gasa, reached out to Sandoval, who plays in punk band Coffinwolf Ultra, and guitarist Alex Dimeff, who performs as the shoegaze project Student Driver. The trio started rehearsing and developed CLIFFS/WALLS into a full-length album. When it came time to record, Baker knew it would be best to lay it down live in as few takes as possible in order to communicate as a band, save studio time, and maintain the musics visceral feeling. Only two songs needed a second take. Nick Pope was able to rig his studio to make that happen for us, and Im so glad he did, Baker says. I love what happened during it. Find more about Guts Club and CLIFFS/WALLS at gutsclub.com. After a hailstorm of criticism this weekend, the Krewe of Endymion reversed its decision to invite controversial actor/director Mel Gibson to serve as co-grand marshal of this years parade. Gibsons history of antisemitic comments, racial slurs and other scandals made the krewe the focus of widespread outrage. On Monday, president Dan Kelly promised to revise the Carnival club's selection process for celebrity grand marshals, and to do better in the future. Endymions process for selection... while internal, will be reviewed going forward, so as to create a more thorough discussion of potential candidates, Kelly wrote in an email. When Endymion announced Saturday that the 67-year-old action star and Academy award-wining director would preside over the parade, he might have seemed like the ideal choice. After all, other leading men such as Kevin Costner and Steven Seagal had served as grand marshals in past years. But the public couldnt ignore Gibsons darker side. The 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ," which Gibson directed, was criticized by some for being antisemitic propaganda. And an incident in 2006 seemed to bolster that view. As Gibson was being detained for speeding and driving while intoxicated, he infamously directed an anti-Jewish tirade at the arresting officer. Though he apologized for the incident, further scandal followed. In 2010, reports circulated that Gibson had been caught on tape excoriating his former girlfriend and the mother of his child with sexist remarks and racist slurs, including the N-word. Chinese clean energy companies in limelight at CES 2023 Xinhua) 16:40, January 09, 2023 A man experiences a virtual reality (VR) product of Chinese company TCL during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese clean energy companies took the spotlight at the ongoing 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas with their innovative products and green energy solutions. Clean energy and energy storage solutions have been a focus at the show, which runs from Thursday to Sunday. Chinese clean energy companies attracted lots of attention and interests from visitors, exhibitors and reporters with their innovative solar generators, appliances and clean energy solutions. Jackery, a pioneer in the portable power industry with its manufacturing factories in Shenzhen of Guangdong Province unveiled innovative portable solar generators at CES 2023. Its Solar Generator 3000 Pro, producing a maximum of 8500Wh per day, can provide backup power for five days of outdoor adventures or home emergencies. People visit the exhibition area of Chinese company Jackery during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) Jackery also bagged four CES 2023 Innovation Awards for its innovative portable renewable energy solutions. "The pandemic has changed people's lifestyles. A lot of people prefer outdoor activities. Portable solar power generators could offer power for RVs, electric appliances such as microwaves, refrigerators, and BBQ ovens while they are outdoors," Jack Sun, founder and chairman of Jackery, told Xinhua. Jackery's solar power generators feature zero emissions, and are safe and shock-resistant, he said. "We are committed to enhancing innovation and power generation efficiency, and offering advanced green power solutions to global consumers." Global warming calls for urgent efforts to promote renewable energy, which offers significant opportunities for the clean energy industry. EcoFlow, another Chinese portable power and renewable energy company, debuted its whole-home backup power solution and new smart devices at the show, including solar-powered robotic lawn-sweeping mowers, portable air conditioners and fridges. "Rising power bills and extreme weather events have created an increasingly unstable energy situation for many people around the world. The pandemic also created a surge of interest in camping and other outdoor events," said Brian Essenmacher, EcoFlow's head of business development. People look at a drone in the exhibition area of Chinese company Autel Robotics during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the United States, Jan. 6, 2023. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua) Brian Beck, a show visitor from Anaheim, California, showed great interest in China-made solar power generators. He told Xinhua he is a beach lover, and always drives his RV to the beach over weekends. "These portable generators are small-sized, convenient and highly efficient, and are very competitive," he said. Ugreen, a Chinese consumer electronics brand, presented its portable power stations and charging products at the show. "It is the first time we participate in CES. We hope to take the opportunity to reach out to more consumers in overseas markets, and offer them our advanced energy management solutions," Beryl Liu, influencer marketing manager of Ugreen, told Xinhua. CES 2023 draws more than 3,700 exhibitors from over 170 countries and regions. Hundreds of Chinese companies are participating in the show, including well-known brands like TCL, Lenovo, and Hisense as well as startups. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Apple is said to have scrapped plans for a successor to the current 2022 iPhone SE (or SE 3). However, Qualcomm may have reasons to rejoice at this rumored cancellation, as the Cupertino behemoth had also been thought to debut its own baseband for with the affordable-grade handset. Therefore, the market for mobile data hardware may continue as normal rather than shaken up with a new player. 4 Reviews Qualcomm is typically not one to celebrate the cancellation of a potential new mobile device, as it loses the smartphone silicon giant the chance to underpin its market dominance by competing with it, or to sell components to its maker (or, occasionally, both). However, according to the widely-regarded TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it might make an exception in the case of the iPhone "SE 4". Kuo was also responsible for word that this successor to 2022's SE 3 is to represent Apple'e latest uncharacteristic failure to launch: it may now never see the light of day. If so, the '4' may have been particularly interesting, as it may have been the world's first smartphone with a proprietary baseband for its mobile data connectivity. This, of course, would have threatened Qualcomm's leadership in this space, and also lost it business in the process. However, according to Kuo, Apple may have also abandoned plans to debut in-house RF hardware in the iPhone 16 line instead due to quality issues, meaning its rival in chip design is now "significantly" more likely to retain the contract to make basebands for these potential 2024 flagships as well. Buy an iPhone SE 2 on Amazon The Jackery LightTent-AIR, an inflatable tent with integrated solar panels, has won a CES 2023 Best of Innovation Award. The shelter can generate up to 1,200 W power thanks to the flexible gallium arsenide (GaAs) panels. The solar energy can be stored in built-in storage modules, providing a 24-hour power solution. The portable product is waterproof and flame retardant thanks to PVC-coated material. Plus, the fabric is easy to clean and can insulate heat. To maximize photovoltaic power generation, the GaAs solar panels must be exposed to as much sunlight as possible. It is unclear how this would affect the temperature inside the tent, particularly during warmer weather. The tent has been designed to be self-supporting, so no tent poles are required. Reports suggest that the tent is large enough for four to five people and that the canopy is adjustable. The Jackery LightTent-AIR demonstrated at CES 2023 appears to be a prototype with a white and orange design. A release date and pricing for the product are yet to be confirmed. At the same event, Jackery also won awards for its SG Explorer 2000 Pro outdoor 2,160 wh power supply with solar panels and Air-W portable wind power generation accessory, which could also be used when camping. Also showcased was the award-winning LightCycle-S1, a wheeled battery with a 3,500 Wh capacity. EAST CHICAGO A man was shot to death Sunday night at a gas station in East Chicago, police said. Officers were dispatched around 6 p.m. to the 4500 block of Indianapolis Boulevard after getting a Shotspotter alert of 12 gunshots in the area, said Chief Jose Rivera of East Chicago police. When police arrived, they found a man with two gunshot wounds to his chest. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, Rivera said. The victim's name and other details were not immediately available. Rivera said the East Chicago Criminal Investigation Division and Crime Scene Investigators, along with the Lake County coroner's office, are investigating the shooting. Anyone with any information to share can contact Detective Lt. Brian Paine at 219-391-8318 or bpaine@eastchicago.com. Anonymous tips may be called to 219-391-8500, Rivera said. Gallery: Take a virtual tour of Indiana's state parks Brown County State Park Chain O' Lakes State Park Charlestown State Park Clifty Falls State Park Falls of the Ohio State Park Fort Harrison State Park Harmonie State Park Lincoln State Park McCormick's Creek State Park Mounds State Park O'Bannon Woods State Park Ouabache State Park Pokagon State Park Potato Creek State Park Prophetstown State Park Shades State Park Shakamak State Park Spring Mill State Park Summit Lake State Park Tippecanoe River State Park Turkey Run State Park Versailles State Park White River State Park Whitewater Memorial State Park VALPARAISO Police say a Michigan City man was intoxicated and had multiple drugs in his system when on the evening of March 25, 2022, he crossed the center line of U.S. 20 in Porter and struck an oncoming vehicle resulting in the death of the other driver. Ronnie Borolov, 69, is charged with a felony count of operating while intoxicated causing death and misdemeanor OWI endangering a person, OWI with controlled substance and OWI, newly filed court records show. Police say Borolov was driving a Chevrolet Trailblazer in the left eastbound lane on U.S. 20 near Ind. 49 when he crossed the double yellow center lines and crashed into a Toyota Corolla that was westbound in the left lane. The Trailblazer continued across the westbound lanes and went airborne off the highway, police said. The Toyota, driven by Sandra Rice-Hatch, 53, of Chicago, continued in a northwest direction and came to a stop on the side of the highway. Porter police said at the time that Rice-Hatch was taken to a local hospital where she died as a result of her injuries. Borolov complained of pain at the scene but refused medical treatment, police said. A blood draw taken from Borolov reportedly revealed drugs in his system. Both vehicles sustained extensive damage and the impacted section of U.S. 20 was closed in both directions for more than three hours while police investigated the scene. Police said at the time they did not believe drugs and alcohol to be factors in the crash. Borolov appeared Monday morning before Porter Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Clymer, and the judge agreed to release him from the county jail without bond. Borolov will be on pretrial supervision and required to undergo drug testing every two weeks while his case proceeds, the judge said. Any failure to comply could land him back in jail. The accused said he has hired an attorney, and a status hearing is set for Feb. 10. VALPARAISO Police say a bomb threat, which proved to be false, led to a lockdown and early release of students Monday morning at Valparaiso High School. Valparaiso police said they received word of the threat shortly after 8:30 a.m. "The threat indicated an explosive device had been placed in a specific location within the school," the department said. The building at 2727 N. Campbell St. was placed on lockdown, which means all students are kept in classrooms and the perimeter of the school is secured, according to police. Valparaiso High School lockdown Police say a bomb threat, which proved to be false, led to a lockdown and early release of students Monday morning at Valparaiso High School. "Students are safe and under no immediate threat," the department had said. Members of the Valparaiso Police Department, Porter County Sheriffs Department, Valparaiso Fire Department and Valparaiso Community Schools reportedly worked together to ensure safety and investigate the threat. "The investigation determined the threat was not credible and building occupants were not in any danger," police said. "The VPD continues to investigate the incident, working in coordination with the Valparaiso Community schools to identify those responsible," according to police. School buses lined up around the building by mid-morning, and there was a heavy police and fire department presence. Students poured out of the building shortly after 10:30 a.m., boarding school buses, loading into awaiting cars and heading off on foot. Departing students said they were given no details. Valparaiso Schools Superintendent Jim McCall was not immediately available for comment. HAMMOND After a brief swearing-in ceremony Thursday, Kelly Spencer officially became the newest member of the Hammond School Board. Spencer is a teacher at Butler College Prep in Chicago and promised voters that she would use her experience to bring an educator's perspective to the board. "Everything has been a whirlwind," Spencer said after the meeting. "I'm just trying to take everything in." Spencer hopes to spend the early days of her tenure learning from the other board members. "This is my Day 1," she said. "I'm not going to try to take the lead, just going to follow my fellow board members and try to gain as much knowledge as possible." Spencer was sworn in during a special meeting called specifically to deal with an error made in the district's budget. Superintendent Scott Miller said district staff found "an inconsistency on the tax rate for the operating referendum." Essentially, when the budget was being reviewed by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, district officials noticed that it had the wrong tax rate, Miller explained. In November 2017, voters approved a series of increases that ultimately set the tax rate at 44 cents per $100 of assessed value for this fiscal year. However, the rate in the budget being reviewed was $0.4047 per $100 of assessed valuation. Miller said that, after the board voted to approve the budget in October, the district submitted the correct rate 44 cents and he doesn't know where the discrepancy occurred. "That difference of fractions of cents added up to about $1.1 million," Eric Kurtz, chief financial officer and assistant superintendent for the district, told the board. "So I apologize for you having to come in this evening, but it was a material and substantial amount of money to fund the operations of our schools." Kurtz said he first noticed this in December and that DLGF told his staff it needed the board's approval during a public meeting to fix the tax rate. If the district had not fixed the error, it wouldn't have been able to fully fund its operations. "How do we avoid this happening in the future?" board member Carlotta Blake-King asked. "I'm not necessarily sure," Kurtz responded. "There may have been a different procedure or different people involved in the process." Blake-King also asked what the district would do with the additional money received from fixing the error. Kurtz explained that this doesn't change the district's expenditures; this was merely an oversight and the district planned to have the additional funding from the onset. "If I'm understanding (Kurtz) correctly," Vice President Lisa Miller said, "we would've been short. So it would've been like if you're expecting to get paid $100 and you get your paycheck and it only ends up being $75. It was a clerical mistake, but you're actually owed the $100. And this is correcting that clerical mistake so we get our $100, and that's what we had planned for and that's what we had budgeted." PHOTOS: Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School holds ribbon cutting Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School Annie Burns-Hicks Elementary School The annual addresses by the leaders of Indianas executive and judicial branches of government are scheduled for this week. Gov. Eric Holcomb will deliver his 2023 State of the State speech Tuesday to a joint meeting of the Indiana House and Senate at the Statehouse in Indianapolis. The Republican chief executive is scheduled to speak at 6 p.m. Region time. He plans to outline his priorities for the four-month legislative session, as well as his year-long goals for the state. The speech will be broadcast by Lakeshore Public Television and Lakeshore Public Radio. It also can be livestreamed at youtube.com/govholcomb/live. On Wednesday, Chief Justice Loretta Rush, who lived in Munster as a child, is due to present her 2023 State of the Judiciary address in the House chamber to state lawmakers, Holcomb and judges from across the state. Her speech, set for 1 p.m. Region time, will focus on the work of the state court system to help make Indiana attractive for economic development and how the courts serve as a crucial protector of public safety. It can be viewed either live or later at courts.in.gov. CROWN POINT More than 700 years after the first Christmas tree was put on display, folks gathered Sunday to burn down a whole bunch of those trees. For the first time since 2020, the City of Crown Point, Geisen Funeral Home and Geisen-Pruzin Funeral and Cremation Services sponsored a public Twelfth Night Christmas tree bonfire. In what Geisen owner Larry Geisen described as a celebration like no other, natural holiday trees from around the community were gathered at the Lake County Fairgrounds for a fiery farewell. Geisen and the city have partnered for 21 years on this annual celebration. Weve been part of this community for 155 years, said Larry Geisen, and this is just another way of giving back. This is an opportunity to get everyone together and close out the holiday season. Geisen estimated that 150-200 trees were brought to the fairgrounds or placed at residences for city crews to recover. A few weeks prior to Christmas, the city paid tribute to one German tradition with the lighting of the Christmas tree outside the historic Lake County Courthouse. This time, the city honored another German tradition that may have originated in the Baltics in the 16th century in Riga, Latvia. According to thevibes.com, this Baltic pagan tradition of tree burning was picked up by German traders, who developed the Christmas tree into its modern form and then helped spread the tradition at ports along the Baltic Sea. Riga townspeople would drag the tree trunk through the streets before taking a torch to it. In medieval times, people put the trees in their homes before taking them out to burn. According to the cultural center in Riga, the tree stump symbolizes everything that went wrong that year. As part of the winter solstice observance, people gathered all their bad thoughts, wrongdoings or health issues into these logs. The trees ablaze signified a fresh start to the new year. The worlds first decorated Christmas tree is reported to have been put on show in Riga in 1510, reportedly decorated by members of the merchants guild with artificial roses. Merchants then danced around the tree before setting it on fire. At the fairgrounds, members of Crown Point Fire Rescue set the trees on fire and then remained on the scene to safeguard the burn area outside the Industrial Building. Matt Wise, a firefighter-paramedic, attended with his son, James, 3, who like many children and adults was attending his first holiday tree bonfire. This is a great way to get the community together and wrap up the holidays, Wise said. Michelle Coin, of Lowell, came with husband James and children Austin and Allie, both 10. We always have a good time, the mom said, and we love being outside. I just want to see the fire and the trees burn, Austin added. Jen Saternus, of Crown Point, brought her children, Adyson, 7, and Peyton, 10. We come every year to keep the tradition going. Saternus claimed to know where her tree was in the large pile. She brought it to the fairgrounds and attached a marker to it. Pam Howard, of Crown Point, filled a few vehicles, bringing her two adult sons, their wives and her four grandchildren. It brings the family together for a good time, she said. As to closing the holiday season, Howard knows what she wants: Sunshine and warmth. Spring is coming. Twelfth Night refers to an old Christian celebration 12 days after Christmas, which would be Jan. 6. It marks Epiphany, a Christian festival that holds different meanings in the Eastern and Western churches. Though not celebrated as much today, it was largely observed in Elizabethan England. In celebrating Epiphany, Christians were celebrating the revelation of God as Jesus in the flesh. The feast, known as Theophany in Eastern Orthodox churches, also commemorates the Magis visit to the Christ child. While Christians celebrate the holiday on one day, Protestant churches celebrate the feast through Ash Wednesday. Stephanie Elmore, of Crown Point, brought her three children, Samantha, 10, Connor, 12, and Camden, 14. This was their first tree burn. Patricia Cornejo, of Crown Point, came with nephew Lucas, 1. This is our first burn, and we just want to be part of the community, Cornejo said. This is a night with the family. Katie and Dev Duncan, of Crown Point, came with daughters Zoey, 7, and Ryleigh, 5. We heard about this. Weve never been to one, and we wanted to check it out, Katie Duncan said. I want to watch the bonfire, Zoey added. Amy Cashen, of Highland, brought her son Eric and granddaughter Lizzie, 6, of Crown Point. I just want to see the big flames, said Lizzie, a first-grader at Solon Robinson Elementary. Gallery: The Times Photos of the Week Descent of the Holy Spirit Orthodox Church celebrates Orthodox Christmas Descent of the Holy Spirit Orthodox Church celebrates Orthodox Christmas Descent of the Holy Spirit Orthodox Church celebrates Orthodox Christmas Descent of the Holy Spirit Orthodox Church celebrates Orthodox Christmas Descent of the Holy Spirit Orthodox Church celebrates Orthodox Christmas gary police chief Michigan City at Crown Point boys basketball Michigan City at Crown Point boys basketball Michigan City at Crown Point boys basketball Michigan City at Crown Point boys basketball Michigan City at Crown Point boys basketball Giant mural depicts Hobart history, businesses, schools Candidate filing for municipal primary election Candidate filing for municipal primary election Candidate filing for municipal primary election Candidate filing for municipal primary election Candidate filing for municipal primary election LPCommission2.JPG Interfaith Clergy Council's annual Emancipation Proclamation Service of Freedom Interfaith Clergy Council's annual Emancipation Proclamation Service of Freedom _34A0644[1].JPG _34A0678[1].JPG _34A0549[1].JPG _34A0597[1].JPG Gallery HTML code Harry described what happened in September after the palace announced that his grandmother, the queen, was under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle, in Scotland. He was in London, but wasnt invited to join family members who flew there together. He traveled to Balmoral by himself; when he arrived, his aunt asked if he wanted to see his grandmother, who had died. I went upstairs, he said, and just spent some time with her alone. Cooper asked Harry about the treatments he tried after seeing a therapist for the first time seven years ago, including the use of psychedelics. I would never recommend people to do this recreationally, Harry said. But he said, But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine. He added: For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. Harry: The Interview The interviewer for the 90-minute ITV interview was Tom Bradby, who, in 2019, famously asked Meghan a straightforward question: Are you OK? She was not. The pained look on the Duchesss face foreshadowed a drumbeat of revelations about royal life that has sounded steadily over the past three years, including an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey. The Phoenix Police Department has opened an internal investigation into the detainment of a Wall Street Journal reporter who was conducting interviews outside a Chase Bank in November. The reporter, Dion Rabouin, who is Black, was reporting outside the bank when he was handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle, The Wall Street Journal said in a statement. Mr. Rabouins detainment occurred on Nov. 23 but gained widespread attention after the television station ABC15 reported on the episode on Wednesday. Footage taken by a bystander shows Mr. Rabouin being handcuffed and sitting inside a police vehicle. An officer can be heard telling him, Im not giving you any more chances. Mr. Rabouin is heard responding, Youre not giving me any chances for what? I havent done anything wrong. A woman was sentenced on Friday to three years in New Jersey state prison for her involvement in a scheme that raised more than $400,000 from a misleading GoFundMe campaign for a homeless man, prosecutors said. The woman, Katelyn McClure, 32, of Burlington Township, N.J., and her boyfriend at the time, Mark DAmico, created a fund-raising campaign on GoFundMe in November 2017 for Johnny Bobbitt, saying he was a homeless veteran in Philadelphia, according to prosecutors. The couple claimed on GoFundMe that Mr. Bobbitt gave Ms. McClure his last $20 to help her when she had run out of gas, according to prosecutors, who said the story was a lie. Ms. McClure and Mr. DAmico said that they wanted to raise $10,000 so Mr. Bobbitt would have enough money for an apartment, a vehicle and living expenses for six months. Their plea gained widespread attention and raised $402,000. But instead of giving all of the money to Mr. Bobbitt, Ms. McClure and Mr. DAmico spent the bulk of it on a BMW, gambling, Louis Vuitton handbags, a trip to Las Vegas and a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon, prosecutors said. Follow our latest updates on Brazils anti-democracy riots. Thousands of supporters of Brazils ousted former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed Brazils Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices on Sunday to protest what they falsely claim was a stolen election, the violent culmination of years of conspiracy theories advanced by Mr. Bolsonaro and his right-wing allies. In scenes reminiscent of the Jan. 6 storming of the United States Capitol, protesters in Brasilia, Brazils capital, draped in the yellow and green of Brazils flag surged into the seat of power, setting fires, repurposing barricades as weapons, knocking police officers from horseback and filming their crimes as they committed them. We always said we would not give up, one protester declared as he filmed himself among hundreds of protesters pushing into the Capitol building. Congress is ours. We are in power. For months, protesters had been demanding that the military prevent the newly elected president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, from taking office on Jan. 1. Many on the right in Brazil have become convinced, despite the lack of evidence, that Octobers election was rigged. Follow our latest updates on Brazils anti-democracy riots. A defeated president claims, falsely, that an election was rigged. After months of baseless claims of fraud, an angry mob of his supporters storms Congress. They overwhelm police and vandalize the seat of national government, threatening the countrys democratic institutions. Similarities between Sundays mob violence in Brazil and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are self-evident: Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing former president of Brazil, had for months sought to undermine the results of an election that he lost, in much the same manner that Donald J. Trump did after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Trump allies who had helped spread falsehoods about the 2020 election have turned to sowing doubt in the results of Brazils presidential election in October. Those efforts by Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies have now culminated in an attempt however implausible to overturn the results of Brazils election and restore the former president to power. In much the same manner as Jan. 6, the mob that descended on the Brazilian capital overpowered police at the perimeter of the building that houses Congress and swept into the halls of power breaking windows, taking valuable items and posing for photos in abandoned legislative chambers. They set fire to the carpet in the lower house of Brazils Congress. They attacked the presidential offices, rifled through papers and tried to barricade themselves inside. They destroyed windows inside the Supreme Court. Thousands of supporters of Brazils right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed buildings representing the three branches of government to protest what they falsely believe was a stolen election. Governments in Latin America and beyond were swift to condemn the unrest in Brazils capital on Sunday. President Biden, who was visiting the southern U.S. border, called the protests outrageous while Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, said the United States condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil. Our support for Brazils democratic institutions is unwavering, Mr. Sullivan wrote on Twitter. Brazils democracy will not be shaken by violence. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken echoed that sentiment and pledged support for Brazils president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who took office on Jan. 1. Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable, he said. In a late poem, About Not Writing, Ms. Replansky wrote: Tongue-tied, I stand before Myself as inquisitor. I loved to mark time With a beat, with rhyme. It continues: Time marked me with its thumb, Slowed down the pendulum. Slowed it down or stopped: Words were lopped, words dropped No use to devise Reasons or alibis. Now, strangely, I draw breath Well past my ninetieth. Whats begun is almost done, Still I must brood upon The much that I sought, The little that I wrought, Till Time brings its own Lockjaw of stone. The daughter of Sol and Fannie (Ginsberg) Replansky, Naomi Replansky was born in the Bronx on May 23, 1918. Her father was often unemployed, and her mother supported the family as best she could through secretarial work and by giving private English lessons to new immigrants. Ms. Replanskys poem An Inheritance reprises those years: Five dollars, four dollars, three dollars, two, One, and none, and what do we do? This is the worry that never got said But ran so often in my mothers head. And showed so plain in my fathers frown That to us kids it drifted down. It drifted down like soot, like snow, In the dream-tossed Bronx, in the long ago. I shook it off with a shake of the head. I bounced my ball, I ate warm bread. I skated down the steepest hill. But I must have listened, against my will: When the wind blows wrong, I can hear it today. Then my mothers worry stops all play And, as if in its rightful place, My fathers frown divides my face. A poetic prodigy, Naomi was writing remarkably capable verse much of it with a social conscience by the age of 10. An effort from that period, inspired by seeing Metropolis, Fritz Langs 1927 dystopian film, began: Hark, hear the bells sad muffled roar And through the open door Come millions of workers with bodies worn. The overseers look at them in scorn. In their prolonged campaign to tell their story and to present themselves as victims of the British royal family, the tabloid press and critics and haters everywhere Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, have in the last two years revealed their secrets to Oprah Winfrey, revealed them again to various sympathetic television interviewers, produced and starred in a six-part Netflix series and, in the case of Harry, appeared on the actor Dax Shepards podcast, Armchair Expert. Now comes the princes multimillion-dollar ghostwritten memoir, Spare. Set for release Tuesday, it has been leaking out over the last few days, one eye-popping detail after the next. (The book mistakenly appeared in stores early in Spain, and was snapped up and translated by alert members of the British news media, injecting an element of chaos into the publishers rollout.) Harry and Meghan still have many sympathizers, particularly those who see the couples grievances through the lens of the racism Meghan encountered in Britain and who say that she and Harry, once he married her never stood a chance in such a stultified, reactionary institution as the monarchy. But something has changed, judging from the response so far. Even in the United States, which has a soft spot for royals in exile and a generally higher tolerance than Britain does for redemptive stories about overcoming trauma and family dysfunction, there is a sense that there are only so many revelations the public can stomach. Brazil reels from Sundays riots At least 1,200 people have been detained after rioters stormed government offices on Sunday in Brazils capital, officials said yesterday. The detentions came after one of the worst attacks on Brazils democracy in the 38 years since its military dictatorship ended. On Sunday, thousands of people broke into government offices, falsely claiming the October election was stolen from Jair Bolsonaro, the former president. Here are videos of the Sunday riots. Yesterday, authorities also began dismantling the tent city where Bolsonaro supporters had been camping out since he lost the election. The dispersal was peaceful, despite fears that it could have fueled further tensions. Brazils justice minister said that authorities had identified about 40 buses that brought rioters to Brasilia and that the financial backers of the trips would be tracked down and held responsible. Voices on social media had offered free transportation and food to protesters. In theory, these changes might sound like common sense, since legislators should, ideally, be taking time to understand and finalize bills. But in practice, these kinds of allowances have slowed Congresss work, if not halted it altogether, by giving lawmakers more chances to stand in the way of any kind of legislation. This roadblock is especially likely in a closely divided Congress. Since House Republicans have a slim majority of 222 votes out of 435, they must rely on their right-wing faction to reach a majority in any vote (absent unlikely support from Democrats). Last week, that faction showed it will wield its leverage. Its all about the ability empowering us to stop the machine in this town from doing what it does, Roy said. Coming deadlines If the ultraconservatives use these tactics in future legislative debates, Congress could miss deadlines to keep the government open and avoid a financial crisis. Among the looming fights is one over the debt limit. If the government ever reaches this limit, it can no longer borrow money to pay off its debts, potentially forcing a default. That could cause serious damage to the global financial system, which relies on U.S. Treasuries as a safe investment. The government is expected to hit the current debt limit in late summer. Republicans have already suggested that they will try to use negotiations over raising it to draw spending concessions from Senate Democrats and the Biden administration, a tactic that conservatives used during Barack Obamas presidency. But Democrats have said that they will not negotiate over the debt limit this time. If both sides stick to their word, the government could be on track for the most treacherous debt-limit debate since 2011, my colleague Jim Tankersley reported. That year, Obama and a new Republican House majority nearly defaulted on the nations debt before reaching a deal. The battle has been fought in two phases. For the first 100 days or so, the Russian regular army was involved, and from then on, a private military company, the Wagner Group, took on a major role. The Wagner Group has assaulted the city using brigades made up of convicts it has recruited from Russian prisons. Ukrainian soldiers call them human wave assaults. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner Group who is close to President Vladimir Putin, is seen as wanting a victory in Bakhmut to bolster his political standing back in Russia. Russian troops, along with fighters from the Wagner Group, are battling to encircle the city by gaining control of nearby towns and villages, including Soledar, which lies along the front line to the northeast. Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, the commander of Ukraines ground forces, visited troops defending Bakhmut and Soledar yesterday. He said that fighters from the Wagner Group had attempted to storm Soledar from several directions but were repelled. Britains attempt to get into the space launch business on Monday night came up short when a 70-foot rocket stuffed with satellites failed to reach orbit, Virgin Orbit, the company providing the launch service, said. An hour after takeoff from an airstrip in Cornwall, in southwest England, a modified Boeing 747 released the rocket, which fired away as planned. It was supposed to take nine satellites up into low orbital positions 300 or more miles above the Earth. But Virgin Orbit said in a statement on Tuesday that the system had experienced an anomaly while the rockets second-stage engine was being fired. It had been traveling at more than 11,000 miles per hour when the mission ended prematurely. Dan Hart, the chief executive of Virgin Orbit, said in the statement that the first-time nature of the mission had added layers of complexities, and that a technical failure appeared to have occurred. We will work tirelessly to understand the nature of the failure, make corrective actions and return to orbit as soon as we have completed a full investigation and mission assurance process, he said. People in Britains space industry said the goal launching satellites from British soil for the first time would have huge importance even though Virgin Orbit, which was founded by the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, is a California company. At the time, the head of the United Nations Environment Program, which oversees the protocol, called illegal production of CFC-11 nothing short of an environmental crime which demands decisive action. But a follow-up study in 2019 showed that emissions were declining, a sign that the Chinese government was cracking down on new production of CFC-11. The Chinese CFC-11 was very likely used as a blowing agent in making foam insulation. During foam production, some of the CFC-11 escapes into the atmosphere, where it can be detected and measured, but much of it is contained within the foam as it hardens. In this way, the researchers said, the Chinese rogue production had contributed to the banks of chlorofluorocarbons that were produced worldwide before the ban went into effect and are in foams as well as refrigeration equipment and fire-extinguishing systems. These existing chemicals are not yet in the atmosphere, but are being released slowly through foam deterioration and destruction, leaks or other means. Dr. Montzka said the size of the Chinese contribution to the banks was not known. But if the banks have been built up substantially, that would add a few more years to that expected delay in recovery, he said. Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization, said the elimination of the rogue emissions was another example of the success of the protocol, which is generally considered to be the most effective global environmental pact ever enacted. Atmospheric monitoring, which is required by the protocol, detected the problem, Mr. Zaelke said, and brought it to the attention of the treatys directorate. Without admitting guilt, the offending parties got their act together, he said. And the measurements are back where they should be. Jean Pare, a cookbook author who taught millions of Canadians how to cook with her series of more than 200 self-published cookbooks called Companys Coming, died on Dec. 24 in Edmonton, Alberta. She was 95. Her death, in a hospital, was confirmed by her granddaughter Amanda Lovig Hagg. She did not specify a cause but said that Ms. Pares health had been deteriorating for about a year. Ms. Pare wrote her first cookbook in 1981, when she was 54. The book, 150 Delicious Squares, a collection of some of her most popular dessert recipes from her nearly two-decade career as a caterer in Vermilion, Alberta, was a smash, selling about 1.5 million copies. By the time she retired in 2011, more than 30 million copies of her cookbooks had been sold, including more than a million in the United States, making her one of the worlds top-selling cookbook authors. But even as her publishing empire expanded and the books became ubiquitous in kitchens, they retained the homey quality of recipes for everyday cooking from a regular Canadian mom. Serious viticulture started in the Napa Valley in the 19th Century, but as the winemaker Tor Kenward explains in his memoir, Reflections of a Vintner, its meteoric rise happened mostly during the past 50 years. Mr. Kenward, who worked at Beringer Vineyards for decades and since 2001 has co-owned the esteemed Tor Wines, has organized the book almanac-style, month by month. January is the perfect time to crack it open. What makes it so compelling is the roster of landmark names and events in wine and food, woven into an account of winemaking and history. Youll meet Joe Heitz, the Mondavis, Belle and Barney Rhodes, Karen MacNeil, Jeremiah Tower, Julia Child, Madeleine Kamman, Thomas Keller, Steven Spurrier and even R.W. Johnny Apple of The New York Times. Mr. Kenwards wife, Susan Costner Kenward, was a founder of the Loaves & Fishes shop in the Hamptons. Alas, there is no index. Reflections of a Vintner: Stories and Seasonal Wisdom from a Lifetime in Napa Valley by Tor Kenward (Cameron + Company, $26). Other restaurants El Bulli, for example, and Chez Panisse have been widely imitated. But I dont think any restaurant came up with so many ideas that were shoplifted by so many other places in so many other cities quite so quickly. Noma invented a lot of bits, and they got around. At times these bits could look like mannerisms in search of a manner. Early on, especially from 2012 to 2015, chefs were copying things Mr. Redzepi did without understanding why he did them in the first place. For a while, when you walked into a brand-new dining room in New York with a modern Scandinavian look, you could predict with confidence that you were not going to be eating any tomatoes that night. The reason? They dont grow well in Denmark, so Noma doesnt serve them. Forming an idea of the real Noma from all these distant echoes, I was like somebody who had never seen Michael Jackson, trying to imagine what his concerts were like based on seeing a subway performer moonwalk. And then I went to Copenhagen and, by the end of a two- or three-hour lunch, all the Noma-isms fit together like puzzle pieces to form one whole picture. The restaurant that had inspired so many imitators was fluid, it was graceful, it was coherent. When you make the most infamous movie ever to come out of a genre sometimes called the cannibal vomitorium, youve achieved true cinematic notoriety. That distinction belongs to the Italian director Ruggero Deodato, whose Cannibal Holocaust is said to have gotten him briefly accused of murder because of death scenes that seemed a little too real, as well as generating complaints for obscenity and animal cruelty. The film, released in 1980 in Italy and later (sometimes after overcoming bans) in other countries, drew scalding comments from critics and some film scholars. In 1985 the Phantom of the Movies column in The Daily News of New York called it the kind of brain-damaged, stomach-churning cinematic offal that gives junk movies a bad name. And yet the movie also developed a cult following and is widely credited with influencing later films, especially The Blair Witch Project (1999), which, like Cannibal Holocaust, used a found-footage conceit intended to leave viewers asking, Was it real? On Dec. 30, Vinny Dashukewich and his girlfriend, Olivia Unwin, were playing with his 3-year-old pit bull, Cali, in his backyard in Plainville, Conn., when the dog began acting strangely, growling insistently near a raised outdoor deck. Calis behavior was atypical, Mr. Dashukewich said, as she usually has a sweet disposition. Then, Ms. Unwin yelled that shed spotted a bear. Mr. Dashukewich didnt believe it at first. He scanned the woods behind the house, which he shares with his parents and his sister Tyler, but spotted no such animal. Then he locked eyes with a large black bear underneath the houses elevated deck. The bear, fat and groggy, was nestled in a crawl space, stretched out on a bed of leaves and a tarp. A federal judge ruled on Monday that a central component of a new law that limited where handguns may be carried in New Jersey was unconstitutional, severely undercutting the states effort to create gun-free zones in public places where crowds gather. In a sharply worded decision, Judge Renee Marie Bumb of the U.S. District Court of New Jersey concluded that a half-dozen restrictions in the legislation, adopted less than three weeks ago, were so extensive and burdensome that they rendered the right to armed self-defense in public a nullity. New Jersey, like New York, established an extensive list of places where handgun owners were not permitted to carry weapons in response to a Supreme Court ruling in June that loosened restrictions on carrying guns in public. Judge Bumbs order at least temporarily blocks New Jersey from enforcing much of the new law, and immediately permits licensed handgun owners to carry weapons in nightclubs, theaters, arenas, concert halls, racetracks and museums, among other places, pending further court action. On the first anniversary of the Twin Parks fire in the Bronx that killed 17 people, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will announce a new national plan to combat Americas fire problem using investigatory muscle granted by federal legislation that President Biden signed last month. The legislation will give the United States Fire Administration the power to identify the causes of fires like the one at the Twin Parks North West housing complex in the Bronx, New York Citys deadliest inferno in decades. It also allows the agency, which is part of FEMA, to identify other buildings with similar problems and to issue recommendations. An investigation by The New York Times found that the fire safety system at Twin Parks suffered a catastrophic failure and that the deaths were preventable. The blaze was sparked by an electric space heater that ignited a mattress, but the victims died of smoke inhalation, not the fire itself. Investigators believe that deadly smoke was able to spread to the upper floors of the 19-story building because of faulty self-closing doors. Twin Parks, an affordable housing building that was constructed in 1972, had been the heart of a Gambian immigrant community in the Bronx, and most of the people who died in the fire were African immigrants or their children. Like many older residential buildings in the city, Twin Parks had no sprinkler protection. More than a million American households live in public housing units, and many lack lifesaving measures like sprinklers or hard-wired smoke detectors. Yet in the days since his defeat many of Mr. Bolsonaros supporters have camped outside military bases around the country, figuring that the former president would pull together a last-minute plan. We dont know the date, we dont know what will happen, we dont know where, we only trust our president, one of the protesters told me. In the end, nothing happened, so some members of the mob took matters into their own hands. Over the last two years, Mr. Bolsonaro repeatedly made baseless claims that the electoral system could be manipulated. When Mr. Bolsonaro said there were only three alternatives for his future prison, death or victory he did not mention a fourth option: go eat fried chicken in the United States, which he was photographed doing in December. In the end, the necessary components for a successful insurrection just werent there. The defeated president had neither the institutional nor the public support he needed to jolt the military into taking his side. For a start, he lacked allies. As soon as Mr. Bolsonaros electoral loss was announced, some of his political allies congratulated the new president-elect. Other Latin American presidents did the same. Joe Bidens congratulations came late on election night and were heralded in the Brazilian media as important endorsements of the fairness of the electoral process. Most important, Mr. Bolsonaros defeat provoked a much softer outcry among his voters than was feared although it was still disruptive. Thousands of his supporters blocked roads and set vehicles on fire in an attempt to paralyze the country. Hundreds of others decided to place tents in front of army barracks across the country, pressuring for military intervention in the government. S.O.S. armed forces, they screamed, often alternating martial slogans with Hail Marys and the national anthem. A few weeks later, all roads had been cleared. Some camps remained, including one in the Santana neighborhood here in Sao Paulo. On Christmas, I spent part of my afternoon talking to a dozen Bolsonaro supporters camped there. They still believed that the elections had been rigged. The strongest evidence came in the form of a question: If everybody is here, why has the minority won? Economic liberty, not just political liberty, is at the heart of the American experiment. Youre not really free if you dont have the right to switch jobs or choose what to do with your labor. But millions of American workers cant fully exercise that choice because of a provision that bosses put into their contracts: a noncompete clause. When youre subject to a noncompete clause, you lose your right to go work for a competing company or start your own, typically within a certain geographic area and for a certain period of time. Unless youre willing to move hundreds of miles away or take a huge pay cut to restart your career from scratch, a noncompete can effectively lock you into a job. Thats a clear restriction of individual liberty. But the aggregate impacts of noncompetes go even further. A body of empirical research shows that they also inflict major harm across the economy. In fact, even if you arent personally bound by one, noncompetes may be costing you money. Noncompetes were long assumed to apply mainly to high-level executives with access to sensitive corporate information. But their use has exploded in the past few decades, extending far beyond the boardroom. Today, experts estimate that one out of every five American workers, or about 30 million people, is bound by a noncompete. Studies and media reports have found noncompetes routinely invoked against fast-food workers, arborists and manual laborers, to name a few examples. Just this week, the Federal Trade Commission, where I am chair, settled allegations against a company in Michigan that prohibited its workers security guards earning at or near the minimum wage from going to work for a competitor within a 100-mile radius of their job location for two years. Each worker who violated the noncompete would have been liable for $100,000. Bret: A few honorable exceptions aside, the G.O.P. is basically split between reptiles and invertebrates. McCarthy is the ultimate invertebrate. He went to Mar-a-Lago just a short while after Jan. 6 to kiss the ring of the guy who incited the mob that, by McCarthys own admission, wanted to kill him. He hated Liz Cheney because of her backbone. But he quailed before Marjorie Taylor Greene because she has a forked tongue. He gave away the powers and prerogatives of the office of speaker in order to gain the office, which is like a slug abandoning its shell and thinking it wont be stepped on. A better man would have told the Freedom Caucus holdouts to shove it. Instead, as a friend of mine put it, McCarthy decided to become the squeaker of the House. Gail: OK, Kevin is House squeaker forever. Bret: If theres a silver lining here, its that the whole spectacle has shown voters what they get for voting for this Republican Party. Gail: Hey, youre still in charge of Republicans. Now that theyre sort of in command, do you have hopes theyll make progress on your priorities, like controlling government spending? Without, um, failing to make the nations debt payments . Bret: Buried in the noise about McCarthys humiliation is that his opponents had some reasonable demands. One of them was to give members of Congress a minimum of 72 hours to read the legislation they were voting on. Another was to limit bills to a single subject. The idea is to do away with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spending packages that Congress has lately become way too fond of. Gail: Yeah, I can buy into that one. Bret: On the other hand, the idea that this Republican clown show is going to accomplish anything significant particularly since doing so would require them to work with a Democratic president and Senate is roughly the equivalent of Vladimir Putin leaving the vocation of vile despot to become a cannabis entrepreneur. Not going to happen. When I was 7 or 8, I spent hours tinkering and experimenting to figure out how to make parachutes, fashioned from old scarves, open more quickly each time I tossed them into the air. This required careful observation to determine how small design changes affected performance. My single-mindedness, verging on obsession, was probably because I was autistic. At the time I loved a book about famous inventors and their inventions. It impressed me that Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers were so single-minded in figuring out how to make a light bulb or an airplane. They spent lots of time obsessively perfecting their inventions. It is likely that some of the inventors in that book also were autistic. We hear a great deal about the need to fix the infrastructure in this country, but we are too focused on the things that need improving and updating rather than the people who will be able to do the work. For over 25 years, I designed equipment to handle livestock and worked with the highly skilled people who built the equipment. When I look back at all the projects I designed for large companies, I estimate that 20 percent of the skilled welders and drafting technicians were autistic or dyslexic, or had A.D.H.D. I remember two people with autism and who held numerous patents for mechanical devices they invented and who sold equipment to many companies. Our visual thinking skills were key to our success. Today, we want our students to be well rounded; we should think about making sure that the education we provide is as well. At the same time, I wager that the people who will fix Americas infrastructure have spent hours and hours on one thing, whether it be Legos, violin or chess hyper-focus is a classic sign of neurodivergent thinking and its critical for innovation and invention. I often get asked what I would do to improve both elementary and high school. The first step would be to put more of an emphasis on hands-on classes such as art, music, sewing, woodworking, cooking, theater, auto mechanics and welding. I would have hated school if the hands-on classes had been removed, as so many have been today. These classes also expose students especially neurodivergent students to skills that could become a career. Exposure is key. Too many students are growing up who have never used a tool. They are completely removed from the world of the practical. Despite my accomplishments, if I were a young person today, I would have difficulty graduating from high school because I could not pass algebra. It was too abstract, with no visual correlations. This is true for many of todays students who get labeled bad at math, students who might otherwise pass alternative math courses such as statistics that would also apply to real-life work situations. There is too much emphasis in school on testing and not enough on career outcomes. My poor performance on the math portion of the SAT prohibited me from getting into veterinary school, but today I am a university professor in animal sciences and I am invited to speak to groups of veterinarians to advise them on their work. The true measure of an education isnt what grades students get today, but where they are 10 years later. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. What should you wear to work if youre nonbinary? It may not be the most pressing question that gender-nonconforming people face on the job, but with approximately 1.2 million L.G.B.T.Q. Americans identifying as nonbinary, employers and employees alike are exploring what professional attire can look like. I think people treat me with more dignity when I dress more masculinely, but people are way nicer to me when I dress more femininely, said El Layla Johnson, 33, a former restaurant server who is now a therapist. For Mx. Johnson, getting dressed for work has been a struggle since adolescence. I just feel like theres a manual or rule book that people receive and that my copy got lost in the mail, said Mx. Johnson, who, like many nonbinary people, uses the pronouns they and them. The ferocity of the waves and severity of structural damage recalled, for some residents, memories of the disastrous 1982 storm that flooded rivers, badly damaged a bridge and killed 22 people, including 10 in a landslide that occurred just as a 30-hour rainstorm let up. In January of that year, the hillside above Love Creek, about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz, turned to liquid, with approximately 600,000 cubic yards of land enough to fill 60,000 dump trucks sliding down the mountain. This years storm rivals 1982s, and nothing else in between has come close, said Carin Hanna, 78, who owns the Craft Gallery gift shop in Capitola, a town next to Santa Cruz. It shows the incredible force of the ocean, she added. Santa Cruz is also prone to flooding because its creeks and its biggest waterway, the San Lorenzo River, are not big enough to contain all of the water from heavy rainfall, experts say. Over the weekend, the river was so swollen that surfers were riding waves headed out to sea, rather than the other direction, and emergency responders warned of flood risks along the banks on Monday. Parts of West Cliff Drive, a winding Santa Cruz road at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean, were closed after chunks of the street were wiped out by 20-foot-tall waves. Earlier storms had already pounded at the cliffs and washed away some barriers, like riprap giant rocks placed at the edge of the cliffs to protect against erosion a frightening sight for some residents. On Thursday morning, Lindsay Maggioncalda was on her laptop in a meeting for her job at Duolingo, the language platform, on the second floor of her oceanfront home in Santa Cruz. Suddenly, a wave struck the storm-resistant window mere feet away from where she was sitting on the couch. The granite slabs were erected by the Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation to recognize a largely forgotten conflict that left more than a million people dead and a country divided. The money for the project was largely provided by the government of South Korea. Like other monuments on the mall, the slabs are maintained by the National Park Service. The error-riddled list of names was supplied by the Defense Department. And no one seems to have checked it. Stripping Confederate Ties: In the first of nine scheduled redesignations aimed at purging the symbols of the Confederacy from the military, In the first of nine scheduled redesignations aimed at purging the symbols of the Confederacy from the military, Fort Pickett in Virginia became Fort Barfoot in honor of Col. Van Barfoot, a Medal of Honor recipient. Feeding the War Machine: The Pentagons deliveries of weapons to help Ukraine hold off Russia have exposed a worrisome lack of production capacity in the United States that The Pentagons deliveries of weapons to help Ukraine hold off Russia have exposed a worrisome lack of production capacity in the United States that has its roots in the aftermath of the Cold War In Africa: With terrorists moving south across the Sahel and threatening the coastal states of West Africa, the focus of the Pentagons annual Flintlock exercise With terrorists moving south across the Sahel and threatening the coastal states of West Africa, the focus of the Pentagons annual Flintlock exercise was on helping participants see their broader role in counterterrorist actions. The foundation declined to comment. The park service deflected blame to the Defense Department. The Defense Department declined to make decision makers available for comment. In response to questions from The New York Times, it acknowledged that there were errors on the wall, saying in a statement that compiling an accurate list was challenging. We encourage all family members or concerned citizens to notify the Department of any names that were omitted, misspelled, or included in error, the statement said, adding that the department would work with the park service to make any necessary corrections or additions, though they did not offer any details of how the granite could be fixed. The brothers said they could think of no options but tearing out the slabs and starting over. It is not the first time the department has botched casualty figures from the conflict in Korea, where three years of bitter fighting ended in stalemate and an armistice in 1953. For nearly 50 years afterward, the official number of American dead from the conflict was 54,246, a number published in history books, quoted in speeches and etched in stone when the Korean War memorial was unveiled. But in 2000, the Pentagon acknowledged that the figure included all troops who had died anywhere, for any reason, during the war years, and that the true number of war deaths was 36,516. WASHINGTON House Republicans on Monday pushed through an overhaul of operating rules for the new Congress, overcoming the concerns of some rank-and-file members about concessions that Speaker Kevin McCarthy made to the hard right last week in the desperate and drawn-out process of securing his job. Mr. McCarthy clinched the speakers gavel early Saturday after a historic 15 rounds of voting that stretched across five days, and after giving in to a sweeping series of demands from the ultraconservative rebels who opposed him, including allowing any single lawmaker to call a snap vote to oust him. The struggle underscored how difficult it would be for him to corral his narrow majority, and in the hours before the vote on Monday, he was already confronting his first challenge, uncertain whether he would have the votes even to approve the rules that would allow the House to begin legislative business. In the end, a handful of holdouts dropped their opposition and supported the measure, putting aside reservations about Mr. McCarthys concessions, including some that they worried could lead to deep cuts in military spending. WASHINGTON The Supreme Court debated the limits of the attorney-client privilege on Monday, struggling to articulate a standard that would protect confidential legal advice without shielding routine business communications. The case before the justices, In re Grand Jury, No. 21-1397, was itself shrouded in secrecy. It involved a criminal investigation of an unnamed person described in court papers as an early promoter of Bitcoin who expatriated from the United States in early 2014. After a grand jury sought records from an unnamed law firm hired to prepare that persons tax returns, a federal judge ordered the firm to turn over documents that contained both legal advice and ordinary tax-return accounting unless the legal advice was the documents primary purpose. The firm refused, saying that the documents should be protected so long as legal advice was a substantial purpose of the communication. The judge held the firm in contempt, an appeals court agreed that the tougher primary purpose standard should apply, and the firm appealed to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to let it withhold documents in which legal advice played a subsidiary but significant role. WASHINGTON When the Supreme Court hears arguments this spring on the constitutionality of a curious law that makes it a crime to encourage unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the United States, the justices may have a sense of deja vu. They heard arguments on the same question three years ago, with several of them suggesting that the law, enacted in 1986, violated the First Amendment by turning commonplace statements into felonies. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked about a grandmother whose granddaughter is in the United States illegally. Would it be a crime, he wanted to know, if she told her granddaughter that she missed her and encouraged her to stay? Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh imagined a charity that gave food to people who cant get it elsewhere and they know that the people taking advantage of that are here unlawfully. Was the charity committing a felony? Regular grand jury terms last two months. Defendants who are indicted can request speedy trials that begin by the close of the term that follows the two-month period in which they are indicted. Because of those protocols, most charges would most likely be brought at the beginning of the next grand jury term in early March, or further down the road. The office of Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, has spent two years investigating whether Mr. Trump and his allies violated any Georgia laws as they tried to overturn President Bidens victory there in 2020. Prosecutors are known to have informed nearly 20 people that they may face criminal charges as a result of the investigation. Their targets include Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trumps former lawyer, and David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. It is not yet clear if Mr. Trump himself is at risk of facing charges in the investigation. In court papers, Ms. Williss office has said that it is investigating a multistate, coordinated plan by the Trump campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere. Her team has weighed possible conspiracy and racketeering charges, among others. Among the evidence she has examined is the phone call that Mr. Trump made on Jan. 2, 2021, to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, imploring him to find nearly 12,000 votes, or enough to reverse the outcome of the presidential election in the state. At the time, Mr. Trump had not yet conceded to Mr. Biden. How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause. Learn more about our process. The creation of an alternate slate of bogus Georgia presidential electors after the 2020 election has also been a subject of intense scrutiny, and some legal analysts have said that scheme in particular could lead to charges under the states version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. Each of the Trump electors has been told they are a target who could face charges, according to their lawyers or related court filings. When we see what a large group of people was working together on the Georgia fake elector scheme from the former president, his chief of staff, his personal attorneys down to local campaign officials and lawyers in Georgia the district attorneys possible interest in bringing RICO charges makes more and more sense, said Clark D. Cunningham, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, in an email. Those calls circulated among supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro mostly on two apps, WhatsApp and Telegram. Some messages urged people to organize attacks against critical infrastructure, such as oil refineries and roadblocks. On Telegram, some called for the storming of the Monumental Axis, the avenue that goes directly to major government buildings. According to an intelligence briefing by the military police of Brasilia, at least 100 buses carrying 4,000 demonstrators arrived between Friday and Sunday. It was not immediately clear where the social media calls first originated, or how the caravans of buses were organized. Most of the people who arrived in recent days stayed in an encampment in the capital that supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro had maintained in front of the armys headquarters since the election in October. It was also not clear why the rioters were able to breach government buildings Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential offices so easily. State police officers had tried to repel them, but they were far outnumbered. Videos showed protesters wandering and ransacking the halls of power. Federal officials later distributed images and videos that showed destroyed computers, art ripped from frames and firearm cases without their guns. Adolfo Kaminskys talent was as banal as could be: He knew how to remove supposedly indelible blue ink from paper. But it was a skill that helped save the lives of thousands of Jews in France during World War II. He had learned how to remove such stains as a teenager working for a clothes dyer and dry cleaner in his Normandy town. When he joined the anti-Nazi resistance at 18, his expertise enabled him to erase Jewish-sounding names like Abraham or Isaac that were officially inscribed on French ID and food ration cards, and substitute them with typically gentile-sounding ones. The forged documents allowed Jewish children, their parents and others to escape deportation to Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and in many cases to flee Nazi-occupied territory for safe havens. At one point, Mr. Kaminsky was asked to produce 900 birth and baptismal certificates and ration cards for 300 Jewish children in institutional homes who were about to be rounded up. The aim was to deceive the Germans until the children could be smuggled out to rural families or convents, or to Switzerland and Spain. He was given three days to finish the assignment. LONDON King Charles III has long pushed the idea of slimming down the British royal family. If his younger sons unsparing new book is any indication, he has achieved his goal, though not in the way he intended. The publication of Prince Harrys memoir on Tuesday with its scorched-earth details about his rupture with his family seems likely to dash any near-term prospects that Harry will return to the fold by reconciling with his father; with Camilla, the queen consort; or with his older brother, Prince William. The book, titled Spare, paints a portrait of a hopelessly divided House of Windsor. Far from the smooth-running operation known as The Firm, it comes across as a collection of warring fiefs, where family members jockey for advantage with a complicit tabloid press, trying to buff their images by dishing dirt on one another. With Harry and his wife, Meghan, estranged and living in Southern California; the kings disgraced younger brother, Andrew, in internal exile following his settlement of a sexual assault lawsuit; and the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September, the familys senior ranks have dwindled to a handful of figures. For not the first time, Russian leaders dangled the possibility of a de-escalation of fighting in Ukraine, this time in the form of a 36-hour cease-fire that would have taken place this past weekend. But, in a pattern that is now familiar nearly a year into the war, Western and Ukrainian leaders broadly rejected the proposal, calling it a cynical effort to create space for resupplying Russian forces. Analysts typically share this view, saying that such proposals tend to come when a pause would most benefit Russias battlefield position, not when they might further peace talks or aid civilians. Sure enough, even as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia promised a unilateral pause in some areas, there was little indication of such on the ground, where fighting continued as normal. The Ukrainian authorities have rejected Russian claims that hundreds of Ukrainian troops were killed in a strike in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, and no evidence has emerged to support Moscows assertion. On Sunday, Russias Defense Ministry said that it had carried out a strike on military dormitories in Kramatorsk that killed 600 people, calling it revenge for a Ukrainian attack on a facility housing Russian soldiers on New Years Day. That Ukrainian strike, in the occupied eastern city of Makiivka, left at least dozens of Russian soldiers dead and renewed criticism of the Russian military among some prominent supporters of Moscows war effort. Analysts said Moscows claim of a retaliatory attack was likely aimed at placating anger among some Russians over Makiivka. But even some Russian pro-war bloggers, who closely follow military moves, expressed skepticism of the Defense Ministrys account. Ukrainian authorities acknowledged that there were strikes in Kramatorsk hours before Russias announcement, saying on Sunday morning that some buildings had been damaged by missiles, but they reported no casualties. BAKHMUT, Ukraine It was midmorning last Friday when the camera of a Ukrainian drone zoomed in on a Russian soldier moving furtively among trees on the edge of town. Another enemy assault was underway in the eastern city of Bakhmut. The drone pilot marked coordinates as he watched, then sent them by satellite link to artillery commanders. Within a few minutes, Ukrainian artillery units struck the houses where they had seen the Russians taking cover. Smoke from the hits could be seen rising silently on the drone operators screen. Later that day, however, an armored vehicle rumbled out of an eastern neighborhood carrying wounded Ukrainian soldiers toward a stabilization point in the citys west. Ukraines army was taking its hits, too. The coalition agreements for the new government lay the foundations for the two-state solution: the state of Israel and the state of the Shtetl, wrote Eliyahu Berkovits, a Haredi research assistant at the Israel Democracy Institute, in a recent article, using the Yiddish word for the traditional Jewish villages of Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The Haredi enclave has grown much larger, he wrote, and is set to go one step further and become an autonomous state. In an interview, Mr. Berkovits said that Haredi politicians still acted as if they were representing a small minority that needed to protect its own interests. The Haredi community has to understand that we are bigger, he said, and we are responsible for the future of Israel. He said he was proud of his community and praised its amazing values. But, he added, its easier to do what you have done for past 20 years than to rethink the whole thing. While the numbers of modern, working Haredim are increasing, so are the hard-core and extremist factions. In recent weeks, extremists in Jerusalem vandalized an optical store because it used pictures of women wearing spectacles in its advertising and rioted over the arrest of a Haredi suspected of setting fire to a cellphone store, critically wounding a mother of 11 who was hit by a burning dumpster. Art Stevens Rollup is a phrase that has gained prominence and recognition in the PR agency world. One of the early rollups was created by Peter Gummer, now known as Lord Chadlington. Gummer, a UK businessman and entrepreneur, invaded the U.S. and offered to buy up any PR agency that came his way. He succeeded wildly. Many prominent PR agencies succumbed to his will and financing and became wholly owned by a company he named Shandwick. For a long time, Shandwick consisted of many agencies and was considered to be part of a rollup, defined as the acquisition of a number of agencies generally standing as separate, autonomous units under the umbrella of a holding company. But then Gummer did something unusual. At a certain point, he notified all the agencies that he acquired that they would no longer be known by their original names but would become Shandwick. All of the agencies that had operated under their own names would now become field offices of Shandwick. Shandwick was then acquired by Interpublic, which also acquired Larry Webers former firm Weber. The two were merged to become Weber Shandwick, which is now the second-largest PR agency in the world. This article is featured in O'Dwyer's Jan. '23 Crisis Communications & PR Buyer's Guide Magazine (view PDF version) This rollup, which it originally was, gave rise to many more rollups as the years passed and added to the enormous growth of such present-day agencies as Finn Partners, Real Chemistry and Stagwell Group. Given the success of these organizations, many smaller agencies began to find a way to grow exponentially by finding funding partners and acquiring agencies. Real Chemistry, founded by Jim Weiss and formerly known as w2o, now does around $500 million in revenues by virtue of both organic growth and acquisitions. So, whos doing the funding and taking some equity in PR agency rollups? Private equity firms and PR agencies themselves. At one point, private equity firms wanted very little to do with professional service firms, including public relations. The premise was that the assets of a service firm go down the elevator each night and the company is bereft of assets. They preferred manufacturing and industrial companies, which made things and had machinery. But Weber Shandwick made a lot of private equity heads turn. They began to see the continuing growth of PR agencies, and oneEdelmanthat topped a billion dollars in revenues. No small potatoes. PR agencies could demonstrate EBITDA of more than 30 percent, in some cases, and the use of agencies by the corporate, government and non-profit worlds were spending more of their budgets on public relations. There are more private equity firms supporting the growth of PR agencies than ever before. And, consequently, there are more acquisitions of PR agencies taking place than ever before. No longer is the sole exit strategy for the founder of a PR agency to close up shop and go fishing. No longer is the option of selling to employees at discount prices a second option. If a PR agency has a record of revenue and profitability growth over a period of time, theres a very good chance that such an agency is an acquisition target. PR has become more of a business than a cottage industry. The founders and principals of modern agencies must not only serve clients but must run their businesses with an eye on profit and loss. Agency owners rely heavily on their financial advisors in the form of highly trained chief financial officers and outside CPA firms. Plus, PR agency owners currently make an enormous amount of money. Ive seen agencies that do around $3 million in revenues generate more than $1 million in profits. And most of that goes to the owner. Not a bad business to be in, and the financial community has awoken to that fact. So, where is the PR agency business right now? Its growing rapidly. More agencies are being acquired by sources outside the PR agency world. More agencies will exceed $100 million in revenues. And agencies that are doing around $20 million in revenues today are good candidates to be the platform agencies acquired by private equity firms and could rollup smaller agencies within their universe. And what does this trend do for someone like me, who has been facilitating mergers and acquisitions for more than fifteen years? Frankly, it means greater opportunities and a lot more fun. *** Art Stevens is Managing Partner of The Stevens Group. Celia Jones FINN Partners promotes Celia Jones to global chief marketing officer, from her previous role as global director of marketing communications. Jones joined FINN Partners in 2021 after serving as CEO of independent advertising agency The Escape Pod. She has also led brand marketing and PR at Havas, and served as global marketing director at experience design agency Critical Mass. In her new role, Jones will be responsible for building on FINNs global leadership in public relations and strategic communications, advancing the firms reputation for integrated marketing and creative services, amplifying thought leadership and novel platforms for new business growth, driving integration and leading internal communications. She embodies our values and has played a pivotal role in bringing our core sense of purpose to the forefront of our marketing efforts, as a magnet for people and clients who share our mission and values. As CMO, Celia is the ideal person to steward our brand into the next stage of global growth, said FINN Partners CEO and founding partner Peter Finn. Sade Muhammad Time names Sade Muhammad as CMO. Muhammad comes to Time from Forbes, where she founded its representation and inclusion practice. She previously worked at NBC Universal and was a reporter for Black Enterprise. In her new role, Muhammad will be responsible for the brands integrated marketing, customer success, branded content and communications, in addition to its newly created impact division. Sades background as a marketer, trained journalist and changemaker makes her the perfect person to lead Time as our chief marketing officer, said Time CEO Jessica Sibley. Sarah Grubbs, Zack Kozlak TrailRunner International ups Sarah Grubbs and Zack Kozlak to managing director in the agencys Nashville and New York offices respectively. Grubbs joined the firm in 2018 and most recently served as director in the Nashville office. Before coming to TrailRunner, she worked in the public affairs and crisis division at BCW. Kozlak, who was most recently director in the New York office, joined TrailRunner from BCW in 2016 and now advises global companies on a range of matters from financial communications and corporate reputation to complex M&A transactions. The agency has also promoted Carlton Rollins to director in its New York office. At the beginning of this school year, a Tullamore College Transition Year group was given the task of restoring a Wagonmaster locomotive that had previously been used for work on bogs by Bord na Mona. As well as this, we have undertaken the challenge of producing a factual book documenting the cultural significance of these artefacts in Irish history. Bord na Mona is a semi-state company that was established in 1946 in an effort to achieve a secure, independent energy supply for Ireland. However, due to the demand for greener renewable energy sources in todays world, Bord na Mona has now fully ceased the commercial exploitation of peatlands. In completing this restoration project, we aim to highlight the deep link between Bord na Mona and our countrys past, as we move into a new era of sustainable energy harvesting. We seek to preserve the rich traditions of Irish heritage and ensure that the incredible work of so many individuals in rural communities will never be forgotten. The first major milestone of the project was our success in getting our Wagonmasters engine running again. This was a very proud moment for all the team, and we would like to thank all of those who helped to make this happen. In order to make further progress, and to continue the restoration, we need: To borrow a four-wheel trailer to move the bonnet and cab of the Wagonmaster in and out of our shed as we work on it. A sponsorship or donation of 3M stripping discs so that we can remove the rust and old paint from our Wagonmaster. A sponsorship or donation of red oxide metal primer. This will be used as a protective base layer to prevent the corrosion and rusting of our Wagonmaster as it is exposed to the elements. As well as these physical resources, we are searching for information. Bord na Mona built a prototype Wagonmaster, LM 176, in 1961 at their station in Derrygreenagh. Mr Willie Greene was the Chief Mechanical Engineer for this project. We are looking for any information or photos anyone may have in relation to Bord na Monas original prototype, Mr Willie Greene, or any of the workers who designed and constructed Wagonmaster LM 176. We would greatly value and appreciate all information, funding or support provided to our project, in order to preserve the rich history of peat-harvesting in the Midlands. Please, do not hesitate to contact us at wagonmaster@tullamorecollege.ie with any details. THE anniversary Mass marking one year since the death of Ashling Murphy will take place in Mountbolus church on Thursday, January 12 (7pm). Blueball woman Ashling, a 23-year-old teacher at Durrow National School, was killed on the afternoon of January 12, 2022 on the bank of the Grand Canal at Cappincur, Tullamore. The Ashling Murphy Memorial Fund, set up by the Murphy family and the Ashling Murphy Memorial fund executive committee, was launched on January 6, Nollaig na mBan. In a statement, the committee said it was fitting to launch the fund in memory of a beautiful, talented and exceptional young lady, who will forever be 23 and will never be forgotten! Ashlings tragic loss touched the hearts of many, she left a strong legacy behind her and will always be remembered for the music, sport, education, culture and heritage that she was involved in during her short life, the committee added. Privacy and respect was requested for the Murphy family, Ashlings partner Ryan, Durrow NS and all other individuals, groups and organisations that Ashling had a special connection with, as they continue to grieve her tragic loss and remember a very special young lady on her first anniversary. The statement concluded with the following in Irish: Taimid agus beimid ag smaoineamh uirthi gach la, ta leaba oir aici i measc na nAingeal. The official fundraising online page - https://www.idonate.ie/cause/ashlingmurphymemorialfund contains a video touching on many aspects of Ashling's life and features pictures from her childhood, footage of her playing the fiddle and images of her playing camogie. Watch the video by clicking on this link - https://youtu.be/PxTbXTX4NlY The official Ashling Murphy Memorial Fund online page says the fund has been established to fulfil the strong legacy left by Ashling, even in her short life and donations and proceeds from fundraisers will be utilised to achieve objectives which have been compiled by the Murphy family along with committee members and which are deemed close to Ashlings heart and represent the many interests she had in her 23 years. The page describes Ashling (pictured below) as a beautiful, caring, loving, compassionate and warm-hearted person: An amazing daughter to Ray and Kathleen, a wonderful sister to Amy and Cathal, a loving partner to Ryan, and a kind, caring young woman to her extended family, pupils, colleagues and wide circle of friends. Ashling was breath-takingly talented an exceptional musician, talented sportsperson and an inspirational teacher to the many young people she encountered within her 23 years. She was determined to succeed at whatever she turned her hand to, whether that be music or sports, and had an admirable personality, positive attitude and infectious smile that would brighten up any room she entered. The fund's main objective is for the further enhancement, development and the advancements of the traditional Irish arts, culture and heritage for young people. Subsidiary objectives are - establishing arts and cultural activities in memory of Ashlings name; creating educational, sport and musical scholarships; supporting the enhancement of facilities or building projects; supporting personnel who participate in cultural events; promoting our traditional Irish language; providing educational, sport and musical instrument banks for organisations; supporting individuals or groups who may undertake significant challenges/exhibitions in memory of Ashling Murphy; support such other needs and requests that may arise from time to time within the above overall objective. Met Eireann has issued a Weather Warning issued for a large part of Ireland as Met Eireann is forecasting a spell of wet and windy weather on the way. Met Eireann has issued a Status Yellow Rain Warning for Munster and Galway. It warns that spells of rain overnight and on Tuesday will be heavy at times leading to spot flooding. The warning comes into effect at 3am on Tuesday and remains in place until 3pm on Tuesday afternoon. The weather forecast for Ireland for the coming days from Met Eireann is as follows with Met Eireann stating that low pressure will keep the weather unsettled through the week. It will be windy at times with frequent showers and rain. Early tonight will be dry with clear spells and light winds. Becoming cloudy with rain spreading from the southwest extending northeastwards to all areas by morning and turning heavy at times. Southerly winds will increase fresh to strong and gusty with the rain. Lowest temperatures of 1 to 4 degrees, but turning much milder by dawn. According to the latest Met Eireann weather forecast, Tuesday will be dull, wet and windy with widespread rain and fresh to strong southwesterly winds. Possible spot flooding. The rain will clear into the Irish Sea during the evening, with clear spells and showers following from the west. Mild with highest temperatures of 10 to 13 degrees. Breezy with clear spells on Tuesday night wuth scattered showers, most frequent over the western half of the country with the chance of isolated hail. Lowest temperatures of 3 to 6 degrees in fresh southwesterly winds, strong on Atlantic coasts. Wednesday will be a windy and showery day. Showers will become more frequent in the afternoon, some turning heavy and prolonged, with the potential for hail. Strong and gusty westerly winds with gales on western coasts. Highest temperatures of 5 to 9 degrees. Cloud will thicken on Wednesday night with rain spreading from the west. Some dry spells will occur over Ulster. Winds will ease moderate to fresh southwesterly. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 6 degrees but temperatures will rise quickly as the cloud thickens. According to the latest Met Eireann weather forecast for Ireland, rain will clear to the east on Thursday morning. Any dry spells will be short-lived as further showery rain will follow from the west in the afternoon. Highest temperatures of 9 to 12 degrees in moderate to fresh westerly winds. A mix of clear spells and scattered showers on Thursday night, some possibly heavy in western areas with the potential for hail and isolated thunderstorms. Lowest temperatures of 2 to 6 degrees in moderate to fresh southwesterly winds. According to Met Eireann, the weather will turn blustery once again on Friday with scattered showers and fresh to strong westerly winds. Highest temperatures of 5 to 9 degrees. Turning slightly colder over the weekend with further showers or longer spells of rain. Its been a busy 2022 with our long term Ford Focus, in fact, its probably safe to say that its the hardest-working car on our fleet. Over the last few weeks, its visited a number of different places in the UK, including Liverpool, Southampton, Sunderland, Birmingham, London and mid-Wales. Now over the years with a number of long-termers that the video team has run, theres always something that jumps out as being obviously negative or overly positive. However, the Focus, its just one of those cars that goes about its business without any real issues or stand out characteristics. Now we all know that one of the best qualities of Fords popular family hatchback is its handling ability, but really its not something Ive taken much advantage of as most of the time the boot is either full of expensive filming equipment, or my pooch, and I dont think Marley nor the boss would appreciate me putting it to the test. The other main things that stand out are that if I had picked the car from scratch, Id have chosen the estate version for its greater practicality. On several occasions Ive had a full boot and had to either fold the back seats down or stash kit on there too, which hasnt been ideal, especially when Ive had pooch on board as well. On the whole though, the boot space is more than enough for the average Focus customer. The Focus has proven capable of whatever the task at hand is. (Ford) Then theres the manual gearbox. Now the last few long-termers weve run have been automatics, which, given the average amount of miles we do, has been a godsend, especially on motorways where you can comfortably cruise without having to drop gears when coming up to some slow traffic. Plus, I think Ive reached that point in my life where an auto is definitely more my style. Having said that though, the Focus has been more than up to the job of whatevers been thrown at it. Largely, the driving position is excellent and fully adjustable, and there are some neat touches like the heated seats and steering wheel which have really come into their own during a recent cold spell. I have had a slight issue with one of the tyre sensors though. It was showing a low pressure warning on the digital display, so I went and topped it up, along with the other tyres, which then also proceeded to show low pressure warnings. I checked them regularly and they seemed to be fine, but the error messages would still flag up. One by one theyre disappearing, but its still showing an issue with the front, near-side, so Ill have to get that checked out. There are quite a few other things that are really useful with the Focus too. I live on a relatively busy road, and quite often cars will park on the pavement next to my driveway which makes reversing out something of a gamble sometimes, especially when there are a couple of vans parked there. Thanks Mr.Transits. Normally I reverse onto my driveway to make pulling out a bit easier, but on the occasions where I have to reverse out, the cross traffic warning really makes life a bit easier. Also, the reversing camera is pin sharp and works beautifully, making not only backing onto my drive through some rather tight gate posts a lot easier, but it also helps with reverse parking. A faulty tyre sensor has been causing some annoyance. (Ford) Other things that Ive noticed so far. Well, I know Im getting to that stage in my life when Im impressed by door protectors, but they are very clever. The Focus has a protective piece of plastic that appears when the door opens and disappears when its shut. Its a simple yet ingenious design that means youre less likely to cause any unwanted dings on your door edges. Obviously its not as great for the car parked next to you if thats what you open it into, but at least your door will be damage free. I have been a little bit frustrated with some of the driver safety aids, which seem to be a bit intrusive or paranoid. The forward collision system has screamed at me a few times when the car ahead is slowing to turn off, despite there being plenty of space and time for me to not warrant braking. Also the lane departure warning system is also a bit frustrating, but to be fair, Im not a huge fan of these in any car. Fortunately though, you dont have to sift into the cars infotainment screen to switch it off. Its something that can be done quickly and easily via a shortcut button. Whats next for the Focus? Well, more motorway miles are planned, with journeys up and down the country as well as some filming, with the Focus itself even starring in an upcoming video. Former Republic of Ireland international Anthony Stokes was arrested in Crumlin, Dublin on Friday morning following a dangerous driving incident and the discovery of drugs in the vehicle worth an estimated 4,500, according to the Irish Mirror. The 34-year-old, who had a passenger in the vehicle with him, was brought to Crumlin Garda Station and charged in connection with the dangerous driving incident. A garda spokesperson said: "Gardai arrested two men (aged in their 30s) in the early hours of Friday morning, 6th January 2023 in relation to incidents of dangerous driving in Dublin 12. "A quantity of drugs was also recovered from the offending vehicle. "Both men were detained in Crumlin Garda Station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984 and have been charged in relation to this. They have since been bailed and are due to appear before court at a later date. The ex-Celtic, Sunderland and Arsenal forward won nine caps for the Irish national team during his career. THE existing urban structure and the arrangement of the streets, spaces and buildings in the town of Clara may be ''restricting its success particularly economically.'' This was one of the preliminary findings made in relation to the 'Clara Town Centre First Plan.' Under the theme of Placemaking it was found that the spatial arrangement of the built landscape could be one of the reasons why local people are not ''utilising the town centre in greater numbers in terms of the retail, residential, commercial and other services it provides.'' Placemaking is described as ''the process of creating quality places that are attractive to people to live, work, visit, and socialise in. It includes the spatial arrangement of buildings, streets and spaces and takes into consideration the built and natural heritage, public realm, open space and areas for recreation.'' The Town Centre First Plan will look at what opportunities exist in the town to enhance the quality of place. Clonakilty in Cork, is presented as a case study. It has a population of 4,592. Clonakilty developed an Urban Design masterplan (Clonakilty 400) in conjunction with its residents. This sets out a long term vision for the town. It is described as ''a traditional market town, however like many rural towns in Ireland it was suffering from issues such as vacancy, dereliction, poor visual streetscape quality with a reduction in its service function along with flooding issues. '' Elements of Clonakiltys masterplan include: Community aware of the heritage value of its townscape. Preservation of traditional shop fronts and re-establishing social activities on the street. Town main square changing from a car focused and derelict town centre to a hub that can facilitate increased socio-economic activity, socialising and wellbeing. Reimagining Emmet Square based on new movement patterns. Removal of car spaces on Main Street to provide pocket parks. In the weeks and months going forward the Clara Project Team will be seeking how best Clara can make best use of what it has to offer. Four themes have emerged for its future development, these include Community, Heritage & Tourism, Natural Infrastructure and Placemaking. People are being invited to make submissions on the plan. The deadline is January 13 2023. The Government's Town Centre First Policy recognises that successful places: are characterised by an attractive public realm that is designed to invite people to meet, mingle and dwell. Provide a mix of housing types to cater for diverse communities in terms of age, income and mobility. Provide opportunities for the amenity, health and well-being of residents, workers and visitors. Provide a range of cultural, recreational and community spaces that bring together community members and attract visitors and tourists. Urban Agency Architects Ltd have been appointed to lead the preparation of the Clara Town Centre First Plan, a draft of which is expected in 2023. - 7 ... Rumble 24 Feb 2023 Several explosions reported in Karaj, a city that is said to produce Shahed drones. Anti-aircraft fire activated. Happened at.. In an interview with ITV, Prince Harry has hit back at claims he and Meghan accused the royal family of being racist in the Oprah interview, saying that was a claim made by the British press. 2008-2023 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. OK! Magazine 15 Jan 2023 While Prince Harry's memoir took aim at several family members, no one is mentioned more than his older brother, Prince William. Eurasia Review 30 Jan 2023 To Russia and Ukraine, the crisis is an existential issue. To the US and NATO, its a regime-change game. To Europe, it means the.. Eurasia Review 12 Jan 2023 By Hari Seshasayee Brazil has been the cynosure of all eyes for the first two Sundays of 2023. The inauguration of.. South Africa: Release of matric results on track The Department of Basic Education says it is on track to release the Matric 2022 results on 20 January. The Class of 2022 sat for their final school examinations from October 31 to December 7 last year. The department explained that results for the matric class of 2022 are currently being processed. When the results are released, we urge [learners] to collect their results at the centre where [they] sat for the 2022 National Senior Certificate examinations, the department said. For learners who will return to school this year, the academic year will kick off on Wednesday for learners attending school in Gauteng, Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West. In the coastal cluster Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape and Western Cape learners will have their first day of school on 18 January. Meanwhile, Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Minister Blade Nzimande, has condemned the murder of Mboneli Vesele who was a bodyguard of University of Fort Hare Vice Chancellor Professor Sakhele Buhlungu. This after an alleged attempted assassination of the vice chancellor on Friday. I outrightly condemn this barbaric murder of Mr Vesele and the attempt on the life of Professor Buhlungu. This attack is not only an attack on the University of Fort Hare but also an attack on the entire Post School Education and Training sector. I also encourage all the Vice Chancellors (VC) and TVET College Principals to engage with my Department on all security related issues to enable us to engage with the Cabinet Security Cluster, particularly on security concerns that have an impact on the institutions ability to perform their duties, Nzimande said. The department is providing psycho-social support to Veseles family and university staff. SAnews.gov.za This story has been published on: 2023-01-09. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. Chinese New Year cultural events held in Lao capital Xinhua) 16:42, January 09, 2023 VIENTIANE, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- A series of cultural events, organized by the China Cultural Center in Laos and the Culture and Tourism Department of China's northeastern Liaoning Province, have been held in the Lao capital to celebrate the upcoming Chinese New Year. The Ancient Chinese Landscape Painting Exhibition themed "Picturesque Rivers and Mountains" kicked off the 2023 "Happy Chinese New Year" Festival activities on Friday. At the opening ceremony, 40 landscape paintings (replicas) of China's Ming and Qing Dynasties featuring the unique artistic charm of ancient Chinese painting were on display at the China Cultural Center in Laos. Monxay Laomuasong, secretary-general of Lao People's Revolutionary Youth Union's Central Committee, said this festival made him feel the profoundness of Chinese culture and the unique charm of Chinese landscapes. People can have a deep experience with Chinese culture through various activities in the festival, such as watching traditional Chinese lion dance, writing Chinese character "Fu" or "blessing" in English, and wearing the traditional Chinese clothing, Li Yiping, director of the China Cultural Center in Laos, told Xinhua on Sunday. "The activities are receiving a good response from the guests, and the festive atmosphere was in full bloom," Li said, adding that more festival events are organized and will last till the Chinese New Year Eve, which falls on Jan. 21 this year. (Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Liang Jun) Sir, It is said a river gives life to a city and a flood takes it away. From the beginning of time, water has been an integral part of life not just in human life but also for all living things. Climate change, in recent years, has brought with it a water crisis, and when there are water crises, there are life crises in all of life. Why? Because water is a life giver, and if it is a life giver, then its crisis or shortage will affect the life it gives. Some years ago I watched a programme on CNN, where it was stated that water was the leading cause of death than all wars combined. This had reference to the unclean water that people use. Water shortages trouble vegetation life, which in turn affects animal and human lives by the operation of ecological principles; for everything is connected to everything else in nature. A shortage of water from above leads to a shortage of water on land. Dried Rivers, streams and dams have dried up in recent years due to global warming. As vegetation suffers, the farmer is affected, so does the marketplace, all in the name of water shortages. Should water be no more on earth, life on the planet would cease. In the beginning, we learn from the biblical tradition that everything that is came from water. The earth that produces vegetation came from water. Recorded the author of Genesis: And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters He called seas: and God saw that it was good, Genesis1:6-10. Drink It is no wonder then that scientists tell us the earth is made up of about 70 per cent water. Even your body contains about 70 per cent water. I want to believe that each plant and creatures are made up of 70 per cent water. Apart from the water we drink, the food we eat already has water in it. Water is a vital part of our lives and it is one of the elements that found life, but it also takes away life considering the hurricanes, Tsunamis and Noahs flood. During the life span of the baby in its mothers womb, it lives in a uterus which contains water, which in medical terms is called the amniotic fluid. This water is vital for the babys life; and this suggests that a baby (human being) is born out of water. Without this water, doctors suggest that the baby may have serious complications at birth and may not live longer after birth. Medical science suggests that our bodies use water in all of their cells, organs, and tissues to help regulate its temperature and maintain other bodily functions. Lose And therefore, because our bodies lose water through breathing, sweating and digestion, its important to rehydrate by drinking fluids/water and eating foods that contain water. Water also helps in the transportation of nutrients and removal of waste from the body. Water is also essential for the proper functioning of the cells that make up the body. Even, in religious terms, when one is spiritually born again water is used to produce newness of life in a process called baptism. Listen to Jesuss tutorial here: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, John3:5. Water here is characterised as part of the gateway to the kingdom of God. Water is a life blood of human beings, an integral part to life and eternity, I think. LAS VEGAS (AP) The mottled bright green leaves of a pothos plant stood out against the flashy expanse of electric vehicles and smart products at the CES tech show in Las Vegas this year. This particular version of the familiar houseplant was bioengineered to remove 30 times the amount of indoor air pollutants of a typical house plant, according to Neoplants, the Paris-based company that created it. Customers are already joining a waitlist for seedlings still in the nursery. Neoplants founder and CEO Lionel Mora is a passionate former Google employee who sings a bit of a different tune than other founders at the electronics convention, with its technology-can-solve-anything vibe. He says before people turn to engineering solutions, they need to address consumption. But, "when it comes to innovation, we believe that biology is the way to go because its sustainable by design, he said. As countries grapple with how to limit global warming and protect natural resources and biodiversity, more companies are growing their own commitments to building sustainable supply chains and slowing emissions. For others, like Neoplants, addressing environmental issues is their whole reason for being. Companies and start-ups at CES touched on a broad range of those efforts. Austin-based Pivet showcased biodegradable phone cases. Electric watercraft company Candela unveiled a 28-foot electric speedboat. Ukrainian start-up Melt Water Club presented its water purification method that uses freezing. The Department of Energy even had a booth a first, said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who spoke with The Associated Press ahead of her keynote on Friday. Granholm said she is excited about a range of technologies at CES and beyond, from John Deere's newest electronic farm equipment,... Sky News 09 Jan 2023 The British former boss of McDonald's has been charged in the US with making false and misleading statements to investors over.. Thousands of junior doctors will start voting on Monday on whether to strike over pay in the latest outbreak of industrial unrest. As the Brazilian authorities prepare to charge hundreds of rioters arrested after they stormed Brazil's Congress and the Supreme.. Upworthy 13 Jan 2023 Afghans have called for Prince Harry to face prosecution for the deaths of the people he admitted killing during his time fighting in the country for the UK military. A court in the Czech capital has cleared ex-Prime Minister Andrej Babis of alleged fraud involving EU subsidies. The ruling boosts his chances as he runs in upcoming presidential elections. Rumble 20 Feb 2023 It was 2018. It was the festive season in the timeline of the British royal family. In May of the same year, the royal wedding of.. The Capitol riot is not a moment of shame for those sympathetic to its aims. Instead it and the uprising in Brazil this weekend are celebrated. Humanitarian activists are back in a Greek court on Tuesday to face accusations of helping migrants cross the Aegean. Rights groups and EU lawmakers have called on Greece to stop criminalizing their lifesaving work. MBABANE REPOSA has come out to make a hue and cry about the recent transfers of its members by the national commissioner of police. The Royal Eswatini Police Service Staff Association (REPOSA) has since written to the National Commissioner (NATCOM) of police, William Tsitsibala Dlamini, raising concerns over the timing of same. In the letter, they described the transfers as victimisation and a stratagem to scatter the few loyalists of the police association. REPOSA Secretary General (SG) Dumsile Khumalo alleged that she had been forced to withdraw the letter by the office of the NATCOM, which was written on December 19, 2022. Khumalo is, however, adamant that she would not withdraw the letter but would instead seek legal recourse. She said the NATCOMs office was expected to respond within seven days, something which had not happened. Khumalo disclosed that they would be engaging their lawyer, who was expected to file papers in court today. She said most of the affected members were those who did manual work. The SG said they were being transferred to areas including Nhlangano among others. She asserted that the saddest part was that some of the officers children were this year going to external classes, including Grade VII, Form III and V. I really do not understand what the NATCOM office takes us for. This, she said, was because the pre-requisite of the transfers was clear on that they should happen when there was a vacant post and that the position would benefit the said officer. In other instances, she said transfers were made when there was an officer in another station who had requested to be moved and stated their reasons for that, and then they swapped the positions after engaging. Victimisation In the letter addressed to the NATCOM, Khumalo described the transfers as a form of victimisation against their members for their active involvement in the association. She further stated that the transfers were an attempt to scatter their members to far away places in order to make it difficult for them to be always available for meetings and related activities. According to Khumalo, the office of the NATCOM had also been intimidating their members from freely participating in activities, hence a majority of them were participating anonymously in fear of vindictive strategies by the office. It is against that backdrop that we view the recent transfers as a stratagem to scatter the few loyalists of our association in order to castrate it, Khumalo said. She highlighted that they were writing the communique on the assumption that the office had the necessary powers to transfer police officers in the manner that it did, with all rights being reserved.However, Khumalo said it was their respectful view that the transfer of a police officer from one region to another inevitably affected his or her interests in one way or the other. Among other things, she highlighted that their members had families whom they lived with, especially school-going children. If your office issues a letter of transfer to the effect that the police officer is being transferred with immediate effect, this means that you never considered the fact that the officer concerned will have to relocate his children to other schools as well. Schools Khumalo pointed out that, at this time of the year, it would not be possible to get the best schools for the officers children, if at all it was still possible to secure a place in the less popular schools. She said it was even worse for those officers whose children would be going to external classes. Schools do not admit any pupil to those grades, she said. Furthermore, Khumalo said they were of the respectful view that, to roughshod impose a transfer on those officers without affording them a right to make representations, as to how such transfers affected their interests, was unconstitutional in so far as it violated the rules of natural justice as enshrined in Section 33 of the Constitution. We accordingly request your good office to hold in abeyance all transfers unilaterally and willy-nilly imposed on our members pending mutual engagements between the association and your trusted office. Khumalo said they were looking forward to receiving a response to the communique within seven days of receipt of same. She stated that should they not receive any response on the issue, they would assume that the NATCOMs office stood by its decision to unilaterally transfer their members, in which case they would be left with no option but to seek redress from the courts with an appropriate order for costs. Khumalo said following that the REPOSA National Executive Committee (NEC) denied knowledge of the communique, she was summoned by the NATCOM office. She mentioned that the NEC indeed did not know the letter as it was written after consultation with the crisis committee, which was formed as a result of the differences they had. Khumalo said the association was not the NEC but the members. Reached for comments, Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said she was not aware of the matter and could only respond after consultation with her bosses today. Vilakati said there was no one to consult with as it was a Sunday. Humanitarian activists are back in a Greek court on Tuesday, accused of helping migrants cross the Aegean Sea.. Rights groups and EU lawmakers have called on Greece to stop criminalizing their lifesaving work. The entire community of Montecito and surrounding canyons have been ordered to evacuate after California was hits by severe storms. DENVER (AP) Earths protective ozone layer is slowly but noticeably healing at a pace that would fully mend the hole over Antarctica in about 43 years, a new United Nations report says. A once-every-four-years scientific assessment found recovery in progress, more than 35 years after every nation in the world agreed to stop producing chemicals that chomp on the layer of ozone in Earths atmosphere that shields the planet from harmful radiation linked to skin cancer, cataracts and crop damage. In the upper stratosphere and in the ozone hole we see things getting better," said Paul Newman, co-chair of the scientific assessment. The progress is slow, according to the report presented Monday at the American Meteorological Society convention in Denver. The global average amount of ozone 18 miles (30 kilometers) high in the atmosphere wont be back to 1980 pre-thinning levels until about 2040, the report said. And it wont be back to normal in the Arctic until 2045. Antarctica, where its so thin theres an annual giant gaping hole in the layer, won't be fully fixed until 2066, the report said. Scientists and environmental advocates across the world have long hailed the efforts to heal the ozone hole springing out of a 1987 agreement called the Montreal Protocol that banned a class of chemicals often used in refrigerants and aerosols as one of the biggest ecological victories for humanity. Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action. Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done as a matter of urgency to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase, World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said in a statement. Signs of healing were... Downing Street is believed to be considering a one-off payment for nurses after rejecting the idea before Christmas. Sajid Javid, the former chancellor of the exchequer, is in talks about a role with an investment firm with close links to SoftBank, the giant Japanese conglomerate. By Hari Seshasayee Brazil has been the cynosure of all eyes for the first two Sundays of 2023. The inauguration of.. Eurasia Review 12 Jan 2023 President Biden condemned the pro-Bolsonaro attack on Brazil's Capitol, Presidential Palace and Supreme Court on Sunday as many Democrats called for Bolsonaro to be extradited. Term-limited Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas traveled to Iowa on Monday, on his last full day as governor. Hutchinson is mulling a 2024 White House run. Newsy 06 Jan 2023 Watch VideoPresident Joe Biden said Thursday the U.S. would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who.. Gloucester Citizen 08 Jan 2023 Prince Harry made the comments in an interview with ITV where he claimed it was the British press which accused his family of being.. NTONDOZI The Multi-Stakeholders Forum (MSF) launched the anti-elections campaign during the funeral of the Deputy Secretary General (DSG) of Swazis First Democratic Front (SFDF), Muzi Mmema. MSF Chairperson Thulani Maseko, who made his remarks during the morning session of Mmemas vigil, said the campaign, which sought to mobilise emaSwati to boycott the upcoming general elections, was officially launched through Mmemas funeral. The vigil turned into a political rally from midnight until dawn. Only political songs were sung and leaders of different political parties made remarks. Boycott In their remarks, almost all the political parties proffered their support to the call to boycott the elections, except for the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO). The political parties even sang a song underlining their non-participation in the elections titled, Akuyiwa, asiyi, ungayi. The political parties stated they would do everything in their power to boycott and disrupt the elections. They mentioned that any political party that would participate in the elections would be isolated. In his brief statement in the morning, Maseko appreciated the Mmema family for allowing them to conduct the late Muzis funeral the way they did as political formations since that gave them the opportunity to launch the anti-elections campaign. He said they would return to the Ntondozi community to educate the residents on the reasons for the call to boycott the elections. He highlighted that Mmema died having taken a stand against participating in the elections. Maseko said the incarcerated Members of Parliament (MPs), Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube of Hosea and Ngwempisi constituencies respectively, proved that the Parliament in Eswatini was not effective, hence electing people to go there would not be worthwhile. The decision not to participate in the elections and the establishment of the anti-elections campaign was taken by the organisation during one of its meetings in Mbombela, South Africa on December 16 to 18, 2022. The resolutions of that meeting are referred as the Bundu Declaration and the anti-election campaign was part of those declarations. Manchester City will host Arsenal or Oxford in the FA Cup fourth round after they beat Chelsea 4-0 in the third round. One Afghan who lost nine family members calls for him to be punished. Trade unions are meeting Government ministers for talks on pay, though the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has put the chance of strikes being called off at less than 50%. The Foreign Secretary summoned Irans most senior British-based diplomat after Tehran executed two more protesters over the weekend. The public has once again been asked to only call 999 in life threatening situations during the coming strike action. President Joe Biden made his first visit to the U.S.-Mexico border since taking office on Sunday. His administration is defending itself from criticism of its border policies, as record numbers of migrants crossing into the United States. (Jan. 9) BERLIN -- Climate activists pledged Sunday to defend a tiny village in western Germany from being bulldozed for the expansion of a nearby coal mine that has become a battlegroundbetween the government and environmental campaigners. Hundreds of people from across Germany gathered for protest #yazguluzeybek #greens #luetzerath #ukraine #lukascott #cologne #greenparty #northrhinewestphalia MBABANE The Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) says the countrys health system is not fit to respond to any strain that may be caused by the new sub-variant of Omicron. swadnu Secretary General (SG) Mayibongwe Masangane was giving an insight of health workers following that on Saturday, South Africa, through the Centre for Epidemiology at Stellenbosch University, announced the first case of the XBB.1.5 sub-variant of Omicron, a variant of COVID-19. Speaking on Channel 404 the Director for the Centre for Epidemiology at Stellenbosch University, Tulio De Oliveira, said the case was one of a 100 genome and there was concern that it might fuel another wave of infections. In case the number of prevalence goes up, which in case the number of hospitalisation which we feel it is extremely unlikely to happen, the public will be informed. At the moment we are alert but not concerned that it will cause major problem, he said. Crucial Acting Director of Health Services in Eswatini Dr Velephi Okello said in as much as the sub-variant had not been discovered in the country, it was crucial for people to take extra caution. She noted that more information about the XBB sub-variant was being discovered, therefore, it was too early to say it might not cause strain or increase hospitalisation. Okello stated that at the moment, research indicated that the XBB was highly transmissible but not deadly. She stated that this did not mean they should not be on high alert. Worth noting is that government, in August 2022, announced a de-escalation of COVID-19 response. These included the closing of Mavuso Isolation Centre in Manzini, reduction of human resource that was roped during the pandemic and release of daily COVID-19 cases. The acting director said the Ministry of Health would not be escalating any response at the moment but would work with what they had. Scaling up would be judged from the number of hospitalisation, she said. She explained that hospitals in the country had the capacity to admit COVID-19 patients but once they observed an increase in these facilities, they would have to look at revisiting the response. There is no need to panic, she said. Okello urged emaSwati to exercise caution at all times because COVID-19 was still spreading. These include wearing of masks, use of alcohol based sanitiser among other safety precautions. Emergency Meanwhile, the SWADNU SG felt that the health system was not ready to respond to any medical emergency. He noted that a number of health care workers, who were enlisted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, were released. He stated that the country still had limited numbers of health care workers. Masangane said already the system was strained in terms of human resource, therefore, a strain of COVID-19 infections was likely to cause havoc. The SG said the nurses, who were enlisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, were supposed to be hired permanently in order to increase human resource in the sector. Still on human resource, he stated that there were limited numbers of laboratory technicians as a result clinics could only conduct limited tests. Further, Masangane decried the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). He revealed that there was still a serious shortage of PPE in the countrys health facilities. Mankayane maternity ward was closed because there were no gloves, he said. Masangane said some health facilities did not have gloves. Furthermore, he said health care workers in the countrys health facilities, more especially those in theatres, constantly reused face masks because of the shortage. Due to the shortages, Masangane said people should not be misled but be told the truth about the situation in the countrys health facilities. We are not ready to respond to medical emergencies. People should be told the real situation on the ground, he said. The SG said honesty would make parties come together and deliberate on how to improve the situation. He said if it was not for donations, the situation would be bad. The UK is considering supplying Ukraine with British tanks for the first time to fight Russia's invading forces, Sky News understands. The Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners will meet in Turkey this week, news agencies from both countries reported on Monday, for talks likely to include the possibility of further exchanges of prisoners of war. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Orlando, Florida, with "abdominal pain," newspaper O Globo reported on Monday, a day after some of his hardcore supporters stormed the capital city of Brasilia. Brazil's far-right ex-president was laying low in Orlando, Fla., as a mob of his supporters stormed government buildings this weekend. Analysts say the move insulates him from possible legal jeopardy. After his illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin put Russias nuclear forces on high alert, thus threatening the world with an all-destroying nuclear war. The threat brought back memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world was balanced on the edge of a suicidal and genocidal nuclear war. We are once... MATSAPHA The gunman, who was shot dead on Saturday evening at New Village, Matsapha, died from two gunshots fired by security personnel from the air. The security personnel were in a helicopter, tracking the gunman, Lino Mlandvo Doch (26) of KaPhunga, and they opened fire upon locating him on the ground. Doch was said to be part of a trio fingered in the shooting of a warrior aged 57 at Mahlabatsini; a peri-urban settlement characterised by accommodation targeting low-income earners working in Manzini and Matsapha. Mahlabatsini is in close proximity to Phocweni Army Barracks and Masundvwini High School. Fana Fana Bhembe, who was shot on Saturday, was on his way to join the rest of Ingatja on their way to Esikhaleni Selusekwane to cut the sacred shrub, lusekwane, as part of the ongoing Incwala Ceremony. He is a member of Inyatsi Regiment. Targeted According to sources privy to the matter, the deceased was part of a trio who targeted Bhembe for wearing traditional regalia and partaking in the ongoing ceremony. The warrior, according to sources, was shot in the upper abdomen. It was gathered that after the suspects shot the warrior, they left the scene nonchalantly, assuming that there were no witnesses. However, the sources pointed out that some people had witnessed the incident, alerted law enforcement and described the suspects to them. The police responded promptly and arrived at the scene. As the police were attending to the shot warrior, the shooter, Doch, was said to have emerged purportedly to finish off the warrior. However, police officers are said to have identified Doch and there was a shootout. The sources said since Doch was outnumbered, he opted to flee. The law enforcers, according to the sources, notified their counterparts about what the gunman was wearing. Pursued A team of combined security personnel from the police and army pursued Doch from the air and on the ground. The sources told this publication that during the shootout between Doch and the police, his two accomplices fled the scene. According to eyewitnesses, as the helicopter hovered overhead monitoring Dochs movements, he fled Mahlabatsini using pathways around the maze of blocks of one-room flats. He ended up in a forest on a farm near New Village. For about 30 minutes, it was gathered that the helicopter hovered over the thicket as the security personnel tried to locate him. According to the eyewitnesses, three gunshots reverberated in the forest just about 200 metres from the Mhlaleni Nhlangano Public Road. This was said to have happened just before 6pm, following the about five-kilometre chase. The eyewitnesses stated that following the shooting of the suspect, the thicket between the clinic at New Village and the bus stop was littered with over 50 members of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF) and police officers. One of the witnesses said after they heard the three gunshots, they feared that stray bullets might hit their houses, since they were not too far from the scene. The witness further said subsequent to the shooting from the air, the helicopter landed on a stretch of the Mhlaleni Nhlangano Public Road, forcing motorists to drive on the side of the road. The onlooker said at that point, a contingent of armed personnel combed the forest until late into the night. He purported that the security personnel were searching for evidence and a vehicle from the Scenes of Crime Department arrived and officers were seen carrying a body tray. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the demise of the suspect and the shooting of the warrior. Vilakati said the swift intervention of the public in alerting law enforcement about the shooting played a big part. She further confirmed that the suspect died while being pursued by security personnel. Meanwhile, a member of the family of the deceased said they were yet to receive a formal report on the demise of their relative. The relative said they got wind of the incident on Saturday and reports of it had increased yesterday. The next-of-kin of the deceased said the challenge was that Doch was brought up by his mother and there were also relatives from his fathers side, whom they were not certain had been informed of the incindent. Dave & Buster's, the suburban Dallas-based restaurant and entertainment chain that specializes in food, sports watching and arcade games, is launching construction on its location coming to Colorado Springs fast-growing north side. Photo: (Photo : Getty Images/Jay Paul) A Virginia teacher was critically injured after being shot by her six-year-old student, but her current condition is showing signs of improvement, authorities declare. Abby Zwerner, a 30-year-old teacher at Richneck Elementary School, Newport News, suffered severe injuries after being shot with a handgun Friday by one of the students, only six years old. Mayor Phillip Jones informed BBC News that the teacher's recovery was going in a "positive direction," yet she remains in critical condition. Still investigating how the kid obtained the gun According to Mayor Jones, who just took office days before the incident, the authorities continually investigated the circumstances surrounding the shooting. "This is a dark day in our history, and I think this is a red flag for the country. We don't have all the answers about how a six-year-old was able to handle a firearm or how a six-year-old was able to access a firearm," the mayor expressed, though he also said that the "word altercation was a valid one and one that I would use." It remains unclear how the six-year-old child obtained the gun. Officials said that the school has metal detection facilities. However, with around 550 students, not every child can be inspected, and only random checking was done. Authorities have declared that the child was already in their custody. Yet, they continued to decline to answer what could have been the motivation behind the incident. Chief Steve Drew informed reporters that it did not seem accidental as the shooting happened after an "altercation" occurred in the first-grade classroom, consisting of kids ages six to seven. According to ABC Mundial, Steve Gonzalez, a parent of a student who was in the classroom during the shooting incident, told Fox News that Zwerner responded selflessly even after she had been shot, screaming and instructing the kids to "run away." Read Also: 11-Year-Old Who Lost Her Best Friend in Uvalde School Shooting Suffers Cardiac Arrest Cry for stricter gun laws Richneck Elementary School is closed today and Tuesday in response to the latest shooting to give authorities time to investigate and school staff and students to process the aftershock and the trauma. Briana Foster Newton, the school's principal, issued a statement expressing how her heart aches for the school community as Friday's tragic event impacts everyone profoundly. She continued saying that her thoughts and prayers are with their teacher Zwerner who was seriously injured, and with students and staff dealing with the "aftereffects of this tragedy," Fox News reported. Zwerner's alma mater, James Madison University, Virginia, also offered their prayers and best wishes for the teacher's health and recovery. In a press conference Friday, Dr. George Parker, superintendent of Newport News Public Schools, stated that there is an urgent need to keep guns away from the hands of young people and children, to which the public agreed, calling on the state and the federal government to execute stricter gun laws so that firearms do not reach the hands of children. Others have called the school district for strict placement of metal detectors and law enforcement personnel in schools. Others also suggested requiring students to start carrying clear backpacks. Related Article: Oxford School Shooting: Suspect Showed Red Flags and Disturbing Texts to Parents Before Incident Photo: (Photo : Scott Olson/Getty Images) The Westfield police department of New Jersey announced criminal charges against a middle school art teacher at Roosevelt Intermediate School. Frank Thompson, 57, is facing charges of crimes and offenses related with drugs, and endangering the welfare of children in connection to an incident on November 29, 2022, when the police department was notified that an art teacher overdosed in front of his class. Art teacher overdoses on Fentanyl NBC reported that a school resource officer noticed indicators of a narcotics overdose. It was alleged that Thompson had become unconscious while in his classroom on the second floor. Students found Thompson and noted that he was distressed; a school nurse was already treating him at the time. A responding officer from the police department arrived and verified that the victim was unconscious and unresponsive while lying on the ground. Naloxone hydrochloride, most commonly known as Narcan, its brand name, is a medication used to treat opioid overdoses. According to the authorities, the school resource officer noticed signs of a narcotic overdose and administered the drug. After receiving the Narcan treatment, the art teacher immediately showed signs of improvement, thus further proving the assumption that he had a drug overdose. Charges on overdosing The Westfield Police Department reported that Thompson was charged with Possession of a Controlled Dangerous Substance (fentanyl), 2C:35-10A(1), a crime of the third degree, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, 2C:36-2, a disorderly person offense, and Endangering the Welfare of Children, 2C:24-4A(2). A police search into a closet in the classroom revealed the presence of what is believed to be a quantity of a prohibited hazardous substance and various items of drug paraphernalia. Thompson has been given a complaint summons through his lawyer, and he is expected to report to Central Judicial Processing on February 1, 2023, at 8:30 a.m. However, whether the art teacher still holds his teaching profession in the Westfield Public School District has not been made clear. According to NBC, Superintendent Raymond Gonzalez stated, "While the Westfield Public School District cannot comment on personnel matters that are confidential, we will maintain a continued focus on student and staff safety and on preserving the integrity of the classroom learning environment." Read Also: Pandemic Places More Parenting Stress on Mothers Compared to Fathers: Study How serious is Fentanyl overdose As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 100 times more powerful than morphine and up to 50 times more powerful than heroin. The most common drugs found to be implicated in fatal overdoses are synthetic opioids like fentanyl and other types of opioids. Prescribed pharmaceutical fentanyl and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are the two types of fentanyl available on the market nowadays. Often, it is recommended by medical professionals to alleviate extreme pain for patients whose cancer has progressed to an advanced stage. On the other hand, most recent incidents of fentanyl-related overdoses are linked to fentanyl that was produced illegally. The drug can be hazardous to the human body, even when consumed in small doses. Related Article: Parents Use Respectful Parenting as Approach to Produce Highly Successful Kids A 7-year-old girl dies from a dog attack in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. According to the Baton Rouge Police Department, Sadie Davila was playing outside the home of one of her relatives when the dog belonging to the neighbor ran over and viciously attacked her. The brutal attack was estimated to have happened at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, January 6, along Kendalwood Rd. off of Hoo Shoo Too Road. The dog breed that killed the child is presumed to be a pit bull terrier mix. The child was rushed to the local hospital as soon as possible for the necessary medical assistance. However, the medical staff reported that she had suffered several bites to her face and sustained considerable damage to her skull, ultimately leading to her passing. According to the Facebook post of the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office, "EBRSO was contacted by EMS and the St. George Fire department this evening at 6:35 in reference to a dog attacking a small child in the 25000 block of Kendalwood Road." 7-year-old girl dies from a dog attack According to USA Today, authorities discovered that the dog lives around 150 yards from where the child was attacked. The relative of the 7-year-old tried to interfere and stop the attack by hitting the dog with a walking cane; unfortunately, it did not deter the dog. The Police said Erick Lopez, 20, owns the dog. The authorities noted that the residence did not have a fence or other barrier that may have contained the dog. Lopez claimed he was not at home when the brutal incident occurred, although he confessed that the dog was not restrained. Lopez also said he took the dog on walks around the adjacent property where the incident occurred. The authorities decided to take Lopez into custody and charge him with negligent homicide. He is currently being held in the Baton Rouge Parish Prison for the time being. Animal control officers successfully captured the pit bull terrier with blood marks on its face. Read Also: Kojic Acid: Easy Steps on How to Make Using Rice Girl's death mourned According to CNN, Davila's mother, Haley Anselmo, said nothing would be the same after her daughter's death. The parents of the child mourned their young girl's sudden loss due to the dog owner's negligence. Anselmo described her daughter as a light in their lives and a kindhearted child. She added, "She thought more about others' needs before her own." She had a big imagination and so much spunk. She wanted everyone to be happy. "She was my little me." Sheriff Sid Gautreaux stated, "This is an awful, heartbreaking tragedy." He added, "My heart goes out to this family, and they will remain in my prayers." The sheriff also assured the community that the dog involved in this incident is now in their custody and that their community is safe from another Pitbull attack. Related Article: Parents Use Respectful Parenting as Approach to Produce Highly Successful Kids It's being reported this morning that Apple Inc. exported more than $2.5 billion of iPhones from India from April to December, nearly twice the previous fiscal years total, underscoring how the US tech giant is accelerating a shift from China with geopolitical tensions on the rise. Foxconn Technology Group and Wistron Corp. have each shipped more than $1 billion of Apples marquee devices abroad in the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2023, people familiar with the matter said. Pegatron Corp., another major contract manufacturer for Apple, is on track to move about $500 million of the gadgets overseas by the end of January, the people said, asking not to be identified revealing private information. Apples rapidly growing export numbers illustrate how it is ramping up operations outside of China, where chaos at Foxconns main plant in Zhengzhou exposed vulnerabilities in the Cupertino-headquartered companys supply chain and forced it to trim output estimates. That compounded a broader problem with evaporating demand for electronics as consumers weigh the risks of a global recession. Apple, the worlds most valuable company, began assembling its latest iPhone models in India only last year, a significant break from its practice of reserving much of that for giant Chinese factories run by its main Taiwanese assemblers including Foxconn. While India makes up just a fraction of iPhone output, rising exports bode well for Prime Minister Narendra Modis plan to make the country an alternative to China as factory to the world. For more on this, read the full Bloomberg report. Earlier today, Patently Apple posted a separate report revealing that production of the iPhone 15 in India will start much earlier. In previous years, there was a 6-9 month gap before iPhone production of new iPhones would begin in India. This year, Foxconn India will begin assembling the iPhone 15 just weeks after production begins in China. The annual Trail Production Introduction Service (NPI) is the most important preparation work before Apple iPhones go into mass-production. In the first quarter of each year, Apple issues a trial production order for their next-gen iPhones. This allows the foundry to prepare the bill of materials (BOM), establish proper production and testing machines, and establish a quality monitoring process. After starting trial production, the foundry needs to collect data, correct abnormalities, evaluate the production process and items that need to be improved, and evaluate whether the trial-produced product is acceptable. After the trial-produced product needs to be improved, the follow-up can start Mass production, that is, NPI is the early stage of mass production. The Hon Hai (Foxconn) plant continues to be the only iPhone assembly to undergo the NPI process and this year the testing will be done at its Shenzhen Gualan factory in mainland China. New this year, production of the iPhone 15 in India will start much earlier. In previous years, there was a 6-9 month gap before iPhone production of new iPhones would begin in India. This year, Foxconn India will begin assembling the iPhone 15 just weeks after production begins in China. For more on this, read the full United Daily News report. I notice that today, the 8th of January, marks the beginning of the American Democratic party in 1828. While the mythic origins of the party are with Thomas Jefferson and James Madisons Democratic-Republican Party, the actual history is much later. The party was gathered largely through the work of Martin Van Buren focused on Andrew Jacksons election to the presidency; advancing the interests of slave states, supporting a strong executive, and most of all expansionism. The 8th of January, 1828, the 13th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson launched his presidential campaign. And ever since this has been considered the beginning of the party. As with the rest of the American project, slavery would be a cancer in the Democratic party through the Civil War and the residual would mark the party for much of the Nineteenth century and well into the Twentieth. At the dawn of the Twentieth century the party began to embrace progressive issues, and with the election of Franklin Roosevelt advocated a social liberal perspective that has continued largely since. With Lyndon Johnsons full support of civil rights, the Southern conservative wing departed wholesale for the Republican party. I think it fair to say while the sin of slavery and its aftermath continues a stain on the heart of the entire republic, embracing the civil rights movement the Democratic party gave America a full on rejection of that part of the countrys history. The most important public stance in this regard since the collapse of Reconstruction. And with consequences. The advance of civil rights throughout the Twentieth century, especially the expansion of the voting franchise to women and ethnic minorities, especially African Americans, continued to shape the evolving Democratic party, both in its size and with its policies. Today the Democratic party is something of a big tent, certainly much more widely diverse than the increasingly hard right ideology found in the American Republican party, is generally marked by a form of contemporary liberalism. There remains a part of the party devoted to short term business interests over the pressing needs of the ecological crisis. That said, and double underscored, much has been accomplished. Signature social policies advocated by the party and its leadership from the twentieth into the dawn of the twenty-first century include the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, and the Affordable Care Act. The Wikipedia article on modern liberalism in the United States briefly describes the contemporary Democratic partys perspective as a form of social liberalism found in American politics. It combines ideas of civil liberty and equality with support for social justice and a well-regulated mixed economy. Modern liberalism generally opposes the interests of corporations, opposes cuts to the social safety net, and supports a role for government in reducing inequality, increasing diversity through contemporary means, providing education, ensuring access to healthcare, regulating economic activity, and protecting the natural environment. Today the larger tent of the American Democratic party can be typified by the diverse perspectives of Senator Joe Manchin at one end and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the other. Personally Im a fair bit closer to AOC than to Senator Manchin. But I am also grateful for the political clout of a big tent, even with the headaches it brings. And frustrations. I am deeply concerned with the sputtering of the advances of personal and social justice and the backlash we see in the rise of what seems to be getting the name Trumpism. Unleashed from the moral constraints of conservatism, Trumpism is a reactionary and cruel philosophy having more in common with authoritarian and totalitarian regimes than the worlds democracies, and which has pretty much wholesale captured the Republican party. I find it an endless irony and maybe a caution that Donald Trump hung a portrait of Andrew Jackson in his oval office. I have so many worries for the republic and the world. Most of all I worry whether we can unite enough to meet the pressing ecological catastrophe. The tensions are strong in the party. As they have been since the beginning of the twentieth century. As Will Rogers said back in the first half of the Twentieth century I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. Whether this party can meet the rising dangers of our times is something of an open question. But, then, maybe thats always been true. The course of history does only seem obvious in retrospect. And. My fear is that the hope for a progressive future for our people, for this country, and maybe, maybe for the world lie in the hands of this fractured party. Often short sighted. Frequently corrupt in the broader senses of that world. So human. And. Hard to see how it is up to the task. I have friends who think theres hope in some further left party. I dont. They allow people feel superior, but it is at the cost of not being at the table. The Democratic Party is what we have. For good and for ill. These are the cards. Can we play them well? Can they be played well? Real questions. So. Im not sure Im up for three full cheers for the day. But, I certainly can give it two. Happy birthday, Democrats. The Saudi Data and Al Authority (SDAIA) has signed a MoU with Oivan Group, a leading Finland-based provider of digital transformation and cybersecurity services. The agreement, inked in the presence of SDAIA President Dr Abdullah bin Sharaf Al Ghamdi, is aimed at development, design and improvement of open-source secure software and applications. Plans are also afoot to establish a software house within SDAIA premises, reported SPA. The MoU was co-signed by Assistant Director for Tawakkalna at the National Information Center Engineer Saleh bin Salem Musaibah, and Vice President for Solutions at Oivan Group Timo Hirvonen, it added. The University of Ghana (UG), has suspended former Junior Common Room (JCR) Executives of the Commonwealth Hall for three academic years for holding series of meetings, contrary to the schools statutes. Names of the suspended students are Paul Anim Inkoom, JCR President, Bright Gati, JCR Vice President, Daniel Kofi Boakye, JCR Secretary and Daniel Odoi Nyarko, JCR Treasurer. Frank Asare, Legal Advisor was acquitted and discharged after he was not found guilty by the authorities. The rustication follows a complaint lodged against the affected former JCR executives of the Commonwealth hall who will be out of the university for the next three academic years. In a notice issued by the University of Ghana on January 8, 2023, it said the meetings organised on August 18 -19, 2022, sought to tarnish the offices of the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro Vice-Chancellor as well as the whole university. On 18th and 19th August 2022, some former Junior Common Room (JCR) Executives of the Commonwealth Hall organised or allowed the organisation of meetings of the Junior Common Room (JCR) of Commonwealth Hall. These meetings provided a platform for the delivery and publication of false, reckless and defamatory statements against Senior officers which brought the offices of the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro Vice-Chancellor as well as the university as a whole into disrepute. Also following a complaint lodged against the affected students, the Disciplinary Board for Junior Members conducted a hearing and established a case of misconduct contrary to the University of Ghana statutes 2011 [as amended] and the University of Ghana regulations for Junior Members 2017, against the former JCR executives of Commonwealth hall, the UGs notice said. UG advised students to acquaint themselves with the universitys rules to avoid such utterances. Below is the notice issued by the Unversity of Ghana: January 8th, 2023 Ref. No. : CL 16 GENERAL NOTICE SANCTIONS AGAINST FORMER JCR EXECUTIVES OF COMMONWEALTH HALL On 18th and 19th August 2022, some former Junior Common Room (JCR) Executives of Commonwealth Hall organised or allowed the organisation of meetings of the Junior Common Room (JCR) of Commonwealth Hall. These meetings provided a platform for the delivery and publication of false, reckless and defamatory statements against Senior Officers of the University, which brought the Offices of the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro Vice- Chancellor (Academic and Student Affairs) and the University as a whole into disrepute. Following a complaint lodged against the affected students, the Disciplinary Board for Junior Members conducted a hearing and established a case of misconduct contrary to the University of Ghana Statutes 2011 (as amended) and the University of Ghana Regulations for Junior Members, 2017, against the former JCR Executives of Commonwealth Hall. The Disciplinary Board also found that their conduct breached Statutes 42(1)(n) and (o) of the University of Ghana Statutes 2011 (as amended), and Regulations 7.11(c)(xiv) and (xv); and (f)(ii) and (iii)) of the University of Ghana Regulations for Junior Members, 2017. In this regard, and in accordance with Section 45(g) of the Statutes of the University of Ghana, 2011(as amended), sanctions and decisions have been handed down as follows: Students Mr. Paul Anim Inkoom President Suspension for 3 academic years* Mr. Bright Gati Vice President Suspension for 3 academic years Mr. Daniel Kofi Boakye Secretary Suspension for 3 academic years Mr. Daniel Odoi Nyarko Treasurer Suspension for 3 academic years Mr. Frank Asare Legal Advisor Found not guilty on all charges, and accordingly acquitted and discharged *Sanction to run concurrently with previous sanction for misconduct for blatantly disobeying the Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of Student Affairs Mr. Paul Anim Inkoom had earlier been suspended for two (2) academic years after being found guilty of misconduct, contrary to Regulations 7.1(e) and 7.1(g) of the University of Ghana Regulations for Junior Members, 2017. Students are advised and encouraged to acquaint themselves with the content of the Statutes and the Student Regulations, which are available on the Universitys website, as contravention of these Statutes and Regulations will lead to imposition of appropriate sanctions. Emelia Agyei-Mensah (Mrs.) Registrar 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 Chairman of the National Media Commission (NMC), Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, has called on the media to ensure that their reportage contributes to peace-building in Bawku and other conflict areas. "I wish to urge the media to exercise discretion and caution while reporting on conflicts, particularly that in Bawku, to ensure peace, instead of escalating the problem," he said. Visit Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh was interacting with a section of the media in Bolgatanga last Friday, in the company of the Executive Secretary of the NMC, George Sarpong. The two were on a two-day official visit to the Upper East Region. The meeting was also attended by members of the regional media advisory committee, including Eric Amoh, Rt Rev. Dennis Debukari Tong, the Anglican Diocesan Bishop of Tamale; Mr Alfred Ndago and Robert Ajene. As part of the visit, the NMC team met the management of FM stations operating in Bawku to interact with them and ask them to contribute to ensuring peace in the area. Hearsay reporting The NMC Chairman advised the media against publishing stories on the protracted Bawku conflict based on hearsay, as it would further exacerbate the crisis. "I wish to urge the media to always get their information on the Bawku conflict right in order not to worsen the situation on the ground. "You should not speak to one person in the unending Bawku conflict and then quickly rush to publish it, only for what you published to turn out later to be untrue," he said. He said it was important for the media to talk to the feuding factions and other groups considered to be neutrals who did not want the conflict to continue to file balanced stories. On the use of language, he appealed to the media to be circumspect and decorous in their choice of words, saying: "In a conflict situation, you should be extremely careful in order not to inadvertently use words that will make you choose sides." Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh further entreated the media in the region to work closely with the media advisory committee to sanitise the environment for their mutual benefit. He stressed further that none of the media outlets could challenge the decisions of the NMC and urged the media to work with the advisory committee to serve the interest of the people better. He explained that "there is no manliness in anyone of you by ignoring the sound advice of the advisory committee on certain infractions, adding: "It is not every truth that has to be told, and that even if it has to be told, the manner of the telling can be the difference, thereby ensuring peace in society." Liability Mr Sarpong said what was worrying was the fact that every child in Bawku who was denied education or dropped out of school due to the conflict would be a liability not to himself or herself but the country as a whole. "We should not think that the Bawku conflict does not concern us because it is far from us due to our location," he noted, arguing that "whatever is going on in Bawku today should be of great concern to all Ghanaians due to its ripple effects". Thorough investigation The Regional Media Advisory Committee Chairman, Robert Ajene, cautioned the media against publishing stories they had not thoroughly investigated since it was a recipe for chaos in the society. "I wish to appeal to you to ensure the highest level of circumspection in the discharge of your duties in order not to cause harm in the country, he said. He further urged the media to remain neutral and desist from taking sides in conflict situations, noting: "I wish to caution you not to allow conflict profiteers to use you as tools to destroy the peace in Bawku." Centralized communication In a remark, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association, William Nlanjerbor Jalulah, appealed to the NMC to engage the Police Administration to reconsider its newly introduced centralised communication. He said such a move would enable the media in the regions to have easy access to information on crime to avoid relying on hearsay. 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 Lawyer for Akonta Mining Company, Kwame Adom Appiah, has appreciated President Akufo-Addo for exonerating the mining firm after it was wrongly accused of engaging in illegal mining. Lawyer Adom Appiah stated that from his position as Counsel for Akonta Mining, he was aware that the operations of the mining firm never contravened the law. President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has exonerated Akonta Mining Company Limited from any wrongdoing, stressing that the Company is not involved in any illegal mining anywhere in Ghana. Let me respond briefly to the chairperson on the issue of illegal mining, President Akufo-Addo remarked after concerns about the menace came to the fore at the 28th National and 16th Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Catholic Diocesan Priests Association held in Koforidua. I want to assure him and all of you that Akonta Mining is not engaged in any illegal mining anywhere in Ghana as we speak. Further, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has through the agency of the Forestry Commission with the assistance of the military made the effort to cordon off all 294 sites of forest reserves in the country and rid them of illegal mining as we speak. President Akufo-Addo was responding to a concern expressed by the chairperson of the occasion, Ing. Ken Ashigbey, regarding Akonta Mining Company Limiteds supposed infraction of the laws to mine in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve in the Western North Region. Lawyer Adom Appiah noted that Akonta mining is a registered large scale mining firm and investigations conducted by the Minerals Commission and Forestry Commission has proven that there was nothing illegal about its operations. State institution responsible for the investigation were given all evidence and realized that people had falsely accused Akonta mining. Forestry commission and minerals commission were all involved and facts proved, Akonta wasnt engaged in any illegal activity, he said. Taking at swipe at some media houses who deliberately accused Akonta Mining and its owner Chairman Wontumi for operating his mine, lawyer Appiah stated that on the compound of the mining company, they had their own dam which doesnt run into any water body but we had some media houses in Ghana saying otherwise. 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 Bell Canada logo is seen Tuesday, June 21, 2016 in Montreal. Bell Canada says it is revamping its Bell Let's Talk campaign for mental health for 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson QatarEnergy has announced the final investment decision (FID) with Chevron Phillips Chemical Company (CPChem) to build the Ras Laffan Petrochemicals complex , a $6 billion integrated olefins and polyethylene facility at Ras Laffan Industrial City. The announcement was made in Doha in a special ceremony during which Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of QatarEnergy, and Bruce Chinn, the President and CEO of Chevron Phillips Chemical, signed the agreement for a joint venture company to implement the project, in which QatarEnergy will own a 70% equity share, and CPChem will own a 30% share. The signing ceremony was attended by Mark Lashier, the President and CEO of Phillips 66, and senior executives from QatarEnergy and CPChem. QatarEnergy also announced the award of the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for the ethylene plant to SCJV, a joint venture company between Samsung Engineering Company of South Korea and CTCI of Taiwan. The EPC contract for the polyethylene plant was awarded to Maire Tecnimont of Italy, while Emerson of the USA was awarded the main automation contract. Separately, Maire Tecnimont said it had started work on an EPC contract worth $1.3 billion awarded by a joint venture between QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical. The contract, announced in December, relates to the construction of a polyethylene (PE) plant as part of a new polymers complex being built in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The completion is expected by 2026. The Ras Laffan Petrochemicals complex, expected to begin production in 2026, consists of an ethane cracker with a capacity of 2.1 million tons of ethylene per annum, making it the largest in the Middle East and one of the largest in the world. It also includes two polyethylene trains with a combined output of 1.7 million tons per annum of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) polymer products, raising Qatars overall petrochemical production capacity to almost 14 million tons per annum. In remarks at the signing ceremony, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said: This marks QatarEnergys largest investment ever in Qatars petrochemicals sector and the first direct investment in 12 years. It will double our ethylene production capacity, and increase our local polymer production from 2.6 to more than 4 million tons per annum, and place the utmost emphasis on sustainable growth and the environment. There is no doubt that this cornerstone investment in Ras Laffan Industrial City marks an important milestone in QatarEnergys downstream expansion strategy. It will not only facilitate further expansion in the downstream and petrochemical sectors in Qatar, but will also reinforce our integrated position as a major global player in the upstream, LNG, and downstream sectors, he added. This will be further enhanced once the new world-scale petrochemical project in Orange, Texas, in the US comes online in partnership with Chevron Phillips Chemical, executed by our joint venture Golden Triangle Polymers Company. Al-Kaabi concluded his remarks by saying: We are delighted to enter into this exciting new venture with Chevron Phillips Chemical a leading and highly respected international petrochemicals company, and a long-term partner with whom we have achieved many successes together building and operating plants safely and efficiently for more than 20 years. Together, our large and diverse portfolio will not just help meet the worlds growing needs for advanced plastics and petrochemicals, but will also enable balanced growth and facilitate human development in a responsible and sustainable manner. This final investment decision comes less than two months after QatarEnergy and Chevron Phillips Chemical took the Final Investment Decision to execute the $8.5 billion Golden Triangle Polymers Plant on the US Gulf Coast in Texas. TradeArabia News Service Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print House Republicans plan to investigate irrelevant topics like Dr. Fauci and the 2016 election with their new majority. Axios reported: The subcommittees top target is what Republicans call the politicization of the FBI, including scrutiny of the investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The subcommittee also will look into Anthony Fauci and his approach to COVID misinformation and disinformation the Justice Departments interaction with local school boards on masking and other COVID policies and the Department of Homeland Securitys failed effort to create a Disinformation Governance Board. It is like if Fox News and Newsmax ran the House of Representatives, the list above is precisely what they would investigate. Read More Stories Like This By Subscribing To Our Newsletter: The same special select committee is also going to be trying to get the DOJs criminal evidence against Donald Trump, so they should be pretty busy doing nothing of consequence for the American people. The Republican House majority has no legislative agenda to pass into law. They have no interest in working with President Biden and Democrats on bipartisan legislation that would benefit the country. For the next two years, House Republicans will waste the next Congress with pointless investigations, obstruction of progress, and pandering to Donald Trump. By the time the 2024 election arrives, voters should be eager to rid the nation of House Republican amateur hour and put serious people back in charge. After the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran accused Frances government of insulting the Islamic Republics religious sanctities and violating international law. Charlie Hebdo cartoons are not only an insult against religious sanctities of the Iranian nation, but they were an affront to the position of women in the society, Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said during a weekly press briefing on January 9. We are sorry that this magazine is published in a country which claim[s] to be respecting the values and supporting the rights of others, but it fails to stand by the most obvious principles and bases that govern the international law. The claim is false. Frances independent press is proof of its adherence to international law, given that freedom of expression is a fundamental human right enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 reads: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Charlie Hebdo is an independent magazine that routinely depicts world leaders, policymakers, financial magnates, show business stars, and historic and religious figures of various faiths in satirical and often controversial cartoons, French government officials and public personalities included. According to Charlie Hebdos director, Riss Laurent Sourisseau, the magazine published cartoons of the ayatollah on January 4, in honor of its 12 colleagues, including eight cartoonists, assassinated in a January 7, 2015, attack on the publications office in Paris. It was one way of showing our support for the Iranian men and women risking their lives to defend their freedom against the theocracy oppressing them since 1979, Sourisseau wrote in an editorial. Asked about the Iranian Foreign Ministrys comments, U.S. Department of State spokesperson Ned Price said that freedom of expression is a value, it is a universal right that we protect, we uphold, we promote the world over, whether thats in France, whether thats in Iran, whether thats anywhere in between. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Iran should look at what is going on at home before criticizing her nation. "Let's remember that in France press freedom exists contrary to what's happening in Iran and that this (freedom) is overseen by a judge within the framework of an independent judiciary, which is something that Iran without doubt doesn't know well," she said, adding that there were no blasphemy laws in France, the Reuters news agency quoted Colonna as saying on January 5. Iran has been facing growing international criticism for repression against protesters taking part in mass rallies that erupted in September after the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, while in the custody of the morality police for allegedly failing to properly cover her hair with a hijab. The regime has forcibly cracked down on protesters demanding basic rights and freedoms. Hundreds have been killed, allegedly by the police, while thousands have detained and arrested. Some of those have been sentenced to death and executed. Around 40 Iranian journalists have been imprisoned for covering the protests. In December, Iran was expelled from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women for systematic oppression of women's rights. In 2020, Ayatollah Khamenei said that Charlie Hebdos cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad revealed the hatred and hostility of the Western world against Islam. Many Muslims consider such depictions of the prophet as blasphemous. In 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putins strongman in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, organized mass protests in his capital city of Grozny, threatening to punish Charlie Hebdo for its cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. The war in Ukraine has led to a boom in tourism to eastern European sea ports as cruise ships find alternative destinations rather than visiting Russian ports, a report said. This means as much as 100 million could have been lost from the Russian economy in 2022 with tourists spending their money in Estonia and Latvia instead according to an analysis by luxury cruise retailer Panache Cruises. Baltic Sea cruises with a stopover in Saint Petersburg have long been popular with British holidaymakers but operators are now choosing alternative itineraries for their cruise tours rather than taking tourists to Russia. Instead they have added overnight stopovers in many Baltic ports with Tallin in Estonia and Riga in Latvia being the big winners. Thousands of UK tourists have visited these cities for the first time in 2022 aboard cruise ships. Prior to the pandemic around 650,000 cruise ship tourists visited Tallinn each year with a similar number also stopping at Riga. Experts estimated that they were spending around 50m in each country. But over the past 12 months the experts from Panache Cruises believe those numbers have approximately doubled to 1.3 million with spending in each destination estimated at around 100 million from cruise ship tourists alone. If accurate, the analysis would mean around 100 million that would have been spent inside Russia has instead found its way into the coffers of neighbouring states. The experts believe the trend could be long lasting as cruise ship operators report overwhelmingly positive feedback from their customers on the new destinations. A spokesman for Panache Cruises said: The war in Ukraine has had a number of unexpected consequences for Russia and one of them being a loss of tourist revenue as far north as St. Petersburg. The Russian city has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the highlights of a Baltic Sea cruise but since the situation in Ukraine began to unfold, cruise companies have been seeking out alternative destinations to take holidaymakers. Estonia and Latvia have been the main beneficiaries with the number of cruises to both roughly doubling in number in 2022 compared to before the pandemic. Our analysis estimates that numbers of cruises and therefore the number of tourists visiting Estonia and Latvia instead of Russia have doubled so its safe to assume spending has approximately doubled also. Industry estimates from 2018 had cruise ship tourists spending around 50m in each location so if they have doubled this year it would mean that Russia has missed out on around 100m. The feedback we have had from customers on both Tallinn and Riga has been outstanding. They are both beautiful capital cities and largely unspoiled compared to more visited destinations. British visitors report that their money goes much further than expected when visiting these cities as costs are still relatively low compared to St. Petersburg so they represent great value for tourists. We see this trend continuing as long as the war in Ukraine goes on and even beyond that. It may take many years for St. Petersburg to recover in terms of lost tourist revenue. TradeArabia News Service Several new tenants have lined up to occupy more than 75 percent of a new office building soon to open on Charleston's upper peninsula. They include the project's developer, a restaurant reservation service, an engineering firm and a luxury real estate company. The three-story structure is coming online when many businesses have switched to hybrid models that allow employees to work remotely or in an office or both during the COVID-19 pandemic. Charleston's office vacancy rate is below 10 percent, a sign of a healthy market. The Lowcountry's cubicle space has weathered the pandemic better than major metropolitan areas because of smaller average tenant size and an influx of new residents, according to the commercial real estate Lee & Associates. Lowcountry-based multifamily developer Middle Street Partners, which owns the nearly 42,000-square-foot property at 741 Meeting St., will move into 7,174 square feet on the third floor in late February. The company currently has an office nearby on Williman Street and a satellite operation in West Ashley, with other employees scattered throughout the Charleston area. The building will allow the developer to consolidate its Lowcountry operations under one roof where more than two dozen Middle Street employees will be working, according to founder and managing partner Adam Monroe. "It shows we are committed to Charleston for the long term," he said. Middle Street also has regional directors in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas. Also on the top floor will be an outpost for online restaurant reservation service Resy, which is owned by credit card giant American Express. It will occupy nearly 4,400 square feet. Resy opened a Southern outpost four years ago on Meeting Street, its first office outside its New York City headquarters. A Resy executive said the company will bring 35 employees to the site in April and called Charleston "a big market for us." "Culturally, its at the forefront of whats exciting in food and hospitality, which means there are a lot of talented people with a passion for and knowledge of restaurants," said Conley Rollins, chief revenue and financial officer. "We realized the opportunity to tap into this energy in 2019 and opened a Resy Charleston office. We are excited ... to continue to invest in and be part of the Charleston restaurant community." About 4,845 square feet on the second floor will be occupied by EM Structural, an engineering firm based in Atlanta. The company currently has an office on Radcliffe Street. Sign up for our real estate newsletter! Get the best of the Post and Courier's Real Estate news, handpicked and delivered to your inbox each Saturday. Email Sign Up! The first floor, which includes a 28-space parking garage in about 10,000 square feet on the backside, has office and restaurant space facing the street. Luxury real estate firm Corcoran HM Properties will occupy 1,085 square feet on the north corner. The 1,741-square-foot cafe space with a 955-square-foot patio on the south corner is available. Talks are underway with prospects for the restaurant space and unoccupied second-floor office, according to Buddy Bebergal of Premier Properties, who with business partner Chip Warley, represented Middle Street Partners in the transactions. On a tour of the building recently, which was still undergoing interior buildout, Bebergal noted a high degree of interest in the new office building, which is in the rapidly developing northern peninsula area of new apartments, hotels, restaurants and other commercial enterprises. "It turned out well, didn't it?" Bebergal said, while standing on a third-floor patio and looking out at a construction crane over a new multistory multifamily building on Romney Street, a mixed-use project under development on Morrison Drive and a new apartment community nearing completion farther to the north. Middle Street Partners bought the nearly half-acre site in 2020 for $2.625 million, according to Charleston County land records. The entrance to the parking garage is off Riker Street behind the Charleston Habitat for Humanity store. Charlie Carmody and Ryan Carmody of the commercial real estate firm CBRE represented EM Structural and Resy while Dexter Rumsey with NAI Charleston represented Corcoran HM Properties. Middle Street Partners has been involved in several Charleston area apartment projects, including the soon-to-open 224-unit Atlantic Beach House in Mount Pleasant,. The developer is also behind the mid-rise 304-unit Atlantic on Romney structure at 45 Romney St. on the Charleston peninsula. Its other Lowcountry projects include the 202-unit Atlantic on the Avenue and the 280-unit Atlantic on the Boulevard, both on Rivers Avenue in North Charleston; and the 316-unit Atlantic at Grand Oaks off Bees Ferry Road in West Ashley. The two North Charleston complexes have been sold. Middle Street also plans to build the 320-unit Nowell Creek Village on Daniel Island, with plans for two other developments on Clements Ferry Road near Interstate 526. IRMO Residents of the small town straddling Richland and Lexington counties packed into pews inside Macedonia Baptist Church on Jan. 8 muttered and shouted in frustration as Mayor Barry Walker presented plans for a new Main Street. "Every time we Black folks get some property and we want to build wealth, it's snatched away," one Black resident said told the Irmo Town Council during a public hearing. The special-called weekend gathering was set after council faced public backlash in a December council meeting for the proposed downtown district in a growing suburban town that does not have one. The town selected the site on Moseley Avenue for the Main Street because of its proximity to the a community park that hosts the annual S.C. Okra Strut and is almost entirely undeveloped, unlike much of Irmo that is filled with chain stores and residential developments. But the Main Street would go near homes and land owned by Black residents. The town of 11,600 residents is roughly 40 percent non-White. The five-person Town Council has one Black member. Tensions ran high during the Jan. 8 council meeting called to discuss the project, as dozens of residents spoke out against it. "People make plans for your property and don't tell you about it," said Irmo resident Marion Boyd, who is Black. "Citizens have lived here all their lives and all of a sudden someone comes in and says, 'This is what I want to do with your property,' and don't consult with you about it. Is that fair?" Nearly everyone who spoke at the meeting expressed anger that members of the community who could possibly lose their land are predominantly Black. I know very few retired people who didnt worry about their retirement beforehand. What will I do with my time? Will my money hold out? Will my spouse be totally underfoot? Will I still BE somebody? For most of us fortunate enough to retire, the complexity of that transition is a very big deal. All of lifes major transitions leaving home, marriage, kids, changing jobs or cities have one thing in common: they offer a chance for self-discovery, change and a fresh start. One set of circumstances is done and dusted; something new is coming up. It may not be apparent yet in fact, life transitions usually throw us into the deep end of the unknown. For any of us, that can be scary, high-anxiety. For some it means an exciting opportunity. And retirement is that complex kind of transition. For some it is uncomfortable and scary, for others promising and exciting. Or maybe all of those bundled together! Retirement is a complicated transition that calls for a life-reset. What a help it is, then, to find a person who has used the transition of retirement to reassess her life and successfully make a new start. Such a retiree is Jane Kelly, M.D., who lives in the Charleston area. Dr. Kelly was prepped for the challenging, double nature of retirement by a much earlier crisis in her life. In her words: When I was 31 years old, I broke my back and pelvis," Kelly wrote in an email. "Miraculously I was not paralyzed, but I had to live in a neck-to-pelvis body brace for six months that made it tough to do even the simplest things. I had just finished a medical residency at MUSC and was at the top of my game in clinical medicine. Now I couldnt wash my hair by myself. I am a verb. I am what I do. This injury threatened my self-concept. I found that when I could not do, I talked a lot about what I did in the past kayaking, hiking, SCUBA adventures to reclaim 'This is who I am' despite the body brace. I count myself lucky for the experience because my health was taken away, then I got it back and understood something about myself. I have had a curiously similar trajectory with retirement. What a connection! I said. When you had the accident and had to stop doing, all you could muster was to run back over what you used to do, who you used to be. So how did it go when you retired? Did the same thing happen? I am a physician, she said. Wanted to be one since elementary school. Im sure many others identify as strongly with their profession as I have, but I can only tell my story. To consider retiring from medicine was an unfathomable leap. So, I never did completely. After retiring from a challenging full-time position in 2014, I worked various part-time gigs. But that didnt cut it. I was not immersed. Sure, having more time outside of work was great, but something was missing. I once again found myself talking a lot about what I USED to do. Then COVID hit. I knew we needed all hands on deck and I went back to work. For all the frustrations, unknowns and setbacks, it was incredibly fulfilling to be back, thoroughly invested in a compelling effort. Then after two years of all-COVID all-the-time, I re-retired. You had skills that were in high demand because they were so badly needed, I said. What about most of us whose replacements are doing a pretty good job, maybe even better than us, and were not needed on deck any more? Well, this time I knew that my identity is wrapped up in the need to be fully engrossed in something, she said. But the drive to be all-in can be re-directed. Ive learned that what I like is setting goals and pouring energy into achieving them. For me right now that has meant planning some challenging wilderness hiking and kayaking trips. For someone else it might be finally learning to play the guitar, speak another language, read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Seriously, Zen has some good things to ponder about gumption traps!' I learned when I retired (a second time) that my self-definition is not just all about being a doc. Work did not need to be my only identity. I can seek purpose by bringing passion to any chosen venture. I had to bring determination and focus to becoming a physician. I found that I can wield these strengths to other endeavors. Jane, I said, what a transformative discovery! Youre talking about changing from a fixed, job-specific mindset to a fluid, interest-driven or passion-fueled mindset, one thats open to new expressions. It may have taken two retirements to teach you that, but you learned that youre happiest when youre totally engaged in a task, and it doesnt have to be the former task, the things you did before retirement. Its the act of pouring energy that counts. I am what I do, Jane Kelly said. I am a verb. Our lives, priorities, opportunities change with time. Why shouldnt our verbs? Visiting with friends, making new connections and strengthening old ones are worthwhile purposes. There are lots of verbs! They neednt be aerobic: reading, painting, doing puzzles, tying flies can all be absorbing, Zen-focusing, verbs. What are yours? Chantel Bass and her family have been haunted by a rare immune deficiency that claimed the lives of her two sons. It wasn't until she came to Medical University of South Carolina that she got a diagnosis and treatment. "I lost two sons from not knowing and people not knowing how to treat them," Bass said. Now she gets the same protocol to try to prolong her life and that of her daughter even as they help doctors better understand the disorder and further the research. Known as chronic granulomatous disease, it is a very rare genetic disorder passed down through families, most commonly from mother to son. About 20 people each year in the U.S. are born with it, according to CGD Connections, a website devoted to the disorder. Patients have a deficient form of immune cells known as phagocytes that leaves them ill-equipped to fight off common fungal or bacteria attacks, and they suffer frequent infections, particularly to the skin, lungs and other organs, according to GeneReviews, a resource guide for clinicians. The defective immune cells can also form lumps call granulomas that cause problems in the bladder, intestines and elsewhere in the body. Bass had suffered chronic infections and abscesses without knowing the cause, but it was nothing like what her sons suffered. It started with Dennis, who suffered constant fevers and was taken as an infant to a hospital in Florida. They thought he had meningitis but could never really give Bass a diagnosis. "They just kept testing and testing and they did not know what was wrong," she said. Her mother, who lives in South Carolina, suggested she take him to MUSC and it seemed the best option to Bass. "I didnt want to take any more chances with them trying to pick and probe on him, and I came here," Bass said. Dennis was diagnosed with the disorder within a month, but sadly he and his younger brother, Denarius, would only live to be 8 and 7, respectively. "They spent most of their lives in the hospital," Bass said, her voice breaking. Even though she first met them as a pediatric resident at MUSC, Dr. Kelli Williams became devoted to the family's care, Bass said. "She didnt give up trying to find out what was wrong with my sons and to find them treatment," she said. Williams went from MUSC to do a fellowship in allergy and immunology at the National Institutes of Health, specializing in rare disorders. That national center had a large cohort of patients with the disorder, so she was able to see many families with it and learn from them. Williams returned to MUSC in 2015, where she is now the director of the Jeffrey Modell Diagnostic and Research Center focusing on primary immunodeficiency diseases. And that was great news for Bass and her family. "Luckily, shes our doctor now," Bass said. The disorder does not appear the same in every patient and every family. Treating Bass' family "has been actually shedding light on a whole area of CGD research that is starting to expand," Williams said. For instance, it was once thought that the mothers could only be carriers for the genetic defect, but Bass and her 20-year-old daughter, Denezyia, are showing some of the same types of symptoms as her sons, only milder, Williams said. "She has essentially transformed from being a carrier into a patient," she said of Bass. Preventive treatment has greatly increased the lifespan for those with the disease in recent years, from patients who died in early childhood to now 90 percent survival at age 10, according to GeneReviews. Some have achieved a cure through a stem cell transplant. The preventive treatment is known as triple prophylaxis antibacterials, antifungals and interferon gamma to cut down on inflammation, Williams said. When the prevention treatment can be started earlier, "you have a reduction in serious infections and a reduction in hospitalizations and improve your longevity of life," she said. Since they started the protocol, mother and daughter have been able to avoid the surgeries they once needed to treat infections, Williams said. Denezyia is now talking about going to college to study art and fashion, Bass said. There is now testing in the family and they know it came from her mother's side, Bass said. But it had long been a secret. "If they passed away from something, they kept it quiet, so we didnt know if it was affecting us somehow," she said. And even after the boys were diagnosed, Bass and her daughter struggled to find someone who would take their symptoms seriously. That is, until they found Williams. "It was like, for once, someone didnt give up," Bass said. And it gave her daughter hope when Williams told her "she was not going to give up on getting her better," Bass said. Terrorist groups continue to pose a major threat for America and its allies -- even if U.S. policymakers have shifted most of their focus to Russia and China. Read moreWe can't ignore the terror threat from Somalia -- or the southern border Because of a power outage in Lake City, a community celebration did not go quite as planned on Saturday, Jan. 7 at the MUSC Health Black River Medical Center in Cades. The highlight of the midday event was supposed to be a tour of the new center, which will officially open on Jan. 17. But a big crowd showed up, and the show went on, complete with a helicopter and the Kingstree High School Mighty MERGE Band. Close Two months after a community meeting at which nearly a dozen North Central residents spoke out about pedestrian safety issues, Charleston city officials are requesting funds from the county to improve dangerous intersections in the neighborhood. To bring attention to the issue, local parents collected 141 signatures on a petition asking for safety improvements at problem intersections along King Street and Rutledge Avenue. The intersections are frequented by parents and students going to Sundrops Montessori, James Simons Elementary and the Charleston Charter School for Math and Science. The targeted intersections are: Rutledge Avenue and Moultrie Street Grove and King streets Rutledge Avenue and Simons Street King and Moultrie streets "The main thing is the safety of schoolchildren getting to and from school every day," said petition organizer Anthony Del Porto. Because roads in Charleston are owned by the S.C. Department of Transportation, the solution will likely have to come from the collaboration of a complicated web of government entities. Charleston Transportation Director Robert Somerville plans to submit a request for funding from Charleston County for curb extensions and flashing signs at each intersection. Curb extensions expand the sidewalk into the road at an intersection to make the road narrower, encouraging drivers to slow down and giving a pedestrians a shorter distance to cross. City Council's Traffic and Transportation Committee voted Jan. 4 to send a letter backing up Somerville's request. Somerville estimates that the improvements will cost around $350,000 per intersection. Somerville originally requested funding from the S.C. Department of Transportation. Charleston District Traffic Engineer Joshua Johnson, who attended the October community meeting, wrote back to Somerville on Jan. 3 saying the funding would need to come from Charleston County. He offered to send a letter of support for the request. As a result, Somerville switched gears and is preparing a request for money from a pot of funds generated by Charleston County's Transportation Sales Tax. He said he will put in an additional request for funds doled out by Charleston County's Transportation Committee. Municipalities in Charleston County have until February to submit requests for funding from the transportation sales tax and until June to request funding from the county Transportation Committee. Councilman Jason Sakran, who represents the area and organized the community meeting, said he is not surprised that finding ways to improve safety at the dangerous intersections has involved a mix of approaches. "It's a maze to get through the system," he said. To bolster support for the two funding requests, the city is soliciting letters of support from state Sen. Marlon Kimpson and Rep. Wendell Gilliard, who both represent the area and attended the October community meeting. Those letters would be sent in addition to the petition, the letter from Charleston's Traffic and Transportation Committee and DOT. "Its always helpful to get written support," Somerville said. If the city secures funding from the county, any project will begin with a study of the intersection's traffic volume. This will determine whether the curb extensions and flashing signs are the best option for each crossing or if other projects may suit one of the intersections better. The curb extensions and flashing signs were suggestions included in Charleston's 2018 citywide transportation master plan. One of the messiest losses to befall The Charleston Museum collection came with the Union occupation during the Civil War. At the time, many items were still at Randolph Hall on the College of Charleston campus. After February 1865, Union troops had the run of the city after the Confederates had abandoned and retreated. Looting and sacking was a part of the day. The destruction was lamented in a period writing attributed to Horatio Loomis Wait, who was a Navy assistant paymaster on Adm. John A. Dahlgren's flagship, the Philadelphia. According to Wait's account, which is still in the family of his descendants, he toured the museum collection one day on the campus only to find it abused the next. "In the museum of natural history there was a very fine collection of specimens, in one of the ante rooms the curator had been unpacking a large case imported from Europe, containing beautifully mounted skeletons of the smaller birds and animals of Europe," he wrote. "These were so admirably prepared and gracefully arranged that they were ornamental as well as useful. They were standing around on the tables and in the partially unpacked case just as they had been left by the people who had evidently abandoned the place in a hurry. Our surgeon coveted some of them so strongly that he was almost tempted to take a few of the tiny mounted bird skeletons but his professional instinct prevailed and he decided to let them alone." A few days later, the scene was a mess when Wait returned for a closer look. "To our great indignation we found that the soldiers had been through the place in the meantime and all of these beautiful specimens had been destroyed and trodden under foot," he lamented. The good news in all this is that so many other parts of the collection survived. That's because enterprising Charleston Museum curator at the time, Francis Simmons Holmes, had taken much of it to his plantation property in Edgefield. Holmes, who was a renowned fossil hunter, also saved a collection of native South Carolina seed, which ironically was discovered by Yankee troops there as well, though after opening crates deemed the items too dull to take and left them be. "We can credit Holmes for saving a lot," said current Charleston Museum Director Carl Borick. Among the items still around from past times is a Pacific islander kingly grass-woven helmet a seemingly odd item to be kept in an Atlantic Coast museum, but the crested crown may have been picked up during a Sandwich Island voyage of renowned British seaman Capt. James Cook in the 18th century. Other items lost to catastrophe may have been an 18th century orrery, which is a mechanical model of the solar system that shows the positions and tracks of the planets that was made in Philadelphia. It could have perished in the fire of 1778, though officials aren't sure if it had even arrived in Charleston by then as records from the time are untraceable. Today, through the care of those in charge, the collection has some 2.4 million objects. If a regulatory agency suddenly gets a surge in complaints about a particular kind of violation, it seems natural that it would want to know why: Have businesses suddenly started violating the law more than they used to? Has someone launched a disinformation campaign about whats prohibited, Read moreEditorial: If SC Legislature doesn't want to protect car buyers, it should say so St. Croix Ballroom & Latin has all the right moves with the new Dazzled dance club All Points Bulletin Buenas yan hafa adai to all our readers. As we enter the month of April, I would like to highlight that several of our elected officials, loca Read moreJustice with a trauma-informed approach The police in the United Kingdom (UK) briefly detained the founder of DAAR Communications, Raymond Dokpesi, on arrival at London Heathrow airport on Sunday, his office has said. Mr Dokpesi was picked up shortly after arriving at Heathrow from a connecting flight via Frankfurt from Abuja. He was invited off the plane for questioning before other passengers disembarked. A statement from Mr Dokpesis office Monday morning said the media chief was only delayed at the airport for some hours before his passport was stamped and he was cleared by British immigration officials for entry into the country. It is not immediately clear why Mr Dokpesi was arrested but his office said he is hale and hearty. Mr Dokpesi is in the UK at the invitation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar. The media chief, owner of Nigerias first private radio station, Ray Power, is a top member of the PDP. Mr Abubakar is expected to give a presentation on issues around the 2023 presidential elections this week in London. In his Monday statement, the AIT founder extended his gratitude to well-wishers for their outpour of love and support following the news of the incident. While Mr Dokpesi was only briefly detained, another top PDP politician, Ike Ekweremadu, has been detained in the UK since he was arrested last year on charges of organ trafficking, PREMIUM TIMES reports. Mr Ekweremadu and his wife were arrested but while the politicians wife has been released on bail, he has been denied bail while his prosecution continues. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday rejected an offer of N13.1 billion from a bidder for a forfeited property in Lagos State. The property comprising 24 units of luxury flats located in Banana Island, an affluent part of Lagos State, was put on sale as a single unit in an ongoing auctioning exercise the EFCC is conducting on forfeited assets across the country. The original owners from whom the assets were recovered were not disclosed. But the commission had earlier obtained a court order for the forfeiture of a posh skyscraper linked to a former Minister of Petroleum Resources in the same part of Lagos. EFCC said in a statement by its spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, that there was no successful bid for the property in Lot 1 during the bidding exercise that took place in Abuja on Monday. The statement said an unnamed bidder who turned in the highest bid of N13.1 billion for the property was disqualified for failure to include the stipulated 10 per cent of the bid amount. Other bidders did not make the reserve price, the statement said. As a result of the development, the secretary to the commission, George Ekpungu, announced that fresh bids would be opened for the property in Lot 1. The bids will close by 12 pm on Friday, January 13, 2023, while the bid opening will be done the same day, the statement added. Also, there were no successful bids in Lots 2 and 3, according to the EFCCs statement. Fresh bids were invited until Wednesday, January 11, 2023 and the bids will be opened on Thursday, January 12, 2023. Competitive bidding Speaking earlier while declaring the exercise open, Mr Ekpungu explained that the commission adopted the format of competitive bidding to ensure accountability and that the government gets the right value for the assets. He said occupants of the property for sale had the Right of First Refusal even as he vowed that the commission would ensure that former owners of the forfeited properties did not attempt to repurchase the assets by proxy. If you have information about any bid by owners of the assets, please let the Commission know, and we will take appropriate action, including possible prosecution, he said. He commended the EFCC chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, for taking the bull by the horn in ensuring that those who had stolen the wealth of the country were denied the proceeds of crime and the assets disposed of for the benefit of all Nigerians. The Director Public Affairs of the commission, Osita Nwajah, read out the guidelines for the sale which among others, forbade members of staff of the commission and persons who had or are being prosecuted in respect of the assets from participating in the process. Requirements for bidding He said before any bid could be successful, it must be equal or be above the reserve price, while each bidder was expected to enclose a bank draft for 10 per cent of the bid amount. He said successful bidders had 15 working days from the bid opening to make full payment. Otherwise, the second highest bidder would be offered the asset. The assets are grouped into nine lots with Mondays sale restricted to Lots 1, 2 and 3. Sale of properties in the other lots will continue until the final lot is disposed on Friday, 13 December 2023. Proceeds of bids Proceeds from the sale of the assets, according to the EFCC, would be paid into the Confiscated and Forfeited Properties Account at the Central Bank of Nigeria in line with Section 69(a) of the Proceeds of Crime ( Recovery and Management) Act, 2023. The commission had on 24 December 2022, in paid advertorial published in five of the major newspapers in the country, announced the commencement of bids for over 100 forfeited properties across Nigeria. The bids were expected to close at 12 p.m. on Monday, 9 January, while the bid opening starts at 2 p.m. same day at the National Open University, Jabi, Abuja. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the EFCC started the auctioning with forfeited cars weeks ago. In December, the commission auctioned over 400 cars in Lagos. PREMIUM TIMES reported how one of the auctions was marred by poor organisation in Abuja. Late December, the commission announced its plan to auction landed assets including 61 units of luxury apartments, and plots of land across the country. The assets seized as proceeds of crime were said to have been permanently forfeited by court orders. EFCC said Mondays exercise was witnessed by among others, representatives of the Civil Society including David Ugolor, Executive Director, Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ). It said Mr Ugolor commended the EFCC for a transparent process but also urged the commission to ensure the guidelines were communicated to the public for the benefit of cynics who might be inclined to fault the process. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The former Governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, has spoken on the recent attack on his convoy in the state. PREMIUM TIMES reported how gunmen attacked the convoy of the former governor, killing four police officers attached to him. Mr Ohakim and two of his children narrowly escaped death in the incident which happened on 2 January in Oriagu, a community in Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of the state. The former governor in a statement on Saturday said what happened was an attempt to assassinate him. The story has been told and retold and though some versions were not altogether accurate, the important thing is that I survived what was a clear attempt to assassinate me, Mr Ohakim said in the statement. The former governor expressed gratitude to several Nigerians including political and religious leaders from across the country whom he said sent messages and made calls of empathy and solidarity to him over the incident. On behalf of my family, I wish to wholeheartedly express our profound appreciation of the outpours of love from several Nigerians over the unfortunate incident, he said. My heart bleeds Mr Ohakim said his heart still bleeds over the death of the four police officers during the attack, adding that it is impossible to express the pain and hurt inside of him. While we cannot thank God enough for this miracle, I must confess that we are yet to come to terms with the death of the four gallant security officers who lost their lives while trying to save mine. These were young men at the prime of their youth and career and for whom the future held quite a lot. The circumstances of their death are yet another very sad commentary on our collective existence as a people, but as a person and as a family, it is a personal loss, he said. The former governor said his family would do everything humanly possible to ensure that the families of the officers do not suffer hardship. He urged security agencies to unravel the mystery behind the attack and also ultimately find a lasting solution to what now seems like an intractable national problem. I am encouraged, however, by the fact that security agents in Imo State in particular have posted a few impressive performances in the recent past and I believe that together with the proven determination of the state governor in dealing with the matter of insecurity, it is only a matter of time for those behind that dastardly act to be fished, Mr Ohakim stated. He commended Nigerians for expressing their angst over the scourge of insecurity in the country. Worsening insecurity Like other states in Nigerias south-east, security has deteriorated in Imo State with frequent attacks by armed persons. The attacks often target security agencies, government officials and facilities. The Nigerian government has accused the outlawed Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) of being responsible for the deadly attacks in the region. But the group has repeatedly denied their involvement in the attacks. IPOB is leading the agitation for an independent state of Biafra which it wants carved out from the South-east and some parts of the South-south Nigeria. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Fifty thousand Burkinabe civilians have joined the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland (VDP) to fight the violent extremists currently occupying nearly half of the country. The recruitment campaign, launched in October 2022 by Burkina Fasos authorities after the 30 September coup, ended on 18 November. More than 90,000 applications were received, and those selected will undergo 14 days of military training. The military authorities intend to assign 35,000 VDPs in their residential communities and the remainder alongside the countrys Security and Defence Forces nationwide. The use of civilian auxiliaries to support the security forces in the fight against terrorism has been tested since 2020 under Roch Marc Christian Kabore, who was ousted as president in last years January coup. The civilians intervened mainly in the Kaya (North-Central), Ouahigouya (North) and Fada Ngourma (East) regions. Captain Ibrahim Traore, the new president of the transition, has made recovery of the territory lost to violent extremists his priority, as did Paul-Henri Damiba, who Mr Traore overthrew in September. While Mr Damiba considered dialogue with terrorists, Mr Traore seems to be focusing on military action based on the concept of popular defence. This approach is a reminder of the 1983 establishment of the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution under Thomas Sankara. Mr Traore has called for the mobilisation of all Burkinabe in addressing terrorism. He has increased engagement with national actors, including the various components of the armed forces, the VDP and representatives of political parties and civil society organisations. The president also noted the need for unity and effective collaboration between the security forces and the VDP. Mr Traore also invited citizens to participate in the war effort by making in-kind or cash contributions. In addition, a recruitment campaign of 3,000 soldiers and 1,400 gendarmes was launched in November 2022 to reinforce the Security and Defence Forces. The National Theatre Operations Command has also been reorganised. This structure, created in February 2022 to coordinate military operations and linked to the transitional president, is now under the authority of the commander of the armed forces. Measures to reorganise the armed forces have also been taken. The aim is to widen their national coverage and counter the expansion of terror groups who have laid siege to northern towns such as Djibo, hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid. The number of military regions has increased from three to six to cover the Sahel, Boucle du Mouhoun and eastern areas, which are the most insecure. Two air force regions, six gendarmerie regions and six Rapid Intervention Battalions have also been created. The decision to recruit civilians is receiving mixed responses. Some Burkinabe support it, while others oppose using civilians for a mission that the countrys soldiers could accomplish with better equipment and higher morale. In some parts of the country, such as the Sahel region in the north, locals interviewed by the Institute for Security Studies said VDP recruitment had not taken place among all the communities. This could increase the risk of tensions and ethnic violence. There are other concerns regarding the massive recruitment of VDPs. Are two weeks enough to train combatants? Does the country have enough arms and ammunition to equip the 50,000 recruits? What living and working conditions will they have? Regarding supervision, will the Brigade of Vigilance and Patriotic Defense be able to control the numerous VDP groups scattered throughout the countrys 351 communes? Could inadequate supervision and human rights training not encourage abuses by the civilian auxiliaries? Another concern relates to the future of the thousands of VDP recruits. They could serve as a pool for future recruitment of soldiers, but most are unlikely to be integrated into the army. The country might then be faced with a large number of uncontrolled armed civilians, which could worsen the security situation. Planning is needed for their future demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration. At this point, a precautionary approach would be to integrate the VDPs into the military and security forces. They should be supervised to ensure effective deployment and strict control of their behaviour during operations. A monitoring mechanism is needed to collect data on their actions, assess their effectiveness, and make the necessary real-time adjustments. Government efforts to prevent violence and respond to the populations socio-economic needs must resume, where possible. Authorities should also not lose sight of the potential gains of the dialogue started in April 2022 between community leaders and terrorist groups. The previous government endorsed this process to encourage combatants to leave violent extremist groups and reintegrate into their communities. Should the balance of power on the ground become favourable, discussions with community leaders could resume. Burkina Fasos new approach to violent extremism seems to stem from the failure of previous measures to tackle the security and humanitarian emergency. To be effective though, military strategies should not only seek to reclaim lost territory, but be part of a sustainable national stabilisation policy. Hassane Kone and Fahiraman Rodrigue Kone, Senior Researchers, Sahel Programme, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Regional Office for West Africa, the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin This article is published with the support of the Irish, Danish and Dutch governments and the Bosch Foundation. (This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish). Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print After a six-day Christmas and New Year break, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, last week resumed their presidential campaign activities with three rallies within the week in Kano, Edo and Ondo State, and with a town hall engagement with youths. Most importantly, the Presidential Campaign Council of the party announced a review of the campaign timetable, showing that President Muhammadu Buhari will be joining the campaign train. The decision of Mr Buhari to stay away from the campaign had generated concerns within the party, as many viewed it as a sign of cracks in the ruling party. The disquietness prompted the presidency to issue a press statement in December to dismiss speculations that president Buhari was not enthusiastic about Mr Tinubus presidency. PREMIUM TIMES had also reported that Messrs Buhari and Tinubu held a closed-door meeting at the villa amidst the report that President Buhari was intentionally staying away from the campaign despite his promise of leading it from the front. Opposition parties operatives have interpreted Mr Buharis body language to show all was not be well with the campaign. However, Festus Keyamo, one of the spokespersons of the APC PCC, during an interview on Arise TV, said Mr Buharis seeming detachment was because he is not seeking to instal a puppet as former President Olusegun Obasanjo did in 2007 when he campaigned across the country to ensure the Umar YarAdua won the 2007 election. President Buhari is not like Obasanjo, who wanted to instal a puppet. You saw what he (Obasanjo) did in 2007, that was not salutary, to all patriots that was when the do-or-die mantra came up. If you remember sir, it was then that he said this election is do-or-die for him. A leader should not behave like that. President Buhari is shoulders above Obasanjo in this respect. He was there at our flag-off in Jos, Mr Keyamo said. According to the new timetable, Mr Buhari will attend rallies in 10 states, namely; Adamawa, Cross River, Ogun, Kwara, Yobe, Nasarawa, Katsina, Imo and Lagos. The choice of Adamawa as the first campaign stop is striking, considering that the PDP candidate, Atiku Abubakar, is from that state. However, President Buhari is equally popular in Adamawa, if the result of the last presidential election is used as a yardstick. APC in Adamawa State appears to have put its house in order and is ready to rally around its governorship candidate, Aisha Binani. The internal wrangling in the post-primary election between Ms Binani and a close associate of Mr Tinubu, Nuhu Ribadu, was on for a while. Ms Binani, perhaps to force the hands of Messrs Tinubu and Ribadu, withdrew from the Presidential Campaign Council while the political tussle was ongoing. Eventually, Mr Ribadu opted not to appeal the judgment of a lower court on the dispute, thus, confirming Ms Binani as the governorship candidate of the party. Now, it appears that the party is united in the state, save for a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and his aggrieved APC Northern Christian Leaders, who are opposed to the Muslim/Muslim ticket of the APC. Already, the scheduled visit of Mr Buhari is generating a reaction in the state because of venue. The Secretary to the Adamawa State Government, Bashir Ahmad, had written a letter to the Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari, that the Ribadu Square in the state capital is undergoing renovation, and therefore urged Mr Buhari and the APC to reschedule. More interestingly, Mr Buhari will attend the rally in his state, Katsina State, where he is being expected to help halt the surge in popularity of the PDP and the New Nigeria Peoples Party. The APC in the home state of the president has been in turmoil since the primary elections. Several lawmakers in the state, including the lawmakers representing Mr Buhari in the Senate and House of Representatives, Baba Kaita and Fatahu Muhammadu, have moved out of the party. Several other members of the House lost their bid to re-contest their seats. Also, in December, the PDP held its presidential rally, and the large attendance appears to be sending a signal to the ruling party that the state may be up for grabs. But the PDP in Katsina is not without its internal wrangling as former Governor Ibrahim Shema and 10 other members of the Katsina State PDP working committee shunned the rally due to a tussle over the governorship ticket. Mr Shema and others are opposed to the emergence of Yakubu Lado as the governorship candidate of the party in the state. Perhaps to avoid taking chances, the APC is deploying Mr Buhari to salvage the situation in the state. What remains unclear is how the president will be able to convince the state to vote for the ruling party despite the general insecurity in the state that has forced many residents to leave. Killings and kidnapping for ransom have disrupted economic activities in the state. While Mr Buhari could brag about the establidhment of University of Transportation, Federal Medical Centre, and Airforce Reference Hospital all in Daura, however, the citing of all these projects in Daura by his sdministration is generating disquiet in the state. Last month, a member of the House of Representatives, Ibrahim Babangida, raised an alarm on the distribution of projects in the state. In a motion he moved on the floor of the House, Mr Babangida asked that the FMC Daura should be moved to Funtua Senatorial District as he claimed marginalisation of the district in the distribution of projects. Non-transferable votes of Buhari No doubt, Mr Buhari has strong electoral strength in both the North-west and North-east but often it appears his votes are non-transferable. Since 2003 that he first contested, he has consistently gotten over 10 million votesexcept 2007 where he got over six million votes. However, in 2011, his Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) produced only one governor during the general election, despite Mr Buhari receiving over 12 million votes in the presidential election. During the last election, he won Kano, Sokoto, and Bauchi with big margins, however, two weeks after the presidential election, his party lost the gubernatorial elections in Bauchi and Sokoto, and survived in Kano after a controversial run-off. Furthermore, Mr Buhari has a history of not staking political capital unless his personal political quest is on the line. In 2019, during the tussle in Ogun State, between Adekunle Akinlade and Dapo Abiodun over the governorship ticket, President Buhari asked voters to vote APC at the presidential election and their choice at the governorship election, even though Mr Akinlade and allies had decamped to APM. On Saturday, February 16, you are to vote for Presidential candidate of the APC. But I want to urge you to choose whoever you like across the parties as governor of Ogun State. There is no problem about it. I have no problem about it. The rest people of Ogun State will decide, he said during a rally in Abeokuta. In essence, Mr Buhari told the party faithful to vote for him and do whatever they wanted during the governorship election. Similarly, in the tussle between Henry Nwosu and Hope Uzodinma in Imo State, Mr Buhari repeated the same statement. You can vote for whosoever you want, do not allow intra or inter party affairs stop you from voting for the candidate of your choice, he said. In a race that appears to be close, APC appears to be ready to deploy every arm in its arsenal, including a reluctant Chairman of the Campaign Council. Division of Labour between Tinubu and Shettima When Mr Tinubu was in Edo State, his running mate, Kashim Shettima, was in Rano and Gaya paying homage to traditional rulers in Kano State. Since the rally in Kano, he has been trasversing the north to gather support for his party. Last Friday, he was at the palace of the Emir of Gumel. Visiting of traditional leaders outside the state capital was experimented with in December when Mr Tinubu insisted on visiting Birnin Gwari in Kaduna State despite the security challenges in the area. He also visited the Gbaramatu Kingdom in Delta State. The ruling party seems to be deploying the former Borno State governor to visit these strong traditional rulers that are outside the state capital in the North. Even though Mr Shettima is of Kanuri ethnic stock, the wide use of the Hausa language in the North can be an advantage. Tinubu men dismissing Obasanjos endorsement they once sought Mr Tinubu and his campaign have repeatedly taken jabs at the endorsement of Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, by ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. During the rallies in Edo and Ondo, the former Lagos State Governor aimed missives at the former president. At the rally in Benin City, Mr Tinubu said: Can Obasanjo recommend a leader for anyone in Nigeria? A man who does not know the way cannot show the way. Earlier, Bayo Onanuga, one of the PCCs spokespersons, described the endorsement by the former president as worthless. The endorsement is actually worthless because the former president does not possess any political goodwill or leverage anywhere in Nigeria to make anyone win a councillorship election let alone win a presidential election. He is a political paperweight, Mr Onanuga said. Ironically, some close allies of Mr Tinubu once celebrated his perceived endorsement by Mr Obasanjo back in 2022. In August 2022, Mr Tinubu and some associates visited the ex-president in his country home in Ota, Ogun State. The duo met behind closed-door. After the meeting, some of Mr Tinubus loyalists interpreted the engagement as an endorsement. Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, told his constituents in Surulere Federal Constituency in Lagos State that Mr Obasanjo said things that reassured him of victory for the APC. My people, what I heard there, what Obasanjo said, the victory of Asiwaju is assured. Obasanjo spoke at length and we were all happy. He embraced our candidate like a brother, gave him a pat on the back, and prayed for him copiously, he said. Some days later, Mr Obasanjo debunked the alleged endorsement and has since shown his preference for the former Anambra State governor. Those claiming to be insiders at the meeting issuing statement on the discussion and those crediting to me statement I had not made are enemies of the visitor and are not doing the visit any good, he said. To clear all doubts, Mr Obasanjo, in his classic style of letter writing, endorsed Mr Obi, while taking swipes at other candidates and the current administration. He specifically mentioned the Emi Lokan slogan of Mr Tinubu. Let me say straight away that Emi Lokan (My turn) and I have paid my dues are one and the same thing and are wrong attitude and mentality for the leadership of Nigeria now. Mr Obasanjo has since been able to achieve one thing he united the APC and the PDP as both camps were unanimous in downplaying Mr Obasanjos influence; unlike in 2015 and 2019 elections, when they disagreed on the veracity of the ex-Generals endorsement. In 2015, APC celebrated Mr Obasanjos endorsement, while PDP hailed it in 2019. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The police in Lagos said four miscreants have been arrested following the unrest in the Ojota area of the state. The commands spokesperson, Benjamin Hundeyin, made this known in a series of tweets on Monday. PREMIUM TIMES had reported that the self-determination group had gathered to hold their scheduled Super Mega rally at Ojota. In the early hours of today, miscreants masquerading as Yoruba Nation agitators came out in their hundreds, disrupting social and commercial activities in the Ojota area of the state, he wrote. A team of police officers, comprising Alausa Division and the Raid Respond Squad (RRS) promptly stepped in to disperse the unlawful gathering and prevent a breakdown of law and order. The miscreants attacked the police, shooting, and destroyed two vehicles in the process. Mr Hundeyin said two of their officers were shot by miscreants and have been taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, normalcy has been restored to the area. Lagosians are urged to go about their lawful businesses as measures have been put in place to prevent further breakdown of law and order; and keen monitoring of the situation continues, Mr Hundeyin wrote. It is imperative to state unequivocally that the Lagos State Police Command will not allow any person or group of persons, under whatever guise, disrupt the peace currently enjoyed in the state. RRS officers and patrol vehicles were shot at by several pump-action-rifle-wielding miscreants. Background Disputing the police claim that one person was shot dead, the chairman of the Yoruba Self Determination Movement (YSDM), Banji Akintoye, claimed that they shot two of their members dead at the peaceful rally. However, the police confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that a yet-identified-man lost his life at the rally. On 3 July 2021, a sales girl, Jumoke Oyeleke, was shot dead by the police when they tried to disperse agitators during a rally held by the Yoruba Nation members. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has intercepted 11.5kg of skunk concealed in a giant wooden statue in Lagos. Skunk is made from cannabis plants. The agencys spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Sunday said the narcotics was discovered at a courier company in the state. He said that the skunk came into the country from Ghana with London as its destination. At the Lagos airport, a freight agent, Ogunsina Damilare, was arrested on Friday 6th January following a bid to export 1.5 kilogrammes of skunk hidden in foodstuffs to Dubai, UAE through the SAHCO export shed of the MMIA, the statement reads. While a similar attempt to ship 11.5kgs of the same substance to the United Kingdom was frustrated when the consignment concealed in a giant wooden sculpture was intercepted by NDLEA operatives of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigations (DOGI) at a courier company in Lagos. Curiously, the latter emanated from Ghana with London as the destination. Mr Babafemi said various attempts by drug dealers to use various disingenuous modes of concealment to import consignments of illicit substances into Nigeria and export same to the United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirate through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja and Tincan seaport in Lagos have been thwarted by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA. He said at least 37.5 kilogrammes of such illicit consignments were intercepted recently and 11 suspects were arrested in Kaduna, Kano and Lagos. He said that the operation led to the seizure of almost four tons of skunk in the states. ALSO READ: NDLEA arrests four suspects with 298 bags of cannabis in Kaduna At the Tincan port in Lagos, a shipment of 24.5kilogrammes cannabis indica to Nigeria from Montreal, Canada was intercepted by operatives while an N8 million bribe offered NDLEA officers by the importer has been secured in an account for the prosecution of the case, Mr Babafemi said. While the importer, Cedrick Maduweke is still at large, one of his accomplices, Steve Isioma Adigwe has been arrested. The consignment was hidden in a used Toyota Sienna vehicle that arrived at the port along with three other cars in a container marked MSMU 5082733. He added that in Lagos, a total of 28,400 tablets of tramadol and over 230kg of cannabis were seized in raid operations in Festac town and Lagos Island areas of Lagos state. Some of the suspects arrested in the Lagos raids include: Rukayyat Eshinlokun; Pelumi Alejo and Banna Maina who specializes in distribution of illicit drugs disguised as a dispatch rider, he said. In Imo State, a suspect, Amechi Moses was arrested in a follow up operation on Friday 6th January following the interception of 29, 800 tablets of Tramadol 225mg in a commercial bus along Owerri Onitsha road going to Aba in Abia state. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Gov Mala Buni of Yobe has declared Monday and Tuesday as public holidays to welcome President Muhammadu Buhari to the state. This is contained in a statement by the state Head of Service, Garba Bilal, in Damaturu on Sunday. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Buhari will be visiting the state to inaugurate projects, including Cargo Airport, Ultra-Modern Market and Maternal and Child Health Care Complex. This is to enable civil servants and the general public to receive the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, who will be in the state on a one-day State Visit to commission projects, Mr Bilal wrote. He, however, said civil servants were to resume work on Wednesday. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The ancient town of Yola in Adamawa is full of activities as President Mammadu Buhari is expected to arrive in the state for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign rally. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Buhari is expected to arrive at the Yola International Airport by 10.30 a.m for the event on Monday. Adequate security measures had been put in place following the strategic deployment of security personnel within and outside the Mahmud Ribadu Square venue of the event. On arrival, the president is expected to pay homage to the paramount ruler of the state and Lamido Adamawa, Barkindo Mustapha, after which he would proceed to the venue of the meeting. NAN also reports that politicians, and well-wishers, especially the loyalists of the APC, have been mobilised in anticipation of the arrival of the august visitor. Samaila Tadawus, the state APC chairman, expressed optimism that the coming of the president would further increase the electoral chances of the party, saying Mr Buharis presence will definitely add value to the partys candidates. Mr Tadawus said the party was heading for victory in all future elections, especially in the state governorship election where a female candidate, Aishatu Binani, is contesting. (NAN) Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has denied media reports that its Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar was flown to London, over health challenges. Dino Melaye, the director of public affairs of the PDP Presidential Campaign Management Committee, said this in a statement in Abuja. Disregard the lies of unrepentant liars. Atiku is 100 per cent fit and in super form health-wise. The British Government invited the leading presidential candidate, Abubakar, just like they had invited Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi earlier, Mr Melaye said. Some media reports stated that Mr Abubakar was sick and flown from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to London, United Kingdom, for treatment. (NAN) OBE/BEKl/ABI Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Schools remained shut on Monday in Ikare Akoko, in Akoko North East Local Government Area of Ondo, as pupils in other parts of the state resumed from the Christmas and New Year holidays. The area is under an indefinite 24-hour curfew imposed by the state government following a bloody clash over a controversial cultural festival. Banks and other public institutions are also shut, as the town witnessed a total shutdown of activities on Monday. Although there were signs of petty trading around the town, the major markets and provision stores were closed. Residents who spoke to journalists admitted that the curfew was necessary, but urged the government to review the situation to relieve the residents. Sule Olaniyi, a resident, appealed to the state government to relax the curfew so that the education of children would not be affected. The government has, however, said the safety of residents, especially school children, was more important. Richard Olatunde, chief press secretary to the governor, said on Monday that the government would not reopen schools in the town while fear of violence remains. The curfew is indefinite and would remain for now until we are sure of the safety of lives and property in the town, Mr Olatunde said. The safety of the school children is paramount; we cannot allow them to go to school while some people are going around shooting, killing and maiming. The government will review the curfew once it becomes clear calm has fully returned. The curfew was imposed on Thursday after violence erupted between two communities within Ikare Akoko. Youths of the Okoja area of the town had organised a New Year carnival on Tuesday at the market square but were attacked by another group of youths who claimed the carnival was not approved by the Owa-Ale of Ikare. Houses were razed and other properties were destroyed during the fight. There were rumours of killings but the police had clarified that nobody was killed. The police had called on the Owa-Ale and the Olukare of Ikare to rein in their subjects to forestall further crisis. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Airtel Nigeria on Monday announced the acquisition of 5G spectrum and an additional spectrum for its 4G network for a total sum of $316.7 million. According to a statement by the local unit of Airtel Africa, the decision is part of its commitment to deepen higher-speed connectivity in Nigeria by way of 5G cellular technology. The company said that it purchased 100 MHz of spectrum in the 3500MHz band and 2x5MHz of 2600MHz from the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), for a gross consideration of $316.7m, payable in the local currency. A strategic strand of a broader plan to boost Airtel Nigerias mobile data network as well as the power of its fixed wireless home broadband, the spectrum purchase raises Airtel Nigerias current capacity ahead of the rollout of 5G technology. The company seeks to gain the timely traction needed to earn itself a good place in the fifth-generation technology segment of Africas largest telecom market where two early birds secured operational licenses in 2021. The acquisition of 5G spectrum will underpin our growth strategy by enabling the launch of higher speed connectivity to enhance customer service and accelerate digitalisation for consumers, enterprises and the public sector, the document said. On Monday, shares in Airtel Africa climbed 5.2 per cent to N1,630 per unit on Lagos Customs Street at 13:28 WAT after the news hit the market, pushing its market value above N6.1 trillion, the biggest by any publicly traded company in the country. READ ALSO: Airtel Nigeria gave up an early chance to run 5G technology in Nigeria when, in December 2021, big rival MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications snapped up the two available permits at the premier auction arranged by the NCC. While MTN teed off operations in August, Mafab sought a five-month extension due this month from the regulator for its own launch. Nigeria is the biggest market of both Airtel Africa and the MTN Group (the parent company of MTN Nigeria). Airtel Nigeria has assured the expansion drive will ease connectivity at a faster pace to enable improved customer service delivery and fast-track access to digitalisation for consumers, businesses and the public sector. The corporation is weighing up the (shallow) penetration of data customers in Nigeria, where Alliance for Affordable Internet say fewer than 44 per cent of the people have access to smartphones and sees the gap as a room to foster growth. Nigeria is a market with enormous potential for future growth in mobile services, said Segun Ogunsanya, CEO of Airtel Africa. Investment in new technologies and local infrastructure to enable this growth is a strategic priority for the group and will ensure we are able to provide reliable and affordable services to local communities across the country, he added. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Seventeen students bagged first-class bachelor degrees as 240 students will be graduating at Fountain University, Osogbo. Of the others, 88 are in the Second Class Upper division, 107 in Second Class Lower and 28 in the third class. The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Amidu Sanni, disclosed this on Monday at a press conference on the 12th convocation ceremony of the institution. Mr Sanni said the institution will also award Masters degrees to 19 individuals in various disciplines. For the 2021/2022 session, a total of 240 graduating students will be conferred with their first degree in various disciplines and 19 at the Postgraduate level, precisely a Masters Degree. The breakdown is as follows: 17 in First Class, 88 in Second Class Upper, 107 in Second Class Lower, and 28 in Third Class, he said. The vice-chancellor also said the institution will award four honorary degrees. READ ALSO: Four notable Nigerians are to be awarded honorary degrees. These are ALHAJI SULAIMON ALAO ENIAFELAMO, Community Leader and HEAD OF ALL BAALES OF ISALE OSUN, OSOGBO to be awarded a doctorate in Sociology (Honoris Causa); Air Marshall Isiaka Oladayo Amao, Honorary Doctorate in Public Administration; Vice Admiral Jubrila Ayinla, Honorary doctorate in sciences; Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, Governor of Borno State with a doctorate in Public Administration. The convocation lecture will be delivered on Friday by Abdul Hakeem Fagbohun, a professor and SAN, with the topic The Nigeria University System: between Public Hopes and Individual Expectations of the 21st Century. The convocation ceremony will follow on Saturday at the school premises. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday in Damaturu urged Nigerians to develop strong confidence in the country, its security institutions and never allow any terrorist groups to destabilise Nigeria again. Speaking at the palace of the Emir of Damaturu, Hashimi II El-Kanemi, the president said the government will continue to protect the right of every Nigerian child to education, particularly the children displaced from their homes by Boko Haram. With the four months I have left as president, Ill continue to be steadfast and I hope that I will retire in peace. We must develop strong confidence in our country. Let us make sure we do not compromise security at all in any form because security and economy are the most important things. We have gone through so much as a country and I appeal to you to be steadfast and make sure that we will not allow anybody to disorganize us again, he said. Expressing delight at the return of peace and normalcy in Yobe State and north-east Nigeria, the president thanked Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State and his Borno State counterpart, Babagana Zulum, for their persistence in reconstructing schools, health centres and institutions destroyed by the misguided terrorists. The president noted that there was a deliberate attempt to destroy Nigeria but God did not permit it, adding that God has helped Nigeria to bounce back. He also commended members of the Armed Forces and the Police for their sacrifices in protecting the country. The president recounted that having fought to defend Nigerias unity during the Civil War, those who were part of that experience would never allow anybody to fiddle with this country again. Governor Buni told the president that in the heat of the battle against insurgency, the Palace of the Emir of Damaturu was overrun by terrorists. However, today and worthy of note is that Yobe State is one of the States you liberated from the clutches of Boko Haram terrorists. Before, in this palace, even if you placed one billion dollars for someone to come and pick it, nobody dared to come near but your coming onboard has made that history and the people of Yobe are enjoying relative peace. The emir also thanked the president for improved security in the country, saying we have had bitter experiences in the past, but your administration has unified the country. READ ALSO: Adamawa agog as Buhari arrives Yola for APC campaign After the courtesy visit at the emirs palace, President Buhari proceeded to the commissioning ceremony of several projects executed by the state government and the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force. They include the State Command Headquarters, the Police Tertiary Hospital and access roads, and the Police Secondary School, conceptualized and completed under Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba. He also inaugurated the Damaturu ultra-modern market, the Maternal and Child Health Complex at the Yobe State Teaching Hospital, the 2600 Housing Estate in Potiskum and the Damaturu Mega School at new Bra-Bra, executed by Governor Buni. Earlier and immediately after his arrival from Yola, Adamawa State, the president had inaugurated Yobe International Cargo Airport, named after him. Femi Adesina Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print By Hu Bo In 2022, the US instigated some countries to keep hyping up the maritime threats from China, trying to use that as an excuse to maintain its hegemony on the sea. First, the US, Japan, India and Australia launched the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) at the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), commonly known as the Quad, held in Tokyo in May. The IPMDA claimed to crack down on illegal fishing, share maritime information, and enhance the ability to monitor the waters in the Pacific Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean. Tony Radakin, Britains Chief of the Defence Staff, went to great lengths to exaggerate the maritime threats from China in an address at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in mid-December, claiming that surely Chinas military forces will start to reach into the Atlantic, and the melting of the polar ice caps would halve the time it takes for shipping to travel between Europe and Asia, making it easier for Beijing to flex its military muscles in the Atlantic. Ironically, the US military is sending aircraft and ships to carry out maritime and air activities in waters around China thousands of times, nearly 2,000 ship-days every year along with high-intensity close-in reconnaissance, while Britain has also been enhancing its presence in those waters over recent years. Yet they have consistently asserted those military activities were aimed to defend the freedom of navigation in the region. If they follow this logic, why are Britain and the US so concerned even before the Chinese forces have ever been to the Atlantic? Their concern exposes the underlying logic guiding their actions. The remarks by Radakin and others once again proved the hypocrisy, double standards and contradiction in their maritime narratives, which is that only their armed forces are for justice, freedom and peace. As a matter of fact, the theory that China is posing threats on the sea is just a reflection of their own mindset or intention. Ever since the Age of Exploration, those countries have used their maritime hegemony to exercise colonialism and power politics, so much so that they still tend to coerce other countries with gunboats in the modern day. Given their own history and experience, they, seeing that China is strengthening its navy, naturally imagine that China would repeat the path they have taken before. At the same time, hyping the maritime threats posed by China has become a magic trick for some Western countries naval forces to secure budget and enhance political presence at home. Many officials and scholars in the West said that they paid so much attention to China because it is a great power. Creating a sense of crisis by exaggerating how powerful and aggressive the Chinese navy is to justify their own military buildup this is now the usual trick played by Western politicians and generals. The Chinese military, on the other hand, always upholds a national defense policy that is defensive in nature, and the PLA Navy is tasked with offshore waters defense and open seas protection. With military modernization and the growing need to perform various missions, the Chinese armed forces have indeed sailed to the far sea more frequently in the past decade and more, but mainly for escorting, disaster relief and goodwill visits. Either authorized by the UN or other organizations or upon the invitation or agreement of relevant countries along the sea, those missions are truly peaceful and completely and essentially different from the overseas deployments and operations by countries represented by Britain and the US that are aimed to threaten other countries. Even if the Chinese military grows to be much stronger one day, China will not and sees no need to maintain massive troops around other countries and impose coercion on them, which is exactly what Britain and the US are doing in Chinas vicinity today. The time has changed. The aggressive DNA of Washington and London cannot be found in Chinas nature, and it has no aggressive strategy overseas as they do. If Britain, the US and other countries are truly preserving peace and freedom in global waters as they claim, they should not feel nervous about a growing Chinese military with a broader presence. (The author is director of the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative) Editor's note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit An office of the Presidential Campaign Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been vandalised in Ilesa, Osun State. The campaign office was initially known as the political office of the immediate past Commissioner of Works and Transport in the state, Remi Omowaye. Recently, Mr Omowaiye who is the spokesperson for the APC PCC in Osun State, converted the office to Tinubu/Shettima campaign office. Sources said hoodlums, armed with guns and other dangerous weapons, invaded the facility around 8 p.m. on Saturday, shooting sporadically. Campaign billboards of the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, and his running mate, Kashim Shettima, were destroyed. Flags of the APC mounted within the office were also damaged. The main door to the building and windows were also destroyed in the attack. Governor Ademola Adeleke and his predecessor, Gboyega Oyetola, had been at loggerheads over vandalisation of campaign posters and billboards and violent attacks in different parts of the state. The governor is accusing his predecessor of sponsoring the attacks and inciting the public against his administration. But Mr Oyetola refuted the allegations, saying it was the governor who was sponsoring the attacks against the APC. Another attack Similarly, another attack was recorded against Sunkanmi Obisesan, the Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Timothy Owoeye. Mr Obisesan was reportedly attacked on Sunday afternoon around Ifofin area of Ilesa. Sources said the politician was injured in the attack and taken to Wesley Hospital in Ilesa where he is currently receiving treatment. Yemisi Opalola, the police spokesperson in Osun State, confirmed the two incidents. Mr Opalola said the two attacks were reported to the police and investigation has begun. There were two cases they reported to the command. They have reported the attacks and investigation is ongoing. We are aware and we are investigating the attacks, she said. Omowaiye In the last week of December, Mr Omowaiye narrowly escaped an attempted assassination at a market in the Ilesa area. The assailants shot sporadically and attacked the former commissioner with stones and bottles when he visited a spare parts market in Isita area of Ilesa to distribute food items to traders in the market to celebrate the festive season. For the attack, Mr Omowaiye blamed members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Just two weeks ago, there was an assassination attempt on me. And just yesterday, His Excellency, Adegboyega Oyetola branched over in Ilesa on his way from the Presidential Campaign rally of our party in Akure to attend the sensitisation programme that I convened to educate our members on certain things as regards the forthcoming general elections, he said. And to our amazement, we got here this morning to see that this place has been riddled with bullets. This is happening twice in two weeks. It is so shocking that this is happening. We have reported severally to the security agencies, but nothing has been done. We thank God that no life was lost. We have reported again to the police this morning and this is just to show clearly that PDP is known for violence, he added. A lot of people are dying, a lot of people have been attacked. I was just lucky to have survived an assassination attack about two weeks ago, if anybody had been here, there would have been a lot of casualties, he claimed. So far, over 10 persons have been killed that are traceable to the activities of these people. And we are not surprise it is happening. As a government, PDP-led administration has a notorious killer, who had been declared wanted by the Police as a member of its Security Committee. The former commissioner therefore appealed to president Muhammadu Buhari and the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali to come to their aid in Ilesa land. We are appealing to President Muhammad Buhari through the Inspector-General of Police to avert this incessant attacks on our people, said. There is no doubt in the fact that PDP is taking us to the dark age where thuggery is the order of the day and we are also calling on the people of Ijesaland to remain calm and should know that the PDP and Governor Adeleke are known for thuggery. The PDP should allow us to do our opposition in peace. Mr Omowaiye noted that he had filed a petition to the Inspector General of Police and the State Security Services and other security agencies. I have written a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Director General, Department of State Services and other sister agencies. Even when there was an attack on my person, they were all here, he added. The former commissioner, however, urged the state governor to concentrate on governance. Adeleke should face governance and stop attacking us. When they were in the opposition for twelve years, nobody attacked them, they too should stop attacking our people. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The President of the Court of Appeal, Monica Dongban-Mensem, on Monday, cautioned registrars attached to the 2023 Election Petition Tribunals against corrupt acts. Ms Dongban-Mensem said registrars who were chosen from various jurisdictions of the Nigerian courts must not see the task as an opportunity to make money to enrich yourselves. She spoke on Monday at a workshop on capacity building for election petitions tribunals at the National Judicial Institute (NJI), Abuja. Declaring the two-day event open, Ms Dongban-Mensem, whose court serves as the secretariat for the election petitions tribunals and enlists judges and support staff for the exercise, added, The court will not hesitate to deal with anyone found wanting in this regard. The appellate court president noted that registrars found wanting in compromising the judicial process would be sacked by the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) and prosecuted. It is part of your obligation to discharge your duties with utmost good faith and not be carried away by little advances. Your integrity and that of the Tribunal and its members are in the public spotlight, you must therefore ensure you are not used as weapons to truncate the process. Ensure to live above boards so that you will not put the Judiciary into disrepute. The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola, had in November inaugurated over 300 judges that would be serving on different panels of the election petitions tribunals to adjudicate disputes expected to arise from the February 2023 elections. Mr Ariwoola, while swearing them in, warned them against corrupt practices. Essence of workshop With less than two months to Nigerias general elections, Ms Dongban-Mensem said the training was meant to highlight the challenges associated with election adjudication with a view to proffering solutions. The appeal court president explained that the need to tackle the problems in the electoral process brought about the Election Tribunal(s) which has been adequately provided for in the Constitution. They are established for the purposes of determining disputes arising from the conduct of elections into the various elective positions. read also: She noted that the training will serve as a forum for you to share experiences with one another wherein guidance will be provided and strategies devised for the strengthening of the Tribunals. Ms Dongban-Mensem highlighted some of the responsibilities of the tribunal registrars including receipt of Petitions and other Court Processes for filing, Service of Court Processes timeously on Parties, issuance of Hearing Notices, preparation of Court Proceedings and Orders, custody and safekeeping of the Tribunals documents, compilation of records among others. It is important for you to familiarise yourselves with the provisions of the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) the Electoral Act, 2022 and the Practice Direction as it affects your performance at the Registry. Ms Dongban-Mensem pointed out that election tribunals must be opened seven days before the elections, noting that the challenges faced by Election Tribunals in Nigeria are numerous. The general elections are scheduled for 25 February and 11 March. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday, personally flagged off the campaign of the presidential and governorship candidates of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State. During the campaign rally which was held at the Mahmud Ribadu Square in Yola, Mr Buhari called on residents of the state to vote for the APCs presidential candidate Bola Tinubu and the partys governorship candidate, Aishatu Binani. I am here to present to you the presidential candidates of our party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the governorship candidate in Adamawa Aishatu Binani,, he said, raising the hands of both candidates. Mr Buhari, who spoke both in English and Hausa, said: Please dont shame us, vote for Bola Tinubu he would work for the country, he would not disappoint you, and the people of Adamawa will set a record for voting for a female governor, we in the APC are backing her, he added. The APC is again going to be the number one having a female governor. Since we started the system, we are presenting one (female governorship candidate) and she is going to win, God willing, Mr Buhari said. The president said the APC will continue to prioritise security, education, and healthcare to better the life of Nigerians. He urged the residents of the state to work hard in the field to produce the food they eat, pay their taxes and ensure children go to school. Mr Buhari also asked the residents to vote for people who are very responsible, people who will keep them informed and act fairly and justly on resources meant for the masses. READ ALSO: On security, Mr Buhari told the residents to secure their respective localities against criminals. He said they should be vigilant. You must understand him, dont allow the problem people to come and dominate your localities, he said. The president was accompanied to the rally by several APC governors. He was welcomed by thousands of supporters who attended the rally. According to the APC campaign timetable, Mr Buhari will attend rallies in 10 states which include; Adamawa, Cross River, Ogun, Kwara, Yobe, Nasarawa, Katsina, Imo and Lagos. After the Adamawa rally, the president proceeded to Yobe State for the APC rally in the state. Adamawa State is governed by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the opposition presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, is from the state. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Security forces have rescued six victims in Nigeria after Saturdays terror attack on a train in Edo State, South-south Nigeria, a government official has said. At least 31 people have been reported missing after the attack, which the police said was carried out by herdsmen. The Commissioner for Communication and Orientation in Edo State, Chris Nehikhare, said on Monday afternoon in a press statement that a 65-year-old man, a nursing mother with her baby, a six-year-old girl and two siblings, aged two and five years old have been rescued so far by the countrys security forces. Mr Nehikhare did not, however, give details of the rescue where and how it happened. The commissioner said earlier that one victim escaped from the attackers, and that the police had arrested a suspect. The security forces have been combing bushes, searching for the terrorists. We are confident that the other victims will be rescued soon as the highly motivated security personnel are in high spirits and have doubled down on the hot chase of the kidnappers, Mr Nehikhare said in his latest statement. Operation Bush Combing continues, he added. READ ALSO: Gov Okowa condemns terror attack on train station The train station where the attack occurred has been shut down by the Nigerian government. The attack in Edo occurred about 10 months after terrorists attacked a moving train in Kaduna, North-west Nigeria. Some people were killed and dozens of other passengers were kidnapped in the Kaduna incident. Some passengers spent months with the kidnappers before they were released, either after their relatives paid ransom or after the government negotiated their release. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print I have the privilege of reading the interview granted by Mr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) on the 5th day of January, 2023 in respect of the relevance of the EFCC in Nigeria. Before I proceed in my response to the view expressed by Mr Agbakoba (SAN), it is pertinent to state that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is a Nigerian law enforcement agency established to investigate and prosecute economic and financial crimes, such as advance fee fraud, money laundering and misapplication and misappropriation of public funds, etc. The EFCC was established in 2003, partially in response to pressure from the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), which named Nigeria as one of 23 Countries non-co-operative in the international communitys effort to fight money laundering. With due respect, Mr. Agbakoba (SAN)s position is more of legal sophistry rather than legal substance. His position does not represent the correct position of the law as it runs contrary to the long-settled position of the law as handed down by the superior courts of law including the Apex Court in Nigeria. It is settled law that Nigeria operates a co-operative federalism as opposed to dualist federalism and under co-operative federalism as practiced in Nigeria, some agencies are common agencies for both the Federal and State Government. Indeed, the EFCC is a common agency for both the Federal and State Economic and Financial Crimes, and as such, it qualifies as any other authority to institute criminal proceedings under section 174(1)(b) and section 211(1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended). The Federal Government of Nigeria is not synonymous with the Federation of Nigeria, or the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Federal Republic of Nigeria (or the Federation) is the repository of the sovereignty of the people of Nigeria, whereas the Federal or State Governments, in contradistinction, are donees of the powers and authority of the people. In other words, the Federation of Nigeria or the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is distinct and separate from the Federal Government of Nigeria which often, is a product of periodic elections. See SHEMA V. F.R.N (2018) 9 NWLR (PT. 1624) 337 @ 398, paras. A-C. Again, these statutory provisions have been given judicial considerations by the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal, in line with my position and contrary to Mr. Agbakobas views or submissions on this issue. A few will suffice. In the celebrated case of AMADI vs. F.R.N. (2008) 18 NWLR (PT. 1119) 259 @ 274-277, the Supreme Court per Mukhtar (JSC) (as she then was) held succinctly, thus: In reply, the learned counsel for the respondent has argued that Nigeria is a Federation (as stipulated in section 2 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria), consisting of Federal and State Governments, and each tier of government has its powers defined in the Constitution. He referred to section 174 of the said Constitution, cases of Queen vs. Owoh and Others (1962) NSCC 416: (1962)2 SCNLR 409 and Anyebe vs. State (supra). According to him, it is based on the authorization required in these cases that the respondent having been granted power of delegation, Exhibit A, is empowered to prosecute the appellant for forgery and uttering under Criminal Code Law of Lagos State. No doubt that section 211 of the Constitution (supra) empowers a State Attorney-General to institute and undertake criminal proceedings in respect of an offence under any law of the House of Assembly. Subsection (2) of the said section stipulates thus:- (2) The powers conferred-upon the Attorney-General of a State under subsection (1) of the section may be exercised by him in person or through officers of his department. At this juncture, it is imperative that I reproduce a pertinent excerpt of the letter of authorization. It reads: I therefore have his further instructions to inform you that in the spirit of our collective resolve to reverse the countrys negative image, he does formally delegate his prosecutorial powers in relation to offences under the Criminal Code Law and Criminal Procedure Law of Lagos State to both the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Economic and Financial Crime Commission effective from the date of this letter. First, it is the argument of learned counsel for the appellant that the delegation of the above letter offended the spirit of the provision of section 211 of the Constitution (supra), which confers power of delegation only on officers of the states Attorney-General, and as such the purported delegation to the Federal Attorney-General and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission was invalid, null, and void. Learned counsel for the respondent has argued that the use of the word may in the said section 211 (supra) does not restrict the delegation of the Attorney-Generals powers to only officers of his department, and that this court has in the past held that an Attorney-Generals powers under section 174 and 211 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria cannot be questioned even by the court. He relied on the cases of Nafiu Rabiu V. State (1980) NSCC 291 (1981) 2 NCLR 293, State v. hon (1983) NSCC, 69; (1989) E SCNLR 94, and Ibrahim and Anor v. State (1986) 1 NSCC 231; (1986) 1 NWLR (Pt. 18) 650. I endorse the argument of the learned counsel for the respondent and hold that Exhibit A is valid. As for the argument that exhibit A specified the delegates and that it did not empower Mr. Hassan, learned counsel for the Respondent has replied that the charges against the appellant at the lower court were not defective because the prosecutor of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on behalf of the Federal Republic of Nigeria qualifies as authority under section 211 (1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution. Learned counsel cited the case of Comptroller Nigeria Prison Service vs. Adekanye (2002) 15 NWLR (Pt. 790) page 318, and F.R.N. vs. Osahon (2006) 5 NWLR (Pt. 973) page 361, and further submitted that Nigeria operates co-operative federalism as opposed to dualist federalism, and under cooperative federalism as practiced in Nigeria, some agencies are common agency for both the Federal and State Government. Indeed, the EFCC is a common agency for both the Federal and State Economic and Financial Crimes, and as such it qualifies as any other authority to institute criminal proceedings under section 211(1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution. That being the case Mr. Hassan being a staff of the EFCC who signed the charge was competent to do so. Any staff of EFCC can exercise the power delegated to the EFCC in exhibit W. That is why I am in fact in agreement with the learned Justice of the Court of Appeal when in his judgment he stated the following: The position in criminal trial is different. In view of the high premium attached to speedy disposal of criminal cases, the Attorneys-General of the States delegate their powers to the various State Commissioners of Police who institute and prosecute criminal matter in the name of such commissioners of Police. Such powers are also delegated to the Federal Board of Internal Revenue, Nigeria Customs Service and lately EFCC by the Attorney-General of the Federation. This arrangement is made possible subject to the provisions of section 174 (1)(b)(c) and 211(1 )(b)(c) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 which provide that the Attorney-General of the Federation or State, as the case may be, shall have power to take over and continue any such criminal proceedings Instituted by any other authority or person, and to discontinue at any stage before judgment is delivered any such criminal proceedings instituted or undertaken by him or any other authority or person. (Italics mine). That is the correct position of the law. The learned justice has put it down succinctly and he did not err in doing so. The above position was further reinvigorated in the celebrated case of SHEMA V. F.RN (2018) 9 NWLR (PT. 1624) 337 @ 398, PARAS. A-C, where the Supreme Court stated succinctly thus: In the co-operative federalism practiced in Nigeria, the EFCC is a common agency empowered to investigate and prosecute offenders for both the Federal and state economic and financial crimes, and as such it qualifies as any other authority or person empowered by section 211 (1) (b) of the Constitution to institute or initiate criminal proceedings. EFCC is the co-ordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions of any other law or regulation on economic and financial crimes, including the Criminal Code and Penal Code. The Commission has powers under section 13 (2) of the EFCC Act to prosecute offences so long as they are financial crimes In the case of AKINGBOLA vs. FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA (2012) 9 NWLR (PT. 1306) 511 @ 530 533, the Court of Appeal relying on the Supreme Court decisions, unequivocally held that: Learned counsel for the appellant has argued that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute offences of stealing and obtaining under false pretences as provided in the Criminal Code of Lagos State because the said offences are not economic or financial crimes as defined in the EFCC Act. I find myself unable to accept this argument because the alleged stealing and obtaining by false pretenses occurred in Intercontinental Bank Plc., a banking and financial institution where the appellant is the Chief Executive Officer. I agree with the submissions of learned senior counsel of the 1st Respondent that section 211(1) of 1999 Constitution as amended (which overrides sections 77, 256 and 373 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law of Lagos State 2007) that other persons could institute criminal proceedings. The Section provides as follows: 211(1) The Attorney General of a State shall have power: a). To institute and undertake criminal proceedings against any person before any court of law in Nigeria other than a court martial in respect of any offence created by or under any Law of the House of Assembly. b). To take over and continue any such criminal proceedings that may have been instituted by any other authority or person, and c). To discontinue at any stage before judgment is delivered any such criminal proceedings instituted or undertaken by him or any other authority or person. Anybody or authority is competent to initiate criminal proceedings against an offender, once he is granted the fiat to do as we are all our brothers keepers. See: Fawehinmi v. Akilu (1987) 4 NWLR (Pt. 67) 797. This includes an institution such as the EFCC set up to fight corruption in all its facets and economic crimes. In Comptroller of Prisons v. Adekanye (2002) 15 NWLR (Pt. 790) 318, Belgore J.S.C. (as he then was) in interpreting section 160 of the 1979 Constitution which is similar to section 211 of the 1999 Constitution stated at page 329: It is clear from the provisions of section 160 of 1979 Constitution that the Attorney Generals powers of public prosecution is not exclusive: the any other authority or person in subsection (1) can institute and undertake criminal proceedings. The Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation are also authorities that can institute Criminal proceedings under Failed Banks (Recovery of Debt) and Financial Malpractices in Banks Decree 1994. Similarly, in F.R.N. vs. Osahon (2006) 5 NWLR (Pt. 973) 361 at 405, paras D-F, Belgore, JSC held thus: Police authority can, by virtue of the aforementioned Provisions of section 174 (1) of the Constitution prosecute any criminal suit either through its legally qualified officers or through any counsel they may engage for the purpose (See the Comptroller General vs. Adekanye). Any other authority or persons can definitely institute criminal prosecution. The power of the Attorney General of the Federation or of the State are not exclusive, any other person or authority can prosecute. However, the Attorney General can take over or continue the prosecution from any such authority or person. He can also discontinue by way of nolle prosequi. Per Pats-Acholonu, JSC (of blessed memory) at page 417, paras E F also restated the law when his Lordship said: The implication of the intendment of section 174(1) aforesaid of the Constitution is that the office of the Attorney General does not have the monopoly of prosecution, though it has the power to take over any case in any court and decide whether to go on with it or not. See Pharma Deko Plc vs. N.S.I.T.F.M.B. (2011) 5 NWLR (Pt.1241) 431 at 450 45. See also F.R.N. v. Adewunmi (2007) 10 NWLR (Pt. 1042) 399 @ 427 Recently, the Supreme Court knocked the bottom out of the appellants argument in the case of Amadi v. F.R.N. (2008) 18 NWLR (Pt. 1119) 259 at page 276, paras. C-D of the report, where Mukhtar, JSC held: Indeed, the EFCC is a common agency for both the Federal and the State Economic and Financial Crimes, and as such, it qualifies as any other authority to institute criminal proceedings under section 211 (1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution. That being the case, 2 Mr. Hassan, being a staff of the EFCC who signed the charge was competent to do so. Any staff of the EFCC can exercise the power delegated to the EFCC in Exhibit A. Since the Attorney General of Lagos State does not have the Monopoly of initiating criminal proceedings in the Lagos State High Court under the state law, the argument of the Appellant cannot in any way stand The point therefore is that from the foregoing even if Information was filed without the Attorney General of Lagos State signing same, that would be of no moment as the words of the provisions quoted above show that, any person or authority other than the Attorney General of Lagos than the Attorney State can sign the Information herein The EFCC has rightly initiated criminal proceedings under the state but the Attorney. General of Lagos State only has an overriding power to either take over or discontinue such action That being so it is only the Attorney General of Lagos State that can complain about the exercise of the power by the EFCC, but definitely not the Appellant herein. Furthermore, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is expressly conferred with power under sections 6(m), 7(2) and 13(2) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004 to initiate criminal proceedings in any Court in Nigeria for any offence bordering on economic and financial crimes even under the Criminal Code. Section 7(2)(f) states: In addition to the powers conferred on the Commission by this Act, the Commission shall be the co-ordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions of any (f) other law or regulation relating to economic and financial crimes, including the Criminal Code and Penal Code. Section 6 (m) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act 2004 is very wide with the use of the word all in it. For ease reference section 6(m) reads: The Commission shall be responsible for (m)taking charge of, supervising, controlling, co-ordinating all the responsibilities, functions and activities relating to the current investigation and prosecution of all offences connected with or relating to economic and financial crimes. The word all as used in section 6(m) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act 2004 has been interpreted in the case of Braithwaite v. G.D.M. (1998) 7 NWLR (Pt. 557) 307 at 327: I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the word all in construing a statute is extremely recalcitrant, and if the word all is to be cut down so as to exclude certain things which might come under the description, that must be done in the clearest possible language. The proper way of construing a word like the word all in such a context as this is to say that all means all, and it does not mean some, unless you find a compelling context which forces you to place some limitation on the word. In so far as the offences the Defendants are being charged with border on Economic and Financial Crimes, the EFCC is expressly conferred with power under Sections 6(m), 7(f), 13(2) (a) and (d) and 46 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (establishment) Act 2004 to initiate proceedings in any court in Nigeria for any offence bordering on Economic and Financial Crimes even under the Penal Code. See the case of Akingbola vs FRN (SUPRA). Even where the economic crimes being charged with are state offences cognizable and punishable under the Penal Code or Criminal Code Law of any State the power to prosecute does not remain and reside exclusively with the state but with the relevant statutory agency of the Federal Government. Section 7 (2) (f) of the EFCC Act 2004 provides that the Commission shall be the coordinating agency for the enforcement of the provision of any other law or regulation relating to economic and financial crimes including the Criminal Code and Penal Code. By virtue of section 7 (1) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004 the Commission has power to cause investigations to be conducted as to whether any person, co-operate body or organization has committed an offence under the Act or other law relating to economic and financial crimes. By virtue of section 7 (2) (f), in addition to the powers conferred on the Commission by the Act, the Commission shall be the co-ordinating agency charged with the responsibility of enforcing the provisions of any other law or regulations relating to economic and financial crimes including the Criminal Code and Penal Code and by the provision of section 13 (2) the Legal and Prosecution Unit of the Commission shall be charged with responsibility for prosecuting the offenders. See SHEMA V. F.RN (2018) 9 NWLR (PT. 1624) 337 @ 374, PARAS. F-G. The Apex Court further held that the EFCC has power to investigate and prosecute offences of economic and financial crimes in any court of competent jurisdiction, with or without express delegation from the Attorney General of the State when it states pungently thus: A community reading of the provisions of sections 15 (5) and 211 (1) (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), sections 7 (f), 13 (2) (a) and (j) and 46 of the EFCC (Establishment) Act, 2004 and section 185 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), Cap. 37, Laws of Katsina State, 1991 gives the EFCC power to prosecute economic and financial crimes offenders. The law evinces a clear intention that, with or without express delegation from the Attorney-General of Katsina State, the EFCC could validly prefer charges and prosecute the appellants in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a common agency of both the Attorney General of the Federation and Attorney General of Katsina State. Thus, the EFCC possesses the power to institute the criminal proceedings against the appellants in the High Court of Katsina State by filing of information. That being the situation, it is not in dispute that the EFCC has the power to charge any Defendant for the offence committed and it can initiate proceedings in its authorized name which is the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In the case of Jibulu vs. FRN (unreported appeal No: CA/L/635/2013 it was held that flowing for above therefore even though the charge is based on a Lagos State Law, the EFCC caninitiate such proceedings even without a fiat from the Attorney General of Lagos State and if so, it can do so in its authorized name and not the name of the people of Lagos. See also the cases of Attorney General of Ondo State vs. Attorney General of the Federation (2002) 9 NWLR (Pt. 772) 222, Nyame vs. FRN (2010) 7 NWLR (Pt. 1193) 394, Dariye vs. FRN (2015) 10 NWLR (Pt. 1467) 354. It should be noted that several Defendants or accused persons have vigorously argued against the propriety or otherwise of the EFCC initiating the criminal charge against them in the name Federal Republic of Nigeria while being charged for state offences, without appreciating that: a). Anybody or authority is competent to initiate criminal proceedings against an offender, once he is granted fiat to do so and this include institutions/agencies such as EFCC. See:FAWEHINMI vs. AKILU (1987) 4 NWLR (PT. 67) 797; b). EFCC has rightly initiated criminal proceedings under the state law (Penal Code) and only the Attorney General can complain about the exercise of the power and not the Appellants; EFCC is expressly conferred with powers under sections 6(m), 9(2) and 13(2) of EFCC (Est.) Act to initiate criminal proceedings in any court in Nigeria for any offence bordering on economic and financial crimes, even under the Penal Code. The EFCC cannot, therefore, be faulted for initiating the instant charge in the name of Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is because the Federal Government of Nigeria is not synonymous with the Federation of Nigeria, or the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Federal Republic of Nigeria (or the Federation) is the repository of the sovereignty of the people of Nigeria, whereas the Federal or State Governments, in contradistinction, are donees of the powers and authority of the people. In other words, the Federation of Nigeria or the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is distinct and separate from the Federal Government of Nigeria which often, is a product of periodic elections. See SHEMA V. F.R.N (2018) 9 NWLR (PT. 1624) 337 @ 397-398, PARAS. D-A; 372, PARAS. G-A. Indeed, EFCC can also prosecute in any court of competent jurisdiction with the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria since it is an agency of the Federal Government i.e it belongs to the Federal Government. If one disputes this argument, what of a commissioner of police? Certainly, a Commissioner of police is an agent of Federal Government. Meanwhile, we seem to be oblivious of the distinction between Federal Republic of Nigeria and Federal Government of Nigeria. While the former relates to the whole of the Federation comprising of states or Federating units and Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, the latter refers only to the government at the centre i.e. the tier or level of government at the top of the ladder of the three tiers or levels. We submit that if at all there is any doubt regarding the powers of the EFCC to initiate any charge in the name Federal Republic of Nigeria, that doubt, had been laid to rest by the Court of Appeal in the case of JINADU vs. FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA (CA/A/226C/2013) delivered on 28/1/2015; (2015) LPELR 24381 CA. Faced with a similar complaint from the Defendant/Accused/Appellant the Honourable Court held thus: Further, the authorities clearly support the stand of the trial judge, that the EFCC can institute a case in the name of the Attorney General of the Federation, and not necessarily in its name only. In AMAECHI vs. INEC & 2 ORS (2008) 5 NWLR (PT. 1080) 227 @ 307, the Supreme Court, per Oguntade, JSC held The EFCC is statutory body created under the laws of Nigeria. Its duties include the investigation and prosecution of a class of criminal offences. In essence, once its investigation has shown prima facie that a person has committed a criminal offence, the duty of EFCC is to have such offender prosecuted in a courtof law. There is nothing here that prevents the EFCC to prosecute such offender in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. After all by section 1(2)(c) of the EFCC Act, the EFCC has the responsibility of co-ordinating the various institutions involved in the fight against money laundering and enforcement of all laws dealing with Economic and financial crimes in Nigeria i.e. of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In NYAME vs. FRN (2010) 7 NWLR (PT. 1193) 344, the Supreme Court held at page 403 that the EFCC is the coordinating agency for the enforcement of the provisions of any other law or regulation of economic and financial crimes, including the criminal code and the penal code. The commission has the power under section 13(2) of the Act to prosecute offences so long as they are financial crimes. The Supreme Court did not say that in prosecuting the offenders, it cannot do so in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Again, the case of Edo State Board of Internal Revenue vs. Unipetrol (supra) did not lay down the law, that bodies empowered statutorily to prosecute offences, cannot do so in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. At any rate, the trial judge was right, when he held, on the authorities of COMPT NPS vs. ADEKANYE (NO.1) (2002) 15 NWLR 709 AND FRN vs. ADEWUNMI (2007) 10 NWLR (PT. 1042) 399 that the power to challenge whether prosecution is indeed being carried out validly in the name of a party with his permission, lies in that party only. So here, the Appellant has no locus to challenge her prosecution in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is only the Federal Republic of Nigeria, represented by the Attorney General of the Federation by virtue of section 174 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, that can challenge the prosecution of the Appellant in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The EFCC and other anti-graft agencies are constitutionally relevant having been established by an Act of National Assembly made pursuant to the Powers of the National Assembly under the Constitutional of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended). What is more, the EFCC Act deals with specific or special provisions of law on Economic and Financial Crimes as opposed to the general provisions on the same subject matter under any other laws. The specific provisions of the EFCC Act take precedence over the general provisions of such other laws. This is the settled position of the law in the case of MODERN OIL NIG. LTD V. GEORGE (2014) 15 NWLR (PT. 1431) 624 where the Court held thus: The fact that a firm is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission will not entitle a Legal practitioner to ignore the specific provision of sections 2(1) and 24 of the Legal Practitioners Act. This is because the general provision of the law as in section 573 (1) of the CAMA is subject to the provisions of sections 2(1) and 24 of the Legal Practitioners Act. In the light of the foregoing, it is appropriate to draw the curtains by concluding thus: the regime of anti-corruption law in Nigeria is meant to be symbiotically applied, implemented and given effect by both Federal and state agencies. There is much wisdom in so doing. There is a national revolt by all concerned against corruption and financial crimes, at all levels of the courts, including ours as the Supreme Curt of the land. Indigenous philosophies of Nigerians support this symbiotic, multi-institutional, pronged approach to the war against corruption and financial infelicities, more appropriately called financial crimes. As between EFCC Act and Penal Code, or between the Federal Government of Nigeria and Katsina State of Nigeria, what matters most, and justifiably so, is that corruption and financial crimes be tracked, investigated, prosecuted and punished. The age-long indigenous view in Southwest (and perhaps in other parts of Nigeria) is that the Snake of financial crime be not allowed to escape on account of gender sentiments. It matters not if the monstrous snake of corruption and financial crimes biting Nigeria is killed by a man or women; all that matters is the death of the deadly snakes of corrupt practices and financial hooliganism daily killing Nigeria and Nigerians PER BAGE JSC (AS HE THEN WAS) AT PAGE 374, PARAS. B-E. Therefore, viewed from any angle, with due respect, the opinion expressed by Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, SAN on this issue does not have any legal backing and therefore, unsupportable in law and practice. Kayode Oladele is former chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Financial Crimes. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The immediate challenge for the next government is to stabilise the economy. This might require selling some of what remains of the national bequest. But it counsels against further provision by government of services which the private sector may provide more cost-effectively. Removing risks from across the economy that currently make it difficult to attract and retain private investment is the whole point of the transition of the economy to one whose engine is led by the private sector. A N77 trillion debt is a huge burden to bequeath ones successor. Yet, this is the current size of the nations debt and it will be much bigger by the time the incumbent federal government hands over in March. And for better or worse, it will set the limits to what will be possible for the incoming federal government. Monies appropriated to service the debt will be funds denied other projects, including for financing the reforms necessary to drive the increases in domestic productivity that are so crucial to the economys long-term wellbeing. Another problem is that the much slower economic growth that a debt burden this large will result in will make both servicing and repayment ever more onerous. These latter possibilities were part of the worries expressed years back by those who were alarmed by the Buhari governments debt bulimia. At the head of those who dismissed these worries, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, Federal Minister of Works and Housing, launched broadsides against the sense and sensibilities of the Obasanjo administrations decision, as part of the debt cancellation deal with the Paris Club, to pay US$12.4 billion, representing regularisation of debt service and payment arrears of US$6.3 billion, plus a balance of US$6.1 billion, in order to obtain a debt cancellation estimated at US$18 billion (including moratorium interest) representing an overall cancellation of about 60% of its debt to the Paris Club of around US$ 30 billion. It did not matter that Nigeria obtained its first sovereign credit rating following her exiting from the Paris Club debt. Nor that this rating was critical to securing subsequent borrowing. There is nothing wrong with debt, as far as the Buhari government is concerned. Especially when the administrations solution to Nigerias innumerable problems is to throw other peoples money at them. But, as bankers never cease to remind would-be borrowers, other peoples money carry a cost. Which is why bankers insist on bankable projects: i.e. projects which because they meet a market need, and generate healthy cash flows. The Buhari administration did not pretend that its projects were bankable. Indeed its poster rail project was ticketing below cost. The ability to spend appeared to be its only goal. Privatising whats left of government-owned enterprises will hurt. Especially given that the discount at which much of these will be offered will be nowhere near the costs that previous generations bore to put them in place. Nor the value that future generations have a right to have expected of them. Unsurprisingly, its main argument was that the nations gross domestic product was more than large enough to carry whatever debt the government could contract now piffling by this metric. It did not seem to matter to the administrations bean counters that no banker lends against its clients net worth. Cash flows. Cash flows. Cash flows. This is all that matters. Because there was no cash flow from any of the projects supported by the Buhari administrations borrowing binge, its successor is now being invited to consider pawning the family heirlooms. Privatising whats left of government-owned enterprises will hurt. Especially given that the discount at which much of these will be offered will be nowhere near the costs that previous generations bore to put them in place. Nor the value that future generations have a right to have expected of them. The easiest place to kick-start this makeover is to take a chainsaw to red tape. The Oronsaye Committee report was all about cutting the cost of governance by adjusting its structures. Cutting red tape is all about reducing the cost and processes involved in all interfaces between businesses and individuals on one hand, and those adjusted governance structures on the other. The immediate challenge for the next government is to stabilise the economy. This might require selling some of what remains of the national bequest. But it counsels against further provision by government of services which the private sector may provide more cost-effectively. Removing risks from across the economy that currently make it difficult to attract and retain private investment is the whole point of the transition of the economy to one whose engine is led by the private sector. Along with the makeover of the civil service from goods/service provider to regulator. The easiest place to kick-start this makeover is to take a chainsaw to red tape. The Oronsaye Committee report was all about cutting the cost of governance by adjusting its structures. Cutting red tape is all about reducing the cost and processes involved in all interfaces between businesses and individuals on one hand, and those adjusted governance structures on the other. And at the very least, from 29 March, government agencies must include a schedule of the costs to and benefits to be derived from every project as part of the authorisation and financing process. If we had this process in place over the last eight years, the Buhari government may have realised that other peoples money, especially, carries costs (some of it inter-generational). And that benefits from projects thus financed must, at a minimum, cover such costs. Uddin Ifeanyi, journalist manque and retired civil servant, can be reached @IfeanyiUddin. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The process to further amend the 1999 Constitution by the Ninth National Assembly has hit the rocks, as 25 States Houses of Assembly have not yet voted on the alterations, more than six months after they were transmitted to them as constitutionally stipulated. The leadership of the legislature has now beseeched one of the governors to lobby his colleagues to pressure their states assemblies to discharge their constitutional responsibilities on the issue in the interest of Nigeria. With barely five months for the present legislative dispensation to wind up, accomplishing this task seems to have become a race against time. A total of 44 Alteration Bills, pursuant to the review of the Constitution, were forwarded to 36 states legislatures on 29 May, 2022. But only 11 states have considered them. They are: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Lagos, Ogun and Osun states. Two-thirds, or 24 out of the 36 states, need to statutorily vote in approval of the amendments before the legislative process could be consummated in Abuja. So manacled is the process that the Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, at a public lecture late in December last year, lamented: As it is today, it is doubtful that the current constitutional amendment effort will conclude before the expiration of the legislative term. The President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan, who attended the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS) lecture, joined Gbajabiamila in pleading with Governor Nasir el-Rufai, who chaired the occasion, to persuade other governors to bring their influence to bear on their states assemblies passage of the amendments. Interestingly, el-Rufai gave no assurances on this. However, the state legislatures, through a letter of the Conference of Speakers, demanded the National Assembly to include four fresh amendments in their consideration, which they consider of interest to them and the country as well, for them to give their imprimaturs to the fifth amendment of the Constitution. These demands are: Establishment of State Police; Establishment of State Judicial Councils; Streamlining of the Procedure for Removing Presiding Officers of State Houses of Assembly; and Institutionalising Legislative Bureaucracy in the 1999 Constitution. It is a quid pro quo setting that the upper legislative house has scoffed at; and it holds the governors responsible for the intransigence of lawmakers in the states. The Deputy President of the Senate and co-Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee, Ovie Omo-Agege, shortly after he received the letter from the Conference of Speakers in May, dejectedly emphasised this point. He noted that, No doubt, some state governors have worked tirelessly to turn the Conference of Speakers and some state assemblies into political puppets, thereby undermining and de-legitimising the legislative institutions at the state level. Therefore, he called on civil society organisations and relevant professional groups to intervene in order to resolve this seemingly devious legislative murk. With el-Rufais response to the disillusionment of Lawan and Gbajabiamila, it is not difficult to see where the governors stand in the logjam. The governor echoed the multi-layer policing demand. He stressed that, I think we are all clear now that the current policing system is broken. It does not work for Nigeria. Nigeria is the only federation in the world with a centralised police system, among other requests that he tabled. Truth be told, a decentralised policing system has been on the national agenda for decades. It was hotly debated at the 2014 National Political Conference, to the point that a consensus was reached, which necessitated its recommendation for inclusion in the envisioned new Constitution that never came to pass. Given Nigerias increasing security concerns, with large swathes of territories under the control of non-state actors like Boko Haram, kidnappers and bandits, resulting in the alarming rate of carnage and millions of internally displaced persons, de-centralised policing has become imperative. It is difficult to fathom why federal lawmakers are yet to tweak the extant security template for effective performance, in spite of four successful constitutional amendments. Resolving the impasse is not as herculean as it is made to seem. If the demands of the state assemblies are justifiable within the praxis of federalism and constitutional democracy, then the Lawan-led Ninth National Assembly should act fast and strike a compromise deal with their counterparts in the states. If the constitutional amendment ends in a fiasco, as it is being feared, the principal officers of National Assembly will have themselves to blame; and not the lawmakers in the states. It is naive of them to programme a critical legislative assignment such as constitutional review into a crowded election year, or close to the twilight of the tenure of the legislature, when the time for manoeuvres in the event of a divergence, such as this, is limited or non-existent at all. The 44 alterations to the constitution, with the possibility of the process recording still-birth, contain provisions that deal with some of the countrys existential challenges. Local government financial autonomy, with the abolition of the State-Joint Local Government Account is inherent. Understandably, the lawmakers in the states, who have become rubber stamps of the governors, might have been made to view the entire constitutional re-engineering before them as a poisoned chalice. The illegal manipulations of the account are the reason why the 774 local councils exist only nominally, as their monthly financial allocations from the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), are stolen by most state governors. The devolution of powers, with focus on energy or electricity, railways, airways; prisons; independent candidacy in an election; separation of the office of the Attorney General of the Federation from that of Minister of Justice also at the state level; the powers of National and State Legislatures to summon the President and Governors, to answer questions on security, or any other matter, are important details in the new amendments. These will decongest the Exclusive Legislative List with 68 items a bit, which hardly conduce to effective governance at the centre. By every means possible, this critical assignment must be completed. The quest for a brand new or peoples constitution, different from the current one decreed into existence by the military, has always ended in debacle, due to mutual suspicions and disagreements among the countrys acrimonious ethno-regional elite. Federal lawmakers guarding their so-called sovereign powers jealously have not helped matters either. Consequently, incremental and inevitable compromise constitutional adjustments have been embraced. The reviews are not profound just yet, as each legislative session trifles with the basics of governance in a federal democracy. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The students of the Taraba State University, Jalingo, on Monday, staged a protest over the state governments failure to pay their lecturers for 10 months The students who gathered at the gate of the main gate of the university said they decided to embark on the protest after their lecturers refused to conduct the first-semester examination scheduled on Monday, due to the failure of the government to pay them. The protesting students later took to the streets of the city to register their grievances. The protest saw students of the institution burning tires around the institution and on the major roads linking the state capital resulting in the disruption of business activities. The protesters disrupted the flow of normal traffic leading to the Government House Jalingo. Witnesses observed that the students getting close to the Government House were dispersed by the police with teargas. Some armed soldiers from the 6 Brigade of the Nigerian Army were sighted stationed at strategic locations. The protesters who vowed not to stop the protest until the state government settles the backlog of their lecturers salaries were chanting No exams, no 2023 election in Taraba, Governor Darius is wicked, Darius pay our lecturers for us to finish our exams, among others. Our correspondent observed that the protest became violent when the students started throwing stones around the university premises, as well as destroying billboards of the ruling PDP candidates on the streets of the state capital on their way to the government house. Despite this, no government official came out to listen to the plight of the protesters at the time of filling this report, while our reporter further gathered that as of 5:50 p.m. on Monday, some roads remained blocked by the students including the Jalingo Bali Takum roads. PREMIUM TIMES gathered that staff of the university last week protested the non-payment of their salaries and threatened not to conduct examinations if they were not paid. The Chairmen of the universitys Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Messrs Solomon Audu and Bitrus Ajibauka, who led the university staff during the protest presented a letter to the Vice Chancellor, Sunday Bako, demanding the payment of their outstanding salaries and other allowances. Mr Bako told the staff that the university management and the government were working hard to meet their legitimate demands. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The International Press Centre (IPC) in Nigeria has expressed concern over the threats on the life of a PREMIUM TIMES reporter, Saviour Imukudo, by a man who supervised a poorly executed federal project in Akwa Ibom State. IPC in a statement issued on Saturday by its Press Freedom Officer, Melody Lawal, called on the Nigerian government and security agencies to ensure the safety of the journalist. PREMIUM TIMES reported how the man, Andrew Okure, who supervised the rehabilitation of local market stalls, threatened Mr Imukudo for doing a story on the shoddy job done. Some stalls have cracks in their walls and holes in the roofs. The cement floors are broken in some of them. The rooftop of most of the stalls shakes along with the mild wind and looks as though they could be easily blown off. The concrete pillars in most of the stalls appeared inadequate. Also, the use of Bamboo sticks as improvised pillars in some stalls has raised safety concerns among the residents. The rehabilitation, awarded by the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) to Tymme Energy Integrated Resources Limited, has pitched some residents in the community against a senator from Akwa Ibom, Christopher Ekpenyong who facilitated the project. The residents said the senator should have ensured that the contractor did a quality job. Tymme Energy Integrated Resources Limited, according to data obtained online, was incorporated on 16 February 2016 with 18, Aiyewa Street, Kabba, Kogi State, north-central Nigeria, as its registered address. Mr Okure, who claimed to be an engineer, initially declined comment when contacted by the reporter, Mr Imukudo. He later called Mr Imukudo on Wednesday, apparently after reading the published story. Mr Okure said the community residents who commented on the project were members of the opposition party. When Mr Imukudo asked him on Thursday around 10:57 a.m. for his official comment on the shoddy project, Mr Okure said to the reporter: Im going to follow you up. Be careful, be careful. While Mr Okure was dishing out the threat, a male voice in the background could also be heard issuing out additional threats against the reporter. Look at you, look at six feet. Dont worry. Thank God, I know your name now. Somebody is telling you to go and die and you are following the person, the voice in the background said. The PREMIUM TIMES bureau chief for the south-south and south-east regions, Cletus Ukpong, said the newspaper would report the matter to the police in Uyo on Monday. Time has come to stop attacks on journalists IPC said it is time to end attacks on journalists and other media professionals in Nigeria. It enjoined anyone who may be aggrieved over media reports to seek redress through legal channels instead of attempting to resort to extra-judicial self-help. IPC, therefore, appeals to other national, regional and international media freedom groups, freedom of expression organisations and human rights bodies to join in the clamour for the safety of Saviour Imukudo, the statement said. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print Some arsonists have razed the Police Divisional Headquarters in Umuchu, a community in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, south-east Nigeria. PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the gunmen stormed the facility at about 3.a.m. on Sunday and set it ablaze. Sources told this newspaper that the facility was renovated by members of Umuchu Improvement Union after it was destroyed by some angry youth during the #EndSARS protest in 2020. The youth were protesting police brutality and harassment across the country. Nobody was killed when they (gunmen) attacked, because all the police officers have left the place because of the renovation works in the station, Sam Ejiofor, a resident of the community, told PREMIUM TIMES. The President-General of the Umuchu Improvement Union, Charles Ezeabasili, described the attack as disheartening and unfortunate. Mr Ezeabasili told reporters that it was improper that while the union had completed the upgrade of the facility and awaited the return of police personnel, the hoodlums attacked and set it ablaze despite being set up for the good of the community. How do we make progress? he said. The police spokesperson in the state, Tochukwu Ikenga, has confirmed the attack. Mr Ikenga, a deputy superintendent of police, said the facility was still being renovated when it was attacked by the hoodlums. The situation is under control and calm has returned in the area, he said. The police spokesperson said the police have begun an investigation into the incident. ALSO READ: Gunmen bomb another police facility in Anambra He urged residents of the community to assist the police with information in the on-going investigation to track down the attackers. Increased attacks Like other states in Nigerias south-east, security has deteriorated in Anambra State with frequent attacks by armed persons. The attacks often target security agencies, government officials and facilities. Several police facilities, and security agencies have been attacked by gunmen, said to be part of Biafra agitation in the South-east. Many others have been abducted and killed by the attackers. The Nigerian government has accused the outlawed Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) of being responsible for the deadly attacks in the region. But the group has repeatedly denied their involvement in the attacks. IPOB is a group leading agitation for an independent state of Biafra which it wants carved out from the south-east and some parts of the south-south Nigeria. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print A man was killed in the Ojota area of Lagos on Monday, as some Yoruba Nation agitators held a rally. A Yoruba Nation group had planned to hold a Super Mega rally in Ojota to continue their demand for a separate Yoruba country from south-west Nigeria. The police spokesperson in the state, Benjamin Hundeyin, told PREMIUM TIMES that a yet-to-be-identified man lost his life in the unrest. He said normalcy has returned, to the area. Yoruba Nation agitators came out to disrupt normal activities and the police stepped in to prevent that, he said via telephone. He noted that the Yoruba Nation members did not inform the police that they were going to hold a rally. A PREMIUM TIMES review of videos and photos of the incident, shared on social media, suggests that there was a clash between police and members of the group. However, the police said that there was no such thing. Videos online also show teargas billowing into the air. Two trucks which appeared to belong to the police were also caught in flames. On 3 July 2021, a sales girl, Jumoke Oyeleke, was shot dead by the police during a rally held by the Yoruba Nation agitators. More details will be provided in subsequent reports. Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print The chairman of Yoruba Self Determination Movement (YSDM), Banji Akintoye, has claimed that the rally scheduled by its members was peaceful until the police approached them and killed two members of the group. Mr Akintoye, a professor of History and senator in the Second Republic, spoke via the YSDM YouTube channel shortly after the rally turned violent on Monday. The group, Ilana Omo Oodua, is agitating for an independent Yoruba nation. It is not clear what Mr Akintoye now plays in the group as in December, he tendered his resignation citing old age. We learned that two young men have been killed as a result of the police fire, he said. However, the police confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that a yet-identified-man lost his life at the rally. This newspaper had reported that the self-determination group had planned to hold a Super Mega rally at Ojota. But Benjamin Hundeyin, the police spokesperson in the state, said they were not notified of the gathering. Mr Akintoye further stressed that the purpose of the movement is to press for self determination for the Yoruba nation. Our methods have always been peaceful, peaceful rally, no weapons, no violence of any kind, he said. Not regarding the police as enemies, not regarding any other official of the Nigerian state as enemies. Those are the conditions upon which the young men gathered this morning to carry out a rally. Even before they had settled down, as they were arriving at the center where they wanted to carry out the rally, the Nigeria police approached them and started shooting. He further said that the police are breaking the law. The right to self- determination is the right of the Yoruba people just as it is the right of every nationality in the world. Speaking with this newspaper, the police said they got different reports that the agitators were shooting in the area. People called the police that some people were shooting and that was why the police had to go there immediately, Mr Hundeyin said. And even in the presence of the police they were shooting and even attacked the police and destroyed vehicles. He cant say that his people were going peacefully and the police attacked them, no. Mr Hundeyin also said that the unknown man who was shot dead was not killed by the police. He said that no arrest has been made yet. A police officer who pleaded anonymous because he was not authorised to speak with the press said that the body found at the scene was not armed but had charms all over his body. On 3 July 2021, a sales girl, Jumoke Oyeleke, was shot dead by the police when they tried to disperse agitators during a rally held by the Yoruba Nation members Share this: Twitter Facebook WhatsApp Telegram LinkedIn Email Print NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Anti-inflammatory Therapeutics Market by Application, Drug Class, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2023-2027 report has been published by Technavio. Market size is forecast to grow by USD 39.32 billion between 2022 and 2027 at a CAGR of 6.7%. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of growth opportunities at regional levels, new product launches, the latest trends, and the post-pandemic recovery of the global market. Download A PDF Sample Report Regional Analysis Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Anti-inflammatory Therapeutics Market 2023-2027 By region, the global anti-inflammatory therapeutics market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World. North America is estimated to contribute 45% to the growth of the global market over the forecast period. The sales of approved drugs for the treatment of conditions causing inflammation and the increasing prevalence of several associated risk factors are driving the growth of the anti-inflammatory therapeutics market in North America. Buy the report Company Profiles The anti-inflammatory therapeutics market report includes information on the key products and recent developments of leading vendors, including: AbbVie Inc. - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics with the latest technologies and platforms that aim to deliver better solutions. - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics with the latest technologies and platforms that aim to deliver better solutions. Alvogen Iceland ehf - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics with the latest technologies to deliver better solutions. - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics with the latest technologies to deliver better solutions. Amgen Inc. - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics which brings therapies to millions of people with inflammatory diseases. - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics which brings therapies to millions of people with inflammatory diseases. Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. - The company offers anti-inflammatory therapeutics with products across a broad range of therapeutic areas including cardiovascular, central nervous system/pain, oncology, inflammation, and anti-infective. Market Dynamics The market is driven by factors such as the increase in off-label use, unmet needs for safer biologics for RA, and the availability of improved diagnostic modalities. However, the loss of patents is hindering market growth. Competitive Analysis The competitive scenario categorizes companies based on various performance indicators. Some of the factors considered include the financial performance of companies over the past few years, growth strategies, product innovations, new product launches, investments, and growth in market share among others. Request a Sample Market Segmentation By application, the market is segmented into RA, psoriasis, and MS. The RA segment accounted for the largest share of the market in 2022. By geography, the market is segmented into North America , Europe , Asia , and Rest of World. North America held the largest share of the market in 2022. Related Reports: The generic drugs market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.11% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecasted to increase by USD 176.25 billion . The rising drug patent expirations are notably driving the market growth, although factors such as stringent regulations may impede the market growth. is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.11% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecasted to increase by . The rising drug patent expirations are notably driving the market growth, although factors such as stringent regulations may impede the market growth. The antibiotics market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.07% between 2022 and 2027. The size of the market is forecast to increase by USD 17,066.66 million . The rising prevalence of infectious diseases is notably driving the market growth, although factors such as the development of antibiotic-resistant strains may impede the market growth. Technavio's library includes over 17,000+ reports, covering more than 2,000 emerging technologies. Subscribe to our "Basic Plan" at just USD 5,000 and get lifetime access to Technavio Insights What are the key data covered in this anti-inflammatory therapeutics market report? CAGR of the market during the forecast period. Detailed information on factors that will drive the growth of the market between 2023 and 2027 Precise estimation of the size of the anti-inflammatory therapeutics market and its contribution to the parent market. Accurate predictions about upcoming trends and changes in consumer behavior. Growth of the market across North America , Europe , Asia , and Rest of World. , , , and Rest of World. A thorough analysis of the market's competitive landscape and detailed information about vendors. Comprehensive analysis of factors that will challenge the growth of anti-inflammatory therapeutics market vendors. Anti-inflammatory Therapeutics Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 167 Base year 2022 Historic period 2017-2021 Forecast period 2023-2027 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 6.7% Market growth 2023-2027 USD 39.32 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 5.64 Regional analysis North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World (ROW) Performing market contribution North America at 45% Key countries US, Canada, Germany, UK, and China Competitive landscape Leading Vendors, Market Positioning of Vendors, Competitive Strategies, and Industry Risks Key companies profiled AbbVie Inc., Alvogen Iceland ehf, Amgen Inc., Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc., Bayer AG, Boehringer Ingelheim International GmbH, Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Cipla Ltd., Eli Lilly and Co., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Ferring BV, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Johnson and Johnson, Lupin Ltd., Mylan N.V, Novartis AG, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Pfizer Inc., and Sanofi SA Market dynamics Parent market analysis, market growth inducers and obstacles, fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis and future consumer dynamics, and market condition analysis for the forecast period. Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized. Table of contents: 1 Executive Summary 1.1 Market overview Exhibit 01: Executive Summary Chart on Market Overview Exhibit 02: Executive Summary Data Table on Market Overview Exhibit 03: Executive Summary Chart on Global Market Characteristics Exhibit 04: Executive Summary Chart on Market by Geography Exhibit 05: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Application Exhibit 06: Executive Summary Chart on Market Segmentation by Drug Class 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 2022 3.4 Market outlook: Forecast for 2022-2027 Exhibit 14: Chart on Global - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 15: Data Table on Global - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 16: Chart on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 17: Data Table on Global Market: Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 4 Historic Market Size 4.1 Global anti-inflammatory therapeutics market 2017 - 2021 Exhibit 18: Historic Market Size Data Table on Global anti-inflammatory therapeutics market 2017 - 2021 ($ billion) 4.2 Application Segment Analysis 2017 - 2021 Exhibit 19: Historic Market Size Application Segment 2017 - 2021 ($ billion) 4.3 Drug class Segment Analysis 2017 - 2021 Exhibit 20: Historic Market Size Drug class Segment 2017 - 2021 ($ billion) 4.4 Geography Segment Analysis 2017 - 2021 Exhibit 21: Historic Market Size Geography Segment 2017 - 2021 ($ billion) 4.5 Country Segment Analysis 2017 - 2021 Exhibit 22: Historic Market Size Country Segment 2017 - 2021 ($ billion) 5 Five Forces Analysis 5.1 Five forces summary Exhibit 23: Five forces analysis - Comparison between 2022 and 2027 5.2 Bargaining power of buyers Exhibit 24: Chart on Bargaining power of buyers Impact of key factors 2022 and 2027 5.3 Bargaining power of suppliers Exhibit 25: Bargaining power of suppliers Impact of key factors in 2022 and 2027 5.4 Threat of new entrants Exhibit 26: Threat of new entrants Impact of key factors in 2022 and 2027 5.5 Threat of substitutes Exhibit 27: Threat of substitutes Impact of key factors in 2022 and 2027 5.6 Threat of rivalry Exhibit 28: Threat of rivalry Impact of key factors in 2022 and 2027 5.7 Market condition Exhibit 29: Chart on Market condition - Five forces 2022 and 2027 6 Market Segmentation by Application 6.1 Market segments Exhibit 30: Chart on Application - Market share 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 31: Data Table on Application - Market share 2022-2027 (%) 6.2 Comparison by Application Exhibit 32: Chart on Comparison by Application Exhibit 33: Data Table on Comparison by Application 6.3 RA - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 34: Chart on RA - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 35: Data Table on RA - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 36: Chart on RA - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 37: Data Table on RA - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 6.4 Psoriasis - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 38: Chart on Psoriasis - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 39: Data Table on Psoriasis - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 40: Chart on Psoriasis - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 41: Data Table on Psoriasis - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 6.5 MS - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 42: Chart on MS - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 43: Data Table on MS - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 44: Chart on MS - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 45: Data Table on MS - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 6.6 Market opportunity by Application Exhibit 46: Market opportunity by Application ($ billion) 7 Market Segmentation by Drug Class 7.1 Market segments Exhibit 47: Chart on Drug Class - Market share 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 48: Data Table on Drug Class - Market share 2022-2027 (%) 7.2 Comparison by Drug Class Exhibit 49: Chart on Comparison by Drug Class Exhibit 50: Data Table on Comparison by Drug Class 7.3 Anti-inflammatory biologicals - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 51: Chart on Anti-inflammatory biologicals - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 52: Data Table on Anti-inflammatory biologicals - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 53: Chart on Anti-inflammatory biologicals - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 54: Data Table on Anti-inflammatory biologicals - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 7.4 Corticosteroids - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 55: Chart on Corticosteroids - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 56: Data Table on Corticosteroids - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 57: Chart on Corticosteroids - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 58: Data Table on Corticosteroids - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 7.5 NSAIDs - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 59: Chart on NSAIDs - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 60: Data Table on NSAIDs - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 61: Chart on NSAIDs - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 62: Data Table on NSAIDs - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 7.6 Market opportunity by Drug Class Exhibit 63: Market opportunity by Drug Class ($ billion) 8 Customer Landscape 8.1 Customer landscape overview Exhibit 64: Analysis of price sensitivity, lifecycle, customer purchase basket, adoption rates, and purchase criteria 9 Geographic Landscape 9.1 Geographic segmentation Exhibit 65: Chart on Market share by geography 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 66: Data Table on Market share by geography 2022-2027 (%) 9.2 Geographic comparison Exhibit 67: Chart on Geographic comparison Exhibit 68: Data Table on Geographic comparison 9.3 North America - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 69: Chart on North America - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 70: Data Table on North America - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 71: Chart on North America - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 72: Data Table on North America - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.4 Europe - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 73: Chart on Europe - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 74: Data Table on Europe - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 75: Chart on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 76: Data Table on Europe - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.5 Asia - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 77: Chart on Asia - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 78: Data Table on Asia - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 79: Chart on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 80: Data Table on Asia - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.6 Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 81: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 82: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 83: Chart on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 84: Data Table on Rest of World (ROW) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.7 US - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 85: Chart on US - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 86: Data Table on US - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 87: Chart on US - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 88: Data Table on US - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.8 Germany - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 89: Chart on Germany - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 90: Data Table on Germany - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 91: Chart on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 92: Data Table on Germany - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.9 UK - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 93: Chart on UK - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 94: Data Table on UK - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 95: Chart on UK - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 96: Data Table on UK - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.10 Canada - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 97: Chart on Canada - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 98: Data Table on Canada - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 99: Chart on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 100: Data Table on Canada - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.11 China - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 Exhibit 101: Chart on China - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 102: Data Table on China - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) - Market size and forecast 2022-2027 ($ billion) Exhibit 103: Chart on China - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) Exhibit 104: Data Table on China - Year-over-year growth 2022-2027 (%) 9.12 Market opportunity by geography Exhibit 105: Market opportunity by geography ($ billion) 10 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends 10.1 Market drivers 10.2 Market challenges 10.3 Impact of drivers and challenges Exhibit 106: Impact of drivers and challenges in 2022 and 2027 10.4 Market trends 11 Vendor Landscape 11.1 Overview 11.2 Vendor landscape Exhibit 107: Overview on Criticality of inputs and Factors of differentiation 11.3 Landscape disruption Exhibit 108: Overview on factors of disruption 11.4 Industry risks Exhibit 109: Impact of key risks on business 12 Vendor Analysis 12.1 Vendors covered Exhibit 110: Vendors covered 12.2 Market positioning of vendors Exhibit 111: Matrix on vendor position and classification 12.3 AbbVie Inc. Exhibit 112: AbbVie Inc. - Overview Exhibit 113: AbbVie Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 114: AbbVie Inc. - Key news Exhibit 115: AbbVie Inc. - Key offerings 12.4 Alvogen Iceland ehf Exhibit 116: Alvogen Iceland ehf - Overview Exhibit 117: Alvogen Iceland ehf - Product / Service Exhibit 118: Alvogen Iceland ehf - Key offerings 12.5 Amgen Inc. Exhibit 119: Amgen Inc. - Overview Exhibit 120: Amgen Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 121: Amgen Inc. - Key offerings 12.6 Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. Exhibit 122: Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. - Overview Exhibit 123: Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. - Business segments Exhibit 124: Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. - Key news Exhibit 125: Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. - Key offerings Exhibit 126: Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. - Segment focus 12.7 Bayer AG Exhibit 127: Bayer AG - Overview Exhibit 128: Bayer AG - Business segments Exhibit 129: Bayer AG - Key news Exhibit 130: Bayer AG - Key offerings Exhibit 131: Bayer AG - Segment focus 12.8 Bristol Myers Squibb Co. Exhibit 132: Bristol Myers Squibb Co. - Overview Exhibit 133: Bristol Myers Squibb Co. - Product / Service Exhibit 134: Bristol Myers Squibb Co. - Key news Exhibit 135: Bristol Myers Squibb Co. - Key offerings 12.9 Eli Lilly and Co. Exhibit 136: Eli Lilly and Co. - Overview Exhibit 137: Eli Lilly and Co. - Product / Service Exhibit 138: Eli Lilly and Co. - Key offerings 12.10 F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd Exhibit 139: F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd - Overview Exhibit 140: F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd - Product / Service Exhibit 141: F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd - Key offerings 12.11 Ferring BV Exhibit 142: Ferring BV - Overview Exhibit 143: Ferring BV - Product / Service Exhibit 144: Ferring BV - Key offerings 12.12 GlaxoSmithKline Plc Exhibit 145: GlaxoSmithKline Plc - Overview Exhibit 146: GlaxoSmithKline Plc - Business segments Exhibit 147: GlaxoSmithKline Plc - Key offerings Exhibit 148: GlaxoSmithKline Plc - Segment focus 12.13 Johnson and Johnson Exhibit 149: Johnson and Johnson - Overview Exhibit 150: Johnson and Johnson - Business segments Exhibit 151: Johnson and Johnson - Key news Exhibit 152: Johnson and Johnson - Key offerings Exhibit 153: Johnson and Johnson - Segment focus 12.14 Mylan N.V Exhibit 154: Mylan N.V - Overview Exhibit 155: Mylan N.V - Product / Service Exhibit 156: Mylan N.V - Key offerings 12.15 Novartis AG Exhibit 157: Novartis AG - Overview Exhibit 158: Novartis AG - Business segments Exhibit 159: Novartis AG - Key offerings Exhibit 160: Novartis AG - Segment focus 12.16 Pfizer Inc. Exhibit 161: Pfizer Inc. - Overview Exhibit 162: Pfizer Inc. - Product / Service Exhibit 163: Pfizer Inc. - Key news Exhibit 164: Pfizer Inc. - Key offerings 12.17 Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Exhibit 165: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Overview Exhibit 166: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Business segments Exhibit 167: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Key news Exhibit 168: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Key offerings Exhibit 169: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. - Segment focus 13 Appendix 13.1 Scope of the report 13.2 Inclusions and exclusions checklist Exhibit 170: Inclusions checklist Exhibit 171: Exclusions checklist 13.3 Currency conversion rates for US$ Exhibit 172: Currency conversion rates for US$ 13.4 Research methodology Exhibit 173: Research methodology Exhibit 174: Validation techniques employed for market sizing Exhibit 175: Information sources 13.5 List of abbreviations Exhibit 176: 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 JERSEY CITY, N.J., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bluevine , the leading provider of small business banking solutions, today announced its official new company headquarters in Jersey City. As a fintech leader, Bluevine continues to expand to meet growing demand. Moving the HQ to Jersey City adds to the innovative growth plan for the New Jersey business landscape while expanding its own office space. As part of this update, Bluevine announced its partnership with Rutgers University which includes internship opportunities for students across departments at the leading fintech, keeping future tech talent in New Jersey. The company also announced it will host a breakfast event on January 10, where leading voices, including small business owners and industry and public sector leaders, including New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, will come together to discuss the state of small business. During the event, CEO Eyal Lifshitz will moderate a roundtable discussion with local small business owners (CBH Interiors, Compass Learning Advantage, Dr. Rebecca Chang Acupuncture, Tara Paton Consulting) and Bluevine customers to discuss the current small business landscape, challenges they are facing, and share their advice for other SMBs. A Best Place To Work certified fintech leader, Bluevine has experienced significant headcount growth this year and continues to expand its markets across the country and globe. Now ranking among the top SMB-focused banking-services platforms in deposit volume with $650M in deposits, small businesses are choosing Bluevine as a trusted partner for banking services, payment solutions, and lines of credit. "With record numbers of new businesses forming each day, Bluevine is poised to support new and seasoned business owners throughout their entrepreneurial journeys with full-stack financial services and industry-leading perks and customer service," said Eyal Lifshitz, CEO and founder of Bluevine. "I'm so proud of what our team has accomplished thus far, and look forward to this next phase of growth with fresh talent in new cities. Our HQ in Jersey City serves as our new hub to lead our global operations" Recent office expansions, like the JC headquarters, offer more opportunities for Bluevine's talent and customer growth. In addition, their global footprint has grown with new offices in Austin, Tex., Bengaluru, India, and Karmiel, Israel. Bluevine's offices in Redwood City, Salt Lake City, Tel Aviv and Austin give the company a broad opportunity to source world-class talent, and having headquarters in Jersey City enables access to financial markets and room for further expansion. The company counts hybrid work as a critical tool for global collaboration. Bluevine's entrepreneurial company culture motivates its passionate team to remain laser-focused on building a better financial future for small business owners and shape the company's critical role in economic recovery. Bluevine is hiring across all offices for engineering, risk, and customer experience roles. For more information about opportunities with Bluevine, please visit https://www.bluevine.com/careers/ . About Bluevine Bluevine provides small businesses with streamlined banking solutions built for them. Since launching in 2013, Bluevine's innovative and intuitive products, including business checking, bill pay, and line of credit, have helped over 450,000 entrepreneurs save time and money so they can focus on what matters most: growing their business. Bluevine is backed by leading private and institutional investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, 83North, Citi Ventures, ION Crossover Partners, SVB Capital, Nationwide Insurance, and M12 (Microsoft's Venture Arm). Lines of credit are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah-chartered Industrial Bank, Member of FDIC. Banking Services provided by Coastal Community Bank, Member FDIC. For more information, please visit bluevine.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter . Contact: [email protected] SOURCE Bluevine NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Clayton, Dubilier & Rice ("CD&R" or "the Firm") announced Dan Glaser, former President and CEO of Marsh McLennan ("MMC"), has joined the Firm as an Operating Partner. Mr. Glaser joins CD&R's Financial Services team and will help source new investments and support portfolio company management teams as they execute their value creation plans. Mr. Glaser is a global leader in the insurance, risk management, retirement, and professional services industries, and has held senior positions in commercial insurance and insurance brokerage across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Marsh McLennan, Mr. Glaser oversaw the company's Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer, and Oliver Wyman brands, guiding them to market-leading positions generating over $20 billion of annual revenue, increasing the company's market cap by $63 billion and overseeing MMC's total shareholder return by 480% during his tenure. In addition to growing the company organically during his time as CEO, Mr. Glaser oversaw more than 140 acquisitions at MMC with an aggregate transaction value in excess of $14 billion. Mr. Glaser started his career at MMC in 1982 and held a series of senior leadership roles, including Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of its Marsh subsidiary from 2007 to 2011 and Group President and Chief Operating Officer from 2011 through 2012, when he became President and CEO. Earlier in his career, Mr. Glaser acted as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Willis' Risk Solutions business and served in senior roles at AIG leading its UK and Ireland business and AIG Global Energy. "With his over 40 years of financial services operating experience, I believe Dan will have a very significant impact on our ability to source, evaluate and manage opportunities in the financial services sector," said CD&R Co-President Rick Schnall. "His reputation for operational excellence precedes him, and we believe his expertise will greatly benefit our firm." CD&R Partner and Financial Services vertical leader David Winokur added, "I could not be more excited to be partnering with Dan to build CD&R's Financial Services vertical into an industry leading platform." "CD&R has a track record of partnering with management teams to build stronger and better performing businesses," said Mr. Glaser. "I look forward to working alongside the talented Financial Services team to deepen our presence across our core subsectors of Insurance, Wealth & Retirement Services, Banking & Credit Services, and Fintech." Mr. Glaser previously served as the Chairman of the US Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance and on the Board of Ascot Syndicate and is currently Co-Chair of the International Advisory Board for British-American Business. Mr. Glaser is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He holds an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from St. Thomas Aquinas College. Mr. Glaser's appointment follows several recent senior additions to CD&R's Financial Services vertical. Former JP Morgan Chase Chief Operating Officer Gordon Smith was engaged as an Operating Advisor to CD&R funds in October, and David Winokur joined CD&R as a Partner and head of the Financial Services vertical in September. About Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Clayton, Dubilier & Rice is a private investment firm with a strategy predicated on building stronger, more profitable businesses across a broad range of industries, including Industrials, Healthcare, Consumer, Technology and Financial Services. Since its inception in 1978, CD&R has managed the investment of more than $40 billion in over 100 companies with an aggregate transaction value of more than $175 billion. For more information on CD&R, please visit www.cdr-inc.com and follow the Firm's activities through LinkedIn and @CDRBuilds on Twitter. SOURCE Clayton, Dubilier & Rice PLANO, Texas, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Acute care hospitals don't have to become victims of the current nursing shortage if they implement various strategies to protect themselves from the Great Resignation that has taken a toll on the healthcare industry, according to Community Hospital Corporation (CHC). Jill Bayless, CHC Senior Vice President of Clinical Services, says hospitals should implement measures to help prevent nurses leaving their profession earlier than expected, echoing an industry study last year that found nurses quitting at a dramatically higher rate than previous years. Jill Bayless, CHC Senior Vice President of Clinical Services "The nursing exodus is driven, in part, by a desire for better work-life balance," says Bayless. "Double shifts, erratic and inconsistent scheduling, and menial tasks are contributing factors that have led to a sense of imbalance and job dissatisfaction among nurses. This situation has worsened mainly due to COVID-19's ongoing impact on healthcare workers." The nursing shortage comes at an inopportune time when more, not less, healthcare is required to care for an aging Baby Boomer population and more people being eligible for health insurance. The problem is compounded by a lack of clinical training opportunities and dwindling numbers of nurse educators, resulting in fewer newly trained nurses. Hiring and Retaining Nurses Requires Multipronged Strategy To find and retain nurses, many hospitals have raised salaries and offered bonuses. But monetary incentives are only part of the solution. It requires a multipronged strategy to be effective which includes onboarding, flexible staffing and schedules, professional development, among other measures. "Well-structured and engaging onboarding lays the foundation for other retention initiatives," Bayless noted. Flexible staffing, new care models, and alternative schedules To improve job retention, hospitals may offer temporary assignments to new hires, and accommodate experienced nurses' scheduling needs, including flexible hours to forestall retirement. Telehealth positions allowing some nursing duties to be performed remotely are increasingly prevalent. Some hospitals have implemented different staffing models, such as team nursing which provides care to a larger group of patients than an RN could perform alone. Schedules and team assignments are planned so that nurses are practicing at the top of their license or competency, according to Bayless. This approach enables nurses to dedicate more time to patients and tasks that require specialized skills and allows for non-skilled nursing duties to be provided by team members. Professional Development Opportunities Bayless also believes that professional development is imperative for those with leadership aspirations but also for engaging less-experienced nurses and ancillary staff through learning opportunities and exposing them to other career-path options within the acute care setting. Support Systems and Safety Nets Onboarding support is another retention strategy that fosters a sense of belonging and community, as well as makes nurses feel that they can voice concerns and communicate vital information and that leaders will listen. To help nurses cope with the hardships of the profession, Bayless says hospitals might consider establishing peer support groups, help lines, and encouraging the utilization of EAP services. Formal and Informal Recognition Bonuses and awards are ways to formally recognize individual achievements; however, informal, day-to-day genuine displays of affection-including thank you notes, social media posts, verbal kudos, and public verbal thank you's are also an effective way to acknowledge employees who complete a new degree or obtain a new certification. "Hospital leaders must explore ways to support and engage nurses so that they remain committed to community hospitals, allowing hospitals to offer the highest patient care possible," says Bayless. Community Hospital Corporation owns, manages and consults with hospitals through CHC Hospitals, CHC Consulting and CHC ContinueCARE. Contact: Anne Block 972-943-6470 [email protected] SOURCE Community Hospital Corporation The one-of-a-kind solution built for the hybrid workforce combines employee listening tools and team check ins to help managers and organizational leaders to build a highly engaged and high performing teams ST. LOUIS, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Employee experience is highly consequential to the success of an organization. Businesses seek people-centric tools that help promote a positive work culture, fostering highly engaged employees for the future of work. Engagedly's people-strategy platform helps businesses create workplaces where employees engage deeper, perform better, and grow faster. In a rapidly evolving world, managing teams is a huge challenge. Leads face an uphill task of engaging and retaining people, especially in remote and hybrid work modes. They need an effective listening tool that would help them get real-time feedback from their teams, identify bottlenecks and take them to closure. "Today, Organizations and managers need listening tools to truly understand and get the right feedback from employees to bring to light key issues and help them take the right initiatives, promptly without having to wait a year for engagement surveys to come in," said Sri Chellappa, Founder/President at Engagedly. Engagedly's Team Pulse is a smart listening tool with a recurring set of questions sent out to employees on a set frequency. Employees can come up with honest responses, enthusiastically collaborate with peers and managers, and participate with greater zeal to ensure smooth closure. Managers gain utmost clarity in understanding what their team wants. They can catch sight of the stumbling blocks and multiple pain points that remained concealed up until then, and take remedial/preventive measures. Team Pulse consistently provides critical insights from employees that would help organizations act promptly and take the right decisions. It strengthens employee-manager nexus, and helps build a culture of transparency and trust. About Engagedly Engagedly is a fast-paced growth provider and an award-winning talent management solutions build for hybrid workforce. Built upon best practices and decades of research, Engagedly's People + Strategy platform is evolving performance management, development and engagement to drive successful organizational outcomes across the globe. Engagedly's E3 unified platform combines the power of business strategy execution, talent enablement, and employee engagement into one easy-to-use software solution. To learn more about Engagedly, visit: https://engagedly.com/ Press Contact: Press/Marketing Team Engagedly Inc. +1-650-4851642 [email protected] SOURCE Engagedly Mississippi families to hold more than 200 events during the thirteenth annual celebration of school choice JACKSON, Miss., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Gov. Tate Reeves has officially declared Jan. 22-Jan. 28 to be School Choice Week in Mississippi. During the Week state, city, and county leaders nationwide will formally raise their voices to create awareness of the importance of customizable education options. Gov. Reeves's proclamation comes on the heels of a year of historic school choice expansions nationwide. The proclamation highlights the importance of high-quality education options for the success of Mississippi kids. It also recognizes the importance of parents knowing all the types of schools in order to identify the best educational option for their child. "Mississippi School Choice Week" is timed to coincide with National School Choice Week, a weeklong national celebration of K-12 education that takes place during the last week of January. The full text of the proclamation can be found on the School Choice Week website at schoolchoiceweek.com/proclamations-2023 . For the Week, parents, schools, and other organizers have planned 267 activities across the state of Mississippi between a capitol rally, dance contests, talent shows, a poetry night, and much more all of which aim to spark conversations about the opportunities parents have or want to have, for their children's education. More than 25,000 events have been independently planned for the week nationwide, raising awareness about school choices of every type. "During School Choice Week, Mississippi families will celebrate and explore every type of school the state offers," said Andrew Campanella, president and CEO of the National School Choice Awareness Foundation. "Gov. Tate's proclamation recognizes how important options are to families across the state and reaffirms that all children should have access to the highest quality education possible." National School Choice Week (NSCW) informs, inspires, and empowers parents to discover the K-12 education options available for their children, including traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and homeschooling. Every January, tens of thousands of schools, organizations, and individuals plan unique events and activities to shine a positive spotlight on effective education options in their communities. The Week is a project of the nonpartisan, nonpolitical National School Choice Awareness Foundation. For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/mississippi SOURCE National School Choice Week Union Expands Presence Throughout the Cannabis Supply Chain COMMERCE, Calif., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 300 drivers and warehouse workers at Grassdoor, a cannabis delivery service, have joined Teamsters Local 630. "This victory is emblematic of the fact that companies in the cannabis industry can be successful and prosperous without resorting to union busting or other unethical business practices," said Lou Villalvazo, Local 630 Secretary-Treasurer. "We look forward to negotiating a strong contract for these workers and are honored that they chose to join the Teamsters." "We're organizing every component of the cannabis industry, whether it's cultivation, distribution, or retail," said Peter Finn, Teamsters Western Region Vice President and Food Processing Division Director. "These men and women are playing a critical role at this company, and they deserve a strong union contract that guarantees that they have a fulfilling career." "I support the union because all of us here at Grassdoor are in this life together," said Ian-Andrew Robertson, a Grassdoor worker who signed up to join Local 630. "It's up to all of us to act collectively and stand firm to demand the respect we deserve. We want to have stable, middle-class careers, but also protect California's cannabis culture of peace and community one we have worked so hard to preserve over the decades. Cannabis is for everyone, and the prosperity it provides should be for everyone as well." Established in 1937, Teamsters Local 630 represents workers in various industries, from clerical, warehouse, professional drivers, food service, liquor, food processing, dairy, and more. For more information, go to http://www.teamsters630.org/. Contact: Oscar Ruiz, (213) 590-7119 [email protected] SOURCE Teamsters Local 630 - Robert (Rob) Williams named President of Hankook Tire America Corp. - Jong Jin (JJ) Park named Vice President of USA PC/LT Sales - Intae (Ted) Choi promoted to Vice President of Marketing Strategy - Byoungjoe (Joe) Park promoted to Vice President of Corporate Management NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Furthering its innovation and growth strategy, leading global tire maker Hankook Tire today announces executive promotions at its North American headquarters in Nashville, Tenn. Rob Williams has been named President of Hankook Tire America Corp. Additionally, Jong Jin (JJ) Park has been promoted to Vice President of USA PC/LT Sales. Intae (Ted) Choi has been promoted to Vice President of North American Marketing Strategy, and Byoungjoe (Joe) Park has been named Vice President of Corporate Management. Rob Williams, President, Hankook Tire America Corp. "We are committed to the U.S. and Canada markets, and Rob, JJ and Ted have all contributed greatly to our growth in the region," said Sooil Lee, CEO of Hankook Tire & Technology. "Rob is a strong and versatile leader with expertise across many segments in the tire industry. JJ's success in marketing strategy will be key to further success in our sales organization. Ted's knowledge of our products will prove essential to our marketing efforts. Joe brings a strong audit and accounting background to the team. As we accelerate our global business strategy, we look forward to seeing the positive impact they have in the years ahead." Williams has overall responsibility for Hankook Tire America Corp. as President, overseeing the U.S. and Canada regions. He will lead four departments and direct teams including the Tennessee Plant and TBR sales department, a role he's held since joining Hankook in January 2019. In June 2022, Williams was appointed Senior Vice President of Commercial and Consumer sales for Hankook Tire America, adding leadership in consumer products to his existing oversight of commercial replacement and OE product sales and related services. Williams brings more than three decades of tire industry experience and has a proven track record of success in sales and operations executive leadership positions, strategic planning and optimizing profitability. "This is an exciting time for Hankook in the U.S. and Canadian markets as we continue to drive innovation across our passenger and commercial tire portfolios," said Williams. "2022 has been a landmark year for Hankook in the U.S., with the announcement of further investment in our Tennessee Plant and the launch of iON, Hankook's electric vehicle tire line. I am proud to continue to work with our teams to deliver performance, innovation and quality to driver and our partners, and look forward to the future as we continue to demonstrate the value of the Hankook brand." Park will serve as Vice President of USA PC/LT Sales, overseeing Sales Innovation, Corporate Sales, as well as the North, South, and West Regional USA PC/LT Sales teams. Previously, he has served as Vice President of Marketing and U.S. Sales innovation Director for Hankook Tire America. Park joined Hankook Tire in 2004 and has experience across the American and United Kingdom regions. Choi steps into the Vice President of Marketing role, responsible for Marketing Strategy, TBR Marketing, Technical Services, Canada Sales, as well as Supply Chain & Logistics Operations. He also will continue his role as Vice President of Tennessee Plant Management Support. Choi has previously held executive positions with Hankook including Vice President of its Australia subsidiary, Vice President of GAIA Project, and Corporate Strategy & Innovation Team Manager. Park was promoted to Vice President of the North America Corporate Management Team overseeing finance, accounting, tax and internal audit functions for Hankook Tire America Corp. as well as for Hankook Tire's Canadian subsidiary. Most recently, he served as Tennessee Plant Corporate Management Team Manager. He also held leadership positions at Hankook's Global Headquarters on its Internal Audit and Accounting teams. About Hankook Tire America Corp. Hankook Tire America Corp. is a growing leader in the U.S. tire market, leveraging investments in technology, manufacturing and marketing to deliver high-quality, reliable products that are safer for consumers and the environment. Headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., Hankook Tire America Corp. markets and distributes a complete line of high-performance and ultra-high-performance passenger tires, light truck and SUV tires as well as medium truck and bus tires in the United States. Hankook Tire America Corp. is a subsidiary of Hankook Tire & Technology Co., Ltd., a Forbes Global 2000 company headquartered in Seoul, Korea. SOURCE Hankook Tire America Corp. Ker Ezhi is an ethical, luxury Ethiopian leather goods company, proud to now be available in the US market. ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The term Ker Ezhi is a localized expression that encourages the values of commonality, prosperity, and peaceful coexistence. Ethiopia is home to the largest livestock population in Africa and is the birthplace of the second-largest community of African immigrants in the United States. Fekerte (Fifi) Abraham, CEO of Ker Ezhi USA, counts herself among the latter and has launched Ker Ezhi USA as a bridge between her passions and her heritage. Ker Ezhi Luxury Leather Bag "Leather goods made from genuine Ethiopian highland sheep, goat, cow, and exotic options like crocodile and camel are preferred by many countries globally for their quality and durability," says Abraham. "Supporting the artisans who handcraft these products and ensuring ethical and environmentally-friendly practices through the whole supply chain has been an important part of this journey." Ker Ezhi taps into Indigenous and innovative trends, resulting in a beautiful line of luxury handbags, crossbody styles, business and travel gear, and accessories. Starting at $249, the quality is unmatched, and the brand is making sought-after Ethiopian leather accessible to US-based consumers. In addition to leather goods, Ker Ezhi USA will introduce Ethiopian gemstones and jewelry in the coming months. All products are manufactured and supplied by Ker Ezhi Ethiopia with the US collections personally curated by Ms. Abraham. "As an experienced entrepreneur, I've had a long-held dream to work in fashion, specifically bags and accessories," adds Abraham. "I look forward to expanding access to and education around the exceptional products of my birthplace of Ethiopia within my beautiful chosen home of the United States." Ker Ezhi USA is based in Virginia where Ms. Abraham has resided and raised her family for several decades. Products can be purchased online at www.kerezhius.com. The company welcomes inquiries from retailers, wholesalers, and buyers, which can be directed to [email protected]. About Ker Ezhi USA: Ker Ezhi offers luxury Ethiopian leather goods via their website www.kerezhius.com. Ethical practices, lifetime durability, and innovative designs are pillars of the brand's ethos. Ker Ezhi USA LLC [email protected] SOURCE Ker Ezhi USA BOSTON AND LONDON, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- L.E.K. Consulting , the global strategy consulting firm, has elected 22 new partners. The promotions recognize the insights, expertise and commitment that these individuals bring to bear for companies and their leaders as they make critical decisions at key inflection points for their organizations. "We are delighted to announce our newest L.E.K. partners and recognize their outstanding contributions and commitment to ensuring that L.E.K. consistently delivers outstanding results for our clients across sectors, industries and regions," said Clay Heskett, Global Managing Partner at L.E.K. "We congratulate them on this accomplishment and look forward to the impact that they will bring to our clients, the mentorship that they provide for our people and their contributions to the continued strong growth of our firm." L.E.K.'s new partners are: Muneeb Balbale, based in L.E.K.'s New York office, is a member of the Healthcare practice. He advises corporate and private equity clients on healthcare technology and tech-enabled services, with significant experience in a wide range of growth strategy, data strategy, M&A advisory, due diligence and strategy activation engagements across providers, payers and life sciences. Balbale holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an MA from the University of Chicago and a BA from Yale University. Arnaud Bauer, based in the Singapore office, is Head of Healthcare Services and Healthcare M&A for Southeast Asia. He has over 15 years of experience in strategy consulting in healthcare and private equity, advising investors, healthcare provider and government agencies. His experience in the healthcare provider space spans across the entire care continuum as well as with government agencies for healthcare investment planning and promotion across the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. Bauer holds a MEng from Ecole Centrale and an MBA from ESSEC Business School in partnership with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Bronswe Cheung, based in the London office, is a member of the Financial Services practice, with a focus on European wealth management. He has significant experience across the wealth management value chain and has worked on strategy development and implementation, due diligence, M&A, synergy valuations and vertical integration and platform strategies across Europe and Asia. Cheung, who joined L.E.K. in 2011, holds a BSc in economics from the London School of Economics. Frazer Dorey is a member of the firm's Healthcare practice, based in New York. He advises healthcare clients on a range of strategic and operational issues, with a focus on growth strategy, market opportunity assessment and operational change for healthcare provider organizations. He has broad experience with healthcare provider organizations across a range of specialties and engagement types. He holds bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering and commerce from the University of Queensland, Australia. Jack Duckworth, based in the London office, is a member of the Industrials practice, focused on European chemicals, aerospace and defense. He also works with the Transport practice. Duckworth has broad experience in M&A, commercial strategy, performance optimization, pricing strategy and customer loyalty and proposition, with particular expertise in data-driven strategy and performance. He holds a master's degree in chemistry from University of Oxford. Ashwin Goel, based in the Mumbai office, co-leads the Healthcare and Life Sciences practice in India and is a member of the Global Education Practice. Within the healthcare sector, Goel advises biopharmaceutical and manufacturing services clients over a range of topics such as growth strategy, new market entry, international expansion and buy- and sell-side commercial due diligences. He works with education companies and private equity firms globally, across the full learning spectrum, on value generation, strategic decisions, business plan development and investment opportunities. He holds a Bachelor of Technology in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and an MBA from the Indian School of Business. Philippe Gorge, based in the Paris office, is a member of the Retail and Consumer practice, and leads the Data & Analytics team in Paris. He has experience across a number of consumer sectors but is focused on the beauty, health and wellness ecosystem. Gorge has worked with retailers and brands, both digital natives and traditional, in their development in Europe and globally. He holds an MSc in engineering from CentreSupelec, Universite Paris-Saclay and a master's degree in risk management from University of Paris Dauphine. Jeff Holder, PhD, is a member of the Life Sciences practice, based in San Francisco. He has deep experience in helping clients develop, manufacture, supply and enable advanced therapeutic modalities, including cell and gene therapies. Holder has expertise in the life science tools, bioprocessing, biopharma services and diagnostics space with a particular focus on growth strategy, portfolio planning, new product opportunities and business development support. He holds a PhD in organic chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, a BA in chemistry from Harvard University and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at U.C. Berkeley. Ian Kershaw, based in the Sydney office, is a member of the Travel and Transport practice. He has a particular focus on aviation, travel and transport, including airports, airlines, public transport and rail. Kershaw has significant experience assisting clients with a range of strategic and commercial issues, including strategy development, market analysis, competitive positioning, financial modeling, business improvement and cost reductions, M&A, customer experience, ancillary revenue and commercial operating models. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and a BA in economics from Tufts University. Claire Morgan, based in the Boston office, is a member of the Retail and Consumer Practice. With particular experience in food, beverage, travel and leisure, she has experience managing and directing client engagements spanning corporate and business unit strategy, channel management, consumer segmentation and merger and acquisition transaction support. Morgan holds a BS with honors from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Jon Moss, based in the Boston office, is a member of the Industrials practice, specifically focused on packaging. Moss has experience across the full packaging value chain with both organic and inorganic growth strategy development, market assessment, commercial resourcing model development and buy- and sell-side transaction advisory. He has particular expertise in healthcare packaging and plastics. He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a BA in government from Colby College. Chuck Reynolds, based in the Boston office, is a member of the Digital practices. He has extensive experience in digital strategy across various areas, including digital commerce, customer engagement, agile, direct-to-consumer, data and the application of AI/ML, with particular expertise in digital strategies that enhance growth and profitability through customer engagement. Reynolds holds an MA in information systems management from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in applied computing from Allegheny College. Alex Rogalski is a member of the firm's Industrials practice, based in the Boston office. Rogalski has 12 years of consulting experience with a focus on industrial equipment and technology and automotive and mobility. He has advised clients on corporate and business unit strategy development as well as merger and acquisition transaction support. Prior to joining L.E.K., Rogalski worked for an investment management consulting firm focused on supporting institutional investors with strategic planning and portfolio construction discussions. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an undergraduate degree from Connecticut College. John Rutan, based in the Boston office, is a member of the Organization and Performance practice. He joined the firm in 2012 and works with global private equity and corporate clients across industrial manufacturing, business services, pharmaceuticals, building products, energy and freight sectors. He has extensive experience in organization strategy and mergers and acquisitions, including post-merger integration and commercial excellence. Rutan has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Philosophy from Dartmouth College. Sam Shinner, based in the San Francisco office, is a member of the Technology practice with a focus on martech, fintech, edtech and pricing. He has been with the firm for over 10 years, advising clients on a range of key strategic decisions, including go-to-market model, pricing and packaging, new market entry, M&A and corporate strategy development. He has an MBA from UC Berkeley and a bachelor's degree from the University of Oxford. Clayton Souza is a member of the Industrials practice, based in Sao Paulo. Souza has significant experience serving diverse industrial segments, including building and construction, water and sanitation, waste management, energy and infrastructure. He has advised clients on a range of critical issues, such as organic and inorganic growth strategy, international expansion, portfolio diversification, sustainability and digital strategy. He holds a postgraduate certificate from FIA in Brazil and an MBA with honors from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Manoj Sridhar is a member of the Life Sciences and Healthcare practice, based in the Melbourne office. Sridhar has deep expertise in strategy development, performance improvement and organizational design, and has advised pharmaceutical, medical technology and government clients on a range of strategy and M&A projects. Previously, Sridhar led a national research centre developing early-stage immunotherapies and building academia-pharma partnerships to commercialize attractive technologies. He holds a doctorate in physics from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Melbourne Business School. Dan Tedeschi, based in Boston, is a member of the Consumer practice with a focus on digital. Tedeschi has over 10 years of experience managing and directing client engagements spanning growth strategy, strategic planning, omni-channel strategy and digital strategy. His industry expertise includes home products, B2B retail and brand services, adtech and martech. Prior to joining L.E.K., Tedeschi served five years as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps. He holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. William Tite, based in the London office, is a member of the Transport & Logistics practice. Tite has extensive experience within the transport, sustainability, travel and housebuilding sectors across the full value chain, with particular expertise in strategic positioning, sustainability, NetZero strategy development and commercial due diligence. Tite graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in modern languages. Doug Van Wie, based in Boston, is a member of L.E.K. Consulting's Healthcare Services practice, with a focus on consumer healthcare, digital health and patient engagement. Van Wie has extensive experience helping payers, providers and private equity investors in the healthcare space maximize value through growth strategy and opportunity assessment. He has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a bachelor's degree from Auburn University. Rozy Vig is a member of the Healthcare Services practice, based in the San Francisco office. She has experience across corporate strategy and M&A support with a focus on the provider care continuum including health systems, post-acute and long-term care, at-home care, primary and urgent care, as well as specialty care (e.g., oncology, ophthalmology, behavioral health, etc.). Her work covers both corporate strategy as well as M&A support on both the buy- and sell-side. Vig completed a doctorate in mathematics education from the University of California, Berkeley, a bachelor's and master's in Mathematics from California State University, Fresno and a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Grace Wang is based in the Shanghai office. She joined the firm in 2012, and has supported international and Chinese clients in pharmaceutical, medical device, life science tools and broader healthcare sectors on a wide range of engagements including growth strategy, pricing and market access, China localization and transaction support. Wang holds a bachelor's degree in management science from Fudan University in China and a double master's degree in international management from Fudan University and Bocconi University in Milan. About L.E.K. Consulting We're L.E.K. Consulting, a global strategy consultancy working with business leaders to seize competitive advantage and amplify growth. Our insights are catalysts that reshape the trajectory of our clients' businesses, uncovering opportunities and empowering them to master their moments of truth. Since 1983, our worldwide practice spanning the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe has guided leaders across all industries, from global corporations to emerging entrepreneurial businesses and private equity investors. Looking for more? Visit www.lek.com . Media contact: Michael-Jon Romano Allison+Partners [email protected] SOURCE L.E.K. Consulting Nurses Recommit at a Moment When Many Have Said They Will Leave the Profession WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- connectRN , the leading nurse community that connects nurses with flexible work opportunities, has launched a creative campaign to challenge how we evaluate nurses and their impact on healthcare. "unResignation Notice", created by Mischief @ No Fixed Address, is a multi-channel initiative that highlights the main challenges nurses face, while also emphasizing the aspects they appreciate and why they want to return. The ad campaign launches with a double page spread that ran in the Sunday edition of The New York Times on January 8th, featuring an "unResignation" letter signed by hundreds of nurses who are recommitting to the profession. Nurse Staffing Community connectRN Launches Campaign Encouraging Nurses to unResign Nurse Staffing Community connectRN Launches Campaign Encouraging Nurses to unResign Nurses and CNAs will have the opportunity to add their signatures to the unResignation letter on an accompanying landing page on connectRN's website and will be able to share the letter on social media to amplify their support for the cause. The campaign also includes a video and an OOH component that will be displayed starting January 9th, in several local markets. As more nurses sign the letter over the course of the multi-month campaign, they will have the opportunity to elaborate on their support for the movement through social media and encourage their networks to join. The impetus for the campaign is that nurses have left the profession in droves over the past few years, with recent estimates pegging that number to be well into the hundreds of thousands nationwide . While this has been due in large part to the Covid-19 crisis, the need for better working conditions for nurses existed long before the pandemic. A recent survey conducted on behalf of connectRN also revealed that 50% of nurses who are still in the profession were considering leaving by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, over half of nurses polled felt as if they always had to be on call, while 90% felt that their patient care suffered due to the nursing shortage. The campaign references necessities such as flexibility, a better work/life balance, and respect from the healthcare community, all of which mirror connectRN's mission of reimagining nursing to make it work for everyone in the long term. "Although countless nurses have decided to exit the industry, our aim is to not only emphasize how much they want to stay and to present a path forward that will work for everybody," said connectRN CEO Ted Jeanloz. "We want nurses to feel like they're being listened to, and that they have what they need to take care of not only their patients, but themselves." The video component highlights several nurses helping their patients through day-to-day health challenges, as the nurses themselves display the invisible struggle that often goes unacknowledged. Ultimately, the campaign will seek to return agency to the nurses themselves by allowing them to assert the expectations that need to be met in order for them to unresign. Raphael Franzini, Creative Director at Mischief @ No Fixed Address said, "The nursing profession is romanticized, so when nurses quit, it feels like the problem is on them. Our goal is to show the realities forcing them to quit. It's not in a nurse's nature to quit. Something needs to change, and it's not the nurses." About connectRN connectRN is the leading nurse community, created to connect nurses with each other, provide career support and deliver flexible work opportunities. By leveraging technology the platform allows access to work opportunities and vital resources nurses need to build a thriving career. connectRN is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts and serves clinicians across the U.S. To learn more about connectRN, please visit www.connectrn.com. Media Contact: Lily Seibert 646.299.2491 [email protected] SOURCE connectRN Rachael Ray Nutrish aims to give every animal the quality of life they deserve ORRVILLE, Ohio, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Rachael Ray Nutrish is launching a new feel-good campaign today that urges consumers to "Feed Yours. Help More." so animals can have the opportunity to live a full and joyful life. Rachael Ray Nutrish (PRNewsfoto/The J.M. Smucker Co.) With animal shelters receiving approximately 6.3 million companions every year*, so many animals are left without a home or the proper resources to live fully. That's why Nutrish isn't just about great tasting food it's also deeply committed to supporting animals in need. The campaign, from Publicis Groupe's Power of One solution, PSOne, a bespoke agency for the J.M. Smucker Co., reinforces the value of giving back. "Nutrish has always been focused on improving the quality of life for animals and we know our consumers share in our passion for supporting animals everywhere in fact, by feeding their animals Nutrish, pet parents have helped us donate over $7 million a year to animals in need through the Rachael Ray Foundation," said Ryan Thomas, VP, Pet Marketing, The J.M. Smucker Co. "We are excited to build on our proud history of support through the new Feed Yours. Help More. campaign. The simple concept is that even though you can't adopt every animal, by buying Nutrish, you can help more animals live full, joyful lives." The "Feed Yours. Help More." philosophy was brought to life through a comprehensive campaign, captured by award-winning film cinematographer, Hoyte Van Hoytema and director Adam Hashemi, that features television, social, streaming, audio and commerce placements. "To live by our ethos, it was important to feature rescue dogs to bring our story to life. Our video spotlights a cast of over thirty rescue dogs, including a few with special needs, highlighting the beauty and diversity of all dogs in need," says Alan Wilson, Senior Vice President, Group Creative Director, Publicis Worldwide. They were trained together for over two weeks to create our happy pack on set." Links to the first ad spot can be found below: Stay tuned - there is even more to come from the new Rachael Ray Nutrish campaign throughout 2023. For more information on "Feed Yours. Help More." and to find Rachael Ray Nutrish near you, be sure to visit www.nutrish.com and follow the brand on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. *ASPCA/Shelter Animal Counts Data About The J.M. Smucker Co. Each generation of consumers leaves their mark on culture by establishing new expectations for food and the companies that make it. At The J.M. Smucker Co., it is our privilege to be at the heart of this dynamic with a diverse portfolio that appeals to each generation of people and pets and is found in more than 80 percent of U.S. homes and countless restaurants. This includes a mix of iconic brands consumers have always loved such as Folgers, Jif Milk-Bone & Meow Mix and new favorites like Cafe Bustelo, Smucker's Uncrustables and Rachael Ray Nutrish. By continuing to immerse ourselves in consumer preferences and acting responsibly, we will continue growing our business and the positive impact we have on society. For more information, please visit jmsmucker.com. The J.M. Smucker Co. is the owner of all trademarks referenced herein except for Rachael Ray, a registered trademark of Ray Marks II LLC, which is used under license. SOURCE The J.M. Smucker Co. MONTREAL, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Deborah K. Orida, President and Chief Executive Officer at the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), announced today, effective immediately, two new senior executive appointments to key functions supporting the organization's global strategy. Oliver Duff will take on the role of Senior Vice President, Global Head of Credit Investments, and Simon Marc will take on the role of Senior Vice President, Global Head of Private Equity and Strategic Partnerships. "These appointments recognize Oliver's and Simon's leadership impact across the organization and leverage their deep expertise, long-term experience and global insight as we continue to achieve our strategic objectives, deliver our mandate and generate returns for contributors and beneficiaries," said Deborah K. Orida. "As a mature organization that has successfully navigated past market volatility and complex economic cycles, PSP Investments has a track record for strong financial performance and relies on a highly capable and experienced leadership team at global and regional level." Appointment of Oliver Duff as Senior Vice President, Global Head of Credit Investments As Senior Vice President, Global Head of Credit Investments, Oliver Duff joins PSP Investments' Executive Committee. Oliver has more than 25 years of experience in leverage finance. Previously Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Credit Investments, Oliver joined PSP Investments in September 2016 as Managing Director, Private Debt, to develop and lead the organization's credit investments presence in Europe. Prior to joining PSP Investments, he was Global Head of Leveraged Finance and European Head of Capital Financing at HSBC Bank PLC. Oliver has previously held roles as head of loan syndicate at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and started his leverage finance career with Bankers Trust in London. Oliver is a graduate of Exeter University and is a qualified Chartered Accountant. PSP Investments' Credit Investments group focuses on non-investment grade credit investments in North America and Europe across private and public markets, as well as rescue financing opportunities. From offices in New York, London and Montreal, the group invests across the debt capital structure in the form of loans, bonds and preferred equity. The global team balances credit quality, structure, fixed-floating deployment opportunity, risk-return profile, asset mix and portfolio diversification. As at March 31, 2022, the Credit Investments group managed C$21.9 billion in net assets under management. Appointment of Simon Marc as Senior Vice President, Global Head of Private Equity and Strategic Partnerships As Senior Vice President, Global Head of Private Equity and Strategic Partnerships, Simon Marc joins PSP Investments' Executive Committee. Simon has over 25 years of investment experience in private equity. Previously Senior Managing Director, Global Head of Private Equity, Simon joined PSP Investments in August 2015 as Managing Director, Private Equity, to develop the organization's private equity presence in Europe and globally, opening PSP Investments' London office in 2017 and supporting the opening of the Hong Kong office in 2019. Prior to joining PSP Investments, Simon served as Principal at Permira and Apax Partners, in addition to previous experience at Goldman Sachs. Simon is a graduate of the HEC School of Management, Paris. The Private Equity group builds strategic relationships with external fund managers and investment partners, leveraging global networks with sector, geographic and operating expertise to source long-term co-investment opportunities. As at March 31, 2022, the Private Equity group managed C$35.4 billion in net assets under management and a diversified portfolio across North America, Europe and Asia deployed across funds and direct investments. Simon is also responsible for overseeing PSP Investments' Strategic Partnerships team that coordinates firmwide global relationships and drives synergies with core investment and institutional partners. About PSP Investments The Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) is one of Canada's largest pension investment managers with $230.5 billion of net assets under management as at March 31, 2022. It manages a diversified global portfolio composed of investments in capital markets, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, natural resources and credit investments. Established in 1999, PSP Investments manages and invests amounts transferred to it by the Government of Canada for the pension plans of the federal Public Service, the Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Reserve Force. Headquartered in Ottawa, PSP Investments has its principal business office in Montreal and offices in New York, London and Hong Kong. For more information, visit investpsp.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Media Contact: Maria Constantinescu, PSP Investments, Phone: (514) 218-3795 | 1 844 525 3795, Email: [email protected] SOURCE PSP Investments PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Rx-360 is pleased to announce its 2023 Board of Directors. As a non-profit, the Board of Directors is positioned to continue driving the Rx-360 mission of pharmaceutical supply chain security, material quality, and patient safety. This announcement follows the organization's successful growth in 2022. The Rx-360 2023 Board of Directors includes: Rob Welsh (Chair): Avantor Lucy Cabral (Chair Emeritus): Roche Genentech Scott Kammer (Vice Chair): Takeda Jennifer Stone (Treasurer): PTC Therapeutics (Treasurer): PTC Therapeutics Kathleen Silva (Secretary): MilliporeSigma (Merck KGaA) Bill Campagna : Eli Lilly & Co. : Eli Lilly & Co. Tom Lupo : Bayer : Bayer Anthony Damas : Johnson and Johnson : Johnson and Johnson Eric Berg : Amgen : Amgen Anthony Zook : Merck & Co. : Merck & Co. Christy Mocny : Biogen : Biogen Reggie Jackson : Pfizer : Pfizer Rob Smith : GSK : GSK Ryan Rapp : Atara : Atara Rebecca Alcantara : Curia : Curia Christian Liebl : Schreiner MediPharm : Schreiner MediPharm Isabelle Quintard : Sartorius : Sartorius Stephan Peeters : Lonza : Lonza Claudia Ferreira : Hovione Rob Welsh, the Rx-360 Board Chair for 2023, expressed, "On behalf of the Rx-360 organization and our Board of Directors (BOD), I am pleased to welcome Christy Mocny, Rob Smith, and Rebecca Alcantara to the Board of Directors. We appreciate Lucy Cabral's willingness to stay involved as Chair Emeritus, so we can continue to benefit from her guidance. We also appreciate Jennifer Stone's willingness to join the BOD Executive Committee as Treasurer. We remain focused on Rx-360's mission to protect patient safety by sharing information and developing processes to improve the integrity of the health care supply chain and the quality of materials within the supply chain." Jim Fries, Rx-360 CEO, added, "The board's experience, commitment, and diversity provide our membership and the industry with immense value. The board's commitment to fulfilling our commitment to patient safety is the foundation that makes us successful, and I know that 2023 will be our best year yet." Rx-360 has continued its growth in membership as well as the Joint Audit Program throughout 2022, with a record number of members accessing the consortium than ever before. Rx-360, through its Joint Audit Program, has been able to significantly reduce audit burden for both pharmaceutical manufacturers and their suppliers through unique cost reduction sponsorships and its members-only credit program. About Rx-360: Rx-360, an international pharmaceutical supply chain consortium, was formed in 2009 to support an industry-wide commitment to ensuring patient safety by enhancing quality and authenticity throughout the supply chain. The organization's mission is to protect patient safety by sharing information and developing processes related to the integrity of the healthcare supply chain and the quality of materials within the supply chain. To learn more about Rx-360, please visit http://www.Rx-360.org or email [email protected] SOURCE Rx-360 SK Inc.'s 1st SK Bio Night on the sidelines of J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference offers a glimpse into the future of its global business in new drug, CDMO, biotech SK Biopharmaceuticals joins SK Inc.'s Bio Investment Center, SK pharmteco, or 'SK bio family,' for potential investment, partnerships SK Biopharmaceuticals CEO Donghoon Lee to present 'next story' of the company, eyeing inorganic growth and new therapeutic areas beyond CNS SAN FRANCISCO and PANGYO, South Korea, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SK Biopharmaceuticals, an innovative pharmaceutical company, said that it will be joining SK Inc.'s Bio Investment Center and SK pharmteco or the so-called "SK bio family" in an event to present the company's vision and plan for global expansion before international investors and partners. The event, "SK Bio Night," which will be held for the first time by SK Inc., on the sidelines of the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, on January 11, San Francisco, California, aims to introduce SK Group's global life science business portfolio for further strategic and financial partnerships. SK Biopharmaceuticals is also participating in the 41st J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, taking place from Jan. 9-12, 2023. About 100 executives from 50 investment and life science companies will be participating in SK Bio Night. Mr. Donghoon Lee, the Chief Executive officer of SK Biopharmaceuticals, will stand on the podium with Mr. Yeontae Kim, Head of SK Inc.'s Bio Investment Center, and Mr. Joerg Ahlgrimm, the Chief Executive Officer of SK pharmteco all newly appointed chiefs of SK's key life science businesses for such an occasion led by Mr. Dong Hyun Jang, CEO and Vice Chairman of SK Inc. Mr. Lee will be presenting the company's "next story" that will involve expanding into new therapeutic areas and boosting inorganic growth, beyond the central nervous system and oncology. SK Inc. is the global investment holding company of SK Group, South Korea's second largest conglomerate, and the biggest shareholder of SK Biopharmaceuticals, an innovative drug developer, and SK pharmteco, a contract development and manufacturing organization. Mr. Donghoon Lee, the Chief Executive Officer of SK Biopharmaceuticals, said, "SK Bio Night offers a great opportunity for the company to further grow globally not only with SK, but also with financial and strategic partners. We will aim to make a leap forward with our next story to become a global healthcare company in the near future by maximizing our potential and value." "SK strongly believes that establishing long-term partnerships are integral to realizing the company's mission and vision. We wish to engage and create a strong connection with our existing as well as potential future partners by hosting SK Bio Night, with the goal of forging landmark opportunities in key markets such as the U.S. and Europe," said Mr. Yeontae Kim, Head of SK Inc.'s Bio Investment Center. About SK Biopharmaceuticals SK Biopharmaceuticals and its U.S. subsidiary SK Life Science are global pharmaceutical companies focused on the research, development and commercialization of treatments for disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). The companies have a pipeline of eight new compounds in development for the treatment of CNS disorders, including epilepsy. Additionally, SK Biopharmaceuticals is focused on early research in oncology. For more information, visit SK Biopharmaceuticals' website at www.skbp.com/eng and SK Life Science's website at www.SKLifeScienceInc.com. About SK Inc. Established in 2007, SK Inc. is the investment holding company of SK Group, South Korea's second largest conglomerate by asset size. Headquartered in Seoul, SK Inc. ranks 117th on the Fortune Global 500 list. The company's investment principles and strategies target environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities alongside financial returns to drive sustainable growth for its stakeholders and society. The strategic investment areas of SK Inc. include advanced materials, biopharmaceutical, green energy, and digital technologies. It invests in and nurtures the Group's future growth engines. SK Group seeks to drive innovation and create financial as well as social value for the communities and industries in which it operates. SK Group has over 180 operating companies with a combined USD 139 billion in annual revenue as of 2021. For more information on SK Inc., visit https://www.sk-inc.com/en/main/mainpage.aspx. About SK pharmteco SK pharmteco is the single customer-facing team comprised of SK biotek Ireland, AMPAC Fine Chemicals, SK biotek Korea, Yposkesi and most recently The Center for Breakthrough Medicines. Creating substantial market synergies in the API and Cell and Gene Therapy CDMO space by combining highly complementary assets and expertise, this union enables us to provide the highest-quality services to our customers. With world-class state-of-the-art facilities and technology, increased capabilities: energetic chemistry, continuous flow process, controlled substances, particle engineering, high potency with world-class potent handling capability (down to low nanogram per cubic meter levels). We have multiple cGMP manufacturing and development sites, with ~1300m of capacity among 8 sites plus analytical services facilities across USA, Korea and Ireland. For more information, visit skpharmteco.com. Media Inquiries SK Biopharmaceuticals H. Park, Head of Communications Hyunkyung Cho, Deputy Communications Manager [email protected] SOURCE SK Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd SK to spark innovative ideas and identify new business opportunities by presenting its global strategy and growth roadmap to over 50 partners Newly appointed executives to lead SK's biopharmaceutical businesses to attend the event SK Inc. to promote the competitiveness of K-bio and provide insight into its remarkable achievements in the US, Europe and Korea markets SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SK Inc., together with its life science affiliates including SK biopharmaceuticals and SK pharmteco, will hold a networking event to expand their global partnerships in the U.S., the world's largest bio and pharmaceutical market. SK Inc. is the strategic investment holding company of South Korea's SK Group. SK Inc. announced that it will hold a SK Bio Night on January 11 at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco, US. The meeting will be attended by 100 executives from over 50 companies that includes SK's global partners and investment companies. The goal of the event, among others, is to build strong understanding of SK's current priorities and discover new collaborative opportunities. Newly appointed executives from SK Inc. and its affiliates who will be hosting the event includes Dong-hyun Jang, CEO and Vice Chairman of SK Inc.; Joerg Ahlgrimm, CEO of SK pharmteco; Dong-hoon Lee, CEO of SK biopharmaceuticals; and Yeon-tae Kim, Head of SK Bio Investment Center. They will present how their respective companies are building thriving businesses in the global biopharmaceutical sector that includes strengthening collaborations with investors and partners. SK biopharmaceuticals, SK pharmteco and SK Bio Investment Center have all recently appointed new leadership to prepare and spearhead new business opportunities in the global biopharmaceutical market. Yeon-tae Kim, Head of Bio Investment Center at SK Inc., will share the company's strategic priorities related to portfolio expansion beyond small-molecule drugs and how the company has optimized the business to expand its global footprint in biopharmaceuticals. Dong-hoon Lee, CEO of SK biopharmaceuticals, will provide details on its anti-seizure medication cenobamate, which is commercially available in the U.S. under the brand name XCOPRI. Mr. Lee will also share an update on the company's pipelines and future roadmap that will help boost its global business portfolio and value. SK pharmteco has been bolstering its competitiveness in the cell and gene therapy (CGT) sector, an emerging growth market in the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business. Joerg Ahlgrimm, CEO of SK pharmteco, will unveil the company's business strategy as a global CDMO along with its vision and competitiveness with investors and partners at the event. Since entering the biopharmaceutical business, SK Inc. has achieved impressive results in enhancing its competitiveness by adopting a robust localization strategy that focused on the development of new small-molecule drugs and CGT CDMO business in the US and Europe, the world's largest markets. By consummating large cross-border transactions that includes SK's acquisition of a plant in Ireland owned by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2017 (currently SK biotek Ireland) and of AMPAC Fine Chemicals of the US in 2018, SK Inc. was able to scale its biopharmaceutical business and secure strategically important production bases in the U.S. and Europe. In 2019, SK pharmteco, an integrated CDMO company, was established to spearhead the global operation of CDMO business across Korea, Europe and the U.S. In 2021, SK Inc. entered the CGT CDMO business by acquiring Yposkesi of France through SK pharmteco and in 2022, became the second largest shareholder of Center for Breakthrough Medicine (CBM), an American CGT CDMO. Currently, the U.S and Europe accounts for 95% of SK pharmteco's global customer base. The company secured five research and development centers as well as eight production facilities across Europe, the U.S., and Korea, establishing itself as a global CDMO. Furthermore, the company has been recording strong earnings growth with sales exceeding 1 trillion won (approximately USD 780 million, based on preliminary results). Through SK Bio Night, SK Inc. plans to explore various business partnerships and investment opportunities in the global market, including the U.S. "SK strongly believes that establishing long-term partnerships are integral to realizing the company's mission and vision. We wish to engage and create a strong connection with our existing as well as potential future partners by hosting SK Bio Night, with the goal of forging landmark opportunities in key markets such as the U.S. and Europe," said Yeon-tae Kim, Head of SK Bio Investment Center. "We are excited to share our impressive growth trajectory with our global partners and investors." SOURCE SK Inc. New Delhi (India), JANUARY 06: LivNSense, with its key focus on Safety and Sustainability driven by its flagship platform, GreenOps is pleased to announce its strategic Joint Go to the market partnership with SOYNET Co Ltd (Korea) for working together in addressing the needs of the manufacturing industry in South Korea and Global Markets. LivNSense has been raising the bar for ESG through our Award-Winning AI Platform GreenOps, thereby creating Safer and more Sustainable workplaces. The partnership accelerates the application of optimized AI-Vision-based technology to address the challenges of the Manufacturing industry. The innovation leverages Edge-AI, Digital Twins and Machine Vision technologies to jointly work towards transforming the manufacturing industry into a Safe and Sustainable environment. Avnish Kumar, CEO of LivNSense, stated, We are very excited to partner with SOYNET to enable comprehensive AI-Vision technology of Future offerings for the Manufacturing industry. The product is distributed edge and cloud-based Computer Vision/AI solution to improve visibility, safety and sustainability in hazardous as well as normal environments. It is a real-time vision-based solution which can be extended to advanced analytics and AI model based with a self-learning automated approach. Soynet will also optimize our product to reduce the Carbon Footprint and improve the overall Carbon Offset for the use cases offered by GreenOps. It is already production deployed with a leading manufacturing company in North America and India and now expanding to users in South Korea. Jung Woo Park, COO SOYNET, stated, We have always envisioned helping and creating an ecosystem that can leverage SoyNets potential to deploy real-time AI. So much research goes into learning; however, when the AI models are deployed, they do not perform fast enough and consume a huge amount of memory. We want to help SMBs and Enterprises to accelerate their AI models and save huge GPU costs. Our partnership with LivNsense will bring better products for different industries and give them cost optimization up to 3 times for cloud deployment. We are thrilled to have LivNsense on board to help broaden this ecosystem in Asia, USA and global markets. About LivNSense Technologies Pvt. Ltd. LivNSense is an Industrial Green-AI venture out of India with a global presence across USA & APAC and in strategic collaboration with leading IoT ecosystem partners. LivNSense focuses on innovation with a safety first approach with a key objective of making the production environment safer and sustainable with a Profit Maximization approach that can be economically viable (maximizing profitability with a key focus on Industrial Resources Efficiency and GHG carbon reduction) through its flagship digital twins platform, GreenOps, Our Mission, is to Impact 100+ Mega Tons of GHG Emissions across the industries we serve. The product is already deployed in North America and Indian markets across 10+ Fortune 500 customers, delivering up to 10% of GHG Intensity reductions and RoI of 20-25% in Year 1. To learn more, visit https://www.livnsense.com About SOYNET SOYNET, established in South Korea in 2018, is a software-based inference accelerator developer. Our proprietary solution, SoyNet, provides model optimization for deep learning. We have also introduced Model Market, the first-ever marketplace for SoyNet-optimized models. These deep learning models are, on average, 6 times faster and consume around 3 times less memory than public frameworks like TensorFlow, Pytorch and TensorRT. With the help of NVIDIAs SDK, SoyNet ensures the optimized models consume significantly less GPU memory so that you can run multiple models on a lower-end GPU. Skynets optimized models are provided in a bin folder/Docker file that can be quickly executed and deployed on the cloud, on-premises or on edge devices. Using the 5-step API process, the optimized models are easily integrated with C++, Java or Python applications. To learn more, visit SOYNET Main Focus Area of this Joint Partnership Accelerate with AI-VISION Based Technology for Manufacturing Industry Reduce Carbon Emission for future-ready of Industry Optimize Products with Zero Carbon Footprint to enable Net Zero BEIJING, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A report by the Beijing Internet Institute: On January 5, 2023, in the "Global IPv6 Development and Standards Evolution Seminar" co-sponsored by the IPv6 Forum and the China Future Internet Engineering Center(CFIEC), the Global IPv6 Forum officially released the 2022 IPv6 Support White Paper. The white paper shows that the world is still in the process of accelerating IPv6 deployment. By December 2022, the IPv6 deployment rate has reached more than 30% for more than half of the countries and regions in the world. IPv6 support capability has been further improved, and a total of 6,228 devices have passed the IPv6 Ready certification. The number of global IPv6 users and the overall deployment rate, as well as the support for IPv6 in networks, domain name systems and websites, are steadily on the rise. 21.5 percent of all websites in the world now support IPv6 access Achievement of global IPv6 deployment have made a new breakthrough, IPv6 users hit a new High The next generation Internet of IPv6 is the core and underlying foundation of global digital upgrading. Promoting IPv6 deployment is of great significance to improve the global Internet carrying capacity and service level, facilitating the digital transformation of economy and society, and promoting global economic prosperity and development. Countries on a global scale have fully realized the urgency and importance of IPv6 deployment at this stage, and governments have introduced national development strategies and initiatives to actively promote large-scale commercial deployment of IPv6. In terms of the global IPv6 deployment rate, the Americas, Asia and Europe benefited from early progress, the IPv6 deployment rate is higher, while Africa still needs to be improved. From the current statistical data, by 2022, the IPv6 deployment rate in 26 countries has exceeded 40%, an increase of 9 compared with that in 2021; 37 countries have deployment rates exceeding 30%; The deployment rate of 51 countries exceeded 20%. In terms of infrastructure, 98.6% of the world's 1,485 TLDS support IPv6. On the network side, the number of active BGP route entries reached 173,450, an increase of about 28 percent year-on-year. As mobile operators and broadband operators continue to improve IPv6 deployment, paving the way for the maximum number of IPv6 users and traffic. According to data from Google and Facebook, the proportion of IPv6 users in 2022 has reached 41.3% and 36.1% respectively, which has set new records. China has seen the largest increase in the number of IPv6 users, increased by 110 million per year, the total amount has reached 718 million. IPv6 support for Internet services continued to improve, while the IPv6 support capability of websites needs to be improved The 2022 IPv6 Support White Paper illustrates the global IPv6 support for Internet services from five aspects: website, application, software, CDNS and cloud services. In terms of websites, 21.5 percent of all websites globally support IPv6 access, up 2.1 percent from last year. However, due to internal and external problems such as not supported by AWS and inability of DDOS mitigation platform to monitor IPv6, there is still a lot of room for improvement in the overall website IPv6 support. In terms of software, the operating system as the basis of various applications, basically can support IPv6 at present, about 81% of the default installation of IPv6 protocol stack, about 65% support DHCPv6. On this basis, a variety of applications also gradually began to support IPv6 to meet the needs of the majority of users. International mainstream CDNS and cloud service providers have high support for IPv6. In general, the continuous improvement of IPv6 support for Internet services has a positive effect on driving IPv6 traffic growth. Diversified devices meet the requirements of IPv6 commercial deployment With the rapid development of the digital economy and the advent of the Internet of Everything era, in order to meet different scenarios of IPv6 deployment, network equipment, security equipment and terminal equipment manufacturers have developed a large number of different types of IPv6 products. These include routers, switches, servers, network security products, VPN gateways, home terminals, office terminals, etc. According to the data provided by the Global IPv6 Test Center, as of November 2022, the total number of IPv6 Ready Logo issued by the world has reached 3,014, the total number of devices have passed the certification reached 6,228, and is on the rise. More than 30 products worldwide have applied for IPv6 Ready Logo certification, which basically meets commercial deployment requirements. According to the 2022 Global IPv6 Support White Paper, the current IPv6 support of network products mainly presents the following characteristics: The number of switches and network security products certified was far ahead, with nearly 300 logos for switches and more than 700 devices. The number of logos applied for network security products was nearly 600, and more than 700 devices were certified. Home gateway products support IPv6 significantly, and more than 100 devices have passed the certification. Among them, Chinese manufacturers have actively carried out IPv6 upgrading in recent years. In 2022, Enterprises registered in China obtained 1273 IPv6 Ready logos and 2,453 certified devices, ranking first in the world, followed by those from the United States, Japan and South Korea. Latif Ladid, President of IPv6 Forum, points out during the ceremony: "The development of IPv6 has significantly improved both in terms of network deployment and traffic. Countries pay more attention to the ecological construction of IPv6, and the global IPv6 technology and standards continue to innovate and evolve. IPv6 applications have been deployed in education, finance, people's livelihood and military fields. As more and more organizations and enterprises in the industry actively promote IPv6 technology development, standard evolution and testing of IPv6 Ready, we see that IPv6 products and services apply better. The development of IPv6 in the world has made breakthroughs one after another, especially in China, where the number of IPv6 users has exceeded 700 million." The 2022 IPv6 Support White Paper systematically demonstrates the data of IPv6 deployment in terms of the number of global users, networks and domain name systems, international operators, websites, cloud services, network equipment, etc. It not only presents the development achievements and existing problems of global IPv6 in a comprehensive, objective and accurate way. It shows the future prospect and development trend of IPv6 application. At the same time, it also calls on the industry to deepen the understanding of the role and evolution of IPv6, and proposes that the industry work together to promote the accelerated deployment of IPv6. SOURCE Beijing Internet Institute The "Global IPv6 Development and Standard Evolution Seminar" was successfully held BEIJING, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A report by the Beijing Internet Institute: IPv6 is the first and might be the last upgrade of the global network in the coming decades. The development of IPv6 and IPv6 derivative and convergence technology standards will meet the objective requirements of the continuous expansion of the future network, facilitate the digital transformation in multiple fields, and become a new track of global digital technology innovation. In light of this, the "Global IPv6 Development and Standard Evolution Symposium and the Release Ceremony of the 2022 IPv6 Support White Paper", held by the IPv6 Forum and the China Future Internet Engineering Center(CFIEC) on JANUARY 5, 2023. The event accumulates global experts from global organizations from IPv6 Forum, CFIEC, Asia-Pacific Internet Network Information Center (APNIC), China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), China Communication Standardization Association (CCSA), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), European Telecommunications Standardization Association IPv6 Enhanced Innovation Working Group (ETSI IPE). Experts discuss the development vitality and opportunities of IPv6 under the new turning point of digital economy, strengthen the in-depth cooperation between different organizations, establish a perfect IPv6 and derived and fusion technology standards. accelerating large-scale deployment of IPv6 globally in the "global IPv6 development" and "IPv6 standard evolution" dimensions. IPv6 is leading the development of the Internet IPv6 provides more innovation capacity and development space for network infrastructure. Wu Hequan, academician of the CAE Member, summarizes the current development trend and characteristics of IPv6 at the meeting. He believes that the global Internet development has entered the dominant period of IPv6, which mainly presents three characteristics: first, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is accelerating; Second, from IPv4/IPv6 dual stack to IPv6 only; Third, IPv6 is developing towards IPv6+, with the developing IPv6 address space capabilities and fully integrating with the new generation of IT. IPv6 is playing an active role. Liu Dong, Vice President of IPv6 Forum, introduced the development of the global IPv6 deployment in general: "The global IPv6 deployment speeds up to a new level in 2022. Countries or regions with a combined IPv6 deployment rate of around 30% or above account for more than half of the world. IPv6 deployment rate in 26 countries exceeded 40%, an increase of 9% compared with 2021; 37 countries have deployment rates exceeding 30%; The deployment rate of 51 countries exceeded 20%. IPv6-only has become a global consensus. The IPv6 applications and users will grow rapidly in the future " Sharing the development of IPv6 deployment in the Asia-Pacific region at the conference, Pan Guangliang, Director of Basic Resource Services at the Asia Pacific Internet Network Information Center (APNIC), puts, "The growth of the Internet has not stopped and will not stop. As more and more devices connects to the Internet, IPv6 is the way to go and is growing globally, with Asia seeing strong growth in overall IPv6 capability. According to APNIC statistics, the IPv6 support capacity in Asia exceeds the global average level by nearly 40%. Several countries such as China, India and Malaysia have witnessed rapid IPv6 development. In the next few years, the deployment of IPv6 will continue to improve, and more innovative applications based on IPv6 will appear " The development of IPv6 in China is outstanding. Gao Wei, director of the Internet Center of the Standards Institute of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, points out at the conference: "China is among the first countries in the world to carry out research, standard setting, application development and large-scale commercialization of IPv6 and next-generation Internet technologies. By December 2022, the number of IPv6 users in China has reached 717.7 million, with IPv6 traffic on fixed networks accounting for 12% and mobile networks 46%, showing a good momentum of development. IPv6 transformation achieves monumental success especially in the cloud platform, to achieve the new era of IPv6 traffic increase to provide strong support." IPv6 standard evolves from IPv6-Only to "cloud network", "computing network" and "security" In the era of digital economy, the integration of the Internet and the economy continues to deepen, and industrial digitalization with digital industrialization have become opportunities for all industries to score a new chapter. As an important starting point of digital transformation, standard is more conducive to opening up a leading advantage in the changing situation. The research, development and creation of IPv6 and its derived and converged technical standards are closely related to the development and deployment of IPv6. With the accelerated deployment of IPv6, the international standardization of IPv6 has entered a new stage and came across new changes. Zhao Huiling, chairman of CCSA TC3 Technical Committee of China Communications Standardization Association, says that after 20 years of development, the current IPv6 standards have formed a systematic and standardized trend, covering five categories of standards: resources, networks, applications, security and transition. The standards at this stage can meet the needs of IPv6 network construction, but the security standards and application standards still have a lot to catch up. She also proposes four key directions for the creation of IPv6 industry standards in the new stage: first, in the field of cloud network integration, IPv6 supports the deep integration of new resources such as cloud network edge intelligent collaboration and data computing power; Second, in the field of IOT, IPv6 supports seamless global coverage, and anyone can communicate with anyone at any place and any time. Third, in the field of intelligent operation and maintenance, IPv6 supports end-to-end network quality assurance to ensure that the demands of the cloud on the network in enterprise production scenarios are met. Fourth, in the field of security and credibility, IPv6 supports end-to-end security endogenous mechanisms, adaptive security frameworks and security atomic capabilities, security defense, detection, and response prediction. Li Zhenbin, member of the IETF Internet Architecture Committee (IAB) and Huawei's chief IP protocol expert, also mentions that, "As the data communication industry moves towards the intelligent connection era of IPv6+, IETF has also gradually carried out various IPv6 standardization work, including the IPv6+1.0 (SRv6) standard, the IPv6+2.0 (5G&Cloud) standard Important achievements have been made in relevant standards. At this stage, IPv6 provides more differentiated service capabilities. Cloud network and computing network become the key applications of IPv6. Through IPv6 expansion and APN and other technologies, personalized networks can be realized and diverse computing power requirements can be met. In terms of APN6, we have signed a standard manuscript with several operators to successfully promote BOF at IETF, which will be the key direction of future technology innovation and standard creation. In addition, the general tunnel encapsulation technology GIP6 based on IPv6 also deserves further attention. " After years of deployment and penetration, IPv6 has entered a golden age of IPv6-Only evolution. When introducing the development of IPv6 at ETSI, Xie Chongfeng, Vice Chairman of ISG at ETSI IPE (IPv6 Enhanced innovation) and senior expert on IPv6 at China Academy of Telecommunication Research, says that network infrastructure is multi-domain and multi-scenario. To this end, we should actively promote the multi-domainIPv6-Only network architecture and technical requirements, in the form of a standard in the industry consensus, which will help operators, OTT, and service and devices manufacturers to buildIPv6-Only networks, and promote network infrastructure towards IPv6-Only. The Release of 2022 Global IPv6 Support White Paper This seminar is not only a rare multilateral interaction and exchange between domestic and foreign organizations and experts on IPv6 development and standards, but also a demonstration of the fruitful results achieved in promoting IPv6 globally in the past year. At the meeting, the 2022 Global IPv6 Support White Paper jointly prepared by the IPv6 Forum and CFIEC was officially released. Latif Ladid, the president of the IPv6 Forum, says at the release ceremony that the white paper is based on the latest progress of global IPv6 technology, the number of global users, the network and domain name system, international operators, websites, cloud services Network equipment and other parties elaborate on the global IPv6 support and make multi-dimensional and multi-dimensional statistics to comprehensively, objectively and accurately reflect the global IPv6 development. At the same time, the IPv6 Forum also selected "IPv6 Outstanding Contribution Enterprises" and "IPv6 Pioneer Enterprises" in 2022 based on the white paper. Latif Latid gives awards to five enterprises including Cisco, Huawei, HP, H3C and D-Link, with the "IPv6 Outstanding Contribution Enterprise" award, and ten enterprises, Dell, IBM, TOPSEC, QI-ANXIN, Allied Telesis, Panasonic, Microsoft, ZTE, China Mobile and TP Link, receive the "IPv6 Pioneer Enterprise" award. Yang Wu, chief architect of the H3C Router product line, Zhu Keyi, head of the Huawei Digital Communication Standards and Patent Department, and Han Minglei, an expert on TUPSEC protocol conversion products, also shared the latest IPv6 solutions and products at the meeting. Liu Dong, Vice President of the IPv6 Forum and director of CFIEC, illustrates: "At the beginning of the year, it is a great pleasure to meet with you online. Through your sharing, we can see that we have made progress in two important dimensions, 'Global IPv6 Development' and 'IPv6 Standard Evolution', and formed a large number of new achievements. In the future, our various organizations will continue to deepen cooperation and make use of advantages. While moving towards IPv6-Only, the first is to maintain continuous innovation and improve the IPv6 network value; The second is to actively expand the innovative application of IPv6 in the context of the Internet of Everything. The third is to create and improve new technical standards for the sustainable development of IPv6. Let us accelerate the global IPv6 scale deployment, and let IPv6 and the Internet benefit everyone. " SOURCE Beijing Internet Institute Juan Carlos Puente, Senior Vice President and President, Whirlpool Latin American North Region, to succeed Brega BENTON HARBOR, Mich., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) announced today that Joao Carlos Costa Brega, Executive Vice President, Whirlpool Corporation, and President, Whirlpool Latin America, will be stepping down from his role as part of a long-term succession plan, effective March 31, 2023. Juan Carlos Puente, currently Senior Vice President, Whirlpool Corporation, and President, Whirlpool Latin America North Region, will succeed Brega, effective April 1, 2023. "We express our heartfelt thanks to Joao Brega who has had a remarkable career at Whirlpool for over 27 years," said Marc Bitzer, Chairman and CEO of Whirlpool Corporation. "Joao Brega's strong leadership helped steer our company, especially Whirlpool Latin America, through many challenging times, and his passion and unwavering commitment to our consumers and our employees will be missed." Joe Liotine, President and COO of Whirlpool Corporation also said, "Joao Brega's leadership has built a strong foundation for Whirlpool Latin America to continue to succeed as the industry leader. We are grateful for his many contributions and the impact he has made." Under Brega's leadership, Whirlpool Latin America saw profitable growth, including significant net sales growth over the years, despite supply constraints and currency headwinds. Most recently, Brega led the company's $52 million investment in its manufacturing plant in Pilar, Argentina, marking a milestone in Whirlpool's history and furthering the company's commitment to generating employment and the country's export profile as a leading brand. Brega was named President, Whirlpool Latin America, in 2012. Previously, he served as president of Embraco, the company's compressor business. Brega joined Whirlpool in 1995 as controller, and held a number of positions in the company's financial area in Brazil and the United States. He also previously served as Director of Operations for Whirlpool Argentina/Chile, Chief Financial Officer of Whirlpool Latin America, and President of Operations for Whirlpool Mexico and Canada. Brega holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and a postgraduate degree in Finance from the Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil. "Serving the incredible people of Whirlpool, our consumers and our communities over much of my career has been a tremendous experience and I am proud to have been part of the journey of this company," said Brega. "I am pleased to leave Whirlpool Latin America in the hands of Juan Carlos, a respected and trusted leader, and I look forward to seeing him take the region to even greater success." Puente joined Whirlpool in 1996, and has since held various global leadership roles, including leading the laundry business for Whirlpool's North America Region and serving as President of Whirlpool Mexico and as Vice President of Market Operations of Whirlpool's EMEA Region. Currently as President of Whirlpool Latin America North Region, Puente has led the integration and transformation of the region, and supported top-line growth, profitability, and innovation to further drive a customer-focused approach throughout the region's operations. Puente recently completed Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program (AMP) in Business, Strategy and Leadership. He earned a Global Executive MBA from EGADE Business School in Monterrey, Mexico, and a Bachelor's degree in International Business from the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) also in Monterrey. Regarding Puente, Liotine noted, "Juan Carlos' visionary leadership has inspired many in our company for more than twenty-five years and he has a track record of proven success across his many assignments around the world. We look forward to seeing him lead the region and guide future achievements for Whirlpool for the benefit of all of our consumers." About Whirlpool Corporation Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is committed to being the best global kitchen and laundry company, in constant pursuit of improving life at home. In an increasingly digital world, the company is driving purposeful innovation to meet the evolving needs of consumers through its iconic brand portfolio, including Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, JennAir, Indesit, Yummly and InSinkErator. In 2021, the company reported approximately $22 billion in annual sales, 69,000 employees and 54 manufacturing and technology research centers. Additional information about the company can be found at WhirlpoolCorp.com. SOURCE Whirlpool Corporation DUBLIN, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "The Corporate Reputation of Pharma in 2021 - The Patient Perspective - Cancer Edition - The Views of 520 Cancer Patient Groups" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The 'Corporate Reputation of Pharma' survey - cancer edition, now in its 9th year, and two years into the Covid-19 pandemic. Between November 2021-February 2022, the survey collected the opinions of 520 cancer patient groups on the performance of the pharmaceutical industry during 2021. Patient groups responding to the 'Corporate Reputation of Pharma' survey are uniquely positioned to comment on the pharma industry's performance during the pandemic. Patient groups not only understand the perceptions of patients, but are also the only healthcare stakeholder to network with all other stakeholders in the healthcare system. FINDINGS AT INDUSTRY LEVEL The 520 cancer patient groups responding to the 2021 'Corporate Reputation' survey rated the pharma industry more favourably for corporate reputation than their predecessors in all previous years. 67% of 2021's respondent cancer patient groups stated that the industry had an "Excellent" or "Good" corporate reputation, against 57% saying the same in 2020. Although many patients with cancer suffered from the indirect consequences of the pandemic, the sentiment of cancer patient groups towards industry, and to its achievements-particularly in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic-remained positive during 2020 and 2021. 81% of 2021's 520 respondent cancer patient groups thought the pharma industry "Very effective" or "Effective" at supporting patients during the Covid-19 pandemic-higher than the equivalent figures received from 2021's respondent patient groups of other therapy areas. However, 2021's respondent cancer patient groups are not uniform in their views about the pharma industry's reputation. Lung-cancer patient groups were the most positive about the pharma industry in 2021; blood, digestive, and rare-cancer patient groups were the least positive. So, why the difference? Cancer patient groups which marked pharma down for its reputation in 2021 pointed to many unmet areas of patient need in cancer R&D, including: Patient access to cancer medicines. The need to emphasise the quality of life of patients with cancer. The need for real-world evidence (RWE) on the tolerability and side effects of cancer medicines. The need for cancer R&D to consider larger patient populations. The report provides highlights on: How the analyst measures pharma's corporate reputation from a patient perspective; The headline results of the 2021 survey, from the perspective of cancer patient groups; The companies included in the 2021 cancer analysis; and The profiles of 2021's respondent cancer patient groups. Company Rankings The top-three pharma companies out of 30 companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation in 2021, assessed by respondent cancer patient groups familiar with the company: Pfizer, 1st - Roche/Genentech, 2nd - Novartis, 3rd. The top-three pharma companies out of 26 companies, ranked for their overall corporate reputation in 2021, assessed by respondent cancer patient groups working with the company: Pfizer, 1st - Roche/Genentech, 2nd - Janssen, 3rd. Who Should Read this Report? Customer Types (Organisations) Pharma companies Biopharma companies Regulatory authorities (e.g EMA, FDA) NGOs and health charities (usually FOC) including Patient Groups Research and academia Job Titles/Functions for Pharma and Biopharma Organisations Core: Patient Relations Corporate Reputation Public Affairs Professional Affairs Patient Advocacy Communications Market Research Secondary: R&D Health economics Outcomes Research Medical Affairs Marketing Brand teams Market Access Regulatory Key Topics Covered: Executive summary Cancer patient-group relationships with pharma, 2021 Industry-wide findings, 2021 Rankings of 30 pharma companies, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent cancer patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of 26 pharma companies, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent cancer patient groups working with the companies Rankings of 13 'big-pharma' companies, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent cancer patient groups familiar with the companies Rankings of 13 'big-pharma' companies, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent cancer patient groups working with the companies Rankings of 5 generic pharma companies, 2021 v. 2020, as assessed by respondent cancer patient groups familiar with the companies Profiles of the 30 companies, 2021 (v. 2020) Appendices Profiles of respondent cancer patient groups, 2021 List of respondent cancer patient groups that wished to be attributed, 2021 Commentaries and feedback from respondent cancer patient groups on how pharma can improve, 2021-2022 The views of 84 blood-cancer patient groups Supplement The views of 92 breast- and women's-cancer patient groups Supplement The views of 28 lung-cancer patient groups Supplement The views of 42 prostate- and men's-cancer patient groups Supplement Profiles of the 30 companies, 2021 AbbVie Amgen Astellas Pharma AstraZeneca Bayer Boehringer Ingelheim Bristol Myers Squibb Daiichi Sankyo Dr Reddy's Eisai Eli Lilly Gilead Sciences GSK Ipsen Janssen Menarini Merck & Co/MSD Merck KGaA/EMD Serono Mylan Novartis Otsuka Pfizer Pierre Fabre Roche/Genentech Sandoz Sanofi Servier Sun Pharma Takeda Teva For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/lb6eq3 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 MONTREAL, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - BCE Inc. (TSX: BCE) (NYSE: BCE) will hold its fourth-quarter 2022 results and 2023 guidance conference call with the financial community on Thursday, February 2, 2023 at 7:00 am eastern. Participants will include Mirko Bibic, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Glen LeBlanc, Chief Financial Officer. Media are welcome to participate on a listen-only basis. To participate, please dial toll-free 1-800-806-5484 or 416-340-2217 and enter passcode 1475438#. A replay will be available until midnight on March 2, 2023 by dialing 1-800-408-3053 or 905-694-9451 and entering passcode 9881822#. A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available on BCE's website at BCE Q4 2022 conference call. About BCE BCE is Canada's largest communications company, providing advanced Bell broadband wireless, Internet, TV, media and business communications services. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca or BCE.ca. Through Bell for Better, we are investing to create a better today and a better tomorrow by supporting the social and economic prosperity of our communities. This includes the Bell Let's Talk initiative, which promotes Canadian mental health with national awareness and anti-stigma campaigns like Bell Let's Talk Day and significant Bell funding of community care and access, research and workplace initiatives throughout the country. To learn more, please visit Bell.ca/LetsTalk. Media inquiries: Vanessa Damha 1-888-482-0809 [email protected] Investor inquiries: Thane Fotopoulos 514-870-4619 [email protected] SOURCE BCE Inc. Investment will support next phase of expansion and business transformation for fast-growing specialty commercial landscaper SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Beach Point Capital Management has made a majority investment in Botanical Designs, a leading specialty commercial landscaper. The investment was made by Beach Point's private equity team on behalf of BPC Tactical Fund LP. The management team will continue to retain ownership in the company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Botanical Designs (https://botanicaldesigns.com/) is the leader in high impact interior and exterior landscaping and green walls, providing design, installation and maintenance services for Class A offices, hotels and retail locations across the US. Founded in 1995, the company has built a strong brand and loyal following among blue chip clients across industries, with a leading presence in the rapidly growing metro areas of Seattle, Minneapolis and Denver. Robert Bergmann, Portfolio Manager at Beach Point, said: "Botanical Designs embodies all the characteristics that we look for in our investments. The company has an established brand with tremendous opportunities for growth and a strong management team. The business model has proven to be extremely resilient through different economic cycles and we look forward to partner with the management team to take the business into the next stage of its growth." Bordon Lai, Principal at Beach Point, added: "Botanical Designs operates in a fast-growing specialty segment within commercial landscaping and has a highly scalable business model. We are excited to support the company in pursuing organic growth initiatives and strategic M&A." Edward McDonnell, CEO of Botanical Designs, commented: "We believe the partnership and resources that Beach Point brings to the company will greatly accelerate our growth objectives. Our Company is dedicated to providing top-notch quality and responsiveness to our clients, and developing our passionate employees in their own careers. Botanical Designs has a track record of continuing long-standing legacies of the businesses that we acquire and we look forward to satisfying the growing demand for high impact plants and horticulture." Following Beach Point's investment into Botanical Designs, the Company acquired Interior Foliage Company to expand its operations to the Seattle market on December 30, 2022. This latest investment builds on the strong momentum for Beach Point's private equity strategy. During the second half of 2022, the private equity team has made three new investments and three follow-on investments with an active pipeline for 2023. These investments span the consumer, retail, healthcare and commercial services verticals. About Beach Point Capital Management Beach Point Capital Management is a multi-strategy investment manager making credit, private equity, real estate and structured product investments. As of December 31, 2022, Beach Point Capital Management manages $14.5 billion in AUM on behalf of sophisticated global institutional investors. Headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, the firm also has offices in New York, London, and Dublin. Beach Point Private Equity leverages the Beach Point Capital Management's deep industry expertise, network and shared resources to be a value-added partner for its private equity portfolio companies. Beach Point Private Equity seeks investments with capital requirements of $15 - $150 million and currently has 10 portfolio companies. Press Contact Beach Point Capital Management Prosek Partners Josh Clarkson 203.273.7935 / [email protected] SOURCE Beach Point Capital Management DUBLIN, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Global Market Report 2022" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. This report provides strategists, marketers and senior management with the critical information they need to assess the global bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market. The global bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market is expected to grow from $1.50 billion in 2021 to $1.64 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4%. The bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market is expected to grow to $2.20 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 7.5%. Reasons to Purchase Gain a truly global perspective with the most comprehensive report available on this market covering 12+ geographies. Understand how the market is being affected by the coronavirus and how it is likely to emerge and grow as the impact of the virus abates. Create regional and country strategies on the basis of local data and analysis. Identify growth segments for investment. Outperform competitors using forecast data and the drivers and trends shaping the market. Understand customers based on the latest market research findings. Benchmark performance against key competitors. Utilize the relationships between key data sets for superior strategizing. Suitable for supporting your internal and external presentations with reliable high quality data and analysis Major players in the bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market are Wellsens Inc., XSENSOR Technology Corporation, SensorCare Systems Ltd, Smart Caregiver Corporation, Eight Sleep, Infant Optics, Lenovo Group Limited, PhilipsKoninklijke Philips N.V, VTech Communications, Inc., Nanit, iBaby Labs, Withings, Hisense Ltd, Motorola Mobility LLC, and Capsule Technologies Inc. The bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market consists of the sales of bed monitoring system and baby monitoring system products and related services by entities (organizations, partnerships, and sole proprietors) that are used for tracking the activities of babies. These systems use various sensors to track the activities of the patients and the babies and notify the caregivers or parents if there is any deviation in their normal behavior to make sure to check on them in case of an emergency. A sensor is designed to be placed under the mattress of a bed, near the bed frame, and is completely sealed against contamination, eliminating the need to discard the sensor after a patient is discharged. Ribbon switches are placed between stiff Plexiglas plates in the assembly of the sensor. The main types of bed monitoring system & baby monitoring systems include bedsore monitoring solutions, baby monitoring solutions, elderly monitoring solutions, and sleep monitoring solutions. The bedsore monitoring solutions are used to monitor the areas suffering pressure sores or bed sores. When the skin and soft tissue are pressed against a harder surface for an extended period of time, such as a bed or chair, a pressure ulcer can form. The different end-users include homecare settings, hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities. North America was the largest region in the bed monitoring system and baby monitoring system market in 2021. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region in the forecast period. The regions covered in the bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market report are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East and Africa. The growing investment in healthcare infrastructural development is expected to propel the growth of the bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market going forward. Governments across the globe are launching several hospital infrastructure investment initiatives to boost healthcare development in impoverished areas, which would create the demand for bed monitoring systems and baby monitoring systems. For instance, according to the Commonwealth Fund Commission of the United States, the US government introduced the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) which would invest more than $2 billion in basic public health infrastructure and increase the ability of the healthcare system to respond to infectious and chronic diseases and environmental threats. The BBBA is expected to include $100 million in 2022, $150 million in 2023, and $500 million in 2024-2026 for public health efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Therefore, the growing investment in healthcare infrastructural development is driving the growth of the bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market. Technological advancements have emerged as the key trend gaining popularity in the bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market. Major companies operating in the bed monitoring system and baby monitoring system sector are focused on introducing technological innovations to reinforce their position. The countries covered in the bed monitoring system & baby monitoring system market report are Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK, USA. Key Topics Covered: 1. Executive Summary 2. Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market Characteristics 3. Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market Trends And Strategies 4. Impact Of COVID-19 On Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System 5. Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market Size And Growth 5.1. Global Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Historic Market, 2016-2021, $ Billion 5.1.1. Drivers Of The Market 5.1.2. Restraints On The Market 5.2. Global Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Forecast Market, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion 5.2.1. Drivers Of The Market 5.2.2. Restraints On the Market 6. Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market Segmentation 6.1. Global Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market, Segmentation By Type, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Bedsore Monitoring Solutions Baby Monitoring Solutions Elderly Monitoring Solutions Sleep Monitoring Solutions 6.2. Global Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market, Segmentation By End-User, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion Homecare Settings Hospitals Nursing Home Assisted Living Facilities 7. Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market Regional And Country Analysis 7.1. Global Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market, Split By Region, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion 7.2. Global Bed Monitoring System & Baby Monitoring System Market, Split By Country, Historic and Forecast, 2016-2021, 2021-2026F, 2031F, $ Billion For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/nuhv8s 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 TEMPE, Ariz., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Benchmark Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: BHE) today announced the appointment of Douglas Britt as an independent director to the Company's Board of Directors, effective immediately. Benchmark also announced today the retirement of Douglas Duncan, who has served as a board member since 2006, also effective January 9, 2023. "It has been my great pleasure serving with Doug Duncan on the Board," said David W. Scheible, Board Chair. "Doug's contributions have been invaluable over the last 16 years. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I thank Doug for his service and commitment to Benchmark and we wish him all the best in the future. We are also pleased to welcome Doug Britt to the Board of Directors. Doug brings strong global operational and strategy expertise to the Board and is well familiar with our industry, having held executive leadership positions at several companies in the EMS and supply chain ecosystem. We look forward to benefitting from Doug's significant manufacturing and technology experience in support of our strategic objectives." Mr. Britt currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Boyd Corporation. Before joining Boyd in 2020, Mr. Britt was with Flex from 2012 to 2020, where he served as President of its Integrated Solutions division, a $20 billion business unit that combines Flex's Industrial and Emerging Industries (IEI), Communications and Enterprise Compute (CEC), and Consumer Technologies Groups (CTG). Flex is a $25 billion global provider of design, engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain solutions with approximately 180,000 employees in 30 countries. Mr. Britt's previous positions include Corporate Vice President and Managing Director for the Americas at Future Electronics from 2009 to 2012, Senior Vice President of worldwide sales, marketing, and operations at Silicon Graphics from 2007 to 2009, and Executive Vice President of sales, operations, and supply chain at Solectron Corporation from 2000 to 2007. Mr. Britt currently serves on the board of directors of Helios Technologies and is a member of the Helios compensation committee and audit committee. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from California State University, and has attended executive education programs throughout Europe, including the University of London. About Benchmark Electronics, Inc. Benchmark provides comprehensive solutions across the entire product lifecycle by leading through its innovative technology and engineering design services, leveraging its optimized global supply chain and delivering world-class manufacturing services in the following industries: commercial aerospace, defense, advanced computing, next generation telecommunications, complex industrials, medical, and semiconductor capital equipment. Benchmark's global operations include facilities in seven countries and its common shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BHE. SOURCE Benchmark Electronics, Inc. BOSTON, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Burns & Levinson partner Bryan Natale has been named to the Board of Directors of the Turnaround Management Association (TMA), Northeast Chapter effective January 1, 2023. He replaces Scott Moskol on the Board, who completed his year-long tenure as President and member of the Board of the TMA Northeast Chapter at the end of 2022. Bryan Natale, a partner at Burns & Levinson in Boston, has been named to the Board of Directors of the Turnaround Management Association, Northeast Chapter effective January 1, 2023. Scott Moskol, who co-chairs the Financial Restructuring & Distressed Transactions Group at Burns & Levinson, completed his year-long tenure as President and member of the Board of the Turnaround Management Association, Northeast Chapter at the end of 2022. As a member of the Board of Directors, Natale will guide the organization's mission to help businesses that are navigating critical turning points and transitions get to the next level. He has been involved in TMA for over 5 years, and most recently served as co-chair of the organization's Next Gen Committee. "It has been an honor to serve on TMA's Board for the past 10 years and a privilege to lead the organization as its president last year," said Moskol. "The TMA's work is incredibly important to the businesses in this region, and Bryan will be an excellent steward of the organization in the coming years. He is a savvy business lawyer with extensive experience working with distressed acquisitions as well as advising venture capital and private equity funds facing turnarounds with their portfolio companies and will be a great addition to the Board of Directors." At Burns & Levinson, Natale focuses his practice on mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, growth equity investments, venture capital financings, distressed acquisitions, debt and equity financings, licensing and outsourcing, and securities and corporate governance as a partner in the firm's Corporate Group. He has industry sector experience in health care, technology and software, industrial and manufacturing, media and marketing, retail and consumer products, e-commerce, and financial services. His clients include private equity and venture capital funds, financial institutions, closely-held and venture capital-backed emerging growth companies, and privately-held middle market companies. In addition to his work with TMA, Natale is involved with the Association for Corporate Growth (Boston Chapter) where he serves on the Deal Hunters Committee for Young Professionals. He received his J.D. from Suffolk University Law School in 2011 and his B.S. from Boston College in 2006. About the Turnaround Management Association The Turnaround Management Association (TMA) is the most professionally diverse organization in the corporate restructuring, renewal, and corporate health space. Established in 1988, TMA has almost 10,000 members in 54 chapters worldwide, including 34 North American chapters. Members include turnaround practitioners, attorneys, accountants, advisors, liquidators, consultants, as well as academic, government employees, and members of the judiciary. About Burns & Levinson LLP At Burns & Levinson, we provide high-level, client-centric and results-oriented legal services to our regional, national and international clients. We are a full-service law firm with 125 lawyers in Boston, Providence and London. Our areas of expertise include: business/finance, business litigation, divorce/family law, venture capital/emerging companies, employment, estate planning, government investigations, intellectual property, M&A/private equity, probate/trust litigation, and real estate. We partner with our clients to solve their business and personal legal issues in a collaborative, creative and cost-effective way. For more information, visit Burns & Levinson at www.burnslev.com . Contact: Amy Blumenthal Kristen Weller Blumenthal & Associates Chief Marketing & Business Development Officer 617.879.1511 617.345.3555 [email protected] [email protected] SOURCE Burns & Levinson F-35 ranked as most capable, survivable and affordable solution FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Government of Canada announced today it is procuring Lockheed Martin's 5th Generation F-35 Lightning II aircraft as a result of the Future Fighter Capability Project competition. The Royal Canadian Air Force will receive 88 F-35A multirole stealth fighters, a sustainment solution tailored to Canada's sovereign requirements and a comprehensive training program. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Thomas Barley "Canada is our friend and a close ally. Their decision to procure almost 90 jets underscores the value of the incredible F-35 Lightning II," said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Mike Schmidt, program executive officer, F-35 Joint Program Office. "The F-35 is the best in the world, providing unmatched interoperability to America, Canada and the additional 15 nations that have selected the fighter. It is a global game-changer. Through power-projection, the F-35 is at the tip of the spear for deterrence. Its forward presence will continue to ensure that potential adversaries choose diplomacy over armed conflict." "We are honored the Government of Canada has selected the F-35, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian defence industry to deliver and sustain the aircraft," said Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martin's vice president and general manager of the F-35 program. "The selection of F-35 strengthens allied airpower in Canada, North America and around the world." The F-35 strengthens Canada's operational capability with its allies as a cornerstone for interoperability with NORAD and NATO. As a critical node in the 21st Century Security mission space, the F-35 gives pilots an advantage against any adversary and enabling them to execute their mission and come home safe. "Together with our Canadian industry partners, we are honoured by this selection and the sustainment of critical jobs that will continue to equip Canadian workforces with advanced skills," said Lorraine Ben, chief executive, Lockheed Martin Canada. "The F-35 program yields tremendous economic benefits for Canada's aerospace and defence industry, and we look forward to continued growth." To date, the F-35 operates from 27 bases worldwide, with nine nations operating F-35s on their home soil. There are more than 890 F-35s in service today, with more than 1,870 pilots and 13,500 maintainers trained on the aircraft. For additional information, visit www.f35.com. About Lockheed Martin Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 114,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. Please follow @LMNews on Twitter for the latest announcements and news across the corporation. SOURCE Lockheed Martin Aeronautics The Department of Health says that a widely shared social media post, purportedly by the Ministry of Health, calling for the return of face masks, is fake. The fake post instructed all members of the public to return to wearing face masks in public places in the wake of an apparent detection of a new variant of Covid-19, XBB 1.5. However, the department has confirmed that any cases of the new variant, a subvariant of Omicron, have been detected. XBB 1.5 has spread rapidly across the US and is believed to be the most transmissible subvariant of Omicron. It is likely to spread globally. Experts say that there is no reason to think that XBB 1.5 should be of more concern than other variants. They also say that vaccinations and booster shots remain the greatest protection against Covid-19. On Saturday the health department tweeted that it had been alerted about the highly transmissible variant and is currently in discussions with scientists to gather more information, including its transmissibility and severity. The message on social media which the department called misleading indicated the new variant was more dangerous than earlier versions, that sometimes there were no symptoms and that a range of practices, including the wearing of masks, would be necessary. Spokesperson Foster Mohale said they would like to dismiss the earlier reports as fake news by "faceless sources whose sole intention is to create unnecessary panic". "The fact of the matter is, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a notification [in October 2022] on the Omicron sublineages BQ.1 and XBB detected around the world as part of ongoing work to track variants by Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution (TAG-VE)," he said. Close Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox Top Headlines South Africa Coronavirus By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy. Success! Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you. Error! Error! There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later. Mohale said the role of the TAG-VE is to alert WHO if a variant that can cause a more severe disease or lead to large epidemic waves causing an increased burden to the healthcare system is emerging and likely to pose a significant threat. "At the current moment, there is no epidemiological evidence that these sublineages will be of substantially greater risk compared to other Omicron sublineages," he said. He added however that the department, working with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and other scientists, continues to monitor all Covid-19 lineages, and appeals to South Africans to continue to be vigilant. "The known Covid-19 virus variants are still in circulation, and we are not off the hook from the pandemic. Hence people are urged to vaccinate and take booster shots that they qualify for, to enhance their level of immunity," he said CardiacSense was granted FDA clearance for Beat-by- Beat Heart Rate , and Oxygen Saturation (SpO2) Proprietary sensors enable highly accurate and reliable measurement of vital signs (99% sensitivity and specificity for beat-by-beat heart rate when comparted to Holter Monitor) CardiacSense plans to file additional indications during 2023 and has already gathered much of the clinical data required to support these submissions CAESAREA, Israel, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CardiacSense Ltd., a digital health company that developed the world's most advanced, medically certified wearable device for monitoring vital signs announced receipt of U.S.A. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance of its CSF-3 watch for measuring Beat-by-beat Heart Rate, and Oxygen Saturation of Arterial Hemoglobin (SpO 2 ). The CSF-3 watch has already received CE approval from the Europe Medical Device Regulation (MDR) for four indications including continuous monitoring of Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and beat-by-beat pulse rate by photo-plethysmography (PPG) which are unique CE regulatory approvals. Leveraging the CE mark, CardiacSense has begun commercialization of the medical grade CSF-3 watch in a dozen countries across Europe, Asia and South America. During 2023, the company plans to submit additional data to the FDA, much of which has already been generated, to support approval of additional indications. The company is in discussions with prospective USA commercial partners and expects to finalize agreements and launch in the US market in the second half of 2023. Eldad Shemesh, CardiacSense Founder and CEO commented that "Motion artifacts are the key problem plaguing other PPG based systems. We have developed proprietary hardware, including a novel motion artifact sensor, which identify and cancel out motion artifacts thereby leaving us with a pure biometric signal for accurate vital sign monitoring. Clinical data submitted to the FDA demonstrated sensitivity and specificity of 99.6% for beat-by-beat heart rate when compared to Holter Monitor." The company has conducted clinical trials demonstrating medical grade accuracy of the CSF-3 optical sensors for monitoring Cardiac Arrhythmias, Respiratory Rate (actual & variability), as well as Blood Pressure. The company will be submitting these data for FDA review over the course of 2023. In Q1 2022 the company submitted data for CE review for Respiratory Rate and Oxygen Saturation monitoring. With approval of these indications, CardiacSense will become the company with the largest number of regulatory-approved medical indications for a wearable device. Samuel Viskin MD, Senior Electrophysiologist at Tel Aviv Medical Center, Israel and advisor to CardiacSense commented "the CSF-3 medical grade vital sign monitor from CardiacSense has the potential to dramatically improve the care we provide to patients with Cardiac Arrythmias like Atrial Fibrillation, as well as patients with chronic conditions like Heart Failure and COPD." For further contact: Eldad Shemesh, CEO [email protected] SOURCE CardiacSense Jeff Bevis will use his 20 years' experience in the industry to grow the non-medical home care company's franchising outreach and build its brand SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Caring Senior Service, a private-duty, non-medical senior home care services company, announced today that it has tapped Jeff Bevis as its new chief operating officer, tasked with expanding the company's franchising opportunities, accelerating its revenue growth and showcasing its proprietary technology. Jeff Bevis will use his 20 years' experience in the home care industry to grow Caring Senior Service's franchising outreach and build its brand. "I'm excited to return fulltime to the home care industry because I still see it as an evolving industry with so many unsolved challenges," Bevis said. "The industry needs clear, data-driven leaders and I'm convinced my experiences will help Caring Senior Service solve many of the challenges clients, caregivers, team members and business owners face today." Bevis has more than 30 years of operational experience and more than 20 years' experience building successful brands in the home care industry. He and his son, Devin, founded FirstLight Home Care in 2009 and grew that company into an Inc. 5000 company by its first year of eligibility for the prestigious award. FirstLight made the Inc. 5000 list for a total of six consecutive years. In November 2020, Bevis parted ways with FirstLight and reopened his consulting practice, working within the healthcare industry mentoring tech, home health and international companies and franchisor projects. Bevis said he has known Caring Senior Service CEO and founder Jeff Salter and others on the Caring Senior Service's leadership team for many years and connected with them in 2021 as a consultant before taking on the COO role this year. "Jeff has a wealth of leadership and operational experience in the non-medical home care industry that is valuable to Caring Senior Service," Salter said. "His familiarity in growing home care companies like ours is unparalleled. The skillset Jeff brings to our table is certain to result in our expedited success." Bevis said Caring Senior Service's infrastructure is solid and its focus on in-home, tablet-based technology is a springboard for growth. "Our Tendio Family Portal is revolutionizing how clients, caregivers and families connect and our GreatCare system provides clear, provable paths for delivering the highest quality of services," Bevis said. "I look forward to helping Caring Senior Service solve the challenges in communication, recruiting, and training and professional development the home care industry faces. I'm thrilled to be back in the home care industry building a brand and creating new growth." Bevis will head the operations team from Caring Senior Service's national headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. About Caring Senior Service Caring Senior Service is a non-medical home care services company based in San Antonio, Texas. Founded by CEO Jeff Salter in 1991, the company provides assistance to seniors, the disabled population and any adult who may need help with the tasks of everyday living such as bathing, running errands and preparing food. After adding locations throughout Texas in the 1990s, the company extended its reach through franchising in 2002. It now boasts more than 50 locations throughout the U.S. Its non-profit "Close the Gap in Senior Care" began in 2021 to raise awareness of the overlooked and underserved aspects of senior care. This program was launched when Salter rode an electric bike more than 9,000 miles to each Caring Senior Service location nationwide to raise awareness of home modifications needed to avoid fall risks among the senior population. For more information on Caring Senior Service, please visit their website at https://www.caringseniorservice.com/. MEDIA CONTACT: Heather Ripley Ripley PR (865) 977-1973 [email protected] SOURCE Caring Senior Service Scangarella leaves Choose New Jersey to Join Connecticut's Economic Development Team NEW HAVEN, Conn., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- AdvanceCT announces that Catherine (Cathy) Scangarella will be joining the organization as the Executive Vice President of Business Retention and Expansion. Scangarella will lead Connecticut's efforts to work with existing corporate investors, helping them expand their operations in the state. Cathy brings more than 20 years of economic and business development experience to AdvanceCT, having served as the Chief Business Development Officer of Choose New Jersey, New Jersey's leading nonprofit economic development organization. "Cathy is a seasoned economic development professional," said Peter Denious, CEO of AdvanceCT. "AdvanceCT is lucky to have her lead our business retention and expansion efforts. We have a deep bench here on Team Connecticut, and Cathy's experience is going to add even more depth to the group of professionals we have helping us promote the state." "Cathy has over 25 years of experience serving the state of New Jersey," said John Bourdeaux, President of AdvanceCT. "We are looking forward to leveraging her expertise and experience for Connecticut. She is going to be an integral part of the AdvanceCT management team as well as the lead on our work to assist Connecticut companies with their expansion plans." "Connecticut has a strong value proposition that is led by the extraordinary talent and the highly educated workforce that can be found here," added Denious, "Cathy is going to help us tell the Connecticut story and be a valuable asset as we connect with companies looking to deepen their roots in our state." Scangarella starts her new role at AdvanceCT on January 9th, 2023. Note to Editors: Photo of Cathy Scangarella available upon request. Cathy's bio can be found at Link to Bio About AdvanceCT AdvanceCT is a business driven nonprofit that works to engage, retain, and recruit businesses to Connecticut. AdvanceCT collaborates with the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) and our partners to implement high impact, equitable economic development. Our team advocates for and promotes Connecticut as a location for companies to compete and grow.www.advancect.org SOURCE AdvanceCT 2023 Show Largest Audited Global Post Pandemic Tech Event LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CES 2023 ended today after an incredible week of product launches, major company announcements and innovation that will help to solve global challenges. CES shattered expected attendance drawing over 115,000 industry professionals marking the largest audited global tech event since early 2020. With over 3200 exhibitors, including 1000 startups, CES 2023 showcased the next era of innovation from transportation and mobility to digital health, sustainability, Web3, metaverse and beyond. For the first time, CES had a theme focused on Human Security for All. CES partnered with the United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security and the World Academy of Art and Science on the Human Security for All (HS4A) global campaign to foster food security, access to health care, personal income, environmental protection, personal safety, community security and political freedom. The products unveiled at CES 2023 tackle global issues such as access to clean water, food security, smart cities infrastructure, sustainable energy solutions, personal security and more. CES also featured the latest in accessibility tech, with innovation helping those in the disability community. CES is Back Innovators, Product Debuts and Company Announcements Open World's Most Influential Tech Event Tweet this "CES 2023 was the great reconnection and rocked by every measure - from attendance to the keynote stage to press conferences and product debuts on the exhibit floor showing the entire world that in-person events are BACK!" said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CTA. "The innovation unveiled this week will drive economic growth and change in meaningful ways to improve our lives and create a better future for the next generation." CES 2023 by the Numbers Nearly 2.2 million net square feet of exhibits (70% larger than CES 2022) 3200+ exhibitors, including 1000 new exhibitors Over 115,000 attendees (pre-audit figures) Over 40,000 international attendees from more than 140 countries (pre-audit figures) 4800 global media from 69 number of countries (pre-audit figures) 60% of Fortune 500 companies represented Top Trends at CES 2023 With over 3200 companies, including Abbott, Amazon, Bosch, BMW, Canon, Delta, Google, Hisense, John Deere, LG Electronics, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Stellantis launching products, key trends on the CES show floor included: Human Security for All With unprecedented global challenges, the HS4A campaign was a central theme at CES 2023 highlighting the importance of collaboration and innovation across all industries, and all countries, to improve the human experience. With unprecedented global challenges, the HS4A campaign was a central theme at CES 2023 highlighting the importance of collaboration and innovation across all industries, and all countries, to improve the human experience. Automotive and Mobility With some 300 vehicle tech exhibitors, CES 2023 was one of the largest auto shows in the world. Keynotes from BMW, John Deere and Stellantis and products launches from global companies focused on self-driving tech, electric vehicles and personal mobility devices for land, air and sea. Exhibitors: Candela Marine Technology, GM, Italdesign Giugiaro, Magna, Mercedes-Benz, MobilEye, Waymo, RYSE and Volvo Penta. With some 300 vehicle tech exhibitors, CES 2023 was one of the largest auto shows in the world. Keynotes from BMW, John Deere and Stellantis and products launches from global companies focused on self-driving tech, electric vehicles and personal mobility devices for land, air and sea. Candela Marine Technology, GM, Italdesign Giugiaro, Magna, Mercedes-Benz, MobilEye, Waymo, RYSE and Volvo Penta. Digital Health CES 2023 brought more digital health innovations and brands to the global stage, showing how rapidly the market is growing. Innovations included digital therapeutics, mental wellness, women's health tech and telemedicine. Exhibitors: Abbott, LOTTE Healthcare, MedWand Solutions and Omron Healthcare. CES 2023 brought more digital health innovations and brands to the global stage, showing how rapidly the market is growing. Innovations included digital therapeutics, mental wellness, women's health tech and telemedicine. Abbott, LOTTE Healthcare, MedWand Solutions and Omron Healthcare. Sustainability Global brands like John Deere, LG, Samsung and Siemens showcased how innovation can conserve energy and increase power generation, create sustainable agricultural systems, power smart cities, and support access to clean water. Exhibitors: 3M, Bridger Aerospace, Caterpillar and NexGen Power Systems, Panasonic and Sony. Global brands like John Deere, LG, Samsung and Siemens showcased how innovation can conserve energy and increase power generation, create sustainable agricultural systems, power smart cities, and support access to clean water. 3M, Bridger Aerospace, Caterpillar and NexGen Power Systems, Panasonic and Sony. Web3 and Metaverse For the first time, CES 2023 had a dedicated Metaverse area on the show floor, highlighting groundbreaking sensory technology building immersive, interactive digital worlds. A Web3 Studio, produced by CoinDesk, was the focal point of the Web3, Metaverse and Blockchain area at CES. Exhibitors: Magic Leap, Microsoft, OVR Technology and SK. For the first time, CES 2023 had a dedicated Metaverse area on the show floor, highlighting groundbreaking sensory technology building immersive, interactive digital worlds. A Web3 Studio, produced by CoinDesk, was the focal point of the Web3, Metaverse and Blockchain area at CES. Magic Leap, Microsoft, OVR Technology and SK. Startups Eureka Park at CES featured 1000 startups from countries, regions and territories, including Japan , Korea, France , Italy , Taiwan , Turkey , Hong Kong , Netherlands , US, and Ukraine . Technology included renewable paper solutions to reduce CO2 emissions; AI technology used to reduce food waste; solar technology to capture both electrical and thermal energy; personal safety apps and more. While CES 2023 concluded today, on-demand content from the show will be available through February on CES.tech. Visit CES.tech for keynotes, sessions, product announcements and show floor coverage. Download CES b-roll and view the high-res image gallery here. CES returns to Las Vegas, January 9-12, 2024. About CES: CES is the most influential tech event in the world the proving ground for breakthrough technologies and global innovators. This is where the world's biggest brands do business and meet new partners, and the sharpest innovators hit the stage. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), CES features every aspect of the tech sector. CES 2024 will take place in person in Las Vegas, and digitally, Jan. 9-12, 2024. Learn more at CES.tech and follow CES on social. About Consumer Technology Association: As North America's largest technology trade association, CTA is the tech sector. Our members are the world's leading innovators from startups to global brands helping support more than 18 million American jobs. CTA owns and produces CES the most influential tech event in the world. Find us at CTA.tech. Follow us @CTAtech. SOURCE Consumer Technology Association BEIJING, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from People's Daily: The first flights under China's new COVID-19 management for international travelers arrived at airports in south China's Guangdong province on Jan. 8, according to the national customs authority. Over 380 passengers were aboard two flights, CZ312 from Toronto to Guangzhou and ZH9024 from Singapore to Shenzhen, on the day the country downgraded the management of COVID-19 to Class B and lifted certain restrictions on international passengers, a major shift of its epidemic response policies. In a statement released by China's National Health Commission (NHC) in December 2022, inbound travelers and goods would no longer be required to any quarantinable infectious disease control measures. Passengers simply need to take a nucleic acid test within 48 hours before departure, and they no longer need to request a health code from Chinese diplomatic and consular missions. On the same day that the new management took place, Terminal 3-E of the Beijing Capital International Airport reopened for international arrivals. The airport's Terminal 2 international arrival services have also resumed. Operations in Terminal 3-D have been temporarily suspended, where all incoming travelers had to undergo a nucleic acid test and then be sent to quarantine facilities since March 10, 2020. It is reported that the airport would handle ten passenger flights in and out on Jan. 8. To prepare for the anticipated increase in travel, relevant authorities, airlines, and airports have been stepping up efforts. Security force and targeted operational training have been enhanced in the airport to cope with the increased passenger traffic since that day, serving for smooth international exchanges and economic and social development. In the Terminal 3-E border checkpoints, the layout and facilities have been upgraded with a fresh appearance. "To ensure a better clearance experience for passengers after the resumption of flights, the Beijing frontier inspection authority has added 12 inspection channels and a waiting area at the border entry site, " said Zhang Weitao with the authority. According to Zhang, dedicated channels are set to make clearance simpler for special groups such as the elderly, young, disabled and pregnant women. Following the new stage of China's COVID-19 control, the country is also resuming passenger entry and exit at sea and land ports, with domestic and international tourism expected to increase as the Spring Festival holiday approaches. SOURCE People's Daily Former senior executive with major U.S. foundations appointed after national search PITTSBURGH, Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Chris DeCardy was today named the new President of The Heinz Endowments. Mr. DeCardy, 56, a former senior executive with major U.S. foundations, currently is a consultant serving foundations and nonprofit organizations and will move to Pittsburgh from Menlo Park, California where he lives with his family. The Heinz family announced the appointment after a 10-month national executive search and selection process following the departure of former President Grant Oliphant in February last year when he joined the Conrad Prebys Foundation in San Diego, California. Chris DeCardy, 56, was today named the new President of The Heinz Endowments based In Pittsburgh. Tweet this Mr. DeCardy will take up his position with the Endowments in April 2023. "We are delighted to appoint Chris to lead the Endowments and to continue to advance our philanthropic mission at this challenging and most critical time for our community," said Endowments Board Chairman, Andre Heinz. "We have found a leader whose values align with our long-standing commitment to serve our region in ways that not only help sustain the invaluable work of our nonprofits, but which help them to develop, flourish and maximize their impact. The Pittsburgh community will benefit enormously from the exemplary leadership experience Chris brings to the Endowments and his work as a passionate, thoughtful and respected collaborator across the broad philanthropic sector." Most recently, Mr. DeCardy was Acting Chief Executive Officer with the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation, comprising a team of researchers, strategists, collaborators and grantmakers dedicated to ending the climate crisis. Previously, he served as Vice President and Director of Programs with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, one of the largest U.S. grantmaking foundations, with a domestic and international focus on conservation, science, reproductive health and rights, children's health and education, leadership and capacity strengthening and community programs. During his 18 years with the foundation, he facilitated with its Board, staff and grantees strategic planning and impact assessment of its more than $340 million in annual grants with 1,600 active grantees. He led development of new programs, including expansion of the foundation's regional place-based grantmaking with a focus on visual and performing arts, early childhood education and out of school youth programs to build civic, creative, educational and life skills. Commenting on his appointment, Mr. DeCardy said: "I have long admired the extraordinary work of The Heinz Endowments' Board and staff in close partnership with the community. I am excited and honored to be joining one of our nation's most influential and respected foundations." He added: "The Endowments and the Heinz family have a distinguished history of addressing the most important issues of the day for families and individuals with impact not only locally, but also nationally. Continuity across the Endowments' current grantmaking areas with a look to greater impact given present economic and social dynamics will be a top priority. "The Endowments' commitment to community and collaboration as the backbone for lasting change resonates deeply with me. I look forward to learning from and working with nonprofit and civic leaders across the region." Mr. DeCardy has a background in strategic communications, network advocacy and program development, and he previously helped launch, then manage, a Washington D.C.-based environmental communications nonprofit, Environmental Media Services (now called Resource Media). The initiative was credited as being a 'mainstay for environmental journalists' in their reporting of federal and international environmental news. He has helped to create and also serve on the boards of several nonprofit organizations working on localized climate action, media capacity building for conservation organizations and broadening the impact of climate philanthropy. He has long been active in his local community, currently serving as Chair of the Planning Commission for Menlo Park, California. In his current work as a consultant serving U.S. foundations and nonprofits, Mr. DeCardy focuses primarily on issues related to climate change advocacy and policy at local, state, and federal levels. Mr. DeCardy grew up in Champaign, Illinois, and earned a BA in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Masters Degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. He will relocate with his family to Pittsburgh. The Heinz Endowments awarded grants in 2022 totaling $92 million, mostly to nonprofit organizations in western Pennsylvania, and currently has assets of approximately $2.1 billion. SOURCE The Heinz Endowments The dental clinics & labs segment is anticipated to hold major market share during the forecast period Increase in cases of oral health disorders is expected to fuel market development in North America WILMINGTON, Del., Jan. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The global dental healing caps market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.1% during the forecast period 2022-2031, according to the market outlook presented in a study by Transparency Market Research (TMR). Get free PDF Sample Copy of Dental Healing Caps Market here (Corporate Email preferred for top priority handling): https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=85287 Dental Healing Caps Market: Key Findings Governments in several countries across the globe are taking initiatives to spread awareness about the importance of preventive dental care and overall oral health. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India initiated a program named the NOHP (National Oral Health Program) in 2020. The primary motive of this program was to offer equitable, affordable, and accessible oral health care delivery in a well-organized way and provide 'optimal oral health.' The number of people seeking treatment for dental health issues has increased in the past few years. This factor is likely to boost industry growth during the forecast period. initiated a program named the NOHP (National Oral Health Program) in 2020. The primary motive of this program was to offer equitable, affordable, and accessible oral health care delivery in a well-organized way and provide 'optimal oral health.' The number of people seeking treatment for dental health issues has increased in the past few years. This factor is likely to boost industry growth during the forecast period. Prevalence of oral health disorders such as periodontal disease, tooth decay, and cavities is rising owing to the rise in consumption of sugary foods, alcohol, and tobacco. Moreover, poor oral hygiene is one of the important factors leading to oral health issues. These factors are projected to drive the demand for dental healing caps in the near future. Adult population is at higher risk of experiencing oral health disorders as opposed to children, owing to various factors such as the consumption of tobacco & alcohol and adoption of unhealthy lifestyle. As per the TMR research report, the adult segment is expected to hold major market share during the forecast period. Porcelain fused-to-metal, ceramics or porcelain, resin, and metal are the key materials utilized in the manufacturing of dental healing caps. The application of all-ceramic crowns has increased in the past few years owing to their aesthetic advantages. These crowns can help match the appearance and color of the surrounding teeth and protect & conceal the damaged tooth. As per the market forecast in the TMR report, the ceramics or porcelain segment held larger market share in 2021. People are inclining toward visiting a specialist instead of a hospital in order to get more precise treatment solutions. Thus, there has been a rise in the number of dental surgeries carried out at clinics & labs rather than hospitals and other healthcare services. According to the TMR research report, in terms of end-user, the dental clinics & labs segment held major share of the market in 2021. Dental Healing Caps Market: Growth Drivers Increase in prevalence of oral health disorders is expected to drive market growth during the forecast period Rise in popularity of cosmetic dentistry is anticipated to offer lucrative business opportunities in the market Ask for References https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=ARF&rep_id=85287 Dental Healing Caps Market: Regional Analysis North America held significant market share in 2021. It is expected to experience rapid growth during the forecast period due to increase in adoption of aesthetic and cosmetic dentistry and rise in prevalence of oral health issues such as cavities and gum diseases. held significant market share in 2021. It is expected to experience rapid growth during the forecast period due to increase in adoption of aesthetic and cosmetic dentistry and rise in prevalence of oral health issues such as cavities and gum diseases. Players are anticipated to gain significant business opportunities in Asia Pacific in the next few years owing to an increase in awareness and adoption of oral health care in the region Competition Landscape The global industry is fragmented, with existence of several regional and international players Companies are engaging in strategies of mergers and acquisitions to maintain a foothold in the market Dental Healing Caps Market: Key Players Shenzhen Chirimen Technology Co., Ltd. DENTIN IDI - Implants Diffusion International Cowellmedi Co., Ltd. Z-Systems GmbH Institut Straumann AG Biotec ANGELS Dental Implant Solutions Center Dentalpoint AG. AXELMED S.R.L Danaher Dental Medical Instinct Deutschland GmbH Bicon, LLC Heliocos GmbH Osstem Dental Healing Caps Market Segmentation Material Ceramics or Porcelain Porcelain Fused-to-Metal Metal Resin Others Age Group Adult Teenager End-user Hospitals Dental Clinics & Labs Others Regions Covered North America Latin America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa Buy this Premium Research Report | Immediate Delivery Available https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=85287